One in three adults here in the UK might develop diabetes in the future so in this week's video
we're looking at diabetes we're looking at why we need to keep our Blood Sugar Levels down to
remain healthy we're going to look at what is a healthy blood sugar and also we're going to
look at how to lower that blood sugar level to keep you healthy now before we begin i just want
to say if anyone watching this video is planning on making some really big drastic changes to try
and bring their blood sugar levels down please please please first speak to your health care
professional and make them aware of this this is the most important thing before we begin also if
you have diabetes type 1 or type 2 if you're going to do any of these changes make your healthcare
professional aware of this please now i appreciate you all have busy lives and this is going to be a
relatively long video full of information but if at any point you want to find any specific
piece of information please feel free to click on that description below it's all chaptered you can
find the information that you require go to it and watch it however i would always recommend that you
watch the full video because that way you're gonna become a pro let's begin so let's begin with blood
sugar levels you see if you're diabetic or if you're pre-diabetic it generally means that most
of the time your blood sugar levels are quite high this high blood sugar level can cause damage to
your blood vessels and this is especially apparent in those narrow blood vessels such as to your eyes
to your kidneys to your fingertips to your toes these are all quite narrow and eventually over
time this high blood sugar level is going to cause damage to those blood vessels and we see things
that are quite common in diabetes for example you lose your eyesight your kidneys deteriorate you
start to lose your feelings in your tips of your fingertips or on your toes these are quite common
so as you can see it's super important that your sugar levels remain stable so relatively
low within the normal range because it can cause so much damage like your kidneys like we said
over time they're gonna deteriorate and having diabetes having these high blood sugar levels
can then increase your risk of things like heart attacks and strokes and you really don't want that
so the question is what kind of sugar levels are we looking for what kind of blood glucose levels
are we looking for that's just a fancy word for the sugar levels in the blood well we're looking
for something between four to seven millimoles at normal times okay this is before you've eaten
please remember these are the measurements that we use in the uk in different countries i know
you use different measurements so i will leave conversions in the description below so four to
seven millimoles is considered normal and after you've eaten after two hours if you then take
your blood sugar levels with the the strip and everything like that it should be between 8.5 to 9
millimoles so it should have dropped back down to that kind of range however please do remember the
readings that we expect for type 1 diabetics and type 2 diabetics are different and i will leave
more information and some useful links in the description below about this now another really
useful method for testing your blood sugar levels is checking something called your hba1c this is a
blood test we send the bloods to the lab and they calculate this it's your hba1 so you can't do it
at home using a test strip and the fingerpricker thing that does not calculate that so hbo1c
the way it works is it gives us a real average outlook of how your blood sugar levels have been
over the past three months and the reason i say over the past three months is it works by
checking your red blood cells and how much sugar are stuck to them red blood cells generally have
a lifespan of three months so that's why i say three months so it gives us an average indicator
of how how high or how low your blood sugars have been and ideally here in the uk we want everyone's
hbo1c to be below 42 that is the threshold so anything below 42 is pretty good anything above
42 to 47 is what we call pre-diabetic and anything above 47 we're then looking at diabetes diagnosis
but then you'll have to speak to healthcare professional to go through all that with you
so that's just a brief overview of hba1c so now that we know the background we know about
the lab test we know about the results we know why we need to keep our blood sugar levels low
let's look at how you can keep those blood sugar levels low as i said at the start of the video
i'm going to say again if you do plan on making any significant changes please do speak to your
healthcare professional first make them aware that you're doing this and this is especially important
if you're diabetic whether you're type 1 or type 2 and you're taking medication for your diabetes
you really really need to let them know that you're doing this because otherwise your blood
sugar levels might drop too low and we definitely don't want that okay so the first tip that i want
to give you it's pretty basic but it's probably one of the most important things that you need
to do and it's all about what you eat first of all do not skip meals skipping meals is really
really bad because what happens you end up getting really really hungry and you end up binging really
quickly loads of food and we get this massive sugar spike what you want to do is have your
set meals every single day three meals a day and also you really want to pick foods that break down
slowly the slower the food breaks down the longer it releases that energy in your body
and the lower that sugar spike is going to be it's going to be more steady instead of a spike
when you eat loads and loads of food now the sort of foods that we eat need to be foods that are
high in fiber protein or complex carbohydrates and we're going to go through these now so initially
i was going to list a few foods that are good for this that are high in fibers that high in complex
carbohydrates that break down slowly but i think the best way to do it is hopefully it's already
here there's going to be a box here with all the sort of foods that are good for this they're gonna
give us that slow release that we're looking for that's the most important thing we want
that slow release and not that massive peak that we just spoke about now the best high protein
foods include things like fish chicken eggs nuts low-fat yogurts low-fat cheeses these things are
good in proteins what you really don't want to have is canned foods ready meals cured meats
these sort of things are not very high in these proteins but also they're excessively high in salt
now whilst we're on the topic of salt it's also important that you keep your blood pressure in
check i do have a few videos on this topic as well which i will leave links to appear and
in the description below but in terms of salt we're looking at a daily intake of six grams
maximum okay so have a look at the foods that you're eating look on the back of them see how
much of your total salt intake is in there this is really important you're also following this
now the next thing i want to discuss is fats it's usually something that we shy away from we don't
talk about it enough but it's all about eating the right fats and fats are important because certain
vitamins are actually fat soluble so we need the fats to be able to absorb them such as vitamin a
vitamin d vitamin e so it's quite important we're having the right fats for example avocados nuts
seeds oily fish olive oil all of these have good fats that are okay for us obviously in moderation
but they're good for us now to keep those sugar levels low we also need to stay away from those
processed foods those sugary foods that are all processed that are bad for us that you end up
snacking on these are notoriously bad for keeping those sugar levels down such as donuts biscuits
cakes all of these sort of things that also contain saturated fats or even trans
fats which are all notoriously bad for us but they're also going to increase our sugar levels
so we need to try and replace these if you are having a lot of these kinds of snacks
with healthier options so we can look at replacing these snacks that are unhealthy and that are
bringing our sugar levels high with healthier options for example fruit vegetables chop them
up into small pieces have them there ready so when you've got those cravings for a snack
you can quickly turn to that instead of that snack drawer keep that snack drawer away don't buy them
try not to buy them keep them somewhere that's difficult to reach so it's not easy to access them
whenever you want these are the sort of things that you can do i will leave more information on
different snack ideas as well in the description below and if you'd like to put sugar in your tea
and your coffee whatever try sweeteners instead such as xylitol for example they don't have as
much as an impact in increasing your sugar levels your blood sugar levels compared to normal sugar
so these can be quite useful as well to bear in mind now moving on to the next topic for keeping
those blood sugar levels down weight how is your weight if you're overweight it's going to be a
lot harder to keep those blood sugar levels down you've got the visceral fat around your tummy all
of these can cause an increase in your blood sugar levels so we need to look at losing weight if you
are overweight a really good quick way to check if you are overweight or if your normal range
is to check your bmi i'm going to leave a bmi calculator in the description below
it's really easy to use you put your weight your heart your gender in it calculates it
it tells you if you're overweight underweight normal weight whatever the status is now if you
are overweight and you're interested in losing weight i do have quite a few videos on this topic
which have had millions of views um helping loads of people around the world to lose weight
so if you want more information on them i will leave links them up here and in the description
below looking at easy methods for you to lose weight okay so i feel like we're starting to
get somewhere now we spoke about dietary advice we spoke about snacking healthy we spoke about bmi we
spoke about weight management and all these things that are going to help reduce our sugar levels but
the next thing i want to talk about is exercise look we all know exercise makes us feel great
makes us look better it makes it stronger but the other thing that it does is it helps keep those
sugar levels down which is what we wanted to do to reduce all those risk factors that we spoke about
earlier now for all adults it's recommended that we do 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise
per week and if you divide it up it works out at about 21 minutes per day of moderate intensity
exercise now if you're wondering what are these model intensity exercises there should be a box
appearing here you can have a look at it see what fits you best and do them however please remember
moderate intensity exercise also includes walking it includes hoovering includes tidying up at home
it includes walking up and down the steps all these things are included in that 150
minutes total weekly exercise that we need to do now another thing i want to mention
is hydration we need to be aiming for about six to eight glasses of water in total per
day this is going to be really helpful for helping to keep those blood sugar levels down and keeping
us healthy and hydrated please also remember that tea your coffees they also contribute to this it's
not just water any of your drinks that you have in like this apart from alcohol do contribute to this
but whilst we're on this note it's important to remember that if you're having lots of fizzy
drinks if you you're having milkshakes if you're having sports drinks boba tea bubble tea whatever
kind of tea like that that are all really high in sugar it's not going to be helpful for us to keep
those sugar levels low we need to be aiming for more water on its own if you want to give it some
flavor put some lemons in it if you want to have some tea try and have it without the sugar but if
you really need it to be sweet or your coffee to be sweet you can try sweeteners instead like we
spoke earlier but it's important you're aware of these because all of these are going to contribute
to that increased sugar level and that increase hpa1c that we spoke about earlier another thing i
want to mention is alcoholic beverages for example a pint of cider can contain up to five teaspoons
of sugar and a lot of alcoholic drinks contain a lot of sugar they contain a lot of calories
which again are not going to be helpful for losing weight and also they're not going to be helpful
for bringing down those sugar levels so please bear this in mind remember that the recommended
number of units per week for an adult is 14 units you also need to have alcohol free days if you
want more information on this and cutting down i will leave more information in the description
below i also have a video on this topic which i'll leave a link to appear as well moving on to the
next topic that i want to discuss to reduce your blood sugar levels sleep it's super important that
we are getting a minimum of seven to eight hours preferably eight hours of sleep per night and
good quality sleep when we sleep it gives our body time to do this maintenance work okay the handyman
will come in do the maintenance work and it's gonna drop down those sugar levels as well so
we need to make sure we're getting enough sleep you need a good sleep cycle all of these things
are going to help if you want more information on how to get better sleep if you struggle with
sleep at all i have got a few videos on this topic as well which again i will leave up here
and in the description below meditation is also something that can be quite good for this as well
in reducing our sugar levels because if you're always stressed and you're stressing out it's
going to increase our cortisol which can increase our blood sugar levels because we're going to eat
stuff that's not really good for us and all that stress is going to cause all of these problems as
well so try the meditation five to ten minutes a day it's really easy to do i'll leave some useful
links about meditation as well in the description below if you're interested now it's important to
remember that sometimes your blood sugar levels might be too high and it's important that you do
speak to your healthcare professional there are a few symptoms and signs that i want you to be aware
of i'm hopefully gonna have a box pop up here and there's gonna be some information on here feel
free to pause the video give them a read if any of these apply to you please make an appointment
to speak to your healthcare professional that is the most important thing so it looks like we're at
the end of the video i really hope you found this information helpful you're now a bit of a diabetes
pro you now know about how to lower those blood sugar levels and you know about the risk factors
and you know about testing and what ranges we're looking for for good blood sugar levels or blood
glucose levels whatever you want to call it so i really hope you found this information
helpful please leave a comment below as well if you've got any of your own tips i'd love to read
it i'm sure people watching this video would too and as i always say always remember that you're
awesome and i will see you next week hey guys thanks for watching this week's video make sure
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