Home Care in Costa Mesa CA
November 1 through 7 is Diabetes Education Week, a fantastic time for you to learn more about diabetes and your parents’ risk, and find out ways that you can help them reduce their risk for 
developing the disease throughout their home care journey. Though there are some risk factors for the disease such as age, family history, and ethnicity that you have no control over. There are others that you can control, and through simple lifestyle changes you can make a dramatic difference in your elderly loved ones’ chances of avoiding developing diabetes.
Some of the ways that you and an in home health care services provider can help your seniors make simple and approachable lifestyle changes that will reduce their chances of developing diabetes include:
• Pay attention to portion sizes. Be aware that most people eat far more than what is actually a “portion” of food. Read the labels of foods carefully to make sure that you know how much you are supposed to eat as a serving and stop at that much. As a general rule of thumb, three ounces is a good portion size for a lean protein and that is approximately the size of a deck of cards. If you purchase foods in large containers, portion them out as soon as you get home from the store so that your parents know how much to eat at a single sitting.
• Fill up with water. Give your body the hydration that it needs and reduce your cravings by drinking a large glass of water 10 minutes before eating to quell thirst signals and fill you up before you sit down to eat so you will consume fewer calories.
• Shrink your eating utensils. Eating multiple bites of something, even when the bites are tiny, tricks your brain into thinking that you have eaten a lot. Accomplish this easily by serving your food on dessert or salad plates to give the impression of there being more food than there is and using child-sized utensils to make each bite smaller.
• Fill your plate properly. When you fill up your plate at a meal distribute the food strategically to get maximum nutritional value. Fill half of it with vegetables and fruit, one quarter of it with lean protein, and one quarter of it with grains.
• Have a dance break. Schedule a 10 minute dance break into your morning and your afternoon routines to give you some extra physical activity and to boost your mood, which reduces stress.
• Challenge yourself. Appeal to the natural competitive instincts in everyone by challenging yourself to getting more physical activity into your days. Make it a goal to always use the stairs, to park at least 20 parking places into the lot, or to walk a certain number of steps each day. Once you reach those goals, set new ones and keep challenging yourself to reach them.
Get in touch with the elder care agency in your area to find out more about hiring an in home health care services provider to help you pursue your care goals of supporting your parents’ ongoing health and wellbeing, and helping them avoid developing diabetes.
If you or an aging loved one are considering home care in Costa Mesa, CA or the surrounding Orange County areas, please call us at 949-535-2211. We provide senior care services in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Laguna Woods, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo and surrounding areas of Orange County California. Contact us today to learn more.
