Having a clear understanding of sugar diabetes diet principles is very important if you or a family member is diabetic or has been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. Sugar diabetes is simply another name for the condition. Pre-diabetes is a condition where the blood sugar level is abnormally high, but not so high that diabetes itself has been diagnosed.
People can often recover from pre-diabetes through careful management of their food intake so that their blood sugar returns to normal levels. Even some people with diagnosed type 2 diabetes are able to do this.
This is a highly desirable thing to do because living with diabetes has long term dangers for other areas of your health including problems with vision, vascular problems including heart attacks and strokes, and also a risk of kidney failure.
Good management of blood glucose levels through diet can put diabetes into remission which reduces the risk of many of these complications.
Diabetes Diet Guidelines
Patients will almost always be advised by their doctor to see a dietician to set up a personalized diet plan.
It is important to check back regularly to report on how things are going and tweak the plan to take account of changes in your general health and lifestyle as well as glucose levels.
Even though this condition is often related to being over, it is not a great idea to try to lose fast.
Crash diets cause big swings in blood sugar levels which can be very dangerous for diabetics whose bodies are not equipped to deal with them.
Unless your medical practitioner advises otherwise, your aim should be to keep your steady in the beginning. When you have adjusted to the new foods and restrictions that you will be advised to apply, you will probably find that your automatically stabilizes and perhaps begins to fall slowly. A loss of 10 to 20 pounds a year is fine.
Most new diabetics are recommended to eat more of the following foods:
- starchy carbs, especially whole grains (brown rice, whole grain bread, etc)
- vegetables
- most fruits
And to cut out or restrict the following foods:
- sugar and anything containing it (check labels)
- fruit juices
- fats
- alcohol
- salt
Some fruits such as bananas and mangoes are very sweet but can usually be eaten in normal quantities at the end of a meal. Don’t eat a lot of sweet fruit or eat it alone.
If you do eat foods with a high glycemic index, it is important to take them with fibrous foods to slow down the impact of the sugars in the food on the blood. That is why whole fruits are often okay for most people following a sugar diabetes diet but fruit juices are not.
