Whether you’re prediabetic or grappling with diabetes, it is possible to prevent or reverse diabetes so you can lead a more normal life. You just need weight loss, healthy eating, exercise, and other lifestyle changes in your corner. Add in foods like cinnamon and apple cider vinegar as natural remedies to improve insulin sensitivity. Cut back on high glycemic index foods and carbs as well as saturated fats and you should be able to get the results you seek!

A diagnosis of diabetes or prediabetes can come as a shock, but it is possible to reclaim your life, get healthy, and keep the condition in check. If you are among the 29 million American adults with diabetes or the 86 million who have prediabetes, here’s how you can stop this condition in its track.

If you are prediabetic, making lifestyle modifications can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by up to 58%. Remember, this will need to be practiced as a permanent lifestyle change to reverse diabetes and maintain results. There is no miracle short-term cure.

If you are diabetic, these tips – strict diet control, weight loss, and exercise – can help you reach a stage where your blood sugar is in control, with minimal fluctuations, and you are not dependent on medication. This is as close to a perceived “reversal” as you will get. However, if you stop managing your diet or give up exercise, the problems will likely come right back again.

1. Take A Holistic Long-Term Approach

Ayurveda recommends a holistic approach to diabetes, combining a modified diet with physical activity. In fact, according to this ancient form, an inactive lifestyle is partly to blame for the increased incidence of this condition. And mainstream research backs this up.

As one study found, test subjects with type 2 diabetes who underwent an intensive lifestyle-based weight loss intervention (ILI) had higher chances of seeing partial remission of their diabetes compared to those who just got diabetes education and support thrice a year. There were weekly group and individual counseling sessions organized for those in the ILI group in the initial 6 months, and then 3 sessions monthly for the next 6 months in that year. Refreshers were held in the years that followed. These individuals were asked to make the following changes:

• Cut their calorie intake to between 1200 and 1800 kcal a day.
• Reduce total fat intake in general as well as saturated fat intake in particular.
• Increase physical activity. Aim at 175 minutes of activity per week.

Aside from these pointers, here’s a 360-degree approach to help you prevent or reverse diabetes.

2. Find A Suitable Diet For Better Glucose Control

Diet is key to better glycemic control in diabetics and prediabetics. Not just to avoid fluctuations in blood sugar levels, but also so you can lose weight or keep lipid levels in check – after all, cardiac issues commonly plague diabetics. Eat right with any of these dietary approaches.

Follow A Kapha-Balancing Ayurvedic Diet

Your body is considered healthy in Ayurveda when the three doshas are in balance. Ayurveda sees diabetes or madhumeha as an excess kapha dosha problem. By consuming a kapha-pacifying diet, you should be able to gain control of your condition.Researchers in one study found that combining Ayurvedic ahara and vihara (diet and lifestyle modification) as per Ayurvedic principles improved not just the major symptoms of diabetes but also the biochemical parameters of subjects.

• Have light, warming, and dry foods and avoid foods that are oily, heavy, and cold as these increase kapha. For instance, soups and meals made from green gram, horse gram, fenugreek, barley, bitter gourd, pointed gourd, and cooked vegetables were given to those in the study mentioned earlier.
• To pacify kapha, you will need to consume more bitter and astringent or even pungent foods like bitter melon and fenugreek seeds. Bitter melon, for instance, is known to help reduce fasting blood glucose.
• Avoid eating too much yogurt or dairy products, especially at night.
• Have hot ginger tea to stimulate sluggish digestion.
• Avoid heavy fruit like figs and bananas and instead have pears, apples, pomegranates, or cranberries.
• Limit intake of salty foods but spice up meals with pepper, ginger, cayenne, or mustard seeds.
• Make lighter foods like beans your main protein sources.
• Cut down consumption of rice and wheat and switch to millet, buckwheat, barley, rye, or corn.
• Take turmeric in your food, a spice widely used in Indian cooking, to lower blood sugar.

Go With ADA Guidelines And Have Diabetic Superfoods

You could try and adhere to the American Diabetes Association (ADA) diet guidelines for better glycemic control. The distilled-down form of the ADA is as follows:

• Consume between 15 and 20% of your daily calories from protein.
• Have less than 7% saturated fat.
• Get 60 to 70% of your calorie intake every day from carbohydrates as well as monounsaturated fats.
• Have no more than 200 mg of cholesterol every day.