What the FIFA World Cup Soccer can teach us about sustainable diabetes and weight management
by Dr Paula Diab, PhD, CDCES, Diabetologist & Weight Management Specialist
About a month ago, Gary Scheiner and I spoke on an IDS podcast (Adding Activity to your day: Better blood sugars via the Laundry Room) about how meaningful health benefits can come from surprisingly simple forms of movement – like folding the laundry after dinner.
The overall message was reassuring: you do not need to train like a professional athlete to improve your health.
So, it does feel slightly ironic that I am now writing an article inspired by elite footballers preparing for the FIFA World Cup.
But perhaps the juxtaposition is not as contradictory as it first appears. Because while most of us are not training for international sport, there are still important lessons we can learn from elite athletes – particularly when it comes to consistency, recovery, and long-term success.
Firstly, I do know that most patriotic Americans get way more excited about a game of American Football or baseball or college league basketball than they ever get about soccer but……there is always a first time for everything and the FIFA World Cup is certainly one of the biggest sports events in the world.
It will bring a host of soccer-crazy tourists to enjoy the summer in USA and hopefully boost tourism and hospitality industries and have a positive effect on the economy. I didn’t know anything about soccer at all until the 2010 World Cup made its way to South Africa and I found myself confined to a hospital bed with measles for two weeks. Can you imagine every one of only about 10 TV channels in the hospital and they all are showing back-to-back soccer matches! I quickly learnt the rules!
One of the biggest misconceptions in both diabetes and weight management is the idea that health changes require extreme effort.
Many people begin with tremendous motivation: intense exercise programmes, highly restrictive eating plans, rigid schedules, and expectations of rapid transformation. And sometimes, for a short while, this works. Until an attacker from the opposite side comes in and ruins gameplay completely!
Work becomes busy. Sleep suffers. Motivation fades. The scale plateaus. Glucose levels fluctuate despite effort. Exhaustion sets in. And suddenly the plan that was working becomes impossible to maintain long-term. This is where many people mistakenly believe they have “failed.”
But if we look at elite athletes, we see something very different. Professional footballers do not rely purely on intensity. They rely on systems, repetition, structure, coaching, and recovery. They focus on consistently practising the basics over long periods of time. Even at the highest level of sport, sustainable performance is built on routine far more than bursts of motivation.
The same is true in diabetes and weight management.
The people who tend to achieve the best long-term outcomes are not usually those who pursue perfection for short periods. More often, they are the individuals who find sustainable habits they can continue even when life becomes stressful, or progress slows.
Any athlete will tell you that a setback doesn’t mean you’ve lost the match, it just means you need to re-strategize, re-evaluate your options and reset your goals. It’s not always about trying harder but often working together better as a team and concentrating on your strengths.
In diabetes and weight management, this may be seeing improved insulin sensitivity or more stable glucose levels despite no change on the numbers on the weight scale. It may be increased strength and mobility and a healthier attitude towards fitness rather than more hours on the treadmill.
Another important lesson we can learn from elite sports is the value of recovery.
Athletes understand that rest is not weakness; it is part of performance.
In health management, however, many people approach themselves with relentless pressure. If they cannot maintain the “perfect” routine, they feel guilty and stop altogether. Unfortunately, diabetes management doesn’t really allow for rest periods, but it might just be a break from your CGM’s for a while or more leniency with regard to your Time In Range (TIR) when on vacation.
At IDS, we often remind people that health journeys are not won in a single workout, a single meal, or a single week of perfect motivation.
Consistency is more important than perfection.
As the world watches elite athletes compete on the biggest football stage, perhaps the most valuable lesson is not their intensity, but their consistency. Not the occasional spectacular moment, but the thousands of ordinary training sessions, repeated over time, that make high performance possible.
And perhaps our own health journeys work much the same way.
