Note: If you prefer reading instead of watching the video, there is a transcription below. 🙂
Table of Contents
Introduction
What up guys. This is David Hoang coming at you from supplementsuperhero.com. And in this video, I want to talk about ways to lower your A1C.
So, basically these are some nine… These are nine practical tips of how to lower your A1C naturally. So if you don’t know, A1C is an average of your blood sugar readings over the course of about three months…about two to three months give or take.
And, it’s a good indication of how well you’re doing if you’re a diabetic, or it’s a good way to measure whether or not you are diabetic or not, or whether you’re pre diabetic.
But basically, it’s a pretty good indicator of your blood sugar levels and whether or not they’re healthy, or whether or not they’re unhealthy.
So these are nine tips that I found from a website, diabetesselfmanagement.com. I’ll include a link below. These are literally tips that I got straight from the articles. So these are not David’s facts.
These are from the actual article, from the actual website. So you can check it out, and I think they’re pretty good tips. So let’s get into it.
#1 Healthy Eating
Number one, healthy eating. Obviously this one’s pretty obvious and there’s a bunch of different philosophies on diets, different… bunch of different diets out there.
But, in general, they say low carbs are good…eating good fats is good…a good well balanced diet, in general, is very good…vegetarian diet is good.
But, they say the best way is to really develop a good plan for yourself.
Visit with the dietician who could help you plan your meals. But healthy eating is number one, right? Because that’s what’s causing our blood sugar levels to spike in the first place…it’s what we put in our body.
#2 Plan Meals
Number two- actually sit down to plan your meals. It’s one thing to just say you eat healthy, but it’s another thing to actually sit down and physically plan your meals.
When you’re going to eat your meals…how much you’re going to eat…what you’re going to eat. They say don’t skip meals, don’t delay meals, and make sure to get on a consistent schedule.
You ideally want to eat at the same time, every single day, and the same number of meals, so that way you don’t have these spikes, or these huge elevations or fluctuations in your blood sugar levels.
#3 Be Selective With Carbohydrates
Okay. Number three, you want to be very selective when it comes to carbs. As you know, carbs break down into glucose in our body.
They break down into blood sugar molecules in our body which spike our sugars. So it’s not good, right?
You ideally want to be a little picky…you want to be choosy…you don’t want to be eating refined sugars, so things like sugar itself, sweets, cookies, bread, white rice…all that stuff.
Ideally it’s better to eat things like vegetables. You want to be eating things like…even healthy fruits, healthy grains, nuts, legumes, things like that. So those unrefined sugars…those unrefined carbs. Okay.
#4 Carb Consistent
Number four…you want to be what the article says: carb consistent. So, that means you want to eat the same amount of carbs, at the same time, just about every day.
You don’t want to have one meal with a bunch of carbs, the next meal a small amount of carbs, and then the next meal a bunch of carbs.
Ideally, you really want to be carb consistent. So, the same amount with every single meal. Same amount of brown rice here, same amount of rice here, same amount of celery here, whatever it is.
So…want to be consistent with your carbs. You don’t want to have one day you eat a bunch of sugar, the next day you don’t eat any sugar. You don’t want that.
#5 Control Portions
Okay. Number five…you want to watch your portions. Portion size is very important.
That’s not just for carbs, but keep in mind proteins, and fats as well. You don’t want to eat too much…you want to eat too little of everything. So, you want to watch those portion sizes.
#6 Be Active
Number six: this one’s pretty obvious too, but be active. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be just the traditional hit the gym hard…lift weights…get on the treadmill, but getting into the habit of just taking walks, going to walk at the park instead of sitting down and watching TV all day.
Or, if you’re sitting down and watching TV, maybe standing up…maybe occasionally doing a couple of upward jumping jacks…maybe doing occasional pushups…maybe just doing occasional ab exercises. Whatever it is.
If you work a desk job, maybe standing at your desk…maybe getting up and walking every hour. So, incorporating activity in just your general lifestyle is important, as well as an exercise routine.
#7 Plan Your Exercise
Number seven- plan your exercise out. Okay. The reason why a lot of people don’t exercise, myself included from time to time, is because we really don’t take the time to plan.
When we plan and we have it set in our schedule, it’s a lot easier. So, if you know that you’re going to go for a walk for 20 minutes every single morning, you’re going to have it set on your schedule, you’re more likely to do it.
Or if you’re going to hit the gym three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right after work or right after school, you already have it in your schedule. It’s already planned out. You don’t have to think about it.
#8 Exercise 150 Minutes Weekly
Okay. Number eight…they recommend committing to about 150 minutes of exercise each week. Okay. So, 150 minutes, that’s about 30 minutes of exercise five times a day.
There’s just something about that, with various studies or something like that, that apparently is really, really good. So, 30 minutes, five days a week, otherwise 150 minutes every week. Okay.
They recommend… If you want to make it easy on yourself, break it down into three 10-minute exercises per day.
So, maybe I’ll go out for a brisk walk, brisk 10 minute walk, three times a day. Or maybe doing some push-ups and jumping jacks, or doing Tae Bo for 10 minutes, three times a day. Whatever it is.
But they recommend committing to 150 minutes per week to get optimum gains.
#9 Cardio + Resistance Training
Okay. Number nine- last, but not least, is combining both cardio as well as resistance.
So, a lot of times, we think that just by doing cardio and just by running, that’s good enough. But, they say resistance training really does help.
And resistance training… and because we do store glycogen in our muscles, when we actually work our muscles, when we actually lift weights, or we do push-ups, or we do… yeah, when you do resistance training like push-ups, or pull-ups, or lifting weights in general, it really uses the sugars that you have… that are stored in your body…that are stored in your muscles.
So, when you combine both cardio as well as resistance, you’re really getting the optimal workout, and to help really use up the carbs that you put into your body.
Conclusion
So hopefully that helps guys. Again, the nine tips: healthy eating, planning your meals out, being choosy about the carbs you have, being consistent with the carbs you eat and drink, watching your portions.
Number six- being active, number seven- planning your exercise, number eight- committing to 150 minutes of exercise per week, and then number nine- ombining cardio with resistance training.
So, those are the nine steps to help lower your A1C. I’ve included the link to the article down below.
If you do want to check it out and read it yourself, diabetesselfmanagement.com does have a lot of good information on diabetes in general.
And please leave me a comment down below guys. I love interacting with you guys, and let me know- what do you think about these tips. Are they good? Are they helpful? Do you already know these tips?
And let me know your experience with diabetes if you have it, if you know someone who has it, so on and so forth. Again, thank you so much for watching guys.
Have a fantastic day, and as always, Supp It Up.