Thursday, July 31, 2008

Starting A Diabetes Diet Plan

By Max Peykar


Diabetes can cripple you for life if you let it, but one way of taking control and not letting it do that is by following a diabetes diet plan. This is not really an option - unless you do so, your health will worsen and every facet of your life will be affected by diabetes. So what you should do is, consult a nutritionist who will design a healthy eating plan for you, which has enough variation to satiate your taste buds, while ensuring that your nutritional needs are met at the same time.

A healthy diet plan for diabetics has very strict composition - it must have 50% starch, 20% fat and 30% protein. Since the composition should be so exact, diabetic food must be prepared very precisely, with a great deal of attention given to exact measurements.

You really have to be dedicated to following your diabetic eating plan. Fatty and high calorie foods like fried foods and snacks between meals must all be strictly avoided. You also have to be careful not to miss any meals - this can mess up your metabolism. Eating out can be a problem, but you have to be careful.

Fructose is much easily digested than sucrose, so consuming a lot of fruits and vegetables is recommended, but they must be fresh and not frozen. Frozen foods are often preserved with various fatty and sugary chemicals. Avoid whole milk dairy products in your daily meals, but you should get your necessary dairy intake by drinking skimmed milk. Look away from all sweets, honey and candy items and other bakery and/or confectionery items containing high amounts of enriched carbohydrates.

There are plenty of other things you will have to try your very best to avoid - alcohol tops the list. Other high-fat foods like red meat, potato chips, eggs, mayonnaise etc must also be avoided, if you can, as should bottled fruit juice, cooking sauces and carbonated drinks. When you are on a strict diabetic eating plan, the daily calorie intake you must aim at is 1800 calories. So you have to make sure that your daily diet is carefully planned well in advance.

Let us look at what one day on a diabetic eating plan can be like - breakfast can be quite filling and nutritious, if you have half a cup of oatmeal, about two thirds of a cup of apple juice, a slice of bread (but make sure it is wholemeal bread), a cup of skimmed milk, as long as it's not sweetened, and a soft-cooked egg. For lunch, you could have half a cup of tuna, two slices of wholemeal bread, half a cup of diced tomatoes, a teaspoon of margarine for the bread, a cup of mixed fruit for a healthy dessert and a glass of lemon tea to wash it all down with. Dinner, again, can be tasty and filling, with a slice of wholemeal bread, half a cup of mashed potatoes, either a tossed salad or a cup of broccoli and three ounces of baked chicken. You have to be careful about salad dressing, though - don't pick one off the shelf, make a low-fat, no-sugar one with olive oil and seasoning.

You need to know a good bit about what your body needs in terms of nutrition and how your metabolic system keeps you going to figure out a diabetes diet plan. You can turn to your doctor for help, and you can design a varied and nutritious eating plan that keeps you healthy and happy for a long time.

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