According to Barb Klingler, RN, BSN, a diabetes educator with the Washington University Diabetes Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, your diabetes educator should be your new best friend because they ‘focus on the lifestyle changes that will make you healthier.’ This involves controlling your blood sugar, which is at the heart of managing type 2 diabetes, and learning how your diet, exercise and medications affect it. The first step you should take is finding out how to test and control your blood sugar. Your diabetes educator can show you how to test for it in a non-painful way, and you can track how it changes when you test it after you eat, at different times a day, after a meeting or after taking medications, for example.
Secondly, work on weight loss right away. A healthy diabetes diet is manageable for most people, though exercise may be a tougher challenge to face. Klinger says you should think of it as building blocks, as you don’t have to run a marathon and climb Everest on day one! Begin with more walks, even if it’s just during your work breaks. Instead of lazing on the sofa and watching TV, walk in place or do strength training with light hand weights. Exercise releases chemicals that help your metabolism, and also ones that improve your mood which is the next thing you need to do to tackle your diabetes: de-stress. Stressful situations will cause your blood sugar to strike so learn how to avoid or deal with stress and maybe invest in a relaxing video game, yoga DVD or a CD of soothing music.
Fourthly, if your diagnosis is affecting your emotional wellness, talk to your diabetes educator or your doctor about getting treated for depression; otherwise you’ll never have the strength you need to achieve your lifestyle goals. Finally, get help from family and friends whom you whom you trust implicitly. Teach them about symptoms of low blood sugar and how they can help in a crisis, and make sure you only tell people who will provide you with emotional support, rather than nagging questions.