It’s vital to ensure your blood sugar levels meet your target range, as much as possible, in order to help prevent or delay long-term, serious health problems. Many of these health complications can consist of anything from heart disease, vision loss, to even kidney disease. Staying in your target range can also help improve your energy and mood. Below we have provided essential tips and tricks to help you improve your blood sugar even if you don't have diabetes.

Portion control is one of the key ways to help control calorie intake and can help maintain a moderate weight. Accordingly, proper weight management encourages beneficial blood sugar levels and has even been proven to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Observing your portions and serving sizes can also help reduce calorie intake and lead to subsequent blood sugar spikes.

Here are some helpful tips for managing portion sizes:

• Measure and weigh portions.
• Use smaller plates.
• Avoid all-you-can-eat restaurants.
• Read food labels and check the serving sizes.
• Keep a food journal.
• Eat slowly.

Another way we can carefully monitor our blood sugar and diet is by using the glycemic index. This helpful tool measures how we absorb or digest foods, which affects the rate at which blood sugar levels rise. Both the amount and type of carbs determine how a food affects blood sugar levels. By consuming low-glycemic-index meals, you can reduce blood sugar levels, especially in those with diabetes. Although the glycemic index of foods is important, the amount of carbs consumed also matters.
Foods with a low to moderate glycemic index include:

• bulgur 
• barley 
• yogurt
• oats 
• beans 
• lentils 
• legumes 
• wheat pasta 
• non-starchy vegetables

Stress can also affect your blood sugar levels. Hormones such as glucagon and cortisol are secreted during stress. These hormones cause blood sugar levels to go up. One study showed that exercise, relaxation, and meditation significantly reduced stress and lowered blood sugar levels for students. Exercises and relaxation methods like yoga and mindfulness-based stress reduction may also help correct insulin secretion problems in chronic diabetes. 

High blood sugar (hyperglycemia) is present in one's body if you don't make enough or effectively use insulin, a hormone that regulates blood glucose and helps it enter your cells for energy. High blood sugar is associated with diabetes.

According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "13% of U.S. adults live with diabetes, and 34.5% have pre-diabetes." This implies that close to 50% of all U.S. adults have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Here are 5 easy ways to lower blood sugar levels naturally: 

Participating in regular exercise can help you maintain and increase insulin sensitivity. By increasing insulin sensitivity, your cells are able to more efficiently use the available sugar in your bloodstream. Exercise also helps your muscles use blood sugar for energy and muscle contraction. If you have problems with blood sugar management, you should routinely check your levels. This will help you learn how you respond to different activities and keep your blood sugar levels from getting either too high or too low. Some useful forms of exercise include weightlifting, brisk walking, running, biking, dancing, hiking, swimming, and more.

​Your body breaks carbs down into sugars (mostly glucose), and then insulin helps your body use and store sugar for energy. When you eat too many carbs or have insulin-function problems, this process fails, and blood glucose levels can rise. However, there are several things you can do about this. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends managing carb intake by counting carbs and being aware of how many you need. Some studies find that these methods can also help you plan your meals appropriately, further improving blood sugar management. Many studies also show that a low carb diet helps reduce blood sugar levels and prevent blood sugar spikes. What’s more, a low carb diet can help manage blood sugar levels in the long run.

Drinking enough water may help you keep your blood sugar levels within healthy limits. In addition to preventing dehydration, it helps your kidneys flush out the excess sugar through urine. One observational study showed that those who drank more water had a lower risk for developing high blood sugar levels. Drinking water regularly helps rehydrate the blood, lowers blood sugar levels, and could reduce diabetes risk. Keep in mind that water and other non-caloric beverages are best. Sugar-sweetened drinks raise blood glucose, drive weight gain, and increase diabetes risk. 

Sources: ​SingleCare Team | “What Should My Blood Sugar Level Be?” The Checkup, 11 May 2021, https://www.singlecare.com/blog/normal-blood-glucose-levels/.

​“Manage Blood Sugar.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Apr. 2021, https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/manage-blood-sugar.html.
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When you uncover a problem, it’s vital to generate a multi-step plan for healthy blood sugar levels. The most important aspects to look at are: sleep, stress, exercise, movement, and nutrition, to create an effective long-term strategy. Many individual's goals are different, and can depend on whether you want to lower blood sugar, raise blood sugar, increase insulin sensitivity, or something different altogether. If you focus on a specific goal, and put the necessary effort towards that, you can easily accomplish your desired result.

The first major step in any healthy blood sugar goal is to balance carbohydrates with protein and fat. Carbohydrates (carbs) have a major impact on blood sugar, and protein and fat slow down the rate at which those carbohydrates are broken down, thus giving you more blood sugar stability. So rather than restricting carbs right off the bat, it is more advantageous to focus on creating meals and snacks that include carbs, protein, and fat.

Often just this small change can make a big difference in helping to achieve healthy blood sugar levels. By changing someone’s breakfast to something that’s much more balanced, it encourages your body and mind to feel stable, calm, and clear-headed. It is vital to focus on the quantity and quality of carbs. For people who are showing signs of insulin resistance or other blood sugar problems, it is also recommended to pay attention to the quality and quantity of carbohydrates.

A highly recommended choice would be whole foods, because they give us fiber, which helps to slow down blood sugar release. For example you could choose sweet potatoes over gluten-free bread. By choosing carbohydrates based on the glycemic load, you'll have a measure of how much impact they’ll have on blood sugar. In terms of quantity, portion size recommendations should be individualized, but changing up portion sizes is something to consider if even high-quality carbohydrates are causing blood sugar fluctuations.

It is vitally important to determine the right foods and portions based on how your body responds. A part of blood sugar regulation is really about thinking more intuitively about meals and eating. How we feel after we eat, or how eating certain things specifically makes us feel, this dictates our personal behavior and attitude towards others. Whether we’re taking the time to eat slowly or rushing through our meals at a desk, all of these key areas provide us with really valuable data on how the process of eating impacts our bodies.

It is important to understand that everyone is different. What works for an individual and their blood sugar balance is very unique. Some people tolerate certain types of carbohydrates really well, and others don’t. For one person, a bowl of oatmeal might keep them stable for four hours. For another person, it might totally drop them two hours later. All in all this takes lots of self-experimentation, and really asking yourself those questions about how you feel from one meal to the next to figure out what works for you.

The takeaway: Your blood sugar levels can have a big impact on how you feel day-to-day, so learning to balance them through your diet, exercise, and lifestyle habits can help you feel your best and avoid future health issues. Not everyone’s blood sugar levels will react the same to changes though, so working with a holistic health coach can be valuable for determining what’s best for your body.

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Sources: ​SingleCare Team | Updated on May. 11, et al. “What Should My Blood Sugar Level Be?” The Checkup, 11 May 2021, https://www.singlecare.com/blog/normal-blood-glucose-levels/.

​“Manage Blood Sugar.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 28 Apr. 2021, https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/manage-blood-sugar.html.