Self Improvement

Controlling diabetes may have a lot to do with controlling your weight. Since a person’s metabolism is directly related with the maintenance of normal levels of blood glucose in your body, managing your diabetes through weight loss and exercise may be effective as a treatment option. In fact, several experts advice weight loss and exercise as a method of managing diabetes.

Why Lose Weight and Exercise?
Ever heard of “cardiometabolic risk?” It simply means that if you have several metabolic problems at once – overweight, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure – you have a higher risk of developing serious complications like heart disease. Losing weight and exercising regularly will help improve these conditions and lower down your cardiometabolic risk of developing other more serious conditions.

Fat and Obesity
Obesity is more likely to occur in people with diabetes. In fact, researchers believe that being obese or overweight is a leading risk factor for diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes. You will know whether you have a healthy weight or not by measuring your body mass index or BMI.

Being overweight means having a BMI of 25. On the other hand, if you have a BMI of 30, the condition is no longer mere overweight but obesity. Either way, this means that you have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes as well as other cardiometabolic conditions.

In addition to your weight, another important risk factor that you might want to look into is the location of your fat deposits. Researchers have observed that if a person’s fats are deposited in the middle of his torso or around the middle (“apple-shaped” figure) this raises his risk for heart disease and other related conditions.

High Blood Pressure
Just as obesity and type 2 diabetes are closely related, these conditions also go hand-in-hand with high blood pressure. Also known as hypertension, high blood pressure can increase your chances of developing heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease.

Out of all persons with diabetes, 40% of them have high blood pressure, leading to stroke.

High Cholesterol
Your body needs sources of energy in order to perform its regular functions and these sources of energy include glucose and fats (lipids). When you have too much glucose in your blood, your body will automatically store these as fats in your body so that when you need them in the future, your body will release the hormone adrenaline which will in turn stimulate the release of glucose from these fat molecules.

Now, some of these fats are turned into cholesterol, both HDL (or the good cholesterol) and LDL (or the bad cholesterol). If you have higher LDL levels in your blood but lower good cholesterol levels, then your risk of getting of stroke is higher as well.

All three conditions are related through one common denominator – your weight. By controlling this aspect of your body’s health, then you have a better fighting chance against diabetes and live a fuller life.