The diet that a person with diabetes should follow to help manage his or her blood sugar levels is based on the same nutrition principles that any healthy person, with or without diabetes, should follow for well balance diet and good health.
When a diabetic patient sees a registered dietitian for nutrition counseling, the objective is to create a diabetic nutrition plan.
1.Counting The Carbohydrates Intake-No other food component (such as protein, fat, or alcohol) can raise your glucose levels. This means that your consumption of carbohydrates is the number one factor that determines the blood glucose level for a diabetic.Once you have your personalized diabetic plan, you will begin counting the grams of carbohydrates in your food. Some foods that you eat frequently you will quickly remember. For example, if you eat a sandwich every day for lunch, you won’t have to look at the food label many times before you remember that a regular sized slice of bread contains 15 grams of carbohydrates.
2.Have More Heart Protective Fats-An easy rule of thumb to remember which fats you should eat more often and which fats you should eat less often is this: plant fats are generally better for you than animal fats. Keeping this rule in mind, you would be able to predict that butter, cream, bacon, lard, eggs, and high fat beef cuts are relatively unhealthy, whereas avocados, olive oil, canola oil, peanut butter, and nuts are much better for you.
3.Fiber Important Part Of Almost Every Meal-If you need to reduce your cholesterol, want to lower your risk of colon cancer, or just want to improve your overall health, then try to increase your fiber intake. There are several groups of foods that contain a significant amount of fiber.
4.Keeping Cholesterol Level Low-Exercising, increasing fiber, and avoiding saturated fats are the three main lifestyle changes that you can make to lower your cholesterol. Start now and clear out those arteries!
5.Eating More Fruits And Vegetables-Try increasing your fruit and vegetable intake by one serving each day. If you typically eat two servings, try for three servings every day next week. Continue on increasing from there until you are up to the recommended amount. Have fruits and vegetables accessible at home, at work, and anywhere else that you spend a lot of time. Your mother may have thought that you would never eat more fruits and vegetables, but now you know it is worth it!
6.Not Eating Large Meals-The reason that diabetic diets promote small meals is so that only smaller amounts of sugars are deposited in the blood after a meal. The amount of sugars placed in the blood stream is directly related to the amount of carbohydrates in the meal. So a large meal with lots of carbohydrates will cause lots of sugar to go to the blood and subsequently increase the blood sugar level. Small meals with fewer carbohydrates will only put a little sugar in the blood, and will only raise the blood sugar levels a little bit.
7.Taking Vitamins And Supplements Regularly-You certainly don’t need to take anything in order to be healthy and have good control of your diabetes. If you do choose to use supplements, the smartest option is a multivitamin and mineral that has been formulated for your gender and age group. Above all, make sure that your doctor knows about all of the supplements that you take. It is a good idea to bring a written list with you to appointments for your doctor to review. This will help you to avoid interactions with your medications.
8.Monitoring Your Blood Sugar Regularly-The number of times recommended may be different for different people. Be sure to take your readings at all different times of day: in the morning when you get up, right before you go to bed, before you eat, after you eat, and somewhere in between. You don’t necessarily have to check every single one of these times every day, but try to vary your times. If you check every single day at 10:45 am, you won’t know how you are doing the rest of the day.
9.Exercising Regularly-If you can participate in something active every day for at least 30 minutes, that is great. If you aren’t currently doing anything, work yourself up to that level. You can start with just two or three times a week for 15 or 20 minutes. Anything is better than
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