Diabetes Control - Effort, Not Money, Is The Key

I am Dr Chan, I can say emphatically that Money alone is never enough if one wants to fully and optimally combat diabetes. Because from my experience coaching patients with diabetes in lifestyle and eating habits change, I have seen many who wrongly think that they can use money to buy the best medical care, supplements, and superfoods to manage their diabetes, and spare them the effort to make the necessary changes to their lifestyle and eating habits. 

Watch the short video below, or read on for my thoughts on this.

Managing Diabetes - Effort to Improve Lifestyle Always Needed

Having money is useful, and sometimes even critical, in managing diabetes. But the effort to optimise lifestyle and eating habits necessary to fully combat diabetes can never be replaced by money.

When it comes to managing diabetes, money helps. Access to good medical care matters. Having money makes eating healthy easier and perhaps even more enjoyable. Having money may afford one the time to exercise regular or partake in activities to relieve stress. So yes, when it comes to tackling diabetes, money matters and helps.

But money can never substitute for effort. And effort, consistently applied to improving your lifestyle and eating habits, is the most powerful thing a person with diabetes can do for themselves. No supplement, superfood, digital health app, however advanced can take the place of effort to make and sustain the necessary lifestyle and eating habits change critical for optimal diabetes management.

You cannot medicate your way out of poor lifestyle habits. You cannot supplement your way out of poor eating habits. The medications help control blood sugar. But they do not address the underlying lifestyle and dietary habits that are driving the condition. Only effort does that.

Managing Diabetes - Why Most People Choose Money Over Effort

In my years of coaching people with diabetes, I have observed a consistent pattern. Most people are more willing to spend money on expensive medications, supplements, or superfoods than they are to invest time and effort in changing their lifestyle and eating habits.

The reason is not hard to understand. With a pill or a supplement, you take it and you are done. No further effort required. Whereas with lifestyle change, learning what to do is only the beginning. After that, you still have to do it. Every day. Consistently. Over time.

That is hard. And most people, understandably, would rather find an easier path.

But the easier path does not lead to where they want to go.

Managing Diabetes - Where Effort Matters

Why I say effort, not just money, is critical for managing diabetes optimally.

Food is medicine for diabetes. Making the effort to reduce added sugar, to cut back on high GI starchy foods, to reduce highly processed foods. These changes require effort, not money.

Exercise is medicine for diabetes. Making the effort to move regularly, to go for daily walks, to build physical activity into a daily routine. A daily walk costs nothing. But it requires showing up, day after day.

Sleep is medicine for diabetes. Making the effort to prioritise good sleep, to protect sleep routines, to recognise that poor sleep directly worsens blood sugar control and insulin resistance. Money may help to buy the best room environment and gadget that help with sleep but it does take away the effort needed to protect good sleep habits.

Stress management is medicine for diabetes. Making the effort to identify and address the stressors that are quietly driving blood sugar up, disrupting sleep, and making lifestyle change harder.

All of these need more than just money. All of them require sustained effort. And together, they are more powerful for diabetes control than anything money can buy.

Learning About Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

If you have Type 2 diabetes and are not as equipped with the essential foundational knowledge about reversing Type 2 diabetes as you should be, I have a structured online learning programme that you might find very useful. You can find out more through the link below.

Find out more about the Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: Essential Basics - Structured Online Learning Programme Here

Related Posts

• Can Type 2 Diabetes Be Reversed? Dr Chan Answers
• Lifestyle and Eating Habits: Your Most Powerful Weapon Against Diabetes
• 7 Ways Stress Affects Blood Sugar
• How Work Affects Diabetes Control

About Dr Chan Tat Hon

Dr Chan graduated from the National University of Singapore medical school in 1992. For the last ten years, his work has focused on lifestyle medicine. He works with healthcare and corporate organisations to design and deliver lifestyle behaviour change programmes, train health coaches and build communities engaged in cultivating healthy behaviours to combat diseases.

He also provides training and coaching to individuals with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, cardiovascular diseases and other lifestyle-related chronic diseases through 1-1 personalised coaching, live webinars, and online courses.

• 1-1 Personalised Coaching with Dr Chan
• Online Courses and Programmes by Dr Chan
• Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: Essential Basics Online Programme
• LinkedIn Profile of Dr Chan Tat Hon

About This Video

In this video, I ask a direct question: when it comes to tackling diabetes, is effort or money more important? I share my answer, explain why most people choose money over effort and why that choice rarely works, and break down exactly what the right kind of effort looks like across diet, exercise, sleep and stress management. I also address what this means for people with diabetes regardless of their financial situation.

Full Video Transcript

The following is the full transcript of the video above.

Tackling diabetes, which is more important, effort or money? What I mean is this. When it comes to tackling diabetes optimally, do you think it is more important to put in the effort to holistically improve your lifestyle and dietary habits, or do you think it is more important to have the money to spend to buy the best that money can buy in terms of medical care, or to buy supplements or superfoods that are purported to be good for diabetes in some way?

If you only have one choice, if you were to choose one and only one of these two, effort or money, which would you choose? Which do you think is more important? Which do you think is more powerful?

For me, I would say it is undoubtedly effort. The necessary effort, the elbow grease, the hard work to make the necessary and critical changes and improvements to your lifestyle and dietary habits as best as you could. You may have all the money in the world to buy yourself the best medical care, see the top diabetes specialist, get the most advanced digital health apps, or buy expensive supplements or superfoods to help you combat diabetes. But all that is not going to be an adequate substitute for a healthier lifestyle and diet that is critical in controlling and combating diabetes.

From my experience training and coaching people including my patients with diabetes, most people are more willing to spend money on expensive drugs, expensive superfoods or supplements, than they are willing to invest the time and money in attending lifestyle medicine or food as medicine workshops or coaching programs. Because, you know why? Because with drugs or even supplements, they think that they only need to pop the pills regularly without having to do anything, put in any effort doing anything else. Whereas after attending lifestyle medicine or food as medicine training workshops or programs, and after learning what they need to do, they would still need to put in the effort, the hard work, to make the necessary changes to their lifestyle and diet.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying having the money, the financial resources, to spend on combatting diabetes is not helpful. It is always going to be helpful or even necessary. And many people do struggle to find even enough money to pay for the basic necessary medical care for their diabetes. And also of course, diabetes can potentially be a very expensive affair, especially in the later, more serious and advanced stages of the disease, when the many serious complications of diabetes start to creep in, such as eye, kidney, heart complications, which are all potentially very serious, debilitating, and also very costly to manage. So some amount of money is definitely needed and necessary, directly or indirectly, when it comes to managing diabetes.

But what I am emphasizing is that you cannot expect that money alone is going to be the solution. Because you cannot depend on medications alone to fully or adequately control and combat diabetes. And neither can you expect to depend on superfoods, herbs or supplements, regardless of how expensive they are, to help you optimally control diabetes. Because regardless of whether you have the money to buy the best that money can buy for diabetes care, you can never run away from the need to put in the effort, to invest in the hard work, to holistically change and improve all aspects of your lifestyle and diet, whether it is your sleep habits, your exercise habits, your stress management habits, and many aspects of your dietary habits.

Many things that are critical and powerful in fighting diabetes do not require money. And even if you have the money, money cannot buy, for example, making the efforts to exercise regularly, going for daily walks, making the effort to prioritise good sleep and to manage stress, as well as making the efforts to improve your diet, such as reducing your intake of added sugar or high GI starchy foods, highly processed foods. All these are not just critical and powerful in combating diabetes, they all require effort more than they require money.

Lifestyle is medicine. Exercise is medicine. Food is medicine. Especially when it comes to combating diabetes. And there are many things we can do to improve our lifestyle and dietary habits that do not require money, and yet are powerful in controlling diabetes, in retarding the progression of diabetes, in preventing and reducing the many complications of diabetes.

If you have diabetes, do not make the mistake of thinking that money alone is enough to help you successfully combat diabetes. Regardless of whether you have a lot of money or very little money, you are still going to be able to have a good chance of adequately controlling and combating diabetes, minimizing the potentially adverse consequences of diabetes on your life. That is, provided if you make the effort to do everything that you can, everything that you are willing and able to, to improve all aspects of your lifestyle and diet.

When it comes to tackling diabetes, the most powerful medicine comes in the form of our lifestyle. Exercise is medicine. Food is medicine.

In case you are new here, I'm Dr Chan. I'm a medical doctor from Singapore. My passion is in helping people to unlock the power of their lifestyle and their dietary habits as medicine to better prevent, control and combat diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other lifestyle and diet related chronic diseases, through one-to-one coaching, through training, workshops, programs and online courses. Let Habits be Thy Medicine. Eat Well and Be Well.

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