Taking Control with Conditioning

No one’s gotta remind you about your condition. You got it, you know it and you really are tryin’ to do something about it. So we’ll just speak on the two things that we know to be true:

1) What’s digested, how well we manage our lives and how much we move around are the most important factors in the prevention and treatment of most metabolic disorders such as diabetes and hypertension.

2) Growing up ain‘t easy.

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Diet, Stress Management and Exercise
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When you decide you’re not bringing the chips and soda home.

When you discover that “doggy bags” are not really for the doggy.

When you understand that you shouldn’t be eating at restaurants anyway.

When you let walking become your friend again.

When you begin to work at managing your stress, okay Sir?

When you make your “work out” last most of your day.

When you finally realize that you can Tivo The Late Show and watch it anytime.

When you honestly believe that vegetables and water mean as much to you as chips and beer.

When you take the time to give yourself just 30 minutes each day of no watching, listening or worrying.

Had enough? Okay, let’s move to how we’re going to start to make some of the things that make coping with diabetes and hypertension a reality.

So, diet, stress management and exercise as projects? No not really, but we would like you to consider a very old, tired and tested theorem; conditioning. Not quite like professional athletes and amateur competitors have in place, or Pavlov’s dogs, but a conditioning program thats a combination of the two or one that goes to the heart of what “conditioning” is all about:

dictionary.com: con-di-tion - verb - to put in a fit or proper state.

But also:

dictionary.com: con-di-tion - noun - a process of changing behavior by rewarding or punishing a subject each time an action is performed until the subject associates the action with pleasure or distress.

Look, if all you have to eat is rice, at the end of the working day, believe us when we say, you are sure as taxes looking forward to that rice. So fill in the blanks; the end of the day means more sustenance from your rice, so you work hard all day and you have adapted to having only rice as reward.

As far as “punishment“ in the equation, let the history of others be our guide. We know of the stories and cases.

We’ll also consider some of the other well documented avenues to winning and success, such as practice, reflection and helping others.

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Grocery Shopping is easy, I think.
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Yeah, its certainly is easy to stand behind, push and then load a metal cart while passing through a utopia of dry goods, assorted meats and dairy, cookies and candy and popcorn and chips. But please heed this caution; supermarkets are a mixed bag of tricks that can at times be a very good friend while at other times your worst enemy.

So how do we apply doing positive and constructive food shopping for diabetes and hypertension to conditioning? Easy enough, when you enter your usual supermarket, learn and memorize the path of least resistance. In other words, stay clear of the pastries section, soda and candy isles and the such, while you keep in mind why you're there to begin with, vegetables, whole foods and whole grains. Make your way through the same sections and isles each and every time you shop. It amounts to taking the same route and reaching for the same products each time. You do not have to visit every isle or even complete areas of a supermarket to do good and health-sound grocery shopping. The outer isles of supermarkets is where you find produce, meats, dairy and whole foods and grains anyway, right? Boring? Maybe, but it can make the difference between having things in the cabinets and refrigerator that you should avoid and never eat and having the necessary ingredients for a healthy and quality-of-life diet and lifestyle. If you give yourself a chance to develop good shopping habits it can become second nature and will help with the will power as well.

http://groceryshoppingfordiabetes.blogspot.com/

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I’m in the mood for food.
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Without doubt you have read, heard or seen the facts about the correlation between diet and weight, and how these two impact the health and well-being of people with diabetes and/or hypertension more than any other factor, with exercise next.

But again, if all a person has to eat is rice, after a long day at the factory, that person will look forward to their meal of only rice at dinner time. The same does hold true for anyone that limit’s the home menu by keeping only good, fresh and whole foods in the household. If and when you stop purchasing and/or accepting food that is not part of a healthy diet, regardless of a person’s present condition, you will no longer have to fight, as hard, the temptation of carb loading in the morning, fatty and salty foods in the afternoon and late night “bad” food snacking. The ideal here is to let your food dictate your eating habits as opposed to the other way around. And yes, eating is a habit, a habitual but necessary function of our involuntary impulses and driven metabolism. So voluntary, self-induced food/mood conditioning can be a positive attribute to controlling our eating habits. Can you tell yourself to eat a salad instead of a bagel? Can you convince yourself that chocolate chip cookies are replaceable by a single apple or orange? Is it really possible to change how you look at food? The answer to these and other changes in your routine and cravings is an unequivocal Yes.

A little at a time. A meal at a time. A food product at a time. Daily exercises in being in control is the key. Try simple control exercises like speaking when you didn’t want to and not speaking when you did, drinking water when your not thirsty and not drinking water right away when you realize you are, not scratching right away when you have an itch, drinking tea when you usually drink coffee, substituting syrup with un-sugared preserves or just having breakfast without either, . Don’t get us wrong here, we are well aware of how easy it is to say “just be in control”, but we are confident that with daily “control” exercises that promote willpower and self-awareness you’ll be surprised at how much you can get done and how quickly you can change what you thought is the unchangeable. By conquering bad behaviors such as succumbing to temptations, not caring and continuously procrastinating, you can win the small battles and eventually the war, at least against self inflicted quality-of-life and health issues. So begin your process of controlling your destiny and bettering your health with agreeing that now is the time. Begin with baby steps if you have to or just by changing your next trip to the supermarket and reinventing your next meal.

http://easydietfordiabetes.blogspot.com/

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Just put one foot in front of the other.
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No matter your condition, outside of a comma like state, you should move often and with purpose. There was a case of a elderly woman who decided she would take the advice of her physician and dietician to walk more. She did not want to leave the house much because her husband at the time was ill. One day while doing simple house chores she realized that from the bedroom to the laundry room was a set distance, she counted the steps. She did the same for each of her rooms to each of her rooms. She then calculated the amount of trips she would need to make between rooms throughout the house and throughout her day to equal 3 miles. It of course would take more trips than her normal routine to equal that amount, so she decided to make the effort to not put as many things or objectives in her trips as she usually did. No more overloading her carrying of simple things like the laundry or the groceries. Instead she would do multiple trips from the bedrooms and the car when loading and unloading. She would not use tubs or buckets, but instead she would ring her rags and mops in the tub or basin in the laundry room, kitchen or bathroom, which ever was furthest from where she was cleaning. The results? Lower cholesterol, blood pressure, blood-sugar, weight, and anxiety.

We just have to give our selves the opportunity to burn the fat…err…calories that keep our metabolism moving. Remember what you did as a kid? When you weren’t running you were walking, biking, skateboarding, swimming or just plain playing. You had sports, dance and physical education classes and activities. During that time your metabolism really didn’t have much the chance to slow down and neither did you care. The ideal is to keep things moving; circulatory, respiratory, digestive and musculoskeletal. A well tuned and efficient machine or engine is one that has clean and fresh fluids, a well maintained and clear air filtration and waste disposal system and well lubricated moving parts.

Do these things with the one motivation that you can be sure will benefit every aspect of your life, from work to family, to quality of life, your health.

http://groceryshoppingfordiabetes.blogspot.com/