Keep yourself safe and your blood sugar intact this festive season with our diabetes tips for managing your chronic condition.
Christmas time, even if you don’t celebrate it, tends to be a time of tasty treats, sweet drinks and sugary baked goods. What can we say – there’s no better way to spend time with friends and family than around a table filled with all our favourite festive foods.
However, this time of year is not especially accommodating for those with special dietary requirements. It can quickly become a time where you’re checking every meal for dangerous sugars that could send your glucose levels out of whack or spike your blood sugar to worrying levels.
If you’ve lived with diabetes for most of your life, you may feel comfortable navigating the festive season. If you’re feeling a bit nervous though, we’re here to help with these top diabetes tips!
5 Diabetes Tips for Managing during the Festive Season
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Keep up with your routine
It seems that the only exercise anybody gets over the festive season is reaching out for another sweet treat or raising a glass for another sip of sparkling wine.
We aren’t saying you can’t take a break, but is it really necessary to let go of your hard-earned routine for the sake of a yearly holiday? We’re not so sure.
Exercise is important for everybody, but it is especially important for diabetics. If you have managed to keep up with an exercise routine throughout the year, do yourself a favour and stick with it over the holidays. Not only will you enter the new year feeling fresh and ready, but your body will also thank you for keeping it safe.
Going for walks in the evening or a swim in the morning are relaxing ways to exercise whilst spending time with family and friends.
Are you feeling pressed for time and space? Check this out: Everyday Workouts: Daily habits that exercise your body without you noticing
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Prepare your own food
You don’t need to worry about offending your mother-in-law by bringing your own dish to Christmas dinner.
Many people are unaware of how many foods can be dangerous to diabetics. It isn’t just sweets and sugar – there are also sugars in carbs and fibres that could trigger a spike in your insulin levels. This isn’t their fault, they just haven’t had to monitor food the way a diabetic person has to.
If you’re worried about what dishes will be on offer, pack a snack for yourself that you know is within your limits.
One of our top diabetes tips: If the meal is prepped with things you can eat, dish up for yourself rather than letting somebody dish up for you. This way you can control what’s going on your plate and mitigate any risk.
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Test your blood sugar more often than usual
If there was ever a time to be more conscious of your blood sugar levels, the festive season is it.
Because you’re surrounded by tempting foods (that you absolutely should eat if you want to), you need to be responsible for checking your sugar levels. You may be trying foods you haven’t tried before or eating a little more sugar than usual, so it’s always best to be aware.
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Be aware of unconscious eating
Snack platters, glorious snack platters.
When there’s tons of food going around and sitting on tables, it can be easy to reach for snacks without really realising what you’re putting in your body. We’re all guilty of it, but it’s nothing to feel guilty about!
Another one of our top diabetes tips is to try and be aware of when you’re eating and what you’re eating. Food is meant to be enjoyed, and are you really enjoying it if you’re mindlessly putting one thing in your mouth after the other?
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Avoid alcohol
You don’t need to avoid it completely, but alcohol is packed with sugar and carbohydrates and can mix negatively with your medication.
Plus, this means you have less space to indulge in all the yummy foods available. If you had to compare one more slice of your mom’s milk tart to a hangover, we know which one we would choose!
Be gentle with yourself
Lastly, be sure to treat yourself with kindness and compassion. Diabetes does not mean your life needs to be restricted. It just needs to be healthier and in our books, that isn’t a bad thing.
If you slip up, that’s okay. If you fall out of routine, that’s okay. All that matters is that you listen to your body and trust yourself to know what’s best for YOU. And that will be made easier by following these diabetes tips during the festive season.
Yours in affordable and quality health insurance,
Oneplan
