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Hypoglycemia is a medical condition in which blood glucose levels are lower than normal. There are two types of hypoglycemia. The first type is called organic hypoglycemia. It can be caused by other disorders such as a tumor or liver disease. The best way to deal with organic hypoglycemia is to treat the underlying cause of the disease. The second type is reactive hypoglycemia. This type occurs when the body has a hard time regulating glucose levels in the blood. In certain individuals, food is broken down too quickly, resulting in an overload of glucose in the bloodstream. In response to this, their bodies overreact when trying to get rid of the excess glucose, causing blood sugar levels to plummet, resulting in hypoglycemic symptoms. The best way to treat reactive hypoglycemia is to modify the diet.

Some foods break down in the body more slowly than others. Incorporating these foods into the diet will help those suffering from reactive hypoglycemia to maintain balanced blood glucose levels. The following is a list of foods that can help control hypoglycemia.

1. High Protein Foods

Foods such as beef, pork, lamb, turkey, chicken, eggs and nuts are high in protein. High protein foods break down slowly in the body, which helps to keep blood sugar levels stable. Choose lean cuts of meat to keep excess calories at bay.

2. Complex Carbohydrates

Complex carbohydrates are foods such as whole grain breads and pastas, brown rice, tubers and vegetables. These foods are digested more slowly than simple carbohydrates like white flour and sugar.

3. High Fiber Foods

Focusing on high fiber foods will help to keep blood glucose stable. Some of the best high fiber foods are vegetables, some fruits and legumes. Broccoli, bell peppers, spinach, cucumbers, carrots, apples, berries and beans are all good sources of fiber.

4. Healthy Fats

Eating a moderate amount of healthy fats with your meals and snacks will help to prevent spikes and subsequent falls in blood sugar. Choose monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as avocados, olive oil and nut butters.

Maintaining a balanced diet that includes all of these food groups, in the right proportions, is the best way to deal with symptoms of hypoglycemia. Try to shoot for a ratio of 35 to 45 percent complex carbohydrates, 25 to 35 percent protein and 25 to 35 percent fat. Keep to this ratio for every meal and snack that you consume throughout the day.

An overall plan for 30 to 45 minutes of cardio three to four times a week, strength training (including the exercises below) two to three times a week, and a day of rest every week so your body can rebuild muscle. 

Your initial goals will be weight loss and trimming down the fat. Once you’ve done that — or at least made significant headway — you can start to tone the muscles underneath your love handles. As you burn fat and increase your metabolism through building muscle, that extra padding will eventually go away.

Before you get started, a caution for women who may have a diastasis, a midline split in the abdominal muscles around the bellybutton, usually a post-pregnancy problem. First, check with a doctor and a trainer for ways to correct the diastasis and then get their go-ahead to do this type of ab workout.

5 Exercise to Burn belly Bulge

Make these five exercises part of your plan to tone waist and hips:

1. Bicycle Crunches: This exercise will work your internal and external obliques as well as the rectus abdominis [the largest ab muscle]

• Lie on your back, knees bent.
• Place hands behind your head without interlacing your fingers. Lift your head slightly.
• Twist so that your left elbow goes toward your right knee while you extend your left leg.
• Pull your leg back in and extend the other leg, twisting so that your right elbow goes toward your left knee.
• Build up to 3 sets of 25 reps each.

2. Standing Trunk Twists

• Stand with your feet about hip-width apart.
• Keep hips and legs facing forward as you twist to the right, extending your left arm out (like a punch) to the right.
• Twist in the opposite direction (left), extending your right arm out in a punch to the left.
• Aim for 100 repetitions.

3. Lying Leg Twist

• Lie on your back with your arms stretched out to the sides, hands flat on your mat.
• Lift legs and bend knees so that your calves are parallel to the floor and your thighs form a 90-degree angle with your torso.
• Lower both legs together to one side so that your outer right thigh touches the ground on the right side, maintaining the 90-degree angle.
• Return them to center and then lower to the other side so that your outer left thigh touches the ground.
• Build up to 3 sets of 25 reps each.

4. Side Planks: This exercise strengthens your core, in the front and the back

• Lie down on your right side, leaning on your elbow.
• Extend your legs out straight, with your feet stacked. The edge of your right foot should be on the floor.
• Use your core to hold your body up in a straight line (you can modify it by putting your right knee down on the floor if you need support). Hold for 20 to 30 seconds, or longer if you can.
• Lower yourself fully to the floor and switch sides.
• For added challenge, lift the top leg and hold it up so that it is not touching the bottom leg.
• Holding each side for about 30 seconds, do four or five reps, and increase as you get stronger.

5. Seated Russian Twists

• Sit on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat.
• Hold your arms out in front of you, hands pressed together.
• Lean back about 45 degrees. With a slow, controlled movement, twist to your left side. Return to center, and twist to your right. That’s one rep.
• One full rep should take about 20 seconds. Take a breath and repeat. Start with four to five reps, adding more reps as you get stronger.
• For an added challenge, lift your feet off the floor as you do this exercise.

You shouldn’t have to wait too long for results, If you eat a healthy, low-fat diet, burn more calories than you take in, and enjoy a good mix of cardio and ab workout time, you’ll watch your love handles start to melt away within a few weeks.

With type 2 diabetes, what you eat can make a big difference in your health and how well you manage your disease. The good news is that our concept of the best diet for diabetes has changed in recent years, moving away from rigid standards. “There’s a lot of leeway now,” notes Amy Campbell, MS, RD, manager of clinical education programs at the Joslin Diabetes Center, a research organization affiliated with Harvard Medical School.

For instance, one of the top misconceptions about diabetes is that you have to worry only about sugar. “Back in the ’80s and ’90s, people with diabetes were told, ‘You can eat starches, but don’t eat sugar,’” Campbell explains. “Now we know that our bodies turn all carbohydrates, whether they come from sugars or starches, into blood sugar.”

Choose Carbs Wisely

We’re also learning that a strict low-carb diet isn’t necessarily the answer either, as many people find it difficult to stick with such a limited diet over the long haul. People with diabetes can enjoy moderate amounts of carbohydrates and still maintain good blood sugar control. “About 40 to 45 percent of your calories can come from carbohydrates,” advises Campbell. Of course, it’s best if those carbohydrates come from healthy sources, such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and more specifically from nonstarchy vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, and spinach and high-fiber starches such as brown rice, quinoa, and beans. Campbell also recommends spreading out your carb intake over the course of the day. Try to eat 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per meal and 15 to 30 grams per snack.

Go for Good Fats

Another diabetes diet myth is that you should eat little or no fat. Not true, says Campbell. “Now we know we need some fat in our diets and that not all fat is bad,” she explains. The ideal diet for diabetes includes low to moderate amounts of fat, comprising up to 35 percent of your daily calories. However, the majority should come from healthy vegetable fats — fats that, unlike butter, are liquid at room temperature, such as canola oil and olive oil. Nuts, avocados, and fatty fish like salmon also provide good fats. At the same time, you want to limit butter and other foods high in saturated fats, including fatty red meat and full-fat dairy products, to protect your heart. Diabetes makes you more than twice as likely to have heart disease as people without diabetes, Campbell says.

Also avoid trans fats, often found in stick margarine and processed foods such as store-bought cakes, cookies, and crackers. “They can raise your bad cholesterol and lower your good cholesterol,” notes Campbell. “The good news is that a lot of manufacturers have taken trans fats out of their foods.” Read labels carefully and avoid products that include “partially hydrogenated oils” in their ingredients list, even if they list 0 grams trans fat on the Nutrition Facts Panel. These foods contain trace amounts of trans fats that can add up over time.

Be Picky With Proteins

Lean protein is an important part of any diet. “You want to choose low-fat meats and cheeses and white-meat poultry without the skin,” Campbell says. Try adding fish a few times a week, as well as vegetarian protein sources like tofu. Think of protein as a secret weapon: It has the advantage of keeping you fuller longer — meaning you’ll eat less — and it helps preserve your lean muscle mass, Campbell adds.

Don’t Forget Portion Control

Even the healthiest diet needs to come with limits. Many people with type 2 diabetes are overweight. “If you eat too much of anything, even healthy foods, you gain weight,” Campbell says.

The best way to lose weight, if you need to, is to eat less and exercise more so that you burn more calories than you eat. According to the Diabetes Prevention Program of the National Institutes of Health, even a small amount of weight loss can improve blood sugar control. Modest weight loss may also prevent someone who is pre-diabetic from developing diabetes, explains Campbell.

Following a diabetes-friendly diet does not mean that an occasional treat is out of the question. If you’re going to have a slice of cake though, Campbell says, keep it small. Plus, don’t forget to work it into your total carb count for the day by cutting back on carbs elsewhere.

Above all, keep in mind that no single diabetes diet is recommended for everyone. You may need to experiment to see what level of carbs, proteins, and fats works best for you. Check your blood sugar regularly and keep a diary of what you eat. “It can help you see that when you eat 6 cups of spaghetti, your blood sugar goes higher,” Campbell says. “If you don’t know where your blood sugars are, then you won’t know what to eat.”

Nearly 26 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, one of the unfortunate results of our country’s obesity epidemic. The good news is that a healthy diet, exercise, and prescription medications help many people with diabetes keep their blood sugar levels in check. Like all medications, however, diabetes drugs have side effects, which has led many people to consider complementary and alternative therapies.

Alternative Therapies and Treatments for Type 2 Diabetes

Acupuncture. Although evidence is limited to support acupuncture as an effective method for controlling blood sugar or glucose, this ancient form of Chinese medicine has been shown to help with weight management, a key component to reducing the risks of diabetes. Initial studies suggest that traditional manual acupuncture as well as electroacupuncture, in which needles are used to direct weak electrical currents to pressure points, and transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation, wherein needles are used to apply pressure but are not inserted into the skin, may effectively help to control appetite in overweight individuals.

Massage. People with type 2 diabetes may benefit from professional or self-administered massage. Besides helping to reduce stress, some studies suggest that massage can help normalize blood glucose levels and help with symptoms of diabetic neuropathy, but more research is needed in this area.

Vitamins. Dr. Ye recommends that people with type 2 diabetes take a multivitamin to meet the daily demands of the body. In particular, diabetics should make sure they are getting enough calcium and vitamin D. “Patients with diabetes may lose calcium quickly, which causes bones to lose density and fracture easily. So it is important to eat enough calcium and vitamin D, or take supplements,” Ye says.

Other supplements. People with diabetes may consider other dietary supplements to manage blood sugar or reduce the risk of diabetes-related complications, such as heart disease. Some common supplements taken for diabetes include alpha-lipoic acid, polyphenols, and omega-3 fatty acids.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment: The Tried and True

Even if CAM doesn’t appeal to you, these lifestyle changes, proven over and over again as the keystones of a healthy life, can help you manage diabetes:

Exercise. One of the most commonly agreed upon, scientifically supported natural therapies for type 2 diabetes is physical exercise. “It has been proven in many studies that exercise is good for limiting body weight, preventing type 2 diabetes, and reducing cardiovascular risk,” says Ye. Staying active is a drug-free way of managing glucose — exercise not only burns calories but also increases the body’s sensitivity to any insulin it still makes, both of which lower blood glucose.

Diet. Research has also shown that being conscientious about food is especially critical for diabetes. “People with type 2 diabetes should eat a low glycemic diet, meaning less starch and more enriched protein and fiber,” advises Ye. “When starch is digested, it becomes glucose, which gets into the blood” and indirectly increases blood sugar levels, making diabetes that much harder to control.

There are many unknowns regarding complementary and alternative therapies for type 2 diabetes, but with the increasing incidence of this condition, there is a growing recognition that additional treatment strategies are needed. If you have type 2 diabetes and are interested in alternative medicine, keep eating right, exercising, taking your medication, and talk to your doctor about whether any complementary therapies may also help you.