How to Treat Type 2 Diabetes Naturally

Here’s how my intermittent fasting diet works:

• You get up in the morning and drink a glass of water or a cup of coffee or tea. You can use a little creamer or low-calorie sweetener like xylitol or stevia, and you can take your supplements if they don’t upset your stomach. But do not eat breakfast or drink anything other than coffee, tea or water.
• Do 20–45 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise—walking, jogging, cycling or whatever you enjoy doing.
• After you exercise, get on with your day, but continue fasting until lunch. Drink water, coffee or tea. Don’t worry about being too hungry to make it through the morning. This fasting/exercise combo dampens the appetite, and the caffeine in coffee and tea helps blunt hunger as well.
• At lunchtime, break your fast and eat normally for the rest of the day. Get plenty of lean protein and low-fat, low-glycemic carbohydrates. Be sure you make healthy, sensible food choices. You don’t have to count calories, but you don’t want to pig out at lunch or dinner, either.

But What About Breakfast?

Yes, this intermittent fasting diet goes against the conventional wisdom that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But the difference here is that I’m suggesting that you wait to “break your fast” around noon, instead of upon arising.

The caloric reduction that skipping breakfast bestows is huge. As long as you eat normal, healthy meals at lunch and dinner—without making up for the calories you didn’t eat in the morning—you will reduce your caloric intake by about 30 percent. If you do it for six days, it’s the equivalent of a two-day total fast, and one month is similar to fasting for 10 days.

How the Intermittent Fasting Diet Melts Excess Weight

The intermittent fasting diet takes advantage of, and expands upon, the 10–12 hours you normally fast while sleeping.

By morning, your body is beginning to deplete the glycogen in your liver (from the carbohydrates eaten at your evening meal) and is starting to rely more on fat for energy. As your glycogen stores are progressively exhausted, your liver starts converting fat into ketones, which the brain and other tissues use as fuel. This fat-burning state is called ketosis.

Aerobic exercise while in the intermittent fasting state is a crucial part of the program because it rapidly puts you into ketosis. Overnight fasting is a start, but exercise really kicks things into high gear. The fuel used during the morning walk you’re taking in place of eating breakfast comes from burning fat, which is exactly what you want when you’re trying to lose weight.

Even better, if you continue fasting after exercising, you will stay in the ketotic state, further reducing fat stores.

What the Research Says

The exercise-enhanced intermittent fasting diet has been evaluated in a clinical trial that involved volunteers with an average weight of 199 pounds, BMI of 32.2 (30 and over is considered obese), waist circumference of 42.6 inches, and fasting insulin of 13.2 IU/mL (a level indicative of insulin resistance).

After 12 weeks, the participants lost an average of nine pounds and an even more impressive 16 pounds of fat (25 percent of their initial fat mass) plus three inches around the waist. Additionally, the group’s fasting insulin fell by one-quarter, into the normal range.

6 Natural Ways To Treat Diabetes

Most people shudder at the thought of being diagnosed with diabetes. And while it’s definitely an undesirable disease, what many don’t realize is that living with diabetes is not as difficult as they might think.

Diabetes is not so difficult to keep in control — all you need to do take in measured doses of patience and rigour along with regular medication and natural remedies.

An important point in the above sentence is natural remedies. You may not be aware of this but going natural is one of the easiest way of keeping diabetes in control. Natural remedies are beneficial, not just for your health, but also because they let your body rest and avoid any side effects that your strong medications may cause. Confused? We give you a list of natural foods that you’ll soon term ‘magic foods’.

1. Healing foods 

Food may not have been scientifically proven to provide the body with positive results for controlling diabetes, but we know better. Many doctors agree that there are certain foods and supplements that help bring down blood sugar levels and reduce the symptoms of diabetes.

2. Shea butter

You may have seen creams and gels propagating this natural fat in stores, but the fact is that this ingredient is very beneficial to diabetics. If you are a patient, you’ll know more than anybody else how dry your skin becomes after taking so many strong and heavy medications. The solution? Pick up a shea butter lotion or shower gel the next time you visit the mall and watch your skin retain its moisture and richness.

3. Prickly pear

It may be a cactus, but fear not, it won’t prick you. Dating back to the 15^th and 16^th centuries, it is a common part of the Mexican diet and has a long history for being used as a preventive for diabetes. Studies have proved that it does play a strong role in lowering blood sugar levels when consumed along with meals. So, the next time you feel like eating Mexican, go all out and add the prickly pear in your diet — who knows, it’ll treat your diabetic disorder as well!

4. Raw vegetables

As you may have read in our 5 best diets article, raw foods form the base of one of the most popular diets in the world. What’s more, they’ll treat your diabetes too. Sounds too good to be true? Doctors have always advised diabetics to have low-starch vegetables in the raw form. Some of these include carrots, cucumbers, cauliflower, broccoli and spinach. As these vegetables are difficult to process when raw, the digestive system uses up more insulin in the blood to digest this food, thus lowering blood sugar levels.

5. Whole foods

This one’s a no-brainer. Everyone knows that when you consume whole foods, you tend to consume lesser amounts of food within that specific meal. What this does is lower your blood sugar levels because the amount of sugar intake from any kind of food consumed is lowered substantially. So you eat less but don’t feel any less full than you’d have if you gorged on a pack of chips. Cool, huh?!

6. Acai berry

This tiny grape-like fruit scores high in oxidants, minerals and vitamins. Don’t go by its small size — the acai berry will provide your body with omega 9 and 6 fatty acids, thus helping in the prevention of heart diseases.

Dealing with diabetes

Just because you have this disease does not mean that you’ll have to be on a perpetual diet of heavy drugs that the doctor prescribes to you. Invest in a lifestyle change instead and kiss those harsh medicines goodbye.

 If you are diabetic, you must avoid:

1. Any foods containing high amounts of sugar.
2. Foods that are full of fat.
3. Foods containing refined flour as they raise sugar levels in the blood.
4. Red meats. Meats that are low in fat ie lean meats like fish and chicken should become part of your daily diet instead.
5. Food that are rich in salts. They should be alternated by using herbs like garlic, rosemary, ginger and turmeric.

Take the natural route to combat the symptoms of diabetes and follow the road to better health!