diabetes

I speak as someone with pre-diabetes. After I was diagnosed, I went through a diabetes educator to learn a lot about how to manage and prevent this disease, so what I'm sharing here, is what I learned there. I think the plan has too many carbs for anyone, not only those who specifically have to watch their carbohydrate intake.

I highly recommend speaking to a diabetes educator, nutritionist or doctor. They can help you find the correct carb range for you. Also, keep a close eye at your blood sugars before and after meals, especially carb rich ones, so you can figure out how different foods affect you. Keeping a log of this will also help your diabetes educator/nutritionist/doctor help you determine what to eat, and when.

Some other things I learned along the way:
- Try to make your carb choices whole grain or high fiber choices. Net carbs really come into play for diabetics. Simple sugars will lead to blood sugar spikes, but when balanced out with fiber, it metabolizes slowly.
- Fill your plate with veggies! They're low cal, high fiber, filled with water, and take up a lot of value for a few calories, which makes you feel fuller faster, and also longer, because of the fiber.
- Eating a meal balanced with protein and healthy fats also will affect how you metabolize those carbs. So if you eat an apple, try to have some cheese or some nuts with it. It'll buffer out any blood sugar spikes.


Those are some things that I found helpful when I was first starting to get my blood sugar under control. I can happily report that through lifestyle changes alone, I reined in my higher blood sugars. But, because diabetes varies from person to person, it is really important, I think, to see a medical professional who deals with this specifically for guidelines of what to eat, and when.

Best of luck!

I am also type two and stick to 100 or less carbs a day and between 75-100 grams of protein a day, which was recommended by my nutritionist and doctor. I also take 2000 mgs of cinnamon three times a day for my blood sugar.