A diagnosis of type 2 diabetes doesn’t need to ruin your life; in fact, it can change it for the better. With the right lifestyle changes, you can even avoid taking diabetes medication. These type 2 patients share how they cook, exercise, and relax their way to better health.
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Speaker 1: I used to live to eat.
Speaker 2: In my last 18 years, I gained about 140 pounds.
Speaker 3: Eating sugar and pastries.
Speaker 4: A Häagen-Dazs rum raisin. It's like, can I mainline it? Not anymore.
Speaker 1: I learned that you are what you eat. Your body's gonna do to you what you do to it.
Speaker 5: I never want to have to get to the point of injections. I would like to beat it. I would like to find a way to never be on medication.
Speaker 3: Find some way of exercising once or twice a week, and just gradually build up. I'm either walking-
Speaker 6: Walking-
Speaker 4: Power walk.
Speaker 7: Dancing-
Speaker 3: Swimming
Speaker 4: Lifting weights.
Speaker 5: Yoga and meditation
Speaker 2: Meditate-
Speaker 4: Find an exercise that you like that keeps you motivated.
Speaker 6: I controlled it for a long time just by eating healthy foods.
Speaker 7: Having steamed food.
Speaker 8: Portion control.
Speaker 9: Carb counting.
Speaker 10: Cookbooks.
Speaker 3: Reading labels.
Speaker 9: Eating regularly throughout the day.
Speaker 3: It changed my diet, and I found by changing the diet, I had a lot more variety.
Speaker 6: They told me I would never be off insulin or be off pills.
Speaker 7: I then came off metformin, because I had lost all the weight.
Speaker 6: And through diet and exercise, I got off everything. I was able to control it.
Speaker 4: Now, that's what I'm doing, and I'm really enjoying it. And I love seeing the progress.
Medical Reviewers:William C. Lloyd III, MD, FACS Review Date:08-13-2015