If you have been diagnosed as being diabetic, then a healthy regular lifestyle is necessary for you to be able to maintain your blood glucose levels. There should be regular exercise, a sensible weight control program and most importantly, a regular, balanced diet.
As with all diabetic conditions, it is not so much the cutting down of sugar that is important but the maintenance of a balanced, healthy diet. Here are some tips for you to be able to come up with an optimal diet for you if you are a diabetic.
Glucose control
The indication of diabetes is that one’s blood sugar level increases. Therefore, one should be constantly aware of what their blood sugar level is. Several researchers have discovered that people who are diagnosed with Type 1 or 2 diabetes benefit from an improved glycemic control.
Researchers have found that for each percent reduction in the results of A1C blood tests, there is a corresponding 40 percent decrease in risk of developing microvascular diabetic complications which include complications in the diabetic’s kidney, nerve tissue and the eye. One should be able to come up with a healthy diet which mixes in enough low and high glycemic index foods
One should be able to closely monitor the different types of foods that one takes in during the course of the day in order to keep one’s blood glucose levels from ballooning to an excessive degree. To keep one’s blood glucose levels at a stable and health level, one should strive to do the following things.
- Eat at approximately the same times times each day
- Eat the same amount of food each day
- Engage in physical exercise at around the same time each day
- Take one’s medicine at similar times of each day
- Choose foods which are from the starches, vegetables, fruit, meat and its substitutes as well as dairy products such as milk and yogurt.
- Avoid as much as possible the types of sweets and fats in your diet
Another technique that can help is to practice counting the total number of grams of carbohydrates that you take in each meal or planned snack time. This should be done while considering one’s level of activity or inactivity as well as the medication that one takes. Doing this exercise will enable you to meet the carbohydrate needs of a diabetic and will ensure that you do not go beyond your allowable limit.
You can try to find a calorie counting book which can be available at a supermarket or bookstore. If you want to proceed with calorie counting in a more serious manner, you may be able to seek professional help from a nutritionist in order to help you count calories more effectively and accurately.
These are just some of the tips that one can follow if he or she wants to be able to manage calories more effectively. It is important that this becomes a habit of all diabetics in order to avoid overstocking up on carbohydrates, which by in itself is a very dangerous habit for diabetics to cultivate. The bottom line is, if you are a diabetic, the more conscious you are about what you eat, the better.