complex carbohydrates | Diabetes Healthy Solutions

Issues to be Aware of in a Diabetic Diet

Diabetes can be effectively controlled with regular exercise and eating a healthy diabetic diet. If you are a diabetic, the two main issues you should be well aware of in a diabetic diet plan are the sugar and fat intake.

Constant weight control is essential to prevent excessive weight gain that can contribute to a number of different problems.

If you are a diabetic, you become tuned into what you are putting into your body. Ideally, you should be eating as much raw, unprocessed food as possible, but you will still probably be consuming packaged foods. If you want to do this in a healthy way, you need to be aware that what some manufacturers put on a label is not always straightforward.

Are Food Labels really what they say they are?

For example:

Fat free must be less than 0.15 per cent fat.
Reduced fat should be at least a 25% reduction from the original food or product.
Low fat must contain less than 3 per cent for solid foods and less than 1.5 per cent for liquid foods.
No added sugar in a product means the product must not contain any added sugars, but says nothing about the natural sugar content. Fruit juice is an excellent example here.

People suffering with diabetes must also keep in mind that fats, sugars and salts can be also added in many forms and scattered throughout the ingredient list without actually being labelled as fat, sugar or salt.

Always look at the fine print as fats can be labelled as:

Dripping, butter, shortening, coconut, coconut oil, Palm oil, copha, cream, sour cream, mayonnaise, vegetable oils and fats, hydrogenated oils, full cream milk powder, eggs, mono / di or tri glyderides. None of this mentions the quality of the ingredients, which is another issue.

Sugars can be labelled as:

Brown sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, disaccharides, fructose, glucose, lactose, golden syrup, honey, malt, maltose, mannitol, maple syrup, molasses, monosaccharides, raw sugar, sorbitol, sucrose and xylitol.

Much of the advice given by a dietitian is to follow a diet that is healthy for both diabetic and nondiabetic, without distinction. The key is moderation in everything.

A good diabetic diet has an emphasis on reducing the amount of sweet foods, especially cakes and biscuits and increase the intake of complex carbohydrates by eating more brown rice and whole foods. Medication is not always necessarily the answer to control diabetes as regular exercise and a diabetic diet is quite effective.

How much exercise does a diabetic need?

There is medical evidence that regular exercise can actually help prevent a person developing diabetes and help with its control. The muscles of the body uses glucose during exercise, resulting in lower overall levels of blood sugar. The minimum recommended amount of exercise to be effective is 20 minutes at least three times a week.

And of course it’s important to consult your doctor before taking a new kind of exercise, especially if you have additional health problems, along with diabetes. Exercise alone is not sufficient to help control diabetes, which means that a diabetic diet is a must!

Moreover, there are some diabetic patients for whom this is not enough and medication is necessary. Most drugs are taken orally for diabetes. A diabetic may be prescribed a drug or a combination of several drugs to adequately control their diabetes.

Effective management of diabetes can usually be achieved through adherence to proper diet and exercise for diabetics on a regular basis.

Learn more about the complications of diabetes HERE!

American Diabetes Assoc. Diet

The American Diabetes Assoc. diet consists of a variety of foods that are not only good for you, but also taste good and the diet isn’t only healthy just for diabetics but can be healthy for anyone. The American Diabetes Assoc. diet recommends a daily intake of four food groups which consist of vegetables, whole grains, proteins, and low fat dairy products. It is worth noting that the American Diabetes Assoc. diet is without sweets and other forms of simple sugars as these food items can cause dangerous spikes and sudden low in blood sugar.

The whole grains vegetables and low fat dairy products can supply the type of complex carbohydrates that are needed to keep the blood sugar reasonably stable.

Complex carbohydrates are generally more desirable as part of a healthy diet as they digest slowly and provide long lasting and steady sources of energy father than the quick spike and fall of glucose levels which comes from simple carbohydrates. When considering any diet, even the American Diabetes Assoc. diet, it is important to make sure that both types of carbs are included in the count.

Though the American Diabetes Association is a great place to get information on diet and many other things that are of utmost importance to the diabetic patient only the diabetic’s personal doctor will be completely familiar with their overall health.

Therefore the diabetic’s personal physician should be the first person turned to in order to obtain information on whether the American Diabetes Assoc. diet may be right for a particular diabetic.

Diets for Type II Diabetes

While maintain a healthy diet should be an important goal for everyone for those with the disease diets for type II diabetes can be a matter of life and death. For a person with normal health maintaining a healthy diet is important for weight control and to make sure that the body has the needed nutrients to function properly. For those using diets for type II diabetes the matter isn’t so much about actual weight control as it is about controlling glucose levels within the body.

A properly designed and adhered to diet can make the difference between needing to take pharmaceutical measures for glucose control and simply controlling glucose levels by managing the diet.

Diets for type II diabetes deal mainly with making sure that the body has appropriate levels of proteins and vitamins, and keeping the levels of carbohydrates under control. Carbohydrates are one of the main parts of the dietary needs of the body as it is from the intake of carbohydrates that the body metabolizes the glucose that is used as fuel for each cell in the body.

There are two types of carbohydrates simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are sugars like glucose, fructose, sucrose and lactose and are mainly found in processed foods and fruits. Complex carbohydrates are usually found in starchy foods like nuts, potatoes, rice, and beans. Complex carbohydrates are generally more desirable as part of healthy diets for type II diabetes as they digest slowly and provide long lasting and steady sources of energy father than the quick spike and fall of glucose levels which comes from simple carbohydrates.

The key to diets for type II diabetes is to properly balance carbohydrates in order to maintain blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible. If you have type II diabetes you should consult with your doctor or dietician for information on the type of diet that is just right for you.

Are you looking for good diabetic recipes?

It’s a fact that being overweight has become almost pandemic in most western societies, and many people are looking at specialized recipes in an effort to drop a few pounds, for diabetics however good eating habits can really make a difference in the management of their condition and diabetic recipes are the key. The key to diabetes management is glucose control, controlling the amount of blood sugar, and this can sometimes be achieved through the proper diabetic recipes and sometimes medication must be taken, but with out of control eating habits even the medications won’t work as well as they could. Diabetic recipes are generally going to be low in simple sugars and will contain only moderate amounts of complex carbohydrates and a good amount of protein.

While it is common knowledge that sugar must be greatly reduced or eliminated in most diabetic diets, the fact is that many other foods such as potatoes, rice, pastas and breads should also be eaten in limited amounts. This is because the starches and carbohydrates in these foods are readily broken down into glucose during the digestive process. Though these types of carbohydrates are better for those on a diabetic diet than simple sugars they should still be eaten only in moderation.

There are many sources of information on diabetic diets, and many places to find diabetic recipes, including health magazines, online sources, and even organizations like the American Diabetes Association can provide good advice. The best place to start getting advice on what foods ahould be included in a diabetic diet is with your physician. Your physician will be familiar not only with your diabetes, but also with any other health conditions you might have as well as your body weight and overall health, and is the go-to person when it comes to getting the right information to start compiling your own book of diabetic recipes.

Diabetic Menu Planner

Diabetic Menu Planner, the phrase probably conjures up images of bland foods, with very little sugar, and nothing at all fried in order to keep the fat content of the food down. The truth is a diabetic menu planner is not a bad meal plan, and with careful consideration those who suffer from type 2 diabetes can enjoy a good tasting and varied menu. As a matter of fact, once a diabetic menu planner is examined and seen for what it is then it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for some of us who are non-diabetic to follow the same food regimen. One thing that menus for diabetics have in common with most menus for weight loss is control of carbohydrate intake.

The whole reason those with type 2 diabetes have to follow menu plans is because their body does not process glucose, the sugar derived from food, correctly. This puts some people under the incorrect belief that the type 2 diabetic can eat anything they like with no worries as long as there is no sugar added. This is simply not true. Many common foods, especially starchy foods like rice, potatoes, and even white bread are quickly broken down by the body into simple sugars, and if too much of this is eaten it can lead to unhealthy or even dangerous blood glucose level increases for the type 2 diabetic.

The whole goal of planning a menu for a diabetic is to control the way their blood glucose behaves by eating complex carbohydrates and proteins. One of the rules of the thumb is that unless the food is a protein, like chicken or fish, white foods are bad foods. When a diabetic carefully plans their intake of carbohydrates they can better control their amount of body fat, and keep their blood glucose levels fairly close to normal. By using an appropriate diabetic menu planner a type 2 diabetic may be able to effectively manage their disease with diet and exercise alone and so live a full an healthy life.