Managing Diabetes

• Most diabetes can be managed if you can to keep your daily blood sugar levels within the following ranges:
• Fasting blood sugar at 80-120 mg/dl
• After meals at 180 mg/dl or less
• Bedtime at 100-140 mg/dl
• Different activities will affect your blood sugar:
  • Physical activity
  • Diet
  • Stress
  • Illness

Physical Activity: Why is exercise important?

• Helps lower blood sugar (glucose)
• Reduces blood pressure
• Lowers cholesterol and triglycerides
• Assists in weight loss
• Reduces stress
• Strengthens bones
• Helps body use insulin more efficiently
• Helps prevent or delay diabetes complications

Traditional Native Foods and Healthy Diets

• The traditional diets used by our tribal ancestors have been found to be healthy and do not contribute to high blood sugar.
• Returning to a native diet would be ideal but many of the foods or food sources are not available and/or are too expensive,

«(insert a slide showing examples of some traditional food)»

Why was the Traditional Diet Healthy?

• Game meat eaten by the ancestors was low in fat
• Food preparation did not include frying or adding sugar
• Foods gathered like roots or berries were high in fiber and low in sugar
• There was no refined sugar or white flour
• Even cooking or gathering berries or nuts required physical exercise.

Why is Diet Important?

• Low fat, healthy meals are recommended for persons with diabetes, cancer, or heart disease
• Based on the needs of an individual
  • Some may be encouraged to eat certain types of food
  • Some are given helpful information on how to prepare food so its more healthy
  • There are also recommendations on serving or portion sizes
  • Healthy diets discourage certain unhealthy foods and beverages, such as sugared drinks or alcohol

The Food Exchange

• Because persons with diabetes often are taught how to exchange certain foods for another, this has become known as a special diabetes diet.
  • But there is no special diabetes diet. The diet recommended is one that is healthy.

• Food exchanges help you juggle healthy combinations of carbohydrates (simple and complex), protein, and fats

Diabetes and Alcohol

• If your blood sugar is well-controlled and if you take proper precaution, it is possible to have alcohol once in a while.
• One drink per day for women
• One drink is:
  • 12 ounces of regular beer (150 calories)
  • 5 ounces of wine (100 calories)
  • 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits (100 calories)

Precautions When Drinking Alcohol

• Always eat something when you drink
• Check the alcohol level of your drink
  • Account for any extra sugars added to the drink like fruit juices, soda, or mixes

• Watch out for signs of hypoglycemia
  • confusion, rapid heart beat, cold sweats
  • to confirm this, check your blood sugar
  • to treat it, take glucose tablets or a snack high in sugar

• Before you go to bed after having a drink, eat a snack.
• Your blood sugar level can crash in the middle of the night
  • To prevent this, you may want to set your alarm clock to wake you up so you can test your blood glucose and eat a snack if necessary

Why Does This Happen?

• When you drink alcohol, your liver stops making glucose while it removes the alcohol from your blood
• And it takes the body about 2 hours to remove one ounce of alcohol from your body
• This is enough time to cause insulin shock.