I was at a wellness lecture recently on the subject of diabetes.
There are 24 million people in the U.S. with the type of diabetes linked to lifestyle. Overweight and inactivity are known as lifestyle factors because they can be impacted by the choices you make—your lifestyle choices, such as eating well and exercising.
I didn’t know much about diabetes before I attended this session. I had heard there was a diabetes epidemic, and I had heard of blood sugar levels, but I didn’t understand that diabetes comes when sugar accumulates in the blood. Insulin helps you avoid elevated blood sugar levels, but your cells don’t aren’t able to make good use of insulin when you are overweight.
When you have diabetes, you are at risk for many health problems including heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, nerve damage, and amputation.
What to do? You probably know. Get into the habits of exercising regularly and eating well. Do so by breaking those big goals down into small pieces and focusing on one goal at a time for the 21 days it takes to create a habit. Then add another new habit, and so on. In three years, you can add 52 new habits and, even if they are tiny habits, that’s a lot of change.
There are two risk factors for diabetes that can’t be controlled: family history and age. So, the older you get, and/or if you have a family history of diabetes, it’s urgent to keep eating well and exercising.
If you have diabetes, you will want to do something about it. Yet, one-third of people who have diabetes have not been diagnosed. So, please make sure to get your blood levels checked by taking advantage of the annual physical that comes at no-cost to you as part of your health insurance.
Do you get an annual physical to make sure you are dealing with any health issues? Please join conversation with your comments…
Best regards,
David