It's always a good idea to perform a little 'preventive maintenance' on your health from time to time to ensure that everything is in check and nothing comes up as a surprise later on.

When it comes to diabetes, the rates of this disease continue to march upward every year as more and more U.S. citizens become increasingly obese. What can you do to prevent diabetes? Plenty, if you dedicate enough effort to learning and doing.

One of the first ways it to lose between five and seven percent of your body weight -- and that is just for starters. Take a gander of a whole list here and see if any of these steps sounds too far out of the realm of possibility for you. My guess is that they're not for most of us.