How to Drink Healthy with Diabetes

Developing diabetes may very well mean that you’re no longer going to be able to enjoy a lax lifestyle, a lot of alcohol, and mass quantities of junk food, but those types of habits are sure to kill you whether you have diabetes or if you develop some other deadly disease. Use diabetes as your motivation to change your life. And it can all start with what you drink.

Our bodies are mostly water. The planet is mostly water. Water is the healthiest substance for you, hands down. It’s important that you’re drinking a lot of water, especially if you’re trying to boost your body’s fat-burning and sugar-regulating capabilities. Water has zero sugar or fat or any other substance that could harm you. It’s 100% healthy 100% of the time.

Caffeine isn’t necessarily bad for you if you have diabetes. In fact, some say the caffeine will actually help to boost your metabolism, which is a great thing if you have diabetes. However, the crap we put into coffee to make it more palatable can have serious effects on our bodies. All the sugar and cream and caramel and mocha we pour into coffee are all things that you should avoid if you have diabetes.

Tea, like coffee, is perfectly fine as long as you’re not loading it down with sugar. However, for tea in particular, you can really experience a wide range of benefits by drinking herbal tea. The properties of herbal tea will be beneficial to your overall health, so it’s certainly a viable option if you have diabetes.

Why skim milk instead of 2% or whole milk? It all has to do with the fat content of milk. Sugar is always your primary concern with diabetes, but the way you understand sugar is relative to how your body treats substances you ingest. For example, any carbohydrate becomes sugar, and if you have diabetes, any fats or any excess of calories will not be properly metabolized and thus will be stored as body fat.

Even if you have one of those fancy juicers at home and aren’t drinking juice from concentrate, you still have to understand that fruits and vegetables contain a lot of sugar when they’re in juice form. If you were to eat one apple, you’d be fine. But to get a full glass of apple juice, you’d be eating the sugar that’s equivalent to four or more apples. That’s just too much.

Water can sometimes get a little tedious. It doesn’t really have any taste per se. Many people find it to be very bland and boring. Well, adding a bit of lemon or lime juice in your water will really give it a nice kick without adding any unnecessary sugars.

There are plenty of different drink mixes out there that use artificial sweeteners. Just be careful, though. Some sweeteners derived from sugar may be listed as 0 carb but may still act as sugar in the body depending on some circumstances. Go with a trusted drink mix.

As with the lemon water idea, sparking water is for days when plain water is getting too boring. Sparkling water, always known as seltzer water, can give you the illusion that you’re drinking a soda. Blended with some sugarless drink mix, you can make a great-tasting soda.

Always remember that food isn’t all you need to keep an eye on when you’re dealing with diabetes. Always be aware of what you’re putting into your body, even if it’s only a drink.

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