Sugar Diabetes - Controlling Blood Sugar Levels
If you or a loved one has received a diabetes diagnosis or are pre-diabetic, controlling your blood sugar levels becomes a key factor in the fight against diabetes no matter what type of diabetes you have whether type 1, type 2 or gestational diabetes.
Diabetes and especially type 2 sugar diabetes is affecting more and more people in the United States mainly due to lifestyle choices.
A key cornerstone to diabetes management involves meal planning.
You may need to work with a registered dietitian to determine the amount of sugars contained in the carbohydrates that you consume on a daily basis.
Monitoring your carbohydrate intake is crucial because carbohydrates affect the blood glucose levels more than any other nutrients.
A diabetic should be focused on adding more complex carbohydrates to their diet and eliminating any other kinds of carbohydrates from the diabetic diet.
Complex carbs include consuming whole grain bread, pasta or rice and not the white kind.
Whole grains allow the body to break down the carbs into simple sugars more slowly and allow you to maintain even blood sugar levels throughout the day.
Eating moderate amounts of carbohydrates especially complex carbohydrates and spreading out the amount of carbs consumed per day will allow you to maintain your blood glucose levels.
This will ensure that you do not experience any of the diabetes related complications such as heart disease, nerve damage, limb amputations, kidney disease, etc, resulting from high blood sugar levels.
Counting the amount of carbohydrates contained in your meals per day also allows diabetics to implement short acting or rapid acting insulin before any meal in order to better fine tune the premeal insulin in conjunction with the amount of carbs that will be consumed with each meal.
Taking a proactive approach to this disease is the only way to conquer or manage it.
It is also important to monitor the amount of sugars contained in fruits and vegetables.
Although fruits and vegetables contain many nutrients, dried fruit such as apricots and raisins may increase your blood sugar levels and you may want to avoid these unless they are absolutely necessary when you need a spike in your blood sugar levels.
Reading food labels should become second nature to determine the amount of carbs in each food item before you buy.
Also pay attention to the serving size documented to ensure that it is realistic based on the nutritional content documented on the label.
Once you determine the carbohydrate content of food, you can then use this knowledge to analyze the carbohydrate content of the various ingredients combined together in any given recipe.
Practice makes perfect and once you incorporate carbohydrate counting into your daily life, it will become easier and easier to manage the carbohydrates you consume.
Being aware of what you eat will also ensure that you maintain your proper weight which is important for diabetics.
Accuracy is important in carbohydrate counting and will help diabetics who rely on insulin injections to receive a proper premeal insulin dosage before each meal.
It will also allow those depending on oral diabetes medications to use a proper dosage or those managing diabetes through maintaining a proper diet and exercise program.
Diabetes and especially type 2 sugar diabetes is affecting more and more people in the United States mainly due to lifestyle choices.
A key cornerstone to diabetes management involves meal planning.
You may need to work with a registered dietitian to determine the amount of sugars contained in the carbohydrates that you consume on a daily basis.
Monitoring your carbohydrate intake is crucial because carbohydrates affect the blood glucose levels more than any other nutrients.
A diabetic should be focused on adding more complex carbohydrates to their diet and eliminating any other kinds of carbohydrates from the diabetic diet.
Complex carbs include consuming whole grain bread, pasta or rice and not the white kind.
Whole grains allow the body to break down the carbs into simple sugars more slowly and allow you to maintain even blood sugar levels throughout the day.
Eating moderate amounts of carbohydrates especially complex carbohydrates and spreading out the amount of carbs consumed per day will allow you to maintain your blood glucose levels.
This will ensure that you do not experience any of the diabetes related complications such as heart disease, nerve damage, limb amputations, kidney disease, etc, resulting from high blood sugar levels.
Counting the amount of carbohydrates contained in your meals per day also allows diabetics to implement short acting or rapid acting insulin before any meal in order to better fine tune the premeal insulin in conjunction with the amount of carbs that will be consumed with each meal.
Taking a proactive approach to this disease is the only way to conquer or manage it.
It is also important to monitor the amount of sugars contained in fruits and vegetables.
Although fruits and vegetables contain many nutrients, dried fruit such as apricots and raisins may increase your blood sugar levels and you may want to avoid these unless they are absolutely necessary when you need a spike in your blood sugar levels.
Reading food labels should become second nature to determine the amount of carbs in each food item before you buy.
Also pay attention to the serving size documented to ensure that it is realistic based on the nutritional content documented on the label.
Once you determine the carbohydrate content of food, you can then use this knowledge to analyze the carbohydrate content of the various ingredients combined together in any given recipe.
Practice makes perfect and once you incorporate carbohydrate counting into your daily life, it will become easier and easier to manage the carbohydrates you consume.
Being aware of what you eat will also ensure that you maintain your proper weight which is important for diabetics.
Accuracy is important in carbohydrate counting and will help diabetics who rely on insulin injections to receive a proper premeal insulin dosage before each meal.
It will also allow those depending on oral diabetes medications to use a proper dosage or those managing diabetes through maintaining a proper diet and exercise program.
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