This is one complex topic; many patients believe that having diabetes means you must give up your favorite foods or stop eating in restaurants.
There is no diabetic diet, only a healthy diet but you need to know that the foods you eat affect your blood sugar (also known as blood glucose).
Eating regular meals is very important, many patients mistakenly stop eating thinking that by not eating they can prevent blood sugars from going high. This is not true as your body stores sugar in the liver and when you don’t eat for prolonged periods of time it will release that sugar into the blood leading to high blood sugars. Instead, think about the amount of food you eat and make food choices to help control your diabetes and prevent other health problems.
Healthy eating should include Fiber, complex carbohydrates, protein, lots of vegetables and a limited amount of healthy fats. The three main nutrients are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.
Carbohydrates – “Carbs” are found in all kinds of foods, including bread, pasta, fruits, dairy products and sugary foods such as desserts. “Complex” carbohydrates, such as whole-grain bread, provide more nutrition than others. Check labels for carbs and limit the amount you eat to the recommended serving.
Read food labels – Looking at food labels can give you a clue to just how healthy (or unhealthy) a food is. Look for foods with three or more grams of fiber per serving and avoid saturated and trans fats.
Measure each serving – It’s very easy to eat more food than you need or are even hungry for, without realizing it. For example, a serving of protein (such as chicken or fish) should be the size of a deck of cards.
Make an eating plan – Planning meals when you first start can help you make sure you are not overeating and that your meals are healthy.
Set goals for healthy eating – Changing your eating habits can seem overwhelming. Start with simple goals and a realistic plan to tackle them. The goals of a healthy diet plan are to prevent high or low blood sugar.
See low carb bread, the plate method, and carb counting.
Hi there…i have actually used intermittent fasting and extended fasts to maintain normal BG levels and actually reverse my insulin resistance. I eat LCHF.
Thank you for your comment. For patients who were recently diagnosed this may work. However the longer you had diabetes and the less blood sugar control you have, intermittent fasting will probably not work. For these uncontrolled patients, if they go without eating over five-six hours, your liver will start releasing sugar into your blood. And since there is a deficiency of insulin, blood sugars will remain high in the blood.
Not sure if you’ve heard about IDMprogram.com, they have managed to get patients who have been diabetic for decades off all of their insulin and supporting BG pills relatively quickly (3-6months) with fasting and LCHF. The weight practically melts off…it is all quite phenomenal…
The liver can hold only about 24 hours worth of glucagon. Once that is burned off by the body and if the individual is on a keto or LCHF diet BG is controlled quite quickly. Throwing in IF or extended fasting helps to actually lower insulin and thus reverse insulin resistance…quite fascinating…
The best diet is the one you can stick with and helps you loose weight, when it comes to diabetes. Unfortunately, there’s no long-term data on ketogenic diets. In 2007 the project “The A to Z Weight Loss Study” compared the Atkins, Zone, LEARN, and Ornish diets for long-term weight loss. The female subjects assigned to the low-carb diet of 20 percent carbs were eating close to 35 percent by the end of 12 months—a far cry from the 10 percent or less required for ketosis.
In a 2015 Italian study, those on a ketosis diet lost 26 pounds in three months. About half of the participants stayed on the diet for a year but lost little additional weight in the next nine months. In the 2014 Spanish study those who followed a very-low-calorie ketogenic diet lost an average of 44 pounds in a year—but a third of them dropped out. And there is the question of what does the high fat do to your cardiovascular system. In a 2006 American study, KLC diet was associated with several adverse metabolic and emotional effects. For these reasons is not a diet I would endorsed.
Keto probably isn’t for everyone, and I don’t practice keto…I have managed to maintain my A1C around 5.2mmol down from 6.4 mmol using LCHF and IF. I have done this for over a year now and find this to be a very sustainable model.
The diet heart hypothesis pushed by Ancel Keys in the 1970’s where saturated fats and dietary cholesterol were made out to be villains has all but been debunked. My triglycerides fell from 3.0 to 1.12 and my HDL increased from 1.0 to 1.40 changing my cholesterol profile from negative to positive after switching diets, a diet higher in fat than what I was previously consuming…saw these results in about 6 weeks after changing way of eating…unfortunately corporate bias in industry funded research has a way of producing an outcome big pharma wants, which is keeping unsuspecting everyday lass and lassie hooked on pills, be it for T2D or cholesterol.
Would love to have your opinion on Dr. Jason Fung’s book, The Obesity Code.
I admit that I have not read the book but have heard regarding the subject addressed in the book. I will read it before making any comments that pertained directly to the book. About intermittent fasting, there are several studies that have stated benefits from fasting regarding weight loss. The biggest problem I see daily is that most patients who fast for large number of hours then will overeat at the one meal they have, and this will lead to even more weight gain.
Studies such as Dirks and Leeuwenburgh 2006; Johnstone 2007; Heilbronn, Smith, et al. 2005; report restricted eating has been anecdotally associated with extreme hunger, irritability, loss of strength, loss of libido, and other negative side effects.
Other studies such as Mattson and colleagues explored the effects of intermittent and continuous energy restriction on weight loss and various biomarkers (for conditions including breast cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease) among young overweight women. They found that intermittent restriction was as effective as continuous restriction for improving weight loss, insulin sensitivity and other health biomarkers. if continuous restriction is as effective with out the reported problems discussed above, it could be a better alternative.
There are too many factors that need to be considered when recommending diets, male vs. female, young vs. old, other comorbidities and in some cases even financial implications.
Most diets recommend healthy and fresh food which is a major change for a lot of my patients used to eat a lot of process foods. I try to concentrate my teaching toward these factors and continuous restriction of food.
The biggest concern with continuous calorie restriction diets is the resultant dip in BMR and subsequent imminent weight gain when the person dieting increases caloric intake. On IF and fasting, studies show in increase in BMR…hope you get a chance to read the book. It really explains all of this so well.