Over the years, diabetes has become one of the top causes of death in the Philippines according World Health Organization’s 2012 statistical profile of the country. The International Diabetes Federation also notes that the Philippines has become one of the world’s emerging diabetes hotspots, ranking as the top 15 in the world for diabetes prevalence where 4 million people are diagnosed with the diseases, and possibly a large unknown number of those who are unaware that they have diabetes. While diabetes can be passed down through heredity, factors like having an unhealthy lifestyle and becoming overweight or obese may contribute in developing diabetes, especially those who are in their middle age or older.

Diabetes could be kept at bay, if people would just lead on to a better and a healthier lifestyle, like Lumen Tamayo who was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes after she gave birth to her second child. It wasn’t easy to take in at first, but she turned around all of these ill-feelings about her diabetes and used it as a motivation to lead a healthier lifestyle. As she started taking regular exercise and preparing more healthy meals for herself, she gained a more positive disposition in dealing with her diabetes. And knowing that stress could shoot up her sugar level, she got into short meditations to ease off the tension.

As she progresses through her struggle against diabetes, she was faced with yet another challenge in maintaining healthy routine, especially with her diet. She needs to take in six to nine servings of preferably raw fruits and vegetables every day, which is quite an overwhelming task to achieve. It takes a lot of time and effort to prepare all those fruits and vegetables, not to mention eating it with her regular meals makes it even harder to take in.