Pre-Diabetes and Dietary Advice for Weight Loss

Given a recent study on weight gain during the pandemic, we look at conventional wisdom advice on dealing with weight gain and the omnipresent menace of diabetes.

A recent UCSF study tracking 269 people between February 1 – June 1, 2020, found that US adults gained an average 0.59 lbs (0.27kg) for every 10 days spent in lockdown (insdr). About 61% of US adults reported unwanted weight gains since the pandemic started, which is scary, considering that USA was already the most obese country and everybody else is in a race to catch up and surpass it. It seems that stress has been going through the roof while people were unable to exercise as they used to. There has been a boom in “home exercise” contraptions, but that is clearly not as useful as revisiting old advice on diet.

There are many signs that indicate that one should be concerned about diabetes, the most obvious being obesity. Even without monitoring weight, increased abdominal fat is an obvious sign that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Leslie Beck imparts the following advice (tgm-prediab):

• choose whole grains: “One-hundred-per-cent bran cereals aren’t technically whole grain since they contain only the bran portion of the grain. But since they’re a concentrated source of fibre that’s lacking in refined cereals, they’re good choices. Plus, they have a low glycemic index.”
• add magnesium-rich foods: “pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, hemp seeds, tempeh, tofu, black beans, chickpeas, lentils, cooked spinach, Swiss chard and 100-per-cent bran cereal”
• limit added sugars: “Some brands of ‘no added sugar’ jams, for example, have 5 g of sugar (one teaspoon worth) per serving from fruit juice concentrate, an added sugar.”
• be active: “Aerobic exercise, high-intensity interval training and resistance training have been shown to improve insulin sensitivity in prediabetes.” – at least 150 min / week

We have had some moderate success with a few apps for abs training at home, though we found them full of ads and not exactly suitable for cardio. It is particularly jarring that swimming pools are closed everywhere. As much as some of us hate running, that may very well be the best candidate for regular cardio exercise.

Sources / More info: tgm-prediab, insdr-0.5lbpr10days, apa-stress, hl-prediab, vhl-3rsns, oac-prediab

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