Work as an exercise

It is well known that to live healthy we need to do regular exercise. But doing exercise in a gym to me is as weird and awful as "eating to live healthy" or "studying to get certificate". Rather I think the joy of working should be recalled and joy of  working physically is the way to exercise. But these days most of physical human work has been shifted to machines. So not much chance. But here are few of such physical work I can think for myself which no machine replaces easily and I prefer these as exercises.

1. Washing your clothes (may be in a washing machine) and then folding those up and ironing the needed ones. (1 hour a week)
2. Making your bed every morning (1 hour a week).
3. Cleaning dishes that cannot go to dish washer and putting the plates on the dish and back on the rack. (half an hour a day, i.e 3 hours a week)
4. Cleaning the car every week. (.5 hour a week)
5. Walking to nearest bus stop every day, (I take shuttle to office than drive). 40 minutes a day (i.e 3 hours a week)
6. Cooking one dish a day (1 hour a day i.e 7 hours a week)
7. Playing with your children or with your pets (.5 hour a day or 4 hours a week)
8. Vacuum the carpets (1 hour a week)
9. Cleaning the dining table every day (2 hours a week)
10. Shopping in a farmers market (.5 hour a week)

If we add these up, it becomes 20 hours a week. Some are vigorous exercise and some are stretching exercise. But all these will give you some productive labor, joy of work and you will like that things that you did didn't go waste. Some of these are at comfort of home (indoor) and some are in open air. Is this not what is balanced and wonderful. Then why are so many of us busy at Gym!

food choices to control diabetes

Basics

1. Glucose is essential for body, not evil.
2. Unbalanced high level of glucose is bad, puts pressure on body to create a balance.
3. We can take wholesome diet without compromising our taste for food.

Technical Details

Food items/ingredients can be classified with two numbers based on how soon it will provide glucose to blood and how much net calories it will provide to blood. Ideally we should be having exactly that much glucose in blood at any time, as much as we spend. We spend glucose actively by doing work, and passively (even while sleeping) by the common activities like breathing/heart beating/digesting ingested food etc. Extra high level of glucose (at any time) puts pressure on body to balance it. Extra unused ingested glucose finally becomes fat and adds to obesity/fat and other unhealthy things. The two number are

• glycemic index (GI) How soon glucose is going to be available in blood
  
• glycemic load (GL) How much glucose in total is going to be available to body.

Good links to tables with these two numbers for various food items: 

1. table of glycemic index and glycemic load
2. glycemic index and glycemic load
3. Glycemic Index Food List - Low Glycemic Index Foods
4. Carbs, Glycemic Index & Glycemic Load

Let's pick two low GI food items and see how it can be used in practice.

1. Chana Dal(aka Gram Dal aka Bengal Gram). It should not be confused with yellow split pea. A detailed description and recipes on Chana Dal. This needs cooking, can be consumed daily and is a good source of protein. Like all beans it takes time to cook and one way to cook it quick and healthy is to use a pressure cooker.
2. Pea nut. Doesn't need cooking, easily available as a fast food, the oil in it keeps hunger at bay for long time. These are rich in the healthy types of fats and are a good source of antioxidant vitamins, protein, and fiber. It is a myth that people think pea nut is cheap and tasty and hence not a good food. Rather it is one of the healthiest food in my opinion.

Note:

• It is not just ingredient, but also how we prepare the food that determines how healthy it is. For example less processing preserves the food values. e.g sprouted seeds.
• Also the taste of food depends on how fresh it is, and how fresh the ingredients are.