Do You Know What Is Needed for A Diabetes Diet? Read On And Find Out!

You have just been told by your doctor that you have diabetes. It may have come as a shock, or it may have been expected because others in your family have diabetes. Do you know, right now, what the diabetes diet consists of? Do you know what foods you can or cannot eat on a diabetes diet? I hope that this article will provide you with some of the information you need to create the diabetes diet that will work for you. Carefully planning meals plays an important role in helping to manage diabetes.
Just recently a study by the American Dietetic Association's (ADA) and other diabetes experts have shown that meal planning proved to be extremely helpful in controlling diabetes.
A nutritionally sound diabetes diet is an important part of every diabetic's treatment. The typical diabetes diet can lack certain vitamins that can negatively affect glucose levels.
Diabetics need key vitamins and minerals in their diet and in their systems. These are essential because they help their body's ability to metabolize the nutrients in the food. The most common form of diabetes is the type where they have high blood sugar levels. The diabetes diet must help lower the sugar level and maintain it at a more steady level. High blood sugar levels contribute to a wide variety of illness and even death. Conditions such as heart disease, eye disease (glaucoma specifically) infections, stoke, and others, are a few that are made worse by high blood sugar levels.
This may sound like an overwhelming life style change. It is...as are all diets. The diabetes diet involves a life style change. In fact the diabetes diet along with exercise can decrease your risk by 58 percent! The diabetes diet can help you lose 5% - 7% of your body weight, thus reducing the risk. The diabetes diet AND exercise can be more effective the medication.
The diabetes diet plan for your meals will help set the goals for fat and caloric intake. The diabetic meal plan has only about 1,300 calories each day. Roughly forty five percent is from carbohydrates, about 31 from protein and the rest form fat. Each individual will modify the diabetes diet to meet their goal.
The diabetes diet should contain legumes (food from pods producing plants such as alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lentils, lupines and peanuts). These are high fiber, low cholesterol, and slow digesting (meaning the full feeling lasts longer).
Each meal of this diabetes diet will help the diabetic pay more attention to the portions consumed. Foods are measured out at the beginning of each day, for that day. This will help create a routine stay in practice.
An important addition to the diabetes diet is a nutritional supplement of good quality. They should contain vitamins and minerals. The best you can find are "Pharmaceutical Grade". You will not get those at GNC, Wal-Mart or similar stores. Search and compare, look and ensure, know what you are getting.
It is best to eating small meals several times a day will keep away that hungry feeling. That hungry feeling makes one tend to overeat. Eating every three to four hours will help keep that hunger feeling away. It does this by keeping food in the stomach all the time.
The snacks (between breakfast and lunch or between lunch and supper are important to the diabetes diet plan and to the sugar level control. The snacks in the diabetes diet are grouped into categories. There are "milk snacks" (skim milk), soy milk, or yogurt. Protein snacks in the diabetes diet plan are hard-boiled egg, a quarter cup of low fat cottage cheese or a reduced fat string cheese, and about a quarter cup of nuts (mixed is fine).
The fruit list has a medium-size piece of fresh fruit, about a ½ a cup of cut up fruit, and about a quarter cup of dried fruit. Have you ever eaten those dried fruits you get in the market? WOW! What a CONCENTRATED FLAVOR!
In a diabetes diet you can eat any of these in any combination. Mix and match a measured portion of protein with a correct portion of fruit. Example: 1 cup yogurt with ½ cup of chopped pears.
These are just a few suggestions for a diabetes diet. I thank you for your time and for reading this diabetes diet article. Remember always consult your primary medical care provider before changing diet.
Keith Standifer is a business owner and an advocate for healthy diets for all. Read more about some of the high quality nutritional supplements he uses. Visit my web site at http://www.healthisyours.usana.com
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