A healthy diet is something that’s recommended for everyone, but it becomes even more crucial if you are diagnosed with diabetes. It’s a condition that affects how your body metabolizes and uses glucose. Eating the wrong foods can lead to high blood sugar levels, which can cause many complications for your body in the long run. The good news is that you can improve your blood glucose regulation and live a healthy life with the proper diet. We’ll discuss a couple of tips that you can use to optimize your diet to fight against the impact of diabetes.
Why Planning Matters If You Have Diabetes
Many people fall into the habit of buying only food for the meal that they are going to make for dinner. You stop by the local grocery store on your way home from work, sometimes not knowing what you want to prepare. Unfortunately, this can lead to poor decision-making. Instead of grabbing some fresh veggies that you can cook at home, you turn to the deli for processed meats or perhaps a ready-made meal that you can just serve up when you get to your house. These foods might taste great but are usually loaded with sodium, preservatives, and other carbs.
This is where planning comes into play. Planning your meals ahead of time makes it easier to know what you should get at the grocery store. It also leads to fewer stops at stores after work, giving you more time to prepare fresh foods at home. Create a weekly meal plan to start, then visit your local grocery store every Sunday to stock up on the ingredients you’ll need for these dishes. It’s essential to not only focus on dinner but also ensure you consider breakfast, lunch, and snacks too.
Tips To Adopt A Healthier Diet As A Diabetic
Healthier diet choices can make life easier when it comes to managing diabetes. However, many people with diabetes have trouble adopting the right diet or making decisions about meals. A healthy diet needs to offer balance. When your diet is rich in nutrients but does not cause you to overload on carbs and calories, you can maintain a healthy weight, take better care of your body, and manage your blood glucose levels simultaneously.
We’re going to look at a couple of tips for improving your diet, with a focus on better-managing diabetes through dietary habits.
Prefer To Make Your Food
Dining out is convenient, as you can sit back and have a chef prepare food for you. Unfortunately, you don’t have much control over what goes into the food you get at a restaurant or when you order takeout. As a diabetic, the more control you have over the dishes you consume, the better. That’s why it’s a better idea to make your own food.
There’s no need to stand before the stove for hours every night. Meal prep, for example, allows you to set aside time once per week and prepare meals for the next couple of days. You can then remove a container from the freezer, allow it to thaw for a while, and pop it in the oven.
Use Lunch to Stabilize Blood Glucose
While you’ll generally have some carbs at breakfast and when you eat dinner, you should also focus on the carb content of your launch. Lunchtime is the halfway mark between breakfast and dinner for most people – and it is also by this time that you might start to notice fluctuations in your glucose levels.
Having lunch with about 30 to 45 grams of carbs is a good idea. With this said the source of these carbohydrates matters. Choose complex carbs, ensuring the carbohydrates are slowly absorbed over the next couple of hours. You should also try adding some veggies low in carbs and a lean protein source to your lunch.
Dine Out Smart
It’s not entirely impossible to dine out as a diabetic, as long as you do so in moderation and be mindful of what you order from the menu. There are a few things that you should keep in mind if you decide to visit a restaurant with your family or friends.
Try to choose a restaurant beforehand and take a look at its menu. Most restaurants share their menus on an app or on their website. This will give you more time to assess the food options available, which will make it easier to choose the right menu options once you arrive at the restaurant.
You also have to consider the serving sizes. Many restaurants provide larger portions than you are used to. This is a great way for the restaurant to impress its customers, but as a diabetic, it could cause you to experience hyperglycemia. Opt for the smaller portions that are available on the menu.
Another thing to consider is the substitutions available on the menu. For example, if you decide to order a chicken breast, they might serve it with some chips on the side by default. In most cases, you’ll be able to ask for a substitute—such as a salad on the side instead of chips. This instantly reduces the carb content of the meal and can easily add some extra nutrients for you to benefit from.
Bottom Line
When it comes to fighting diabetes, it’s important to focus on your dietary choices. Eating foods that are high in carbohydrates can cause high blood glucose, which makes it difficult to avoid the complications that diabetes is known to cause. There are several dieting habits that you can adopt to better manage your diabetes. Start with the tips and tricks we discussed in this article to help you understand how to keep your glucose levels stable by making smarter diet choices.