Losing 5 percent to 10 percent of your weight, if you are overweight, can help you be healthier with diabetes by improving your blood sugar levels, your blood cholesterol levels and your blood pressure. Most people with diabetes, especially with type 2 diabetes, are overweight or obese and can benefit from losing weight. Lowering your carbohydrate intake could help you lose weight without starving and without compromising your blood sugar control.
Low-Carbohydrate Diets to Lose Weight
Carbohydrates are the main source of calories on a standard American diet, providing over 50 percent of the total calorie intake. This nutrient is mainly present in grains like bread, rice, pasta, breakfast cereals and granola bars, fruits, milk, yogurt, candies, soft drinks and desserts. Carbohydrates constitute the main nutrient contributing to raising your blood sugar levels after eating and they promote the release of insulin in people that still have some endogenous production left. In overweight diabetics, a high carbohydrate intake leads to high blood sugar levels and promote the secretion of large quantities of insulin, which leads to increased fat storage or an inability to lose weight. A study published in the May 2008 issue of "Nutrition & Metabolism," a low-carb eating plan is a safe and effective way for diabetics to lose weight. (See Reference 1)
The Right Carbohydrate Intake
Before starting on a low-carb meal plan, it is important that you consult with your doctor or healthcare provider to ensure that your transition is done safely, especially if you are taking diabetes medications or insulin injections. A carbohydrate intake corresponding to less than 10 percent of your calories is considered safe and effective to promote weight loss in diabetes, which corresponds to a daily carbohydrate intake of 40 to 50 g of carbohydrates based on a 1,600 to 1,800-calorie diet. You can experiment with different carbohydrate level to see what gives you the best results.
Breakfast
Most Americans are used to eat large amounts of carbohydrates at breakfast, sometimes reaching over 100 g of carbohydrates just for this meal. To keep your carbohydrate intake around 15 g per meal, it is best to avoid breakfast cereals, toasts, muffins, bagels and jams. Instead, base your breakfast on protein, such as smoked salmon, eggs, sausages, cheese, almonds, peanut butter or any leftover meat from the previous day. Complete your breakfast with low-carb nonstarchy vegetables, such as broccoli, mushrooms and bell pepper. You can include either 2/3 cup of plain yogurt, a small serving of fruit or a 1/2 cup of plain yogurt and a few berries mixed together.
Lunch and Dinner
For lunch and dinner, plan your meals around generous servings of nonstarchy vegetables, a source of protein, healthy fats and a very small serving of carbohydrate-containing food. For example, you meal could be a large salad filled with leafy greens, topped with a chicken breast, canned tuna, hard-boiled eggs or cheese. You can get healthy fats from avocado slices or a olive oil-based vinaigrette. Alternatively, you can have a salmon fillet or a lean sirloin accompanied with green beans, broccoli, bok choy, mushrooms or caulflower cooked in healthy fats like olive oil. Your carbohydrate choice for lunch or dinner should provide around 15 g of carbohydrates, whether it is 1/3 cup of brown rice, 1/3 cup of pasta, a slice of whole grain bread, a small piece of fruit or 1 cup of milk.
References
- "Nutrition & Metabolism"; Low-Carbohydrate Diet in Type 2 Diabetes: Stable Improvement of Bodyweight and Glycemic Control During 44 Months Follow-Up; Jörgen V Nielsen and Eva A. Joensson; May 2008
- "Nutrition & Metabolism"; The Case for Low Carbohydrate Diets in Diabetes Management; Surender K. Arora, et al.; July 2005
- American Diabetes Association: Carbohydrate Counting
- Joslin Diabetes Center: Carbohydrate Counting 101
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