You make food choices every day. Whole wheat or white bread? A side of french fries or fresh fruit? Eat now or later? Choices about what, when and how much you eat affect your blood glucose. Understanding how food affects blood glucose is the first step in managing diabetes. And following a diabetes meal plan can help keep you on track.
Prevent problems
Having type 2 diabetes means that your body doesn’t control blood glucose well. When blood glucose stays too high for too long, serious health problems can develop. By controlling your blood glucose through diet, exercise and medication, you can delay or prevent kidney, eye and heart disease, and other complications of diabetes.
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Control carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are foods that have the biggest effect on your blood glucose levels. After you eat carbohydrates, your blood glucose rises. Fruit, sweet foods, starchy foods such as bread, potatoes and corn, and milk and milk products contain carbohydrates. Although carbohydrates are important for health, when you eat too many at once, your blood glucose can go too high.
Some carbohydrates — potatoes, sweets and white bread, for instance — may raise blood glucose more than others. Better choices are less processed foods with more fiber and nutrients, such as 100 percent whole wheat bread, oatmeal, brown rice and non-starchy vegetables.
Food and medicine
Insulin helps glucose move from the blood into your muscle cells, where it can be used for energy. Some oral diabetes medications help you produce more insulin or help your insulin work better, so your medications and food plan have to work together. If you take insulin shots, you need to be especially careful to match the amount of carbohydrates you eat with your insulin dose. If you consume too many carbohydrates without adjusting your insulin dose, your blood glucose might go too high. If you consume too few carbohydrates, your blood glucose might go too low. Your provider or a dietitian can help you match your food choices to your medication.
Eat at regular times
You can manage your blood glucose better if you eat the same amount of food at the same time every day. That keeps your glucose levels stable and helps your medication work best. Physical activity is an important way to control blood glucose, too. Try to exercise at the same time every day. That way you can build the extra calories you need for exercise into your meal plan.
Eat smart
You can eat the same foods as everyone else, but you have to pay attention to certain details. That’s where your diabetes meal plan comes in. An individualized meal plan tells you the time of day to eat meals and snacks, the types of food to eat and how much. It should include your favorite foods and emphasize these healthy foods:
- Whole grains, such as 100 percent whole wheat bread, brown rice and oatmeal
- Nonfat or low-fat dairy products, such as nonfat milk and yogurt
- Lean meats, poultry, fish, eggs, and dried beans and peas
- Fruits and vegetables
At first, it’s helpful to use measuring cups and spoons to make sure you’re consuming the amount of food that’s in your plan. By checking your blood glucose one to two hours after eating, you can learn how your food choices affect your blood glucose.
To develop a diabetes meal plan or change a plan that’s not working for you, see a diabetes educator or dietitian. Having a meal plan that you can live with will keep you at your healthy best.
