If you find yourself always and forever craving sweets, you may already be on your way to developing Type II Diabetes. Americans in particular consume way too much sugar and it's affecting our health dramatically. The number of cases of Type II Diabetes in men and women, and now unfortunately in children continues to grow with each passing year. Men should only be consuming 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons) of sugar and women, 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons). Because we are consuming so much sugar, we are developing insulin resistance which adds to our sugar bellies where we have thick tires of fat around our middles that sag and hang, because we aren't giving our bodies the proper tools to fight fat and protect our organs with proper lower carb diet and daily exercise.
Just to put that into perspective, if you have just one 16oz bottle of coke in your day, you've already downed 52 grams of sugar in one drink (way over the "legal" limit for both men and women), and most people aren't just drinking the one drink; they are also having the Starbucks venti latte with 23 grams, the 14g in ONE tablespoon of pancake syrup, the 14 grams in a half cup of vanilla ice cream, etc., which are leading us into a country filled with pre-diabetics and Type II diabetics, who no surprise, also struggle with various other health issues and obesity. The scary thing about diabetes is that many people have absolutely no clue that they even have it, which if left unchecked can lead to amputation, loss of vision, heart disease, coma, and even death.
If you for any reason don't want to go to your doctor or can't afford to find out if you are at risk, glucometer kits or devices that measure your blood sugar, can be easily picked up at your local pharmacy, Walmart, Target, etc. in the health isles for about $25. All you need to do is fast for 8 hours (easier to do when you're asleep at night) and then do a finger prick, and the device will measure your fasting blood glucose levels, which if the number is higher than 99 (and you should do the test at least 2x for accuracy), then you need to really consider making serious changes to your diet/exercise because you've crossed the threshold into pre-diabetes, or you may already have developed Type II Diabetes which you need to get under control sooner rather than later.
Really think about your diet. Why is it you feel so sleepy after eating sugar heavy foods like white rice, desserts, fast foods, drinks, sugary breakfast treats? Why are you so thirsty all the time and you haven't been constantly exerting yourself? Why are you having trouble sleeping at night? Why do you constantly crave sweets? These aren't just things that happen when you eat food, and having intense cravings for sweets all the time also isn't a natural thing. These are things that have a direct correlation to your excessive sugar consumption.The good news is that if you catch it early enough, you may be able to completely reverse the effects of pre-diabetes/type II diabetes by altering your diet to drastically reduce and eliminate the foods that send your blood sugar on a constant roller coaster. Second would be to also work on minimally getting daily low impact exercise like walking for at least a half hour to an hour a day. Exercise is a great way to help lower your blood sugar levels.
For the technical explanation of all of this, see video below:
Unlike most other health issues you may be struck down with, fighting against pre-diabetes, and type II diabetes is literally one of the easiest and cheapest ones you can combat on your own and for most people, without medications, but you have to want to make those lifestyle changes. It will be difficult at first. Most things worth having in life, always are, but if this is you and you are struggling with this, you can do it because the alternative is continuing to watch your health decline, your waist expand, and severely limiting your lifespan if you don't take proper actions.
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Interesting!