Hi guys, welcome to Health Tip Tuesday. Today, we are going to talk a little bit about diabetes risks and how to decrease your risk of developing diabetes. One caveat before we get started, I’m not talking about somebody who has diabetes or they had some kind of auto-immune disease, and then they have diabetes. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about diabetes that may be related to more your lifestyle. That’s the first caveat. Second, I have a friend who specializes in this. I’m really trying to get her on the podcast because she is just a fount of knowledge. And I know this is something that, especially as we head into our forties, that this is a topic that we’re all worried about, right? We all kind of want to make sure that we don’t have a lifestyle that’s gonna, contribute to development of diabetes or heart disease or anything like that.
And I think kind of, as we start to age, that becomes more of a concern. So I just want to talk about it really quickly today. So there’s three things that we typically think of when we talk about decreasing diabetes risk. So you can probably find all this there’s so many websites about diabetes and diabetes.org has a lot of information on that. And I’ll put the stuff in the show notes too, but basically there is what I’m going by here is talking about research from diabetes prevention program. And what they found is there’s three things that can help you decrease risk of diabetes development. First one, losing weight and keeping it off. Number two is moving more. And number three is eating healthy foods most of the time.
So let’s dig into the first one losing weight and keeping it off. What they saw in the studies that they’ve been doing for a long time is that people who’ve lost about five to 7% of their starting weight. The caveat here is that you’re able to maintain your weight loss have seen the biggest decrease in risk of diabetes. So what does that mean? It means if you’re somebody who’s 200 pounds, your goal would be to lose anywhere from 10 to 14 pounds. And to actually keep that weight off again in the studies that they’ve seen, you know, it’s one thing if somebody, you know, weighs a certain amount, that’s fine. But what happens is, is that if you lose the weight really quickly, and then you’re not able to maintain the weight, then the, then the risk is changed, right? So the goal is to have a weight, which is why it’s 7% or so that you can initially achieve and then see, be able to maintain that weight loss over time, because you want to have the long-term sustained effects of decreasing your risk of diabetes, not this on, and, Oh, I’ve lost 10 pounds.
I’ve gained and I’ve lost 10 pounds. It’s trying to, you know, decrease your risk overall by losing the weight initially, and then being able to maintain it. So typically, you know, they don’t want you to lose weight super quick, if you’re not going to be able to maintain it. So the goal is to be able to just work every day so that you’re able to make lifestyle changes so that you can, you know, lose the 7% of whatever your body weight is right now, if you’re at risk for diabetes, because you have a family history, um, or if you’re worried about developing it, or you have an elevated hemoglobin A1C is to really just be able to lose the initial weight and to maintain it and keep it off because that’s where the greatest benefit is going to be in decreasing your risk.
Number one, number two is moving more. So when I’m talking about moving more, we’ve done, you know, a podcast episodes talking about movement and physical activity and why it’s important. And while it’s important in decreasing your risk of diabetes, too. Okay, we’re talking about is, you know, you’re going to see lots of organizations that have different numbers in terms of what the goal for physical activity is. And to a diabetes risk, the goal is to try to get about 150 minutes of physical activity a week. That’s just not what diabetes risk though. That’s for risk of diseases in general. So in general, most of the health organizations will say 115 minutes of physical activity a week is recommended that can be broken down into however that works for your life. That could be a 30 minute walk, five days a week. It could just be two and a half hours a week of doing, you know, um, going to your gym when it’s open or something like that.
And taking juice cleanses and then walking another day, it can be however, you can make it happen in your life. It could even be broken down into three, 10 minute walks or three, 10 minute walks around your office, you know, five times a week, but we know that physical activity helps decrease your risk of developing diabetes. So typically, you know, you know, what’s going to be best for you if you’re worried about starting physical activity to talk to your healthcare provider and, and me telling you this is just so that you can start slow and put up to your goal. Um, it’s just, you know, taking a step forward and making some change. Um, whatever that is that you think is feasible that you can do at this particular time. Um, and then lastly, it’s eating healthy foods most of the time. So what that means is just, you know, we all know things that are going to be think foods roots that give us a little bit more nutrition than other foods.
And I’ve talked to them here about having, you know, I don’t like the whole thing about like good foods and bad foods. And so basically what it is just eating things that you need. I know that or better for your body and provide a little bit more nutrition. And I’m not saying in this that you can never eat, you know, that you can never eat ice cream or chips or whatever it is that you like. I’m not saying that I’m just saying that have that a little bit less often. And so remember to have, you know, your veggies and fruits every day. And again, the goal is to have probably a minimum of three to five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, make sure that you consume your whole greens, that you eat some protein, that you have some, you know, some dairy per day and that you eat a little bit of fat that you need.
So these are all the things that are going to help you decrease your risk of diabetes. Okay? So for many of you, you’re already doing this and for some of you you’re or not. So it’s just, you know, when it comes to how it’s just picking one thing that you can do that you can start right now and doing that can change your life. It can be whatever it is that you want it to be. So if your goal is just like, okay, I want to eat a little bit more fruits and veggies. Well, that’s a great goal because you know what, that’s, what’s going to help you in the longterm. That’s going to give you like adequate nutrition that your body is craving and that overall, yeah, no longterm, that’s, what’s going to help you decrease your risk of chronic disease. And so this journey into self care, it’s not perfect.
It’s messy. It’s crazy. Sometimes you’re going to have really good times in your life that you feel like God I’m rocking out of these health changes. And then at other times you might be like, I am failing, but all of that is normal. And so it’s just taking one tiny step today to make your life different, to make your life better, because you are deserving of it. You have one life to live and you have one body to live. And so let’s just take care of it. It does so much for us and the best way that we can honor it and take care of it is by doing these things, moving it and nourishing it for what it needs. So I hope this helps. Um, thanks for listening to help tip Tuesday. If you have any tips that you want me to cover. Yeah. You can certainly email me at info@triciaRD.com . Thanks a lot. I’ll see you guys back here next week.