Diabetes is a serious disease that affects millions of people throughout the world. If you have recently been diagnosed with diabetes, then you need to follow a diabetic diet plan. It is important to educate yourself on the best ways to manage your illness to ensure that you can continue to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Eating a healthy, nutritious diet is essential for a diabetic. If you eat poorly in spite of your diabetes, you will likely face a number of very serious health problems. It is really pretty basic; eating a good diet will improve your health and lessen the severity of your diabetic symptoms while eating poorly will worsen your diabetes and place your health at more risk. Follow the diabetic diet and healthy eating tips contained in this article and see if you start to feel better.
One of the best things you can do to help you lose weight and keep your blood sugar levels stable is to eat five or six smaller meals spread out evenly over the course of the day instead of two or three large meals. Eating several smaller meals will help to control your appetite and prevent the overeating that often occurs when people eat only one or two meals per day. Eating more often throughout the day can also increase your metabolism and help you to burn off more calories. Providing your body with a consistent stream of nutrients will also prevent your blood sugar levels from spiking and will help to keep them as stable as possible.
In your efforts to lose weight, do not skip meals! Skipping meals will cause your blood sugar levels to spike and is very unhealthy. Skipping meals will also mess with your metabolism and actually make losing weight more difficult. So, whatever you do, do not skip meals. Keep on reading to learn more about the diabetes diet.
As a diabetic, it is important that you do not eat too many sugary foods or high glycemic foods. Carefully read food labels to avoid consuming any hidden sugars. At the same time, avoid eating other fast digesting, simple carbohydrates that will wreak havoc on your insulin levels. Stay away from white bread and pasta. Instead, eat whole grain bread and pasta. Eat more green vegetables like broccoli and green beans, and learn to eat leafy greens such as spinach, lettuce, parsley and kale which are full of nutrition and won’t spike your blood sugar, in place of starchy white potatoes.
Drink at least eight glasses of water every single day. Replacing the beverages you currently consume, such as soda pop (even diet soda) and fruit juice, with water is an easy way to reduce the number of total calories that you are consuming on a daily basis. The sugars that can be found in sodas and juice will spike your blood sugar and cause diabetic complications, so drink water instead. Even with diet sodas, you might not have the sugars to deal with, but there is still dehydration. Water is still the better choice. If you don’t like the taste of water try adding a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
While following the diabetes diet it is best to avoid alcohol. Alcohol is loaded with sugars and empty calories. As a diabetic, you should cut back on alcohol as much as possible. If you must drink, it is important that you do so infrequently and only in moderation. Alcohol and diabetes simply do not go well together.
Start using these diet tips to help you successfully manage your diabetes. There is no reason that you can’t live a wonderful life in spite of your diabetes diagnosis.