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Here's A Guide To The Perfect Diabetes Diet

By Sreya Dutta

What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes, also often referred to as 'diabetes mellitus' by doctors, is a condition found in a specific group of people who have high blood glucose or high blood sugar. This happens either because their body's insulin production is pretty inadequate, or some other times because their body's cells generally do not respond well to insulin, or sometimes both.

Patients who have high levels of blood sugar might typically experience frequent urination, a condition termed as polyuria or they might become often, quite increasingly thirsty, a condition termed as polydipsia, or get really hungry, a condition termed as polyphagia.

A Diabetics Guide

The Diabetes Diet:

If you are diabetic, you need to develop a regular proper diabetes diet, which simply means just eating only the healthiest of foods in regulated moderate amounts as well as sticking to disciplined and regular mealtimes.

Your diabetes diet should be a healthy-eating plan that is naturally rich in enough nutrients and low enough in fat or calories. The key elements of your diabetes diet should include lots of fruits, plenty of healthy vegetables, along with really essential whole grains. A diabetes diet should be the best meal plan for almost everybody, diabetic or not.

Like we all know already, eating can certainly affect your body's glucose control, which is why the timing of your meals and your food intake really do matter quite a lot, and as long as you keep taking your medications on time along with your healthy and maintained diabetes diet, you will be just fine for sure.

Whether you favour a large breakfast or a scrumptious dinner or a wholesome midday meal, we have made sure we put everything that you would need from your diabetic diet plans to what time of the day or night should you eat for optimal glycemic control, in details below.

Glycemic Control:

Glycemic control means control over your body's sugar or glucose levels. Obviously, you need to certainly and regularly schedule your meals in a proper and healthy order with optimal and just enough breaks along with snacks in short meal intervals to give your best towards trying to achieve some good glycemic control in your body. This is an extremely important principle that is just too effective and hence, well-known by most.

Standard Of Care Recommendations For Your Specialized Diabetic Meal Plan:

1. Try consuming three meals regularly in a properly timed fashion.
2. Take those meals in a time gap of 4-5 hours apart, or near to the same or at least similar times of your daily life to achieve proper health every day and finally remain that way.

Your Special Diabetes Daily Meal Plan Or Regular Food Intake Schedule Should Be As Follows:

Breakfast: 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.
Lunch: 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Dinner: 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Regular Specialized Diabetic Meal Recommendations Are As Follows:

1. 60 gm carbohydrate at every meal, but that should be individualized by working with an RD (Registered Dietitian) or a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator).

2. Individuals who are on long-acting insulin might need bedtime snacks which include 15 to 30 gm carbohydrate in order to avoid developing nighttime hypoglycemia.

3. Try to work out your diabetes health properly with an RD or a CDE in order to determine what works for you the best.

Hunger And Satiety Control Tips:

1. If you are eating based on a properly controlled regular schedule, you need to make sure you satisfy your hunger needs with small amounts of frequent mini-meals every once in a while to keep you perfectly satisfied.

2. You should remember the very important fact that if you skip meals so that you could lose some weight, you could eventually end up overeating at your next meal which will not only disrupt your end goal to begin with but also destabilize your proper diabetes meal patterns or schedules.

The What, When, And How Much To Eat Guidelines For The Diabetic:

Unlike in the recent times, in the past years, the meal plans for diabetic people used to be too restrictive and too regulated with a lot of bookish procedures to achieve specific medically and diet-wise controlled, stable end results. But with times changing, everything is changing, along with diabetic meal plans too.

Hence, the things are a bit different now in the diabetes front than it used to be. There isn't a rigid and bookish one-size specific fits all diabetes diet that is prescribed to the diabetic people anymore. While you might need to probably make a few changes in the whats and how muchs of the meals you eat, you will definitely have a certain flexibility when you decide what will be there on your regular meal menu.

And with some proper knowledge about your condition, the appropriate medicines to support you and with a little amount of proper meal planning, you could these days, still afford to include some of your favourite food items in your specialized diabetic diet schedules.

Healthy Eating Guidelines For The Diabetics:

Along with a proper meal plan and regulated timings, you should also introduce a variety of really important and essential foods into your specialized diabetic diet. This includes whole grains, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, non-fat dairy foods and either lean meats or just healthy meat substitutes.

If you're diabetic you should try not to eat too much of food during your meals or at off meal timings. Diabetic patients should also try and avoid eating too much of a kind of food or just one type of food items.

You should also try spacing your specialized and healthy meals evenly at specific timings throughout your day. Also, try not to skip meals as the fluctuations in energy or glucose levels might end up adversely affecting your health.

Stabilization Of Energy:

Just like the fact that glycemic control and stabilization depends on your properly regulated food intake, your energy levels also stabilize and regulate itself with the regulation of your meal times.

Your sleep patterns and their circadian rhythm is generally similar to that of your food as well as glucose needs, along with your subsequent energy levels and their fluctuations. Especially in diabetics, the energy levels are actually linked to the proper regulation of the eating times because the glucose needs are generally more specialized.

Manage Your Diabetes Best By Setting Up Simple Goals:

The best goals you can set for your diabetes management are as follows:

1. Always try keeping your blood sugar level as near to normal as it is safely possible for you to, by balancing your food intake carefully along with optimal physical activity and proper medication on the side.
2. Try to get help in order to slow down or possibly try preventing the appearance or development of other diabetes-related adverse health problems that might come to affect you.

ALSO READ: 11 Simple Changes In Diet To Lose Weight

Story first published: Thursday, June 21, 2018, 10:59 [IST]
Read more about: diabetes blood sugar diet health