If you have been diagnosed with diabetes, then you know that you must now live a little bit differently than you did before the diabetes. Along with checking your blood sugar regularly, a healthy diet is vital to managing your diabetes. This article will give you some tips for eating a healthy diabetic friendly diet.
If your child is found to have diabetes, you may feel overwhelmed; however, taking it a day at a time will get you through. Diabetes treatments have advanced to the point where it no longer shortens a person’s life span. The oldest person with diabetes is 90. He lived long enough to see new medical treatments.
Drinking water is important for everyone, but is especially so for diabetics. There is a reason that most diabetics drink like a fish before they are diagnosed and begin treatment! Keep your water intake high to help you keep your weight down and your hydration up, especially if you exercise.
If you suffer from diabetes or are at risk of developing the disease, it is a good idea to eat a diet that is high in fiber. Fiber, which is found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and beans prevents diabetes by buffering the sugar or carbohydrates in your diet, keeping your blood sugar even instead of having it fluctuate.
A Diabetic will need more than just a physician on his health care team. You should ask for a referral to an endocrinologist (they’ll help you with your insulin), a registered dietitian or nutritionist, an optometrist or ophthalmologist, a dentist, and a podiatrist. Once you have them all on your team you’ll be ready to fight Diabetes head on!
Swapping items in your diet for healthier options will help you keep your Diabetes under control. For example, stop eating red meats and replace them with fish or poultry. A few nights a week you can even have a vegetarian meal and replace the meat entirely with beans or lentils. Remove the high fat dairy and instead buy lower fat options. Replace sugary or salty snacks with nuts or seeds.
To keep exercise from dropping your blood glucose levels later, check your glucose levels every 45 minutes after a workout. If you see your levels start to go down, you can quickly treat the issue with a carb-loaded snack. As long as you’re proactive about tracking your glucose levels, work-outs shouldn’t be a problem.
To help yourself deal with a diabetes diagnosis, arrange to meet with a diabetes expert or take a class. Diabetes may seem as though it’s overwhelming to live with, but a good instructor can help simplify the disease and give you ways to cope. Getting good advice from a knowledgeable source is invaluable to any diabetes sufferer.
If you’re often too tired in the morning to make breakfast, figure something out that you can do while you’re half asleep. A diabetic MUST eat in the morning, so try something like a protein shake or a muffin and an apple. Pour yourself a tall glass of milk to go along with it!
If you have diabetes, it can be difficult to go out to eat. Research menus ahead of time so that you can plan your meal. If a menu is not available online, you can stop by the restaurant ahead of time and ask for a copy, or you can call and have it read to you by phone. Knowing what the restaurant serves will help you to become more prepared for how you can eat healthy at the restaurant.
Remove contributors to the complications of diabetes. Try to avoid unhealthy habits that will affect your heart health and chances for stroke. Smoking should be stopped at all costs, maintain a healthy blood pressure through stress management and salt control and evaluate lifestyle choices that can have less than favorable results.
Look online to find common replacements for cooking ingredients which aren’t good for a Diabetic. For example, fruit can be used in place of sugar, as in a sugar free banana bread or muffins. You can also use whole grain flours instead of bleached, or buckwheat instead of rice in a dish.
Learning to eat right is an important factor in controlling diabetes. The key steps to developing an approriate diet is cutting back on refined carbohydrates, keeping portions sizes under control, establishing and maintaining a regular meal schedule, and consuming a variety of vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Simply speaking, a diabetes-friendly diet is low in fats, high in nutrients, and contains a moderate number of calories.
One of the myths associated with diabetes is that you must avoid sugar at all costs. The key to keeping a little sugar in your diet is to use moderation when eating sweet items. You may still celebrate with an occasional indulgence in a sweet treat. Because consuming desserts adds additional carbohydrates to your diet, you should reduce other foods you consume that have carbohydrates when you eat this treat.
When it comes to diabetes, it is important that you do all that you can to prevent it by having a healthy lifestyle. This is important because this disease can be prevented simply by eating a well balanced diet and getting enough exercise. You owe it to yourself to keep yourself healthy.
To maintain healthy blood sugar levels, maintain a healthy, regular routine. That is, try to eat around the same amount of food daily and eat at the same times, and also exercise and take medications at the same times of day. In combination with healthy practices, spacing things out like this helps keep your blood sugar on an even keel throughout the day.
As stated at the beginning of this article, if you have been diagnosed with diabetes then you are having to live a little bit differently than you did before the diagnosis. Eating healthy is an important part in keeping your diabetes under control. Apply the tips from this article and you will be on your way to eating a diabetes friendly diet in no time.