1. Eat a low GL diet.

A ‘low glycemic’ diet won’t cause sugar spikes and that’ll keep your blood sugar even.

2. Pig out on soluble fibres.

A low GL diet includes foods like lentils, beans and chickpeas which are high in soluble fibres. Why’s that good? Because they also help eliminate excess cholesteral and fat, which helps your blood sugar balance even more.

3. Increase the good fats, decrease the bad fats.

Omega 3 fats and monounsaturated fats are the good guys. Omega 6 fats, saturated fats and trans fats are the villians in your diabetes story. The bad fats all encourage inflammation. That could be joint pain, swelling or hidden problems like inflamed arteries.

Here’s the thing though, guess what inflammation causes? Insulin resistance.

The good fats on the other hand, really are superfoods when it comes to reversing diabetes (in particular the omega 3 fats found in oily fish).

4. Eat antioxidants – lots of them.

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “Eat the rainbow”, that would certainly be true for antioxidants. Blueberries, tomatoes, mustard, broccoli and grapes are all packed full of them (careful though, grapes are also full of sugar). These antioxidants all help reduce inflammation.

5. Give your liver a helping hand.

Ideally, you want your liver to burn the excess glucose, not to store it as fat. But it has a hard time dealing with all that glucose. It literally becomes sluggish. But foods like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, sprouts, rocket and watercress all help your liver do its job and keep working hard.

And don’t forget, your liver doesn’t just break down fat, it also gets rids of any toxins too – so you really do want it firing off all cylinders.

6. Exercise.

We all know we should anyhow, but bear in mind it lowers insulin levels and helps balance blood sugar levels. What’s more, resistance exercise – like weights – makes your body more sensative to insulin, so it’s not hard to see how it helps – however much you may not want to.

7. Get more sleep and less stress.

Stress isn’t just caused by the things in life that drive you mad. Changes in your blood sugar also play a part – your body makes the stress hormone cortisol when your blood sugar is all out of whack – and cortisol increases your resistance to insulin.

That’s why a low GL diet is so beneficial: no sugar spkies means your blood sugar becomes more balanced, so less cortisol is produced, so you literally feel less stressed. And no surprises for guessing what also messes up your corisol levels – lack of sleep.

8. Dump the soft drinks.

If you wanted to get the most amount of sugar in to you, in the shortest amount of time, any fizzy drink would do the job. Trouble is, that’s exactly what you don’t want. They really are the main offenders when it comes to obesity and diabetes.

Pretty much all of them are loaded with fructose or glucose so it’s going to give you a massive sugar spike – and it’s those spikes, those increases in blood sugar, that overtime, start the imbalances. You make more and more insulin. You become more and more resistant to it. So you make even more. And then the damage starts to set in.

9. Daily supplements. Vitamins C, D and B are your friends when it comes to reversing diabetes. Vitamin D has the magical quality of reversing insulin resistance. And vitamins C and B are vital to turn sugar in to energy, instead of fat. You might think that your new low GL diet will have all the vitamins you need – but the fact is when you start the battle against diabetes, you need a much larger amount of these vitamins to kick start the fight. And besides, a daily dose of multivitamins will do you no harm whatsoever.

10. Have a look at these 5 simple life style changes that make a dramatic difference.