Great Chitter Chatter - Stories from Loud Voices

If you feel tired excessively, need to use the bathroom frequently, find yourself drinking a lot of water, end up eating in an effort to gain energy and are possibly losing weight, you may be showing signs of diabetes. Both diabetes type 1 and type 2 manifest themselves with these signs, but if you are an adult over the age of 35, you are undoubtedly a victim of Diabetes Type 2. This is because diabetes type 2 is brought on by poor lifestyle choices while diabetes type 1 manifests itself in young adults and children who have problems producing insulin naturally in their bodies.

Whatever the reason may be that you have contracted Diabetes 2, whether it is lack of physical activity, poor diet, obesity or all of these, it is not the end of the world to live with your disease. Following a Type two Diabetes lifestyle is one that is now being lived by more than two million people in the United Kingdom and millions more around the world. The first things you need to focus on are improving your diabetic diet and exercise. You are already facing a serious consequence of not keeping up on your health through the years, but you can prevent your condition from worsening by making a change now.

A great exercise activity that you can undertake everyday is to walk for 10 to 20 minutes. Take the stairs instead of the elevator and make a small change that will help improve your condition. Physical activity is no doubt important in TType 2 Diabetes patients as it will help burn off the glucose in your bloodstream and keep it from spiking. Along with exercise should come an improved diet. Sugar, simple carbohydrates and ingesting salt will all spike a Type II Diabetes person’s blood glucose levels, so don’t eat these with a diabetes diet.

An improvement of your diet and exercise regimen is a way to handle your Type ii Diabetes, but it is also a preventative measure. 90% of those who get the condition in later life are usually overweight or obese and living a sedentary lifest. Eating a proper diabetes diet will not be able to rid you of your condition once you have developed it, but it can help you live a less debilitating lifestyle once you have Type II Diabetes. Please make sure you have five - six smaller meals a day instead of three larger meals and to avoid stress to help keep your blood glucose levels normal.

This article was submitted by Linda Jefferson of San Francisco.

We’ve just returned from a family holiday to the United Kingdom, our second trip to that area in the last few years and I thought that I’d mention a few of the amazing uk hotels where we’ve stayed during our latest trip. There is so much to see and do in the wonderful cities of the British Isles, those guys really understand the meaning of the word history. Add to that the fact that they converse in a language not unlike our own and that a museum or art gallery can be enjoyed in case of inclement weather and you have found a ingredients of a truly memorable trip. We’re confident that you’d enjoy visiting the British Isles, but would always suggest that U.S. citizens check with the U.S. Department of State Advice to Travelers website before undertaking international travel.

Edinburgh, Scotland

You can be assured of a friendly welcome in the wonderful city of Edinburgh. This friendly east coast city consists of the Old Town which includes the Royal Mile and the New Town, with Princes Street forming the division between the two sections. Edinburgh University dates back to 1582 and its colleges, galleries and museums are scattered throughout the entire city. There are many exhibits open to the visitor, check their web site for opening times.

The summer season sees Edinburgh playing host to many thousands of visitors who are there to visit the various festivals. The Edinburgh International Festival runs for 4 weeks and features theatre, music, dance and opera. Running beside it is the world renowned “Fringe”, which in 2006 offered over 28,000 performances in 261 venues throughout the historic city of Edinburgh. With that many different shows to choose from (in 2006 36% of them were World Premieres) including theatre, comedy, ballet, shows for the children and many musical concerts there is something for everybody. There is in addition, the Blues and Jazz Festival, The Literary Festival and The International Film Festival that run throughout the summer here.

Since we only had two days in the city we decided to push the boat out and stay in one of the most celebrated hotels in Scotland, The Scotsman on North Bridge, Edinburgh. This wonderful old hotel is situated right in the center of many of Edinburgh’s greatest buildings and venues such as The Royal Mile, Holyrood House, Edinburgh Castle and the Scottish National Gallery are all within easy walking distance. As I mentioned earlier the decision had been made to pamper ourselves with a stay at this amazing hotel and everything that we could have expected became reality.

Birmingham, England

One of the main reasons for our recent visit to the UK was to visit the Crufts Dog Show which is held in the National Exhibition Center Arena in Birmingham, the UK’s second city. Spread over four days, it’s the most famous dog show in the world. Last Year 143,000 visitors admired a total of over 25,000 dogs from 26 countries in the show rings. Another great crowd-puller at Crufts is the Discover Dogs section where the owners of 190 different breeds are there with their dog, ready to answer questions from prospective new owners. Because we were only going to the dog show, rather than going into the city of Birmingham we took the decision to stay at a hotel near to the NEC, Birmingham. This time we weren’t searching for one of the world’s top hotels, more a place to lay our heads after a hard day walking miles inside the vast NEC complex. We settled on The NEC Crowne Plaza Hotel which is situated inside the grounds of the National Exhibition Centre. The hotel was exactly what you’d expect, bright, clean and totally impersonal. There was nothing to complain about and we’d readily stay there again for any exhibitions or concerts at the NEC.

London, England

Our final venue on this holiday was London. If you’ve never seen London you really do need to comprehend the sheer size of the city. It has spread outwards in recent years and it’s essential that you decide exactly what you intend to visit during your trip else you’ll spend all of your time sitting on buses and the London underground and I can tell you, that is not a pleasure that you should should look forward to. Our agenda for this final few days of our trip involved us taking part in some serious retail therapy i.e. shopping. To that end we decided to stay in the Knightsbridge area with its vast array of chic, world renowned stores such as Harrods. We booked into the Sheraton Park Tower in ultra-stylish Knightsbridge. The Sheraton Park Tower is one of the city’s most stylish hotels, famed for its “One-O-One” restaurant, London’s best fish restaurant.  The Sheraton Park Tower boasts tremendous views over the London skyline with many rooms overlooking Hyde Park In addition to the host of exciting shops, you will find many of the city’s best museums and landmarks within walking distance of the hotel.