by Ingredia USA | Jan 26, 2022 | Blood Sugar Management
Diabetes is a worldwide threat to personal health, with 34.2 million people diagnosed just in the United States, according to the CDC. Regardless of economic status or residence location, statistics show just how widespread this disease is.
The good news is, there are many things you can do in your lifestyle to prevent diabetes. A prediabetes diagnosis is one of major the risk factors for type 2 diabetes, and it can be motivation for you or a loved one to make a change.
Creating a prediabetes diet plan is one of the steps you can take to protect your health and prevent a future diabetes diagnosis. A balanced, nutritious diet will help keep you on track and might motivate you to make changes in other areas of your life as well.
If you’ve been diagnosed with prediabetes and don’t know what your next step should be, we’re here to help. Keep reading to learn how a diet plan can help you and how to create one that fits your lifestyle.
What Is Prediabetes?
Whether your doctor told you that you may be at risk for diabetes or you’ve been recently diagnosed with prediabetes, you may be looking to learn more about what prediabetes means.
Prediabetes is a condition of high blood sugar levels, but not high enough to be considered levels of type 2 diabetes. This is why prediabetes is often a clear indication of risk for type 2 diabetes and motivates many people to start making a change.
Some risk factors include lack of physical activity, a family history of diabetes, and age of 45 years or older. A blood sugar test is one way to test for prediabetes. Early detection and diagnosis give you even more of a chance to change your lifestyle and prevent further complications.
Prediabetes Diet Plan for Diabetes Prevention
Eating habits are one of the most important lifestyle changes you can make to prevent diabetes. But don’t worry, creating a diet plan to reverse prediabetes does not have to mean removing everything you enjoy from your diet.
A prediabetes diet plan should have three balanced meals a day, consisting of plenty of nonstarchy vegetables, lots of fruit, whole grains, and proteins such as fish, beans, and eggs.
Some good vegetables to include are leafy greens, tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, brussels sprouts, zucchini, eggplant, and cucumbers. The great thing about vegetables is that whether you have them fresh or frozen, they have the same nutritional value.
Some seafood that offers healthy proteins and fats include salmon, shrimp, and tuna. Beans also offer protein as well as fiber, including lentils, kidney or garbanzo beans, and soybeans. Another great source of protein is products made from soy such as tofu or other plant-based meat substitutes.
Whole grains that you can choose for healthy carbohydrates include whole-wheat bread and cereal, brown rice, or quinoa. Try to avoid too many starchy vegetables like potatoes and sweet potatoes, but it’s important not to completely cut them out of your diet.
You can also use dietary supplements, such as Pep2Dia, which can help naturally manage blood sugar levels. You can take this before your meals without worrying about any future side effects.
Fitting a Diet Into Your Lifestyle
As part of this diet, try to avoid sugary drinks and focus more on hydration. Water is essential to any healthy lifestyle, but it can be hard to make water the only thing you drink. A great way to spice up your hydration is adding fresh fruit to your water such as lemon or lime, or even cucumber and mint.
Instead of getting your sugars from drinks that will not keep you full, you can try to have a bowl of fruit instead, sure to keep you fuller for a longer time.
You also may want to focus on decreasing your portion sizes. This is where that moderation comes in. Intuitive eating can be a helpful tool for this, which means you don’t have to completely cut out those foods that you love!
This might look like eating only half of a portion at a restaurant and saving the rest or eating only when you’re hungry rather than eating out of boredom or coping with emotional eating.
If you’re thinking of starting a prediabetic diet or have recently started one, it’s important to be sure you can fit it into your lifestyle. If you’re having a hard time sticking to it because it’s so drastic from what you were eating before, you’re much less likely to stick with it.
It’s important to keep the foods you love in your diet, just in moderation. Having those foods whenever you’re craving them rather than restricting yourself can prevent you from overeating them in the future.
The Importance of Exercise
As you may know, diet and exercise go hand-in-hand. If you want to become the best and healthiest version of yourself, finding exercise that you enjoy is so important.
If you find a type of exercise that you enjoy rather than exercising just to lose weight, you’re more likely to stick with it. What if you challenged yourself to think of exercise as a way to care for your body rather than punish it?
Both strength training and cardio exercises are important, but you guessed it–all in moderation. A good way to start incorporating exercise into your daily routine is with the little things, like taking the stairs over the elevator or walking to get your coffee in the morning instead of making the 5-minute drive.
The Power to Change
Receiving a prediabetes diagnosis or an urge to change your lifestyle from your doctor would be overwhelming for anyone. But, you have the power to turn it all around.
A prediabetes diet plan is essential to the future of your wellbeing, but don’t feel like you need to wait for a doctor’s recommendation. Eating a balanced, nutritious diet certainly won’t hurt anyone.
If you’ve recently received a diagnosis, you may be feeling defeated or discouraged. We’re here to help, and we have products created just for you and your needs.
Visit our site today to see the products we have to offer as you continue your journey to better health and wellness.
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by Ingredia USA | Jan 6, 2022 | Stress Management
Stress eating is a vicious cycle perpetuated by anxiety. So, it’s no surprise that 47 percent of adults say they have been eating more or eating unhealthy foods due to the stress brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
If have found yourself wondering — why do I stress eat? — and want to learn how to stop, keep reading. This article explains the reasons for emotional eating, its impact, and how to help yourself.
What Is Stress Eating?
Stress eating, also called emotional eating, is a pattern of eating and behavior that causes one to push down emotions with food. Physical appetite or hunger does not have anything to do with stress eating.
Unsurprisingly, there is a link between stress and weight gain. When a person’s levels of stress rise, it’s not unusual that they put healthy eating on the back burner. Stress may cause one to:
- Exercise or move less
- Eat comfort foods
- Skip meals
- Overeat
- Eat whatever is accessible (which is often unhealthy)
- Drink less water
This is because stress causes the body’s cortisol and adrenaline levels to rise, which triggers a physiological response that may compel one to turn to high fat, high sugar, energy-dense, and low nutritional value comfort foods.
This response, known as fight-or-flight, is leftover from the days of early human development when stressors were life-threatening, and food was in short supply. While there is still some benefit to this response, prolonged or chronic stress can lead to a number of different health issues, especially binge eating and complications that can follow.
Stress Eating Disorder
While it is normal to eat when you are not hungry to relax, stress eating disorder is different. Stress eating disorder follows cycles of high stress, excessive eating, followed by shame and/or more stress.
This cycle may look like:
You have a hard day at work or get into a fight with someone important to you, so you turn to food, often something sugary, salty, or high in fat, for comfort. Even if you are not hungry, you eat and maybe continue eating past the point of fullness. After the stress eating episode comes a wave of shame or worry, which in turn causes more stress.
When that new wave of stress is not dealt with in a healthy way, it can loop back into another cycle of emotional eating. Not only is it damaging to mental health, but this type of interaction with food can have a negative impact on your physical health.
Side Effects of Stress Eating Disorder
Stress eating disorder is a cycle. This cycle can cause mental and physical health side effects such as:
- Excessive fatigue
- Increased abdominal fat
- Fluctuations in weight
- Stomach pain, cramping, or other gastrointestinal issues
- Preoccupation with food
- Feeling out of control
- Isolation
- Difficulties telling the difference between emotional and physical hunger
Stress, in conjunction with emotional eating, can also raise your risks for diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart conditions. As cortisol builds with excessive stress, it may raise your blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides levels. These changes also contribute to the accumulation of arterial plaque and coronary artery disease.
Cortisol also impacts metabolic function, which can make weight loss more difficult. Obesity is a compounding factor of each of these conditions and can serve to cause more stress. Conditions like high cholesterol or diabetes do not happen overnight or just because you indulge every once in a while.
The more immediate signs that stress is taking a toll on your body are sleep issues like insomnia, muscle tension, muscle pain, and migraines. However, if stress and related issues like emotional eating go untreated for long enough, your cardiac health may begin to suffer.
Treating Stress and Emotional Eating
As mentioned above, stress and emotional eating feed into one another, causing a cycle that is not easy to break. So, what can you do to help manage a stress eating disorder?
Add More Movement To Your Day
Try to add more movement and exercise to your daily routine. This can include going on a walk, trying out yoga, signing up for a gym, or even setting a timer on your phone that will remind you to get up and stretch every once and a while. Start out small and work your way up to bigger activities if you are intimidated by the idea of beginning a new fitness routine.
Getting Professional Treatment
Knowing how to stop stress eating is a process that is hard to take on alone. Reach out to your general physician for help or a referral to a specialist. The consequences are not only physical but mental too, so it is strongly suggested you seek out a mental health specialist as well.
A therapist or doctor specializing in emotional eating behaviors can help teach you coping mechanisms and strategies for dealing with the thoughts food suppresses.
Identify and Try to Remove Your Triggers
Triggers can be emotional, like stress, boredom, anger, or social anxiety. Practice identifying what triggers you to overeat or eat emotionally and take a five-minute break before acting on any impulsive thoughts. Go for a walk, do some deep breathing, or take a moment to assess what you are feeling and why you want to stress eat.
Other triggers may be environmental. These may include keeping certain types of food in your home that you know you go to when you are stressed out. Consider planning out your meals, making substitutions, or proportioning the food into appropriate containers.
You do not have to cut out the trigger foods completely. Try not to assign a “value” to them or feel ashamed after eating them, as it will continue the cycle. Instead of thinking of them as taboo or off-limits, let yourself eat them in proper serving sizes to help control the urges.
You Can Control Stress Eating
Stress has an impact on many aspects of your life, and it can seriously impact your health. Stress eating is a self-perpetuating cycle that is difficult to break on your own. We hope this article helps you identify resources and motivates you to ask for help.
Take a look at our activities page to see Ingredia’s natural products for stress relief and overall wellness.
by Ingredia USA | Dec 17, 2021 | Blood Sugar Management
Americans take a bite out of the holidays. The average American expects to gain eight pounds over the course of the holiday season.
Holiday eating is dangerous for everyone, especially people living with diabetes or prediabetes. If you need to monitor your blood sugar, you have to be mindful of holiday eating habits.
What should you do before you go to holiday events? How can you keep your blood sugar levels down in the middle of the holidays? What should you prioritize during your meals?
Answer these questions and you can keep the holiday pounds off while enjoying the festivities. Here is your quick guide.
Talk to Your Doctor
You can only manage diabetes with the help of your doctor. Before the holiday season gets underway, schedule an appointment and talk to them about diabetes and holidays.
In general, someone with prediabetes should lose weight. Losing just ten pounds may be enough to stave off type 2 diabetes and return to normal blood sugar rates. As such, people with prediabetes should develop a diet plan that trends toward weight loss.
But someone may have a very low weight. They should focus on reducing their blood sugar rates, namely through omitting carbohydrates from their diet.
There are important reasons for balancing blood sugar levels. Blood sugar levels control processes within the body, helping your sleep quality and cognition. If they are too high, they can impede organ function and hurt brain development.
A diabetes diet does not mean you have no room for holiday treats. Ask for suggestions from your doctor about what you can do.
Monitor Your Symptoms
Many people with prediabetes do not experience any symptoms. They may only know they have prediabetes after receiving a blood test at their doctor’s office.
Symptoms of prediabetes can include increased thirst, urination, and fatigue. These are classic symptoms of diabetes, and they may suggest someone has developed the full condition.
In rare cases, someone may experience skin discoloration. This is a sign of insulin resistance, suggesting that skin cells are rejecting the insulin that the pancreas produces.
When you have symptoms of prediabetes, do not panic. Take note that you have them and then think about what you ate previously.
As the holiday season goes on, be conscious of how your symptoms are going. If they occur during the day, you may need to adjust what you eat at night. You can take medications to reduce your blood sugar and avoid complications.
Limit Your Portions
The key to eating holiday food is to avoid overeating. You can have mashed potatoes, but don’t eat more than a single serving.
Try eating your food on smaller plates. When you finish your plate, you send a signal to your brain that you have eaten a lot of food. This can lead you to eat less.
When you are eating at a table, you should find a seat away from carbohydrate-rich foods. This may give you the incentive to eat healthier options.
You can enjoy more portions of whole grains and healthy carbohydrates. Brown rice, legumes, and bulgur wheat contain protein and antioxidants. Yet you should not go overboard and eat too many grains.
Avoid Desserts
When in doubt, avoid desserts. Bread stuffing and potatoes may not be good for your blood sugar. But they can have nutrients in them that are healthy.
Desserts rarely contain anything that is good for you. Butter and margarine are high in saturated fat, and they contribute to weight gain.
You can have some fruit for dessert, though you should avoid very sweet ones. Bananas and berries are loaded with antioxidants and dietary fiber.
Adopt a Meal Schedule
When you eat is just as important for your health as what you eat. If you go too long between your meals, your blood sugar may drop to dangerous levels. It takes time for sugar levels to go down after a meal, and high blood sugar levels can cause brain fog.
Try to keep to the same times for your meals every day. This will cue your pancreas to produce insulin at certain times, which can help you manage your condition.
Eat breakfast within two hours of waking up. Then wait a few hours to eat lunch at around noon. You can have dinner at five, but try not to eat past six.
If you are feeling hungry, you can have a snack. But keep it small and nutrient-heavy.
Fill Up With Vegetables
Managing diabetic symptoms does not mean starving yourself. You should still eat meals until you are full.
Your plate should be full of vegetables. Try to eat a variety of them in several different ways. You can have a salad with raw vegetables, but you should roast and saute your vegetables as well.
You can replace your meat with protein-rich vegetables. Edamame beans and Brussels sprouts contain several grams of protein per serving. You can boil, roast, and saute these vegetables in a number of recipes.
Enjoy Your Holiday Eating
Holiday eating and diabetes don’t go hand in hand. Talk to your doctor about what you can do this season. Be conscious of your symptoms over time.
Limit your portions, eating one scoop of carbs at a time. Avoid desserts and opt for healthy sides instead.
Eat your meals at the same time every day. But don’t go hungry for too long. Eat filling vegetables and whole grains that help reduce your blood sugar levels.
Keep finding good health advice. Ingredia provides informative mental and physical health guides. Read our guide to seven healthy habits you can start now.
by Ingredia USA | Dec 10, 2021 | Stress Management
Looking forward to holiday travel? Many Americans are planning on ‘revenge travel‘ — traveling more to make up for not being able to see friends and family during the pandemic.
As a result, trips will be longer, farther, and more involved than before. While these adventures may be exciting for you, what about your pet?
Pet stress spikes during the holidays. Animals are often creatures of habit and disrupting those habits can often stress them out and impact their health.
If you’re wondering how to reduce pet anxiety over the holidays, we’ve assembled a guide to help you out. Let’s get started!
1. Plan Ahead
Assuming that your pet ‘will be alright’ is always dangerous. Cat owners are especially at risk of making this assumption. Cats are famous for being independent, but that doesn’t mean you should leave them alone for days on end.
No matter what type of pet you have, they are used to the routine. That routine includes being walked, seeing you regularly, being fed at certain times, and so forth.
No part of their routine has equipped them for being lonely in an empty house and drinking stale water out of a dish that hasn’t been replenished for days. If you don’t plan ahead, though, boarding shelters and pet sitters will be all booked up.
If you plan ahead, you’ll be able to introduce your pet to their new circumstances. This will reduce their holiday stress, make sure the boarding or pet sitting arrangement is a good fit, and help keep them safe.
2. Establish the Rules
What does your holiday travel situation look like this year? Maybe your holiday and pet stress is reduced slightly because you’re hosting this year, rather than traveling.
Take a few minutes to consider the potential implications of pets and holidays. If you have a new puppy that is particularly troublesome, it might not be the best time to introduce them to a house full of strangers.
Even if your pet is well-behaved, know that your holiday stress will be compounded by keeping an eye on guests. Feeding your pet table scraps without permission can be fatal and will only add to your pet stress.
Try to introduce your pet to new surroundings and people slowly. Make sure you don’t change their diet too much, either. While it might be tempting to let them fill up on holiday treats, altering things too much could stress them out and negatively impact their digestion.
3. Make Some Changes
What if you’re only living for two days? If you have a healthy adult cat, for instance, most experts on pets and holidays agree you can leave them home alone. While your cat will most likely be okay.
But if you’re wondering how to reduce pet anxiety, you can do more. Even if your pet will be safe, they will still be quite stressed. After all, you are the main constant in your pet’s life.
Start by playing the radio in your absence. As long as it’s safe to leave something plugged in, keep the radio on low while you’re gone. This will help your pet because the house won’t be silent.
Create multiple feeding stations around the house, too. This advice depends on the eating habits of your pet. Some cats in particular are able to self-regulate.
Other pets will eat any food in sight, and then be sick. If this is the case, you may choose to invest in an automatic feeder for your absence. If not, you can set up multiple food and water bowls in different places.
This will prevent your pet from running out and going hungry or thirsty while you’re not there to replenish the supply. Once you have their basic needs covered, though, it’s time to consider enrichment activities.
4. Enrichment Activities
How much of your day do you spend playing with your pet? Do they snuggle up in your lap when you watch TV at the end of the day? This is a huge part of their day.
When you’re gone, what can you do to make sure they aren’t as bored as they might otherwise be? You can start with a new toy or two.
This will make sure they have something shiny to play with and can help stimulate them and make your pet happier while you’re away on holiday travel. Their favorite treats won’t hurt, either.
Of course, make sure it isn’t wet food that will go bad quickly. You’ll also want to limit the amount you set out — a balanced diet is crucial to pet health. That way, they won’t eat too quickly and get sick.
If you have a cat, there are plenty of things you can do to make life more exciting for your feline friend. Consider setting up some cardboard boxes in your absence.
Cats love to nest inside contained, warm spaces. If you tuck a shirt of yours in there, so much the better!
You can also create small blanket forts. Cats love dark spaces and lurking there usually brings them some joy during your absence. You can set these up in their usual favorite napping spots, anyway.
Some pets also appreciate high perches. If it’s safe, you can set up some sort of perch or scratching tower for your pet to rest on in your absence. Whatever you do, make sure that you plan ahead for your pet’s safety above all else.
Reducing Pet Stress for Holiday Travel
Pet stress might spike during holiday travel, but this is a short time of the year. All the quality time you spend with your pet at other times of the year pays off, and they’ll soon be feeling less stressed as soon as their routine is back to normal.
Reducing pet stress through careful planning, a healthy diet, and stress management techniques can help make the holidays better for both of you. If you’re interested in great supplements that can help with stress reduction, contact us today!
by Ingredia USA | Dec 4, 2021 | Stress Management
Did you know that 88% of Americans consider the holiday season the most stressful time of year? This time of year is filled with activities, from holiday parties to family events. While the Christmas season is meant to bring feelings of cheer and love, it can bring about feelings of holiday stress for many people.
If you need help managing holiday stress, you’re not alone. Family reunions can bring about conflict, and shopping excursions can cause great anxiety.
This guide includes our top eight-holiday stress tips to help you cope with Christmas season holiday stress.
1. Set Holiday Intentions
Make the conscious decision to enjoy this time as much as you can. By doing so, you’re opening yourself up to true happiness and overall improved well-being. You’re less likely to miss uplifting moments, and you even might notice them more than if you hadn’t set that intention.
When you set an intention, you prep your brain for positive things to happen. When you allow yourself to feel positive emotions, you can become more receptive, sensitive, and open to future experiences. You’ll start to soak up more positive experiences and feelings as a result.
2. Honor Your Emotions
While we all want to have positive thinking all of the time, it’s not always realistic or practical. Allow yourself to feel whatever emotion you’re feeling in the moment, whether it’s loneliness or sadness.
Try to anticipate moments where you might be feeling down. These types of moments can happen, especially if you’ve recently lost someone or are away from your family.
One way to practice self-care during the holidays is by journaling your feelings. You can use this time to connect and express your emotions in a healthy manner.
If you start to feel down, don’t wait to do something about it. Make an appointment with your therapist or schedule time with a loved one to talk on the phone.
3. Regain Focus By Taking a Break
Holiday to-do lists can get very long. To practice stress-free holiday shopping, make sure you take a break. Some things you can do during your breaks include:
Let yourself relax by pivoting out of the mode of constantly doing something. It can be difficult to completely disengage from the busyness of the season. However, it’s well worth it to take the time to slow down and get focused.
4. Live in the Moment
Let your body register all of the moments when you feel good. One way to do that is to savor the sensation for 15-30 seconds.
Savoring positive experiences will strengthen your body’s response to them. The longer you hold onto moments where you feel good, the more the memory will become embedded in the brain.
The important thing to keep in mind is don’t let these good moments be fleeting. Enjoy them and keep them close to your heart during the holiday season.
5. Be Generous
Participating in an altruistic act is a great way to stimulate the “pleasure” part of your brain. If you feel like you want to be generous, you should act on that feeling. You’ll start to notice your mind and body expanding as you are generous to other people.
Monitor how good you feel when you do something for another person without expecting something in return. A generous act doesn’t necessarily have to center around donating money. Some other examples include:
- Giving a friend your full attention
- Opening the door for someone
- Calling a family member, you haven’t spoken to in a while
Let yourself feel all the feelings that come with generosity. Know that what you’re doing is contributing to the overall well-being of another person.
6. Practice Gratitude
Reflect on each of your life’s blessings every day. Be fortunate for everything you have. Directly express feelings of appreciation to loved ones.
A great way to practice gratitude is to write down something you feel grateful for every day. Try to do at least three things, but taking the time to think of one will make a difference. By expressing gratitude to your loved ones, you’ll feel closer to them.
7. Create a Holiday Sanctuary
The atmosphere of your home and workspace is the primary foundation for your overall well-being. It also represents how we feel both inside and out.
Infuse as many holiday vibes as you can into your environment. Purchase an essential oil diffuser and utilize different holiday scents. Some popular ones include:
- Spruce
- Peppermint
- Cinnamon
- Cardamom
Lighting also plays a huge factor in creating a cozy atmosphere. Candles not only give off muted lighting but Christmas scents as well.
One idea is to purchase a few pillar candles. Use them to create a “fireplace” in a small area of your home. Decorate them with different items that give you feelings of cheer.
8. Have Fun
Do you remember how exciting the holiday season was when you were a child? Allow yourself to feel those sensations again. Be around children in your family so you can partake in their feelings of joy.
Look for events in your community, like tree lighting ceremonies or parades. You can soak up the feelings of joy from those around you as you enjoy holiday activities.
While the holidays can be stressful for most people, don’t dwell on those feelings. Allow yourself to feel what you need to feel, but be ready to move on to feelings of joy.
Use Our Tips to Effectively Manage Holiday Stress
Sometimes holiday stress can happen, even if you prepare for it. Follow our eight tips for managing it so you can enjoy the holiday season to its full potential.
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