Blood Sugars and Their Effect On Diabetes – Part 3

Managing Blood Sugars and Diabetes Part III

One of the key things with your nutrition is to keep track of your Carbohydrates. Now carbs are essentially complex sugars. There are those that are nutrient rich and of course on the other end of the scale nutrient poor.

Foods that contain a high amount of carbs include breads, pasta, fruits, cereals, root vegetables like potatoes and turnip, all forms of alcohol, candies, desserts and most milk products.

Nutrient dense foods are the grains, milk products, fruits and vegetables. Those low in nutrients include table sugars, alcohol, soda beverages, fast foods and many frozen dinners.

Although some “diets” vilify carbs the nutrient rich carbs need to be balanced with exercise and of course the remainder of your diet.

So how do you keep track of how many carbs you are consuming? Well to start with you need to eat a balanced diet.  Picture your plate and draw an imaginary line dividing it into two halves. Now a line goes perpendicular dividing one half into two quarters. Now divide one of the remaining half into three ….so now you have five portions.

The large portion you can fill with non-starchy vegetables (broccoli, spinach, cabbage, etc.).  The next large portion you can fill with your proteins and fats (meat, fish, and eggs).  One of the three small portions can include rice, grains, root veg etc.  Another small portion is for your fruits and finally a small portion of dairy, cheese, butter etc.

Now this is just a general overview of how to balance your plate and foods.

You can’t think of this as a diet but a guideline and roadmap for your eating habits.

Remember that starches are easily converted into sugars and although there is some room for them in the initial stages avoiding all starches will prove beneficial. So basically we are talking breads, pastas, rice or anything that flour in a key ingredient.

For getting started in the first phase think of a jump start by eliminating all complex carbs , sugars, alcohol etc. and stick to protein with non-starchy veg.

If you can maintain this for the first couple of weeks you will induce a state of ketosis that will help not only your type II diabetes but assist your liver in shedding some pounds.

Till the next time… Dr H