Diabetic Diet

Maintaining a Diabetic Diet

Diabetes is a disease, in which sugar and starch are not properly absorbed from the blood, with thirst, emancipation and excessive excretion of urine with glucose. Of course this is a very basic example. People with diabetes are affected by the food they eat each day good or bad and extra body fat increases the body’s resistance to insulin. A diabetic is a person who has this medical condition and in order to control it the diabetic must pay attention to exercise and in particular diet.

You need to exercise every day, check your blood pressure up to twice a day, and maintain the right sugar levels. These must be well controlled and you have the power to do so when keeping to the strictness of the diet. When you are first diagnosed with diabetes it is imperative and a must that you consult with a dietician to learn what you have to eat or not eat in order to control your diabetes and stay healthy. Other information can be gained in cookbooks especially written for diabetics.

If you have diabetes and are overweight, losing weight by sticking to a diabetic diet will be an enormous help in controlling blood sugar and decreasing the risks of some of the long term complications associated with diabetes. Also if you are overweight or obese losing weight will help lower the risk of developing diabetes and if you have a family history of diabetes staying fit and avoiding any excessive weight gain is important.

There are 6 food lists to draw from when planning a diabetic diet and these were compiled by a committee formulated from The American Diabetes Association and the American Diabetic Association.

The groups are: First there are the starches and breads which will include things like cereals, grains, crackers, beans, bread and some vegetables. Next are all the meats that you can have; Then comes the world of vegetables, fresh, canned and frozen varieties; followed by fruit, fresh, canned and frozen; and then milk, full cream, skim and low fat; and concluded with fats, saturated and unsaturated.  As you can tell there are not many limits on the things that you can eat on this diet, only the contents of how they are cooked.

When using canned vegetables it is wise to rinse them in cold water before cooking to get rid of the excess salt. Be wary of sauces and dips opting for the low fat varieties. To add extra flavor to your cooking use onions, garlic, ginger, and lemon juice to name a few. Many spices will add rich flavors to your food without danger. Always remove the fat from meat and discard it.

Basically, you need to watch what you eat very carefully and sticking to a proper diabetic diet is a must as is regular exercise.