How To Diet For Diabetic

To successfully manage diabetes, you must learn how to diet for diabetic. There are several schools of thought about the perfect diabetic diet plan: low fat, high protein, high fiber, low protein; it can be very confusing. With any diet plan, it is important to find what works for you within the framework of acceptable food. Learning what you can eat and how much, reading package labels, testing your blood sugar regularly, and balancing it all with daily exercise is a plan for success you can live with.

1. Do not go to extremes. The key to any successful diet is to have a plan you can live with. If you decided to follow something extreme, it will become a white knuckle experience that will lead to cheating and eventually abandoning your diet. Don’t skip meals or medications. Snack lightly between meals and before bed to help keep your blood sugar level and to lower morning numbers.
2. High Fiber. High fiber means add vegetables to your diabetic diet. Plan on having two salads a day with lunch and dinner. If you like raw vegetables, add them to your salad. Steamed vegetables or chopped vegetables sautéed in a teaspoon of olive oil with onions make a tasty side dish. Eat the green vegetables you like. Avoid carrots, corn, and white potatoes because they will spike your blood sugar. Watch that salad dressing for calories, fat, and sugar. Look into Salad Spritzers that add great flavor at only one calorie a spray.
3. Low Protein. Three ounces of protein is all that is necessary to add to your lunch and dinner. Consider eating less beef and eat more fish and poultry. Ground turkey is a perfect substitute for hamburgers on the grill. A turkey burger on a whole wheat bun with your favorite condiment and a salad makes a satisfying meal.  Eat one ounce of protein with raw vegetables, or half an apple, or a whole wheat cracker for between meal snacks with your diabetic diet.
4. Eat whole grains. For instance, if you are a white bread lover, gradually switch to a diet of whole grain bread and test your blood sugar one to two hours after eating to see if your blood sugar spikes. Do not switch from white to whole wheat in a day to avoid intestinal discomfort.
5. A typical day. Have a ½ cup serving of plain oatmeal adorned with cinnamon, an acceptable sweetener, milk or ½ of fruit with decaf tea or coffee. Lunch can be a salad, sautéed vegetables with chicken in a whole wheat wrap. Dinner can be salad, steamed vegetables, and a grilled chicken breast. Have two to three snacks. Drink at least 64 ounces of water (eight glasses of eight ounces) Dessert, ½ cup serving of fruit or sugar free desserts you tolerate well.
6. Research. This is your body and your disease, learn all you can about how to manage it.

Tips

• Do not drink juice. Fruit contains a lot of natural sugar and causes blood sugar to spike.  It takes eight to ten oranges to make an eight ounce glass of juice. You would not normally feast on eight to ten oranges at a time, but that is essentially what you are doing when you drink juice. 
• If you have spiked your blood sugar eating something you shouldn’t, flood your body with as much water as you can drink to help lower your blood sugar. This means drink a glass of water every few minutes for at least one hour.
• Caffeine has no place in the life of a diabetic. Slowly reduce your caffeine intake over several weeks until you can stop. Caffeine is a very strong drugs and giving it up cold turkey can cause severe headaches, nausea, and other problems.
• Avoid anything white such as table sugar, white rice, white potatoes, and white bread. Never eat anything that has more than four grams of sugar at a time (i.e a sheet of gram cracker).

Warning:

• If you are using artificial sweetener or sugar free desserts, check your blood sugar for spikes. Many artificial sweeteners will cause blood sugar spikes and should be avoided.