Up until the age of 40, most people feel immortal. This is not so strange, because chronic diseases hardly occur under the age of 40. However, the run-up to these chronic diseases starts at a young age, when you can still take on the whole world. In this blog, we investigate how a preventive health check can make you the conductor of your own health again.

Health check

A health check is a test to check how healthy you are. You are healthy when you: “Are in a state of complete well-being, in which there is no physical injury or disease.” Importantly, this concerns preventive health that is not currently causing any problems.

Why should you do a health check?

A health check catches problems at an early stage. Of course, you can't prevent everything, there's also a factor of bad luck. But in most cases, early detection of health problems means that you positively change the final stages of these diseases. That is to say, they are less serious. Vincent Bastiaans, a movement scientist at the expertise centre for health, sports and work HAN SENECA, says: "If you check the status of someone's health and how that health is developing in a reliable, good and valid way, then we catch many problems". An additional advantage is that you ultimately reduce healthcare costs. A point of criticism from healthcare, for example, is that it increases the pressure on healthcare, because you get people for treatment sooner in the short term. However, the treatment trajectories become shorter, according to Vincent Bastiaans.

Type of health check

Health checks come in all shapes and sizes. From measuring your height and weight, calculating BMI, filling out questionnaires to an InBody scan at Happy Bodies. You can of course measure everything, but the most important indicators for your health are:

• Check your lifestyle
• Check your cholesterol; and
• Check your blood pressure.
• Check your blood sugar levels.

Health Netherlands

The Netherlands has many chronically ill people. Of all people over 40, 50% even have a chronic disease. The biggest culprits are:

• Diabetes
• Cardiovascular diseases
• High cholesterol
• High blood pressure
• Cancer
   

Add to that the fact that 50% of the Netherlands is overweight and a significant part of that is even obese. A large part of the chronic diseases can be traced back to that. Overweight can be traced back to our consumer society combined with a sedentary existence. We already wrote about this last week, with a few steps a day you can already achieve enormous health benefits.

The solution

The good news is that you can prevent 80% of the chronic diseases with a healthy lifestyle. Sports are a perfect remedy for high cholesterol and high blood pressure. At Happy Bodies we are happy to be part of the solution. Focused on the 40+ to grow old fit and vital. No, you do not have to exercise 5 times a week. Once every 5 days is enough.

If losing weight were a sport, it would be the most popular sport in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, for most, if not all, people, losing weight is a necessary evil. Sometimes it's purely aesthetic, but more often than not, it's truly essential for health. While everyone associates losing weight with nutrition and exercise, almost no one knows that stable blood sugar levels are the secret to a healthy weight. Curious how that works? Read on.

In this article

• What is your blood sugar level?
• Risks of high or low blood sugar levels
• Losing weight with unstable blood sugar levels
• Tips for stable blood sugar levels

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What is your blood sugar level?

Your blood sugar level is a measure of the amount of sugar in your blood. You're probably thinking, "Ugh, sugar in my blood?" But that's not how it works. Your body needs fuel to function. Energy is burned for all the tasks you perform, including unconscious tasks like breathing, digestion, and your heartbeat.
Your body gets this energy from several sources, but the most common are:

1. Glycogen stores (fast energy, stored in your muscles)
2. Fat reserves

To maintain our energy levels, we need to eat enough. In our current society, that's not the biggest problem. A bigger challenge is getting the right food, but more on that later.

Fuel for your body

Food is, of course, our fuel. But our diet consists of various macronutrients and micronutrients. Today, we'll focus on macronutrients, and more specifically, carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are very important for our bodies; they provide essential sugars.
It works like this:

1. When you eat, carbohydrates are converted into glucose by your body.
2. Glucose is a form of sugar that provides your cells with energy
3. Your blood transports the glucose through the body
4. If you have too much glucose in your body, your pancreas produces insulin.
5. This insulin binds to the glucose and ensures that it is removed more quickly.

Risks of high or low blood sugar levels

High Blood Sugar

High blood sugar means there's too much glucose in your blood. An ideal level is between 4 and 7 mmol/liter. Above 7 mmol/liter, we call it high blood sugar, or in medical terms, hyperglycemia (hyperglycemia).
In our consumer society, high blood sugar is a common problem. This is because we eat so many processed foods, which are primarily composed of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are very important for you, but we (unconsciously) eat so much of them that we constantly have high blood glucose levels.
Risky products:

• white bread, white pasta, white rice
• potatoes
• sugars in sweets, biscuits and pastries
• snacks, in-between meals and,
• ready-made meals.

Our body therefore spends a lot of time getting rid of that glucose. Your body uses insulin for this. Insulin is produced by your pancreas.

There are two possible risks here:

1. Your body is no longer sensitive to insulin
2. Your pancreas no longer produces enough insulin.

The danger is that your body will no longer be able to properly eliminate this sugar, resulting in persistently high blood sugar levels. At that point, you run the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Low Blood Sugar 

Low blood sugar means there's too much insulin in the blood. Insulin removes glucose (sugar), so if insulin works too hard, you develop low blood sugar. This is also called hypoglycemia (hypo).
Too much insulin in your blood occurs in the following way:

1. Diabetic patients who inject too much insulin
2. By eating a lot of processed and refined products

In the latter case, your body actually reacts too late and too harshly. Our blood sugar levels initially rise faster than our bodies realize.
The pancreas's delayed response then causes an excess of insulin, which is why your blood sugar drops so sharply.

You recognize low blood sugar by:

• Feeling listless after a meal (After Dinner Dip)
• Feeling hungry after meals (binge eating)
• Irritation from a delayed meal.
   

Losing weight with unstable blood sugar levels

Losing weight with unbalanced or unstable blood sugar levels is very difficult. There are several reasons for this. We'll start with where we left off in the previous chapter: the after-dinner slump and binge eating.

Vicious circle

The well-known after-dinner dip, or feeling of hunger after a meal, puts you at increased risk of eating again (and usually poorly). Too much sugar leads to high blood sugar, which in turn leads to excess insulin, resulting in low blood sugar.
To turn that listless feeling into an energetic one, you reach for quick energy. This quick energy is often loaded with calories, which prevents you from losing weight.

Burn sugar instead of fat

As long as your body has sufficient sugar, it sees no reason to switch to burning fat. As we mentioned earlier, our bodies have multiple energy systems and stores. For quick energy (a sprint, a quick walk up the stairs, getting up from a chair), your body uses its glycogen stores. This is its glucose supply. Only when this is depleted does it switch to another store.

Too much sugar turns into fat

Insulin transports excess glucose from your blood to your body's cells. The idea is that it transports this to your muscles so it can be stored as quick energy (glycogen stores). However, these stores fill up quickly. As a result, the excess glucose is absorbed into your fat cells. And that's exactly what we don't want, right?

Tips for stable blood sugar levels
Stable blood sugar levels give you energy throughout the day, allow for a higher degree of controlled eating, and have significant long-term health benefits.
Below are some tips to promote this:

• Exercise and movement are the best medicine against chronic diseases and high blood sugar levels => 1 x every 5 days and only 35 minutes at a time is sufficient
• Try to add enough healthy fats to your meal.
• Try to eat plenty of fiber, which acts as a cushion against your intestinal wall, preventing sugars from entering all at once. You can get fiber from vegetables, for example.
• Eat some vegetables half an hour before eating a large plate of spaghetti or sandwiches.
• Or, less tasty, take a glass of water with ten percent vinegar half an hour before your meal
• Take a walk after eating, even if it's just a short one. Exercise requires energy and helps you use up excess sugar.