the pages of this book you have signaled that you are ready to learn how to eat healthier. Great! You may have been diagnosed with diabetes yesterday have had diabetes for many years, have just been told you are at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes, or are concerned about a family member or friend with diabetes. Whatever your situation, this book will help you uncover the details about healthy eating with diabetes—from the basics of what to eat, to the practical skills of shopping, planning healthy meals, and even eating healthy restaurant meals.
Hands down, healthy eating day after day is the most difficult and challenging part of taking care of diabetes, especially today in our fast-paced convenience-driven world. Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy helps you learn which changes to make in your eating habits and food choices. This book provides you with lots of easy ways to make these changes. It also helps you analyze your current food habits and lifestyle to determine your helpful and harmful habits. It will also help you continue to enjoy the many foods you love to eat. Yes, that’s right, you don’t have to give up the foods you enjoy!
A healthy eating plan is an essential component of your diabetes care—whether or not you take blood-glucose-lowering medications or other medications to control your blood pressure, lipids, and more. As you thumb through the pages ahead, keep in mind that today, research suggests that the best way to stay healthy with diabetes over the years is to get and keep your blood glucose, blood lipids, and blood pressure in your target ranges—you’ll soon know these as your diabetes ABCs.
If you have opened this book to find a one-size-fits-all diet or a magic bullet approach to weight loss, you’ve come to the wrong place. (Weight loss and diabetes control take persistence and hard work and you’ll get plenty of tips for success in the pages ahead.) You’ve come to the right place if you want an approach to help you slowly change your eating habits for the rest of your life, lose weight (if you need to), and keep the weight off.
If you are at high risk for type 2 diabetes or already have type 2 diabetes, it’s highly likely that some weight loss will benefit your health. Keeping the weight off will be just as important. Every chapter is chock full of tips and strategies for healthier eating as well as weight loss and long-term control.
Your goal should be to develop a healthy eating plan that you are willing and able to follow the rest of your life. That’s how long you’ll have diabetes.
Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy is divided into three sections:
Section 1: Diabetes, Nutrition, and Healthy Eating Basics
Learn about nutrition basics, including carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Review the healthy eating guidelines that are beneficial for everyone, from young to old, as well as specific recommendations for people with various types of diabetes. Also learn about vitamins, minerals, and supplements and find out how much sodium to include in your eating plan.
Section 2: Foods by Group
Learn about the food groups. These include the starches and grains, fruits and fruit juices, vegetables (non-starchy), meats, and dairy foods. You’ll also find out about other kinds of food you eat: fats and oils, sugar and sweets, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and even mixed-up foods like pizza, soups, and frozen meals. Learn which nutrients are provided by the foods in each food group and discover easy ways to eat more or less of those foods to achieve your diabetes goals. You’ll also read the stories of how people with diabetes, like you, have been able to set and achieve their healthy eating and diabetes goals.
Section 3: Putting Healthy Eating into Action
This section helps you apply the knowledge and strategies you’ve learned in the first two sections to plan healthy meals and snacks every day. Learn how to set short-term goals and evaluate their success to achieve and maintain healthy behavior changes, practice portion control, read food and Nutrition Facts labels, and eat healthier restaurant meals.
Think of your healthy eating plan and healthier habits as long-term works in progress. Don’t try to change everything at once. Take one step at a time. Keep in mind that any change you make to eat healthier is a step in the right direction. Also, keep in mind that none of this is easy. Think about finding a supportive network to maximize your success. Local support groups, Weight Watchers meetings, or online diabetes and/or weight control support networks are a great place to start.
Keep in mind that success breeds success. Once you are successful at making one change, you’re likely to be more successful at making the next change and the one after that. Making changes will become easier for you as time goes on. This is true whether you are trying to make healthier food choices or be more physically active— another important part of staying healthy with diabetes.
Before you read on, spend a few minutes jotting down some notes about your eating habits. Create a form like the one on the next page. If you are honest with yourself, you can learn a lot about your current food choices and eating habits. Next, it’s time to start changing your habits for good, one step at a time.
The pages ahead contain everything you need to know about healthy eating with diabetes. Don’t worry about what you’ve eaten and how you’ve lived in the past. Start changing your eating habits now to get and keep your blood glucose, blood lipids, and blood pressure on target. These goals are your key to staying healthy with diabetes. Don’t delay; jump in!
Diabetes, Nutrition, and Healthy Eating Basics
A Few Bits and Bites about Diabetes
What You’ll Learn:
• what diabetes is and how it affects your body and why you’ll want to track your levels over time
• the target goals for blood glucose, blood lipids, and blood pressure— yourABCs
• how pre-diabetes (being at high risk for type 2) can progress to type 2 diabetes and what you can do to slow down this process
• the benefits of weight loss and physical activity to your short- and long-term health •
What Is Diabetes?
Before you dig in to learn about healthier eating, take a few minutes to learn more about diabetes and what you can do to slow down the progress of this disease. If you have diabetes, your body has difficulty converting the food you eat into energy you can use.
After you eat, your body breaks down some of the food into glucose, or sugar, which is the basic fuel for all the cells in your body. Insulin, a hormone produced by the beta cells in the pancreas, helps take the glucose from your blood to the cells. When you have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, two things are going wrong with this process. First, your body is unable to keep up with the demand for large amounts of insulin. Very often this is because you are carrying around excess weight. Second, because your body has become resistant to the insulin your pancreas does make, you are not able to efficiently use the insulin you make. You have both insufficient insulin production and insulin resistance-key features of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes. The result is that glucose builds up in your blood, instead of getting into your cells via insulin to be used for energy. Over the years, high blood glucose levels can damage your kidneys, eyes, and nerves.
Managing your diabetes means working to keep your blood glucose levels as close to normal as possible. Unfortunately, people with diabetes, and particularly type 2 diabetes, also often have high blood pressure and unhealthy blood lipid levels: HDL (good) cholesterol is too low, triglycerides are too high, and LDL (bad) cholesterol is too high. These problems are caused by excessive weight