One of my guilty pleasures a few times per week is to watch Oprah while I’m at the gym. Yesterday I got part of a show which I’ll assume was about prevention and reversal of diabetes. For those of you who are new here, part of my mission is to reverse the trend and rates of heart disease and diabetes in midlife women so I paid attention to what the guests–Dr. Oz, Bob Greene, (Oprah’s trainer), and Dr. Ian Smith–had to say. (Art, Oprah’s former chef made a guest appearance as proof that you can reverse diabetes. He’s lost something like 90 pounds and transformed his cooking in the process)

Bob Greene has a new book out, The Best Life Guide to Managing Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes. He is co-author along with Dr.Jack Melendrino and Janis Jilbrin MS, RD. I’ve yet to buy the book–I disagree with Bob on many aspects of his programs–but will pick it up. Whether Bob and I see eye to eye over butter vs margarine–he touts it and I say it’s plastic and dangerous–is unimportant if his program and celebrity gets the word out that people can reverse diabetes and/or prevent it. There is one thing he told a group of women, who all looked more than well fed and heading for or suffering from diabetes, and it was this:

Exercise is non negotiable!

Amen to that! Most of you reading this are already believers in the power of movement. If there are any of you who doubt that exercise is a life saving, life extending, cure-what-ails-you kind of thing, I invite you to change your thinking. Even daily walking can change your physiology and contribute to better health.

With diabetes and pre-diabetes it is even more important that you move your muscles, get your heart pumping, and blood flowing. Exercise moves blood sugar where it needs to be which gets it out of your bloodstream. While you are exercising insulin cannot be produced so you give your body a rest from the insulin storm produced by too much blood sugar. Your blood sugar levels go down naturally. If you need to, you will most likely lose weight.

This is not a plug for Bob’s book, as I said, I don’t own it yet. From the reviews I’ve read I know I’ll have other issues outside of some of the foods given the Best Life Seal. Rather, it is a plug, no, a plea, for all of the women reading this to move your parts! I don’t want to have to drag you all kicking and screaming into a long, happy life . And since that’s impractical how about I just beat this subject to a mind numbing pulp by repeating it–you’ve got to move it move it!

I also don’t want to see you too sick to kick and scream. Diabetes is not simply a sugar issue. It is a disease with debilitating and often horrible consequences. By the time a person is diagnosed with diabetes they have had the condition for years. High blood sugar and insulin resistance have been battering your heart, kidney’s, nerves in the eyes and feet. Shall I go on? Drugs come with their own set of complications and who wants to test their sugar 2 – 6 times per day?

Exercise is not the only lifestyle change that must become a regular part of your life to prevent or turn back the diagnosis of diabetes but it is an important one.

As Bob told the church ladies–many of whom were midlife–Exercise is Non-negotiable. Love you Bob, margarine and all, thanks for getting the word out.