5 easy core body exercises to beat diabetes

Excess weight contributes to developing diabetes or making it worse. To strengthen your body and help fight flab, do these five easy moves.

Doing this exercise while standing strengthens muscles that support your back against the strain of extra weight in your gut.

• Stand with your feet hip-width apart.
• Keeping your neck, shoulders and arms relaxed, pull in and tighten the muscles of your abdomen. Picture a belt being tightened around your midsection.
• Hold for 60 seconds, breathing normally. Do three times.

Strengthens the humble but powerful muscles in your buttocks, which are involved in virtually every movement your body makes.

• Stand up straight with your feet hip-width apart, your arms at your sides and your shoulders relaxed.
• Squeeze the muscles of your buttocks together as tightly as you can, hold in your stomach and move your right leg about five centimetres behind you with your foot off the floor.
• Hold for 10 seconds, then switch legs. Do at least three times with each leg.

Strengthens the lower back and bolsters the muscles that run along the lower part of the spine, improving posture and preventing lower-back pain.

• Lie facedown on a mat or rug with your arms and legs stretched out straight, like Superman in flight.
• Keeping your neck relaxed so don't lift your head, tense your abdominal muscles then raise your right arm and left leg and hold for one second.
• Slowly lower both limbs and repeat with the other arm and leg. "Swim" for 30 seconds three times with each leg.

Like a traditional crunch, this exercise works the abdominal muscles, but it's less intense and doesn't require you to lift your head off the floor, which can strain your neck.

• Lie on your back with your knees bent, your feet flat on the floor and your hands behind your head, with your elbows out to the sides.
• Inhale and contract your abdominal muscles so your lower back makes contact with the floor, then raise your right foot about three centimetres off the floor.
• Hold for a count of four, then exhale while lowering your foot to the floor to a count of four. Repeat with the left leg.

Strengthens the "core" muscles: the abdominals, lower-back muscles and muscles attached to the spine.

• Lie on your back with your legs together and your knees bent at a 90-degree angle. Inhale and raise your arms toward the ceiling without raising your shoulders off the floor.
• Exhaling, curl your torso up so the tops of your shoulders come off the floor. At the same time, lower your arms to your sides and hold them at hip height.
• Contracting your abdominal muscles, pump your arms up and down as thought you're using a bicycle pump, counting each pump until you reach 100.

One way of fighting diabetes is to maintain a fit body and lose weight. These easy exercises you can do at home will get you n track.