Diabetic Diet & Blood Gluecose

My best friend (who has been trying to manage his obesity for years) has finally been diagnosed as pre-diabetic. Are there any easy ways to start him on diets for those who are pre-diabetic? Most of the sites we’ve tried seem just to say "Don’t be obese and get more exercise". Are there any resources which give diet sheets, or recommended brands for diabetics?

Your best friend clearly has blood sugar imbalances thus the prediabetes. Dietary changes can help so much in avoidng the diabetes diagnosis.

Eating unrefined foods, lean protein, and more veggies than starches are really important for you bf right now, low carb. Eating 5-6 small meals/snacks should be his pattern. Drink plenty of water. Try to exercise even walking 3X a day for 30 min will help stabilize glucose levels. Add more protein. Protein always helps in making me feel full and I don’t feel so hungry all the time. Fish, chicken, lamb, etc. are also good sources of protein. Beans have a good source of plant protein and fibers that stick with you longer and break down into sugar (as all food eventually does) in your blood stream more slowly. This is a good thing, as you won’t get a low blood sugar nearly as quickly. Try to avoid candy, juices, etc. are all turned into blood sugar very fast; they don’t stick with you. I know this is very hard but try to do it slowly eating less and less everyday. You will see how you will feel better following these tips. Think of these simple sugars as very short term fuel. If he needs to have sweets try sugar free its really good and fill that "sugar" absence. Eating correctly will help you straighten his dietary problems. Also, this helps when he can get into "portion" control eating smaller portions that makes it seem you are not on an actual diet.

David Mendosa diabetes.com can give you alot of help in setting up diet sheets and recommended diets and brands for diabetics. He also has systems that can help your friend track his glucose and set up reminders, etc. Mr Mendosa is a pioneer in the field of diabetes and his web site has an enormous amount of information for new diabetics as well as long time diabetics.

Try the above tips you’ll be surprised how well it works and how his blood glucose levels will drop. You are a good friend in helping him out and I’m sure he is a good friend to you too.

Hope this helps.

Okay, I ve searched and searched to find out how many carbs are acceptable for a diabetic to consume when on a 2100 calorie diet in an entire day? If you can give me the website or source where i may cite this information…..It has to be the total carbs specifically for a DIABETIC can have in an entire day without putting their glucose in jeapordy.
Thank You

Maximum carbs for the day is as individual as fingerprints. My doctor has me on 270g or less. The important thing is to spread the intake over the entire day, not at just one or two meals. That would overload my sugar level. Also another important factor to consider at meal times is how fast the carbs are absorbed into the blood stream (glycemic index or glycemic load). Low GI/GL foods take longer to absorb, keeping your blood sugar from spiking too high.

My father had a blocked artery and a stent put in. He has other arteries that may require stents in the future. And might be diabetic.

I am diabetic so my family are thinking we will all go on a diet for diabetics. I have done research and a diet for heart disease and diabetes seem almost the same.

Is this a good idea?

Well, it rather depends what you define as a diabetic diet.

A true diabetic diet has to be low in carbohydrate. Fat does not need to be limited.

The trouble is that the mainstream dietary advice to diabetics is criminally wrong. It still says to eat low fat/high carb, which is insane because diabetics cannot metabolize carb.

i just learned that by the age of 50-60, 50% of my generation is expected to have diabetes, knowing this i think that a diabetic cook books might be a good preventive measure. is it?

I second what Tabea said. Most diabetic cookbooks are a joke with a scattering of useful recipes, but sadly many diabetics rely on them far too much. Diabetic recipes tend to push the low-fat mantra because diabetes is strongly associated with elevated lipids and heart disease, but there’s not a lot of science to back up that natural, healthy fats are any more likely to cause heart disease than foods low in fat. And what we do know is that persistently high blood sugar due to diabetes can absolutely cause heart disease. The way to combat high blood sugar is to restrict carbohydrates, especially high-glycemic carbohydrates, like wheat, rice, corn, and potatoes. Fat does not elevate blood sugar and in fact helps keep blood sugar stable. Protein is very blood sugar friendly, too. Non-starchy vegetables are excellent for blood sugar control, as long as they are eaten in moderation.

There’s no harm in adopting a true diabetic diet. It’d probably be much healthier than the average American diet. There’s no guarantee you won’t get diabetes, though. If you have a genetic tendency, then it may just be unavoidable. This diet could help you lose weight, if that’s a goal, and reduce how much insulin your body has to make. There is a theory that insulin resistance, which causes higher insulin levels, stresses and then overtaxes the pancreas, destroying the pancreas’ ability to make enough insulin. A lower-carbohydrate diet requires less insulin because, without a lot of carbs, there’s less glucose in the blood.

How starches carbohydrates etc. should a diabetic get each day if you are a normal body weight and running blood sugars in the 200′s while on glucophage 500? Doctor wants me to see dietician but don’t have money right now.
So if someone could give me an idea of the average of what a 150 pound adult should get and amount of calories should eat? at least to get me started?

You’re really going to need to experiment, as your weight really doesn’t tell us anything about how well you can control your blood sugar, but I’d start with 100-150 grams of carbohydrates per day and go downward if your blood sugar levels don’t drop. I eat 30 grams or under per day because I find that I can reduce spikes and stay <100 mg/dL 99% of the time by doing this. This is fairly extreme for most diabetics, though, which is why I recommend you begin at higher number of carbohydrates and reduce as needed. You’re on a small dose of Metformin and Metformin is one of those diabetic drugs that really only works with accompanying changes in diet, so you will have to limit carbohydrates.

As for calories, I don’t know how tall you are or what sex you are, so I can’t estimate, but most healthy weight adults eat anywhere between 1500-2000 calories a day. Calories aren’t the most important aspect of diet to measure, though. Calories don’t raise blood sugar. You would only watch calories if you were trying to maintain a certain weight. Otherwise, to bring down blood sugar, you need to focus more on carbohydrates.

Also, as you diet, you’ll learn that not all carbohydrates are created equal. You may eat 20 grams in nuts and non-starchy vegetables and 20 grams in bread with wildly different numbers afterward.

Very little. The low glycemic diet is just a little pickier. A diabetic diet, for instance, allows white bread and white rice. It uses portion size to determine how much of it to have.
In a low glycemic diet, those things are not recommended.

What diet should diabetic cats be fed? Are there supermarket brands which are acceptable? And what insulin treatment is most recommended?

Vet.

Diabetes is such an individual disease. Only your vet wil be able to tell you the appropriate medications and food that is best for your cat.

I am showing signs of being a diabetic. Since most of my family members are diagnosed to be diabetics, I want to be vigilant and create a diabetic diet plan for myself so that it won’t get worse.

A low carb diet is in order. Mendosa’s Low Glycemic Index Diet is the best you can get . In one week you will know what to eat and what not and how much. http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm

This table includes the glycemic index and glycemic load of more than 2,480 individual food items. Not all of them, however, are available in the United States. They represent a true international effort of testing around the world.

The glycemic index (GI) is a numerical system of measuring how much of a rise in circulating blood sugar a carbohydrate triggers–the higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. So a low GI food will cause a small rise, while a high GI food will trigger a dramatic spike. A list of carbohydrates with their glycemic values is shown below. A GI is 70 or more is high, a GI of 56 to 69 inclusive is medium, and a GI of 55 or less is low.

The glycemic load (GL) is a relatively new way to assess the impact of carbohydrate consumption that takes the glycemic index into account, but gives a fuller picture than does glycemic index alone. A GI value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. It doesn’t tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. You need to know both things to understand a food’s effect on blood sugar. That is where glycemic load comes in. The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI. But there isn’t a lot of it, so watermelon’s glycemic load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low.

Foods that have a low GL almost always have a low GI. Foods with an intermediate or high GL range from very low to very high GI.

Both GI and GL are listed here. The GI is of foods based on the glucose index–where glucose is set to equal 100. The other is the glycemic load, which is the glycemic index divided by 100 multiplied by its available carbohydrate content (i.e. carbohydrates minus fiber) in grams. (The "Serve size (g)" column is the serving size in grams for calculating the glycemic load; for simplicity of presentation I have left out an intermediate column that shows the available carbohydrates in the stated serving sizes.) Take, watermelon as an example of calculating glycemic load. Its glycemic index is pretty high, about 72. According to the calculations by the people at the University of Sydney’s Human Nutrition Unit, in a serving of 120 grams it has 6 grams of available carbohydrate per serving, so its glycemic load is pretty low, 72/100*6=4.32, rounded to 4.

You can forget the metformin for now.
There are 4 key steps to controlling glucose levels.
Here are the 4 keys:
1) Knowledge- http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/index.ph… This is a great site for info
2) Meds. Metformin to start. Never , ever take Actos or Avandia. They may kill you. Bone fractures, heart problems and what diabetics really don’t need is that they change Bone Stem Cells to Fat Cells.
3)diet- A low carb diet is in order. I can’t count carbs so I use Mendosa’s Glycemic Index Diet. Great for the whole family. http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm
4) EXERCISE- Walking is fine but Nordic Walking is Great. Exercise also lowers Glucose levels , lowers Cholesterol and lowers Blood Pressure. Google it.
Exercise is very important.

Take care

Tin

Other ideas: Snacks: Hard boiled eggs, a handful of any nut you like, tempeh or chicken or shrimp skewers w/ peanut butter (sate) sauce (sate sauce-make your own to eliminate the sugar found in prepared versions of this sauce), a bowl of any soup you like that is under 30g of carbs per serving, preferably homemade, like lentil or minestrone or white bean, tomatoes or snow peas or steamed baby vegetables stuffed with crab, chicken, turkey or tofu salad, Cream of Carrot Soup w/ Cumin, Orange and Fennel; Triscuits with hummus and veggies (Pay attention to the serving size here, and the carbs, and FOLLOW it!), tons of raw or lightly steamed veggies and a delicious spinach/water chestnutyogurt or onion dip. As much Spicy V-8 Juice as you like; Low Carb Smoothies; An (as in one!) English muffin pizza, preferably homemade pizza sauce on a whole wheat English muffin w/ cheese and LOTS of sauteed veggies; You can have as much Salad Caprese as you like: Fresh Tomatoes, Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, Some Red Onion sliced thinly, some cucumbers, if you like, and freshly made pesto all over it!!!! Greek Salad is absolutely fabulous for you, too! Dinners: Turkey Meatloaf w/ Mushroom Gravy, steamed broccoli, cauliflower and baby carrots and some kind of starch, or you could forget the starch, and have a huge salad instead…; Caesar Salad w/ Grilled Chicken; Cobb Salad, but either use Turkey Bacon, or forget the Bacon all together; Steak or Chicken Fajitas; Baked Haddock (no crumbs, but as much lemon, garlic, spices and butter as you like), Curried Yams w/ Garlic, Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper (Yams and sweet potatoes are a much better food choice for a diabetic than are white potatoes.), Stir-Fried Veggies (as much as you like) or steamed carrots w/ butter (a little bit) and fresh parsley (lots!); shrimp or chicken/broccoli/red peppers over brown rice or any other whole grain you like (but in moderation!); Desserts: A baked apple, stuffed w/ cinnamon or other warming spices, raisins and walnuts, w/ a drizzle of butter on it. Fresh strawberries or other healthy fresh fruits, dipped in sugar free chocolate sauce, and sugar free whipped cream…YUM!!!

I don’t like the foods on the standard diabetic diet. I want a bit of flavor to my food.

A low glycemic index diet. http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm

This table includes the glycemic index and glycemic load of more than 2,480 individual food items. Not all of them, however, are available in the United States. They represent a true international effort of testing around the world.

The glycemic index (GI) is a numerical system of measuring how much of a rise in circulating blood sugar a carbohydrate triggers–the higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. So a low GI food will cause a small rise, while a high GI food will trigger a dramatic spike. A list of carbohydrates with their glycemic values is shown below. A GI is 70 or more is high, a GI of 56 to 69 inclusive is medium, and a GI of 55 or less is low.

The glycemic load (GL) is a relatively new way to assess the impact of carbohydrate consumption that takes the glycemic index into account, but gives a fuller picture than does glycemic index alone. A GI value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. It doesn’t tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. You need to know both things to understand a food’s effect on blood sugar. That is where glycemic load comes in. The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI. But there isn’t a lot of it, so watermelon’s glycemic load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low.

Foods that have a low GL almost always have a low GI. Foods with an intermediate or high GL range from very low to very high GI.

Both GI and GL are listed here. The GI is of foods based on the glucose index–where glucose is set to equal 100. The other is the glycemic load, which is the glycemic index divided by 100 multiplied by its available carbohydrate content (i.e. carbohydrates minus fiber) in grams. (The "Serve size (g)" column is the serving size in grams for calculating the glycemic load; for simplicity of presentation I have left out an intermediate column that shows the available carbohydrates in the stated serving sizes.) Take, watermelon as an example of calculating glycemic load. Its glycemic index is pretty high, about 72. According to the calculations by the people at the University of Sydney’s Human Nutrition Unit, in a serving of 120 grams it has 6 grams of available carbohydrate per serving, so its glycemic load is pretty low, 72/100*6=4.32, rounded to 4.

Combine this with EXERCISE and you got the winning combo.

Take care

Tin