Eating right for diabetes comes down to three things:
- What you eat. Your diet makes a huge difference!! You should eat mostly plant foods, cut back on refined carbs and sugary drinks, and choose healthy fats over unhealthy fats.
Refined carbs and sugary drinks create a quick spike in your blood sugar and may cause an over secretion of insulin with resulting hypoglycemia in Type 2 Diabetics. This results in eating more to overcome the low sugars which results in weight gain as increasing insulin levels also results in increased fat storage. This results in increase insulin insensitivity which worsens the diabetes. Dizzy yet!
- When you eat.Diet is part of it, but keeping regular meal and snack times also affects your blood sugar levels and will help to keep them more constant.
Spacing small frequent meals regularly helps level out insulin levels and decreases weight gain.
- How much you eat. Portion sizes matter. Even if you eat very healthy meals, if you eat too much you will gain weight, which is a factor in diabetes.
Focus on SMALL frequent meals. Unfortunately, small and American don’t coincide! But we must change our way of thinking about food. We don’t need all you can eat to get our money’s worth. We don’t need to have it our way. Split a meal with your spouse or friend. You’ll be surprised how satisying it is. We do need to be healthy!
You do not need to eat special foods, but instead simply emphasize vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. A diabetes diet is simply a healthy eating plan that is high in nutrients, low in fat, and moderate in calories. It is a healthy diet for anyone!
Source : http://www.helpguide.org/life/healthy_diet_diabetes.htm
Live long and prosper,
Dr. Ray