Monitoring Diabetes

Regular monitoring is the key to keeping your diabetes in check and living a healthy life.

The secret in being a productive diabetic is to monitor blood sugars and use it as a base to make informed decisions regarding dietary and life style modifications. So what is smart self blood sugar monitoring?

Help your diabetologist by taking a spread out of blood sugars - pre and post meal (two hours after the meal) on different days, coupled with one or two readings of 5:00 pm sugars, bedtime sugars and 3:00 am sugars.

Bedtime blood glucose level should be maintained between 100 and 140 mg/dl. If bed time glucose is less than 100 mg/dl consume a carbohydrate (CHO) snack before going to bed. If the 5:00 pm random blood sugar is less than 80 mg/dl, there is risk of going into hypoglycaemia at night.

If you are a physically active person, check your sugars pre-exercise. If it is less than 90 mg/dl, consume a carbohydrate snack and also check on your insulin dosage.

If the difference between pre and post meal sugars is less than 50 mg/dl, it indicates that the food choices are working well.

If blood sugars are more than 240 mg/dl, check back on food, medication and limit vigorous exercise.

Make notes on deviation in sugars with the changes in meal pattern or exercise schedule or eating out. Check out self-monitoring devices to achieve this.

What your self-monitoring device should have :
Pick a monitoring device that’s easy to use. You want to be able to monitor your glucose as easily as possible rather than it becoming another chore. Some of the latest devices have a variety of features, which include:
Auto-coding: The calibration code is embedded on each strip. One does not have to manually feed it and thereby eliminates coding related errors.
Results flagging: Some devices have the ability to separately store fasting and post meal readings, so you don’t have to maintain an additional log book to record results.
Small pricking devices: Another feature to look out for if you want to monitor your blood-glucose painlessly.
Temperature sensor: This sensor helps you get temperature-corrected results.

Happy to be dieting

Here’s how you can stay motivated when trying to follow a diet plan

Identify the triggers

If you want to stay motivated towards your health, you must identify your problem areas. This will help you deal with them in a planned manner. Various people use food to deal with depressing emotions, like disappointment in office, rejection in relationships or even boredom. Analyse your problem area and figure out how you can deal with it. Also, change your lifestyle a bit. Don’t stock high-calorie food so that you won’t binge during a crisis. Instead, stock healthy options such as fruits, low-fat yoghurts and sugar-free gum.

Don’t go hungry

It may sound ironic, but the biggest cause of overeating is undereating. Studies have shown, that if you go for too long without food, chances are that you will reach a point where you won’t be able to control yourself and end up bingeing. Rigid diet plans simply don’t work. Always opt for balanced and planned snacking options to keep your hunger pangs under control. Also, indulge yourself with a small treat once a week.

Find a motivator

We all need our support systems. These can be in the form of a spouse, a friend and even an online friend. Think of a couple of people around you who would qualify as your cheering buddies, and rely on them for support and encouragement to help you reach your health goal.

Good things take time

It’s very simple to see someone with a perfect body and feel jealous. However, what we don’t realise, is that the concerned person has spent adequate time and attention to get in perfect shape. It’s not something impossible. And the most important aspect you must consider, is that it will take time. Also, your body type plays an important part in this. You may even end up trying harder to achieve the same goal but the key lies in appreciating yourself for achieving smaller targets and being consistent.

Source: TOI