Living a healthy lifestyle with diabetes
What is a "lifestyle"?
Lifestyle is the way each one of us approaches the pleasures and pressures of our world. It’s how we handle day-to-day necessities, as well as how we react to a crisis.
Lifestyle includes your attitudes and habits. It shows up in the priorities you set and the way you balance responsibilities.
Certainly, lifestyle includes such things as diet and exercise. But lifestyle also involves attitudes, including how you respond to living with a lifelong disease.
What in the world is "normal"?
What was the first thing you thought when your doctor said that you had diabetes?
If you’re like most people with diabetes, you felt different. You felt like you were no longer "normal."
That’s a common reaction. Because as you’re making changes in your life, as you’re working to adopt a healthier "lifestyle," it’s nearly impossible not to compare yourself with your family and friends who don’t live with the disease.
True, you may not be able to do everything they can without paying a price. But that doesn’t mean you’re not normal.
Keep in mind that every human being lives with boundaries.
The person without diabetes may be able to grab and eat a chocolate chip cookie without thinking twice. But sooner or later, they’ll run into their own food boundary and have to say "enough" - or suffer a stomach ache and weight gain.
Living a healthy lifestyle begins with coming to grips with your own boundaries, then learning to make them a natural and "normal" part of your everyday life.