Special Needs - How To Live a Meatless Life and Still Make Your Doctor (or Coach) Happy
If you have an ongoing health concern like diabetes, or if you’re pregnant (or trying to conceive), or if you’re an athlete in training for a sport, you naturally have concerns about whether a vegetarian diet is your best option. The answer is – yes, if you’re eating enough of the right foods. Vegetarianism is great for keeping blood sugar under control and getting the body in peak shape, whether you hope to run a marathon or have a baby.
Doing vegetarianism as a diabetic
For diabetics, diet is the first line of defense, literally the difference between life and death. Left untreated, diabetes can cause blindness, kidney failure and even loss of the hands and feet, and it affects people of all ages. If you’re a diabetic, your doctor has already told you that your diet is the single most important weight you can manage your diabetes – a low fat, high carbohydrate and high fiber vegetarian diet is an excellent option.
Worldwide, over 30 million people suffer from diabetes. Essentially, the condition is one in which the body is unable to process nutrients efficiently. In a "normal" body, the food we eat is converted to usable energy in the form of glucose, a sugar that’s carried by the blood to all of our various functions with the help of the hormone insulin. Diabetics, however, have an imbalance of insulin – either too little or none at all – which means that the body has difficulty converting blood sugar to usable energy. This means that the glucose remains, unconverted, in the bloodstream and never gets where it’s needed, leading to fatigue, muscle pain loss of concentration and coordination and blurry vision. When someone has a hypoglycemic episode, that’s what’s going on – the amount of usable sugars in their bloodstream is too low. In extreme cases this can lead to the person lapsing into a coma, or even dying.
As a matter of controlling their blood sugar, diabetics have to keep a close eye on their diet, eating a wide variety of foods and making sure they sit down to regular meals. Carbohydrates must be watched carefully – at least half of the recommended diabetic diet must include complex carbohydrates from sources like baked potatoes, whole grain breads, vegetables and legumes. Sounds like a vegetarian diet, doesn’t it?
The vegetarian diet is so good for diabetics, in fact, that some vegetarian diabetics can transition off medication, including many who previously had to inject insulin. The level of control that vegetarianism allows diabetics allows them to feel confident that they’re eating for optimal health.
Adding a third vegetarian to the family
If you’re hoping to get pregnant, both you and your doctor want you to be in the best possible condition to insure that both you and your baby are healthy. Eating well is important before and during pregnancy – and the more of a head start you can get on good health before you conceive, the better.
Vegetarians may eat a healthier diet than omnivores, but you’ll still need to follow the same advice as meat-eaters in many respects. Take a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement for several months before you get pregnant, and make sure it offers plenty of B12 and folic acid, or folate, a B vitamin that helps prevent birth defects of the spine and brain. Get plenty of physical activity and drink lots of water, and avoid alcohol, tobacco and caffeine. Eat nutritious foods and cut back or eliminate junk food and refined sugar.
As a vegetarian, you’ll probably be in better shape than if you were eating meat, and closer to your ideal weight. You’ll also have a strong immune system now that you’re avoiding animal foods, which you’ll pass on to your baby. Just make sure that you’re getting plenty of iron – many women begin pregnancy deficient in iron, and as your body grows and you store more blood to nourish your baby, you don’t want to risk becoming anemic.
