Control Diabetes With Diet Plans and Food Strategies

Controlling your diabetes with diet plans and food strategies is an integral part of managing your diabetes effectively and achieving the ultimate goal of optimal health.

Your health and vitality depends on the types of food that you feed your body. Along with carbohydrate, proteins and fats, your body needs vitamins to help your body convert the food into fuel, the minerals help to carry oxygen in your blood, and the antioxidants will boost your defence system and the phytochemicals to help prevent disease.

Following are 10 recommendations to consider for diet plans and food strategies:

Ensure that you choose nutritious carbohydrate foods that are low in GI as your main ingredients
Ensure that you get plenty of fibre in your diet
Take note of the amount of carbohydrate you eat - too much is dangerous
Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables each day
Limit your alcohol intake
Limit your salt intake
Limit foods that are high in saturated fat
Use monounsaturated fats like olive oil
Make sure you eat fish once or twice a week
Eat lean protein foods that suit your appetite

Controlling diabetes with diet plans and food strategies is very important; following are some nutritional guidelines about protein, carbohydrates, fats and low GI diets.

Protein

Protein is found in plenty of plant and animal foods. The foods that contain the most protein include meat (beef, lamb, pork, chicken) as well as fish and shellfish. Other foods that are rich sources include dairy products like cheese, milk, and yoghurt. When your blood glucose levels are high there is an increase in your protein turnover, so this increases your body's protein needs slightly.

People eat more protein that is needed by the body, so eating more protein is not recommended. If you have diabetes you should stay with your regular protein intake, which would provide you about 15 to 20 percent of your total energy intake. What this means is that eating enough protein to provide about 1 gram of protein per kilogram of your healthy body weight.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrate is the body's main source of energy and is an essential source of fuel for the brain. The recommended amount of carbohydrate is to aim to meet 45 to 65 percent of your energy requirements with carbohydrate foods. Keep in mind that a person's total energy will depend on their gender, body size, and age and activity level.

Fats

The minimum recommendation for men is to get at least 15 percent of their energy (kilojoules) from fat and women of a reproductive age group should look to get at least 20 percent.

The maximum recommendation for adults is 35 percent, which translates to around 50 to 60g of fat per day.

Low GI Diets

Low GI diets have many benefits one of which is that it can help you feel fuller for longer while at the same time help you to eat a healthy well-balanced meal. Other benefits include improving your insulin sensitivity, reduce blood glucose spikes, and help you to prevent weight gain over a long-term period.

Controlling diabetes with diet plans and food strategies is a vital component of managing your diabetes so that you can achieve optimum health.

Sue Kennedy is the author of the physician-endorsed e-book "Defeat Diabetes Now," and operates a membership channel devoted to health & wellness. Readers of her book also receive instant access to expert interviews, articles, diet plans and other resources designed to maintain optimum health and prevent disease. Discover how you can defeatdiabetesnow.com.au defeat diabetes now.