The Best Diet Plan to Enable You to Manage Diabetes Naturally:
Diet plays a vital role in helping you lower your blood glucose levels. To manage the condition, check this best diet plan that you can follow when planning your diabetes meals.
- Lower Your Intake of Added Sugar:
You might find it hard to reduce sugar from your daily diet, however, it’s essential to manage your diabetes. Begin with small substitutes. For instance, instead of having energy drinks, sugar beverages, and fruit juices, choose to have plain milk, sugarless coffee or tea, and water in your type 2 diabetes diet plan. Reducing your intake of added sugar can help you keep your weight and blood glucose levels in check. The guidance of certified dieticians can help you have healthy food replacements for foods with added sugar.
- Go for Healthier Carbohydrates:
All types of carbohydrates impact your blood sugar levels. So, you need to learn which foods contain high and low carbohydrates content. Preferring healthier foods and limiting your portion sizes in your diabetes meals can help you keep your diabetes in check. Here’s a quick rundown of healthy carbohydrates that you can have in your type 2 diabetes diet plan.
- Pulses such as lentils, chickpeas, and beans.
- Fresh vegetables
- Whole grains, such as whole oats, brown rice, and buckwheat.
- Fresh fruits
- Dairy: Unsweetened yoghurt and milk
While following this sugar patient diet plan, you need to avoid or limit low-fibre foods, such as white rice, white bread, and highly processed cereals. Choose to have foods high in fibre.
- Avoid or Limit the Intake of Red and Processed Meat:
When reducing the intake of carbohydrates, you might choose to have larger quantities of meat. But, it’s not a healthy step when it comes to eating processed meat and red meat, as this kind of meat has a link to cancers and heart-related ailments. So, replace red and processed meat with healthy foods, such as pulses, lentils, fish, unsalted nuts, eggs, and poultry in your diabetic diet plan. Lentils, beans, and peas are abundant in fibre and don’t affect your blood sugar levels significantly. Eating them helps you stay full for longer than usual. Among fish, choose oily fish, such as salmon, which are rich sources of omega-3 fatty acids that safeguard your heart. Prefer to have two portions of these healthy fish a week in your type 2 diabetes plan.
- Prefer Fresh Fruits and Vegetables:
Fresh vegetables and fruits are anytime good for health. So, having them in your diabetes meals is beneficial to your health. They supply you with a healthy dose of minerals, fibre, and vitamins. Although fruits contain sugar, it’s a natural sugar which is not unhealthy like added sugar. Packaged products, such as fruit juices contain added sugar; so, avoid them. Choose whole fresh fruit instead in your sugar patient diet plan. (Title: Diet Plan for Sugar Patient) Moreover, whole fruit is a nutritious food for all, even if you are a diabetic.
- Opt for Healthier Fats:
There exist various fats, and different fats impact our health in different manners. Certain saturated fats can elevate blood cholesterol levels, thereby increasing your risk of cardiovascular diseases. So, avoid animal-based foods, such as red and processed meat, lard, and butter. Also, avoid pastries, cakes, and biscuits. Foods, such as seeds, unsalted nuts, oily fish, sunflower oil, olive oil, and avocadoes, contain healthier fats that make a positive effect on our health. Prefer to have plant-based fat, such as olive oil or canola oil. Both these oils contain monounsaturated fat. Also, omega-3 fatty acids present in the canola oil are known for being heart-healthy. So, include these foods in your diabetes diet list of foods.
- Restrict Your Salt Intake and Prefer Herbs to Flavour Your Food:
Having plenty of salt in your diet can raise your risk of developing hypertension, which increases your risk of stroke and cardiovascular ailments. And, diabetic individuals are already at a greater risk of developing the conditions due to elevated sugar levels. So, limit your salt intake to a maximum of six grams i.e. one teaspoon. Check the labels of pre-packaged foods, as they are likely to contain a high quantity of salt. You can flavour your culinary delights with various herbs and spices instead of salt.
- Make Smart Choices for Snacks:
Instead of snacking on biscuits, crisps, chocolates, and chips, choose to have unsalted nuts, unsweetened yoghurt, fresh fruits, vegetables, and seeds in moderation. This will prevent the spike in your blood glucose levels.
- Identify Sugar Hiding in Your Foods:
Several packaged or processed foods happen to camouflage sugar content in them. Low-fat food packed options, canned items, pasta sauces, ketchup, frozen food, and bread are some prominent foods that may label sugar as malt syrup, cane crystals, dextrose, invert sugar, agave nectar, and more. As you may not be aware these ingredients on the label contain sugar, you may end up having these foods and experience a boost in your blood sugar levels. So, be aware of the ingredients that indicate sugar content when buying any food, identify the hidden sugar, and avoid or limit such foods when following a diabetic diet plan.
- Cut Out Empty Calories from Your Diet:
Beverages, such as soft drinks, juices, and coals, have zero nutritional value. Eating them only add calories and sugar to your blood; so; avoid them. When opting for low-fat foods, ensure that they don’t have any added sugar. Frozen meals and canned foods usually have hidden sugar, which is not good when following a diabetic diet plan. If you experience intense sweet cravings, opt to have a small bite of dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. You may go for whole frozen fruit instead of ice cream to satisfy your craving for ice cream.
- Time Your Meals:
Spending long hours not eating anything to manage your diabetes can make your blood sugar levels dip below the healthy mark. So, prefer to eat a small, nutritious meal every four or five hours to stabilize your blood sugar. Also, ensure that you eat in moderation. Avoid eating heavy meals thrice or four times a day. Small diabetes meals comprising nutritious foods can help. Make sure that you have nutritious foods packed on hand when on the go.
