A diagnosis of type 2 diabetes means your blood sugar levels are dangerously high. Insulin is produced in your body only by your pancreas, and insulin is critical to assist the use of glucose for energy in your cells. Type 2 diabetes emerges as you develop insulin resistance (prediabetes or the metabolic syndrome).

As this evolves, the pancreas produces more and more insulin in an attempt to support the processes needed, but eventually it is unable to produce enough effective insulin to properly support the energy needs of your cells or to manage your blood sugar.  It’s a serious disorder of metabolism on its own, but it is also a major independent risk factor for ASCVD and small blood artery damage.

This helps to explain the big deal about insulin. It is a hormone that helps your body metabolize glucose, your major fuel. Glucose is a very simple sugar. When your body does not utilize it properly, due to ineffective insulin (or an eventual lack of it from burnout), glucose increases in the blood and is quickly stored as fat.

This leads to the overweight and obesity condition almost always seen in those with diabetes. Obesity makes the diabetes worse, and it becomes a vicious cycle. If this condition continues, blood sugar remains high over a long period of time, and you will likely also experience damage to large and small arteries. This leads to damage of important organs in your body and causes other health problems. Because you are not processing glucose effectively, foods considered normal and healthy for one person to eat may act as a sort of “metabolic poison” to your system.

So, how miserable do you feel with type 2 diabetes? At first you may only experience frustrating and tiresome symptoms as you develop type 2 diabetes. But as things get worse, symptoms include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Extreme hunger, even when you know you shouldn’t be hungry
• Unusual and unexplained weight variation
• Constant and unnatural thirst
• Frequent urination
• Mood swings and irritability
• Chronic fatigue and low energy

Over time this can lead to more serious symptoms, such as:

• Bruises and cuts that are slow to heal
• Blurry vision
• A numbness and tingling in your hands and feet
• Bladder infections
• Skin and gum conditions

Ignored or left untreated, type 2 diabetes can lead to the following complications:

• Heart disease, including stroke and heart attack
• Nerve damage that leads to loss of a limb, usually a foot or lower leg
• Bacterial and fungal infections of your skin
• Vision problems, including blindness
• Loss of hearing
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Kidney failure and dialysis
• Death arising from heart disease, stroke, and from kidney failure

 

Let’s take a closer look at simple steps you can take to prevent and reverse this debilitating and possibly deadly condition.

How to “Take the Danger Out of Type 2 Diabetes”:

Are you ready for the complicated, in-depth strategy for keeping type 2 diabetes out of your life? Here it is.

1. Eat right.
2. Exercise.

That’s it. So many times in our lives the results we want are easily achievable. This is the case with preventing or reversing prediabetes and diabetes. Frequent movement, at least 150 minutes each week, plus eating healthy foods is a secret recipe for so many health advantages, including overcoming insulin resistance, prediabetes, diabetes, and a whole range of lifestyle diseases.

Since being overweight or obese dramatically improves your probability of developing frank diabetes, reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is essential. This means standing up more than you sit down. It means moving instead of being sedentary. It also means eating fewer processed foods, refined sugars and things like white flour, and enjoying more nutritious and delicious fresh fruits, berries, nuts, wild-caught fish, grass-fed beef and organic, pastured poultry and dairy products.

You’ve probably heard the whole “exercise and eat right” argument for good health many times. While it seems easy to choose proper nutrition and physical activity over eating junk food and being sedentary, it has become even easier to choose those unhealthier activities. Making smart choices about your diet and physical fitness can lead to so many wonderful mental and physical health rewards. It is also the best way to keep the dangers of type 2 diabetes out of your life.

You may obtain help with this by signing up for one of our Membership Levels like our Plus Membership small group virtual sessions with training and health coaching, or better yet as a concierge (Premium) member with all benefits and one-on-one group coaching.