Here is how to prevent pre-diabetes as we age
As we age our bodies become more susceptible to developing pre-diabetes – this according to a large Dutch study. In addition, the CDC has reported that more than 1 out of 3 Americans age twenty and older will develop pre-diabetes during their life-time. As you know by now if this trend is not nipped in the bud there is strong likelihood many of those will develop type 2 diabetes with-in a few years.
There are many reasons for this trend some of which involve poor diet, excess weight gain, increased stress and a sedentary life-style. Like it or not once you have passed your 45th birthdate funny things start to happen to your body. You are already losing muscle mass and strength . . . . and unless you have been training at an elite sport level you are definitely not as athletically fit as you were at 25.
What can you do to maintain peak performance as you age?
If you don’t want to become a statistic then here are six things you can do now to put the odds in your favor and prevent pre-diabetes from happening to you:
- Reduce calories from fructose in our daily diet. This ubiquitous product is found in hundreds of product we consume unawares everyday. I am sure you are aware of its presence in sports drinks and fizzy drinks but it’s now one of the ingredient in some types of water. (I thought water was to be just that – ‘water’ – no additives.) Fructose is 10X times as sweet as sugar is likely one of the driving forces for the explosion of insulin resistance in people today. Your diet should be made up of mostly natural ingredients and organically produced if possible. You have heard or read the phrase ‘shop the perimeter of the supermarket’ but I’ll go one step further and say read the label on all products purchased for consumption. Know how sugar is disguised by its many aliases.
- Take up a sport that will keep you active – running, tennis, recreational swimming, 18 holes of golf, self-defense or even bowling and billiards. For you to become proficient at that sport you should ‘focus’ train at least three days per week and stay flexible the other four days by doing meditative stretching or using a resistance band. The top tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, stays flexible by stretching several times throughout the day and if you watch his matches you can see the evidence of it . . . . in fact he is affectionately called Gumby by tennis fans.
- In addition to eliminating fructose from your diet as we age it’s now necessary to do a proper dietary upgrade. When you were twenty-five you could eat two burgers, fries and wash it down with a soft drink and not gain a pound.
At forty-five and fifty meals like this are a recipe for unwanted weight gain. Our metabolism is not the same as when we are young and we must now eat accordingly. - intermittent or periodic fasting seems to be a fashionable thing to do these days but I believe this is how early man ate. There were no fast food franchises or instant breakfast meals then so meals had to be eaten when they became available. This was a form of fasting and I think it’s still good to eat this way today. There are many ways to fast – from total abstinence for extended periods to cutting out one or two meals per day or fasting one day each week. As we age this practice will have a positive impact our health and well-being.
- We must eliminate or reduce daily stress in our lives. Stress causes our bodies to produce hormones (fight or flight ) which will lead to weight gain, especially around the waist. As Bob Marley says . . . “we have to free our minds”. There are many ways to relax our minds and bodies. Most forms of meditation are designed bring us to a state of total relaxation. It should allow us to clear our minds and still our bodies for a certain period of time. Some forms of meditation are more active – such as yoga or tai chi where meditative movements are involved. Even stretching can have a calming effect if done correctly.
- There are a few supplements I would recommend you take regularly. The first of which you are probably doing now and that is a good vitamin supplement which can supply added or missing needed micronutrients. You should be getting most of your vitamins minerals from the foods we eat however we don’t always eat the right amount of certain types of foods such as those supplying vitamin C, B D. These are very important nutrients that helps us fight off disease and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I cycle a separate B complex vitamin in addition to my regular multis.
Another supplement that will benefit us as we get older and more susceptible to developing pre-diabetes is Astaxanthin. It will not only improve our ability to fight diseases but also supplies our bodies with added stamina and endurance and it even helps prevents wrinkles.
The above list is by no means complete but is a great starting point to help prevent pre-diabetes and other life altering health issues from affecting you. I believe we should maintain proper health and fitness throughout our lives and not wait until our bodies are breaking down to start. As the saying goes “. . . . its not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years”.