National Diabetes Month

Posted on: November 20, 2025

For many, November is when Thanksgiving is celebrated. With thanksgiving, comes traditional and celebratory indulgent foods. Some might have multiple thanksgiving celebrations with different family members or even the increasingly popular ‘friends-giving’ celebration. This can quickly lead to a month stocked full of indulgent eats.

Did you know that November is also recognized as National Diabetes Month? This recognition is about raising awareness about diabetes and its prevention or management.

Is it ironic that National Diabetes Month is at the same time as one of the most indulgent holidays of the year? Maybe! But I see it as a challenge of learning how we can both have the celebration of thanksgiving while simultaneously learning how to eat well during this time. Both can exist at the same time.

Let’s start with some education around diabetes. Diabetes is the 8^th leading cause of death in the U.S. Along with the diagnosis of diabetes can come other complications including kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, fatty liver disease, and adult blindness. Diabetes has a significant impact on public health and therefore is an important topic to bring awareness and solutions to.

Diabetes is known as insulin resistance. We don’t want to be resistant to insulin, we want to be sensitive to it. Insulin is a hormone whose job is to help move blood sugar inside of the cell. When we are resistant to the effects of insulin, it will be inefficient at doing its job well and blood sugar will instead hang out in the blood stream instead of getting shuttled into the cell. This is an example of when we draw our blood sugar and it’s high, the sugar has not moved into the cell where it is supposed to be.

What are causes of insulin resistance? There are several factors that can contribute to declining insulin sensitivity.

Age and muscle – There is age related reduction in muscle mass and function. In other words, we lose muscle as we age. This muscle loss is sped up with a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition. This doesn’t have to happen at the rate that it does, but we must go out of our way to hold on to our muscle and we can do this through changes in diet and lifestyle. Skeletal muscle helps to regulate glucose homeostasis, and it is important for keeping our metabolic burn alive and well. One of the reasons that diabetes can develop later in life is the combination of age-related muscle loss and being less active in older age. We can’t control aging and aging is a blessing, but we do have a say in how we age.

*TIP: We can fight to slow down age related muscle loss through targeted strength training or weight bearing exercises and activity as well as eating a diet that is rich in protein which is important for muscle growth and repair.

Diet – A diet rich in processed foods and low in fiber can contribute to systemic inflammation, gut dysfunction and insulin resistance. A poor diet over time in conjunction with shifts in body composition as discussed above, is recipe for insulin resistance developing. Because most American’s are busy and short on time, we tend to fall prey to convenience foods that are low in functional ingredients for the body. These foods are calorie dense and nutrient poor. We want to consume more whole, natural foods. Foods that are closer to their natural state will usually offer more nutritional benefit to the body because they will come with more fiber and micronutrients. Meals that offer protein help us to feel more satiated with less volume and meals with fiber help to blunt the blood sugar rise that happens with eating. A processed diet also offers fewer micronutrients like b vitamins, zinc, magnesium and others and persons with diabetes are found to be deficient in these essential vitamins and minerals.

*TIP: As a working mom myself, I also am challenged in the areas of time and budget. It might feel like it is too expensive or too time consuming to eat healthy or prepare more meals from home. Like most things in life, it takes having a plan. Creating a weekly meal plan can go a long way for making it easier to eat home prepared balanced meals. Working with a nutritionist can offer more ideas and support in this area.

Stress – We don’t give enough attention to the profound negative impacts of stress on the body. Stress can release insulin resistant hormones that will trigger the blood sugar to rise. These hormones prompt your liver to release stored glucose into the blood stream for quick energy. Studies have been done on people using continuous glucose monitors and offering real time feedback on how episodes of stress can raise blood sugar independent of eating. The nervous system taps into the ‘fight or flight’ response which will elevate cortisol and blood sugar as the body prepares to respond to a perceived threat. Chronic stress is when the body has difficulty coming out of this ‘fight or flight’ response and lives there, which makes the body continuously dripping blood sugar and this results in hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar.

Stress is a challenging topic to discuss because there are many stressful triggers in this life, and it can feel defeating when someone is advised to stop stressing when it doesn’t feel so simple. I like to talk about stress perception. This is the acknowledgement that stress exists but identifying if the stressful trigger is something within our control or not. Often, stress is triggered by events that are not within our control. Shifting the focus to things that we can do to increase the relaxation response helps us to recognize the action steps that we can take to perceive stress differently.

*TIP: Stress perception can be improved through action steps within our control such as the choice to engage in deep breathing exercises, physical activity, taking a bath, spending time with loved ones, singing, humming, coloring, meditating and many other stress reducing activities.

Physical Activity – Being more active and engaging in exercise has positive effect on blood sugar control. Continuous glucose monitors can reinforce this real time benefit that movement after a meal can blunt the blood sugar spike. Also, regular physical activity, especially activity that engages the muscles, will result in holding on to more muscle in the body which helps us to be more insulin sensitive.

*TIP: Aim to engage in intentional weight bearing exercises 3x/week and elevate heart rate through cardiovascular based exercise 3-5x/week. In addition to this, strive to overall increase movement by taking more steps in the day and particularly striving to do some movement after meals. For many that have sedentary jobs, play games with yourself to get up every hour and move. Get co workers involved and encourage each other to move through out the day regularly.

So how do you take this information and apply it to this food focused ‘thankful’ month?

Stay active!!! All month long. (and always). Consider participating in a fun turkey trot the morning of thanksgiving or go out with family for a fun game of flag football. Or simple go for a walk or engage in a more intentional workout that day.
Start the day with some meditation or stretching to slow down the mind and get yourself in a restful mindset. Especially if family time can raise stress, strive to be proactive in getting yourself into a calm state of mind.
Consider making some healthier versions of some of your favorite foods. Could you make a homemade pumpkin pie with half the amount of sugar than the store-bought option? Can you make a fruit-soaked sparkling drink to replace the alcohol or high sugar apple cider? Could your stuffing be saturated with the addition of cauliflower and brussels sprouts to crowd down the ratio of bread? There are tons of ideas on the world wide web for how to ‘health-ify’ a meal. 😊
Start with the salad! Strive to fill your plate with the low-calorie fiber filled option first and then reach for the protein next to help you feel full and satisfied. This strategy will help you to be more portion conscious for the more indulgent choices and you can enjoy tastes or small amounts rather than a high calorie portion.
Walk or move in some way after the meal. Encourage company to play a fun active game on wii fit or acting out charades before sitting down to watch something on the tube.
Consider getting a continuous glucose monitor to get real time data about what your blood sugar is doing at certain times of the day and after certain habits. This data can encourage positive habits or discourage habits that you are desiring to change.

References:

What everyone should know on tracking blood sugar levels with continuous glucose monitoring

Role of Skeletal Muscle in Insulin Resistance and Glucose Uptake – PMC