People with diabetes should lead a healthy lifestyle and like everyone it is highly advisable to :
• Eat a healthy diet
• Exercise regularly
• Stop smoking and tobacco consumption in any form
• Stop alcohol consumption or limit it to small quantities
• Reduce weight if overweight
Getting a balanced diet
By choosing to eat a healthy balanced diet, people with diabetes can control blood glucose levels, blood fats and blood pressure.
A registered dietitian can help you best decide how to balance your diet with carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Here are some general guidelines:
Foods to avoid
Fat - Reduce the amount of dietary fat. Always avoid saturated fats like fatty meat, full fat dairy products, butter,
and lard. Try to use unsaturated fats like olive oil, corn oil, canula oil, sunflower oil,
and soya oil. Non-fat dairy products, legumes, skinless poultry, fish and lean meat are recommended
Carbohydrates - Carbohydrate choices should come from whole-grain breads or cereals, pasta, brown rice, beans, fruits, and vegetables. Carbohydrates differ in their calorie content, and thus affect weight and blood glucose control. Learning to read labels for total carbohydrate rather than sugar provides the best information for blood sugar control.
Sugar - Avoid sugar and honey. Limit sources of high-calorie and low-nutritional-value foods, including those with a high content of sugars. Sugar-containing foods should be substituted for other carbohydrate sources (such as potatoes) instead of just adding them on to the meal.
Opt for a few squares of dark chocolate with a high 70-80% cocoa and low sugar content if you feel like having some confectionary as an occasional treat
Try to avoid foods containing ingredients end in (ol) or (ose) as these are mainly different forms of carbohydrates like fructose, glucose, dextrose.
Recommended foods
1.
Oats contain soluble fibre, which slows the rate at which sugar is absorbed into the blood and can help maintain healthy cholesterol levels
2. Beans, Chickpeas and Lentils are rich in soluble fibre and are good sources of carbohydrates, protein and fibre
