Five years ago I wrote a short blog piece for the cycling website
Veloballs about T2 diabetes and exercise, The editor Andrew Laws contacted me and told me it was the most important and interesting piece the site had published and convinced me to expand the article, it became the short self-help book Sugar Beat The Huff Post published a similar article I wrote. So on the fifth anniversary of that original article I'm sharing it here
Why Write about Diabetes
and cycling? Two main reasons, firstly doctor's suggest that cycling (along
with swimming, but I don't like swimming) is a low impact (on joints) form of
exercise that helps limit and treat the effects of Diabetes. Secondly if one newly
diagnosed Type 2 diabetic reads this and takes up cycling then I will be a
happy man.
According to
the N.H.S. T2 is becoming an epidemic A
new term of pre-diabetic has been coined for people who are edging towards the
T2 borderline, but could be pulled back from the brink if they improve their
lifestyle. There is also a train of thought that suggests if you are T2 and
change your habits soon enough after diagnosis then the effects can be
reversed.
Modern Society
doesn't help people who are susceptible to weight gain, the first problem is
that far too much sugar is put in foods.
The Guideline
daily amount (G.D.A) for sugar for an adult is 90 grammes (gms). Lets say you
had the following for your lunch, the products are the market leaders standard
products. The amount of sugar is in brackets.
One tin of tomato
soup (20gms)
One can of
'normal' Cola (35 gms)
A luxury fruit
yoghurt (18 gms)
Total 73 gms
or 81% of the sugar G.D.A. That's 81% of your daily recommend sugar intake in
one very small meal.
If you add a
few biscuits and two sugars in all your cups of coffee throughout the day then
add a Korma or sweet and sour as your evening meal then you have probably at
least doubled the G.D.A for sugar intake. Study the cola’s sugar content, it
contains nearly twelve teaspoons of sugar would you put twelve spoons of sugar
in your coffee? no of course not. Its no wonder soft drinks are called hidden
calories by dietitians on television programmes.
Add to excess
sugar in our food, the fact that we live in an affluent society. My generation,
the children born in the sixties and seventies were the first generation in
history where two elements combined to create the current epidemic. Readily
available sweets and chocolates in the shops and parents with
money to buy them I’m not wealthy I could go out right now and spend thirty quid on sweets
without causing the household budget any problem. Never before have people been
able to spend so much on unhealthy food.
Lets discuss
cycling (hoo-rah finally). Exercise is part of the treatment for T2, walking
and running will help but walking won’t get you very far in a hurry and
running, if grossly overweight can impact your joints and cause you other
problems long-term. But cycling, if you live within ten miles of work, you can
easily commute by bike and if you live in a city it will probably be just as
quick. This is where the family time juggle comes in. Its guilt free you time,
I cycle to work as often as possible.
So to sum up.... RIDE YOUR BIKE and CHECK THE SUGAR
CONTENT IN YOUR FOOD. Even if you don’t have diabetes that isn’t bad advice
for anyone, is it?
The concise self-help book Sugar Beat is available at £1.99 From Amazon Here.....
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