You are a Prediabetic- 5 tips to Change your Blood Sugar

You are a prediabetic…. These are not words you will often hear from your physician. To soften the words, they often say “your sugars are creeping up, you need to change your diet” if anything is said at all. Then one day you have your labs checked and “suddenly” you are a full- blown diabetic.

If you start working on your blood sugars after you have become a diabetic, you are already behind the eight ball. Problems with your blood sugars start 5 to 10 years BEFORE you reach the diabetic threshold.

Pay attention to your blood sugars and step in and make the changes early. Long term effects of elevated sugar levels cause damage on all levels. This is why diabetics are more prone to heart attacks, vision loss, neuropathy, cancer and poor circulation leading to loss of limbs. In men, erectile dysfunction can be one of the earliest warning signs.

Certain risk factors will make you more prone to being a diabetic so if you have any of these you need to have your blood sugars tested at least yearly to make sure you stay on track.

Family history of diabetes
Have untreated/undiagnosed sleep apnea
Waist circumference >40 inches for men >35 for women
Sedentary lifestyle
Had gestational diabetes (elevated blood sugar during pregnancy)
Wake up not hungry (this is often because the sugars are high in the morning)
PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome)

READ ON for 5 tips to fix your blood sugar issue if you have insulin resistance, pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes and the tests you need to request to diagnose it early….

Let’s quickly review some tests you need to do to check your blood sugars and what optimal levels should be.

Fasting glucose: The fasting glucose test is only one point in time and unless you are full blown diabetic you can often fool this test and have it report as normal if you have a super clean diet a few days leading up to the test. The reference range indicates less than 100 is normal but an ideal lab value should be between 75-85. For every point above 85, a study showed that it increased your risk of becoming a diabetic by 6%! This test is so variable I don’t rely on this test alone.
Hemoglobin A1C- this is a 3 month average of your blood sugar so will average your spikes as well as your drops together. This is a much better test and will rat you out almost every time! Problem is even with “normal” ranges you can still be having blood sugar issues. If your A1C is above 5.4 then you are having higher than optimal blood sugars and need to make some changes! If you are in the 5.7 to 6.3 range then you are pre-diabetic and changes start TODAY! Goal of this test is an A1C of 5.0.
Fasting insulin or insulin resistance profiles. Tests include fasting insulin, cardio insulin resistance profile or HOMA-IR profile. These tests go even deeper and can detect the early beginning of insulin resistance! You are now detecting pre, pre-diabetes! If you are having trouble losing weight then insulin resistance might be your culprit!

Now, that you have identified you have a potential blood sugar issue then let’s do something about it!

Diet. There is just no way around this – you have to look at your diet. I know, I know. It is just not fair. Your friend can eat that cupcake and do just fine but you even look at a dessert and your sugar spikes. Ok, so a bit of an exaggeration but it sure seems that way sometimes. My favorite way to evaluate your diet is to get a continuous glucose monitor (CGM). Hellolingo.com has one for $50 and it does a pretty good job. It is not as good for significant blood sugar drops so if you are a true diabetic, please ask your physician for a prescription device. While you have the CGM on, eat your regular diet and splurge on anything you eat or drink regularly. Then observe what your sugar levels do after you eat/drink and be merry. Be sure and log your foods in the app so you can recall what you had that caused that big spike and/or subsequent sugar drop. Pay attention to your night time levels as well as your morning levels. Then when you have had all these “aha” moments, work on changing your diet to avoid those spikes. Your goal of an average glucose level should be 100, so even if your monitor is saying you are doing a great job keep in mind that the upper end of the “ok” range is pre-diabetic!
Exercise – Yep, another one you already knew about but let’s put a spin on this. While I encourage everyone to exercise (especially strength training), all I want you to focus on is after you eat go for a casual walk after your meal, especially when you have eaten anything with higher carbohydrates like potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, dessert, etc. Get moving ideally no later than 30 minutes after the meal and walk for 20-30 minutes. You get extra bonus points for having the CGM on and watch to see how long you need to walk after that meal to bring the sugars back down to around 100. When I was wearing my CGM, my sugar would really spike after I ate sushi (rice naturally spikes the sugar level). I would simply make a plan to take a stroll after that meal to help offset the sugar spike.
Plan the order of your meal. When you eat protein and good fats first, the sugar spike you get from having that potato or piece of bread is much less and the subsequent drop in sugars after the spike will also be less. Back to my sushi example, when I would eat edamame before my sushi the spike was much less. Next time you are at a restaurant that serves complimentary bread ask them to serve the rolls with your meal instead because let’s be real, who can pass up a warm, hot roll sitting on the dinner table while waiting on your meal?!
Avoid night time sugar drops. When your sugar drops at night, you will usually get a rebound sugar spike in the morning. Sugar drops happen at night based on what you have eaten or drank that evening. Alcohol is notorious for contributing to blood sugar drops so be sure and eat something when you indulge. When you eat your largest meal of the day at night especially if it is after 7pm then the body does all the processing after you go to bed and are “fasting”. We miss the normal signal of our blood sugar dropping which is to go eat something. Sometimes we still get that signal and it wakes us up and contributes to insomnia. If you notice you consistently drop at night then try to eat earlier in the evening, avoid starches with that meal and eat a snack before bed. No, a snack is not a bowl of ice cream. Pairing protein with a complex carbohydrate would be a great combo and examples include peanut butter and crackers or hummus with a veggie or cracker.
Supplements. I know that changing your diet is hard. This is not a one-time change but a consistent life-style choice so sometimes we need a little help to stay on track. There are many different supplements that may be helpful in keeping your sugar in check. One of my favorites is the combination of berberine and alpha lipoic acid (take a look at our Blood Sugar Support). When the two of these are combined, I often see sugar control that rivals the prescription drug Metformin. Key is consistency though! We do not absorb any supplement that is just sitting in a bottle on the counter. There are other supplements that tout sugar control that do work. I see a lot of advertisements for chromium and cinnamon. These really need to be in a combination product and I just don’t see them working as well as berberine products.