According to the American Diabetes Association, there are about 26 million people living with diabetes in the United States—and they are among the best "dieters" in the world.
Here are three great reasons you should follow their lead:
It's about lifestyle
People with diabetes eat right because they have to in order to stay healthy. If they constantly munch on junk food and high-sugar foods they could wind up in the hospital—or worse.
That's why they don't subscribe to most-likely-to-fail yo-yo dieting and fads. Instead, they change their lifestyles. They break bad habits (8 p.m. binge-eating, anyone?), adjust the way they do their grocery shopping (more time in the produce section!) and make thoughtful, conscious decisions about what they put in their bodies.
It's about knowledge
Knowledge is perhaps the single best weapon anyone seeking to lose weight and live healthy has at their disposal.
People with diabetes have to know their bodies. They have to have an understanding of the way different foods affect their blood sugars. So they spend a lot of time reading labels. They can read the nutritional information on any package and know with precision how the food is going to affect them, and then they make smart decisions about whether or not eating said junk food is worth it.
More often than not, they make smart decisions—because they know what they're looking for.
It's about living life
People with diabetics indulge once in a while (hey, that's one of life's greatest pleasures). But they do it smartly, and only on occasion. Because they understand that one bad day can't spiral into two, three or more bad days. If it does, their lives could be significantly altered for the worse.