The Exchange Diet was originally created to help people with diabetes lose weight and control glucose levels. All foods are divided into six categories -- starches, proteins, vegetables, fruits, fats and milk. There's an additional "free" category for foods that have less than 20 calories per serving, such as diet soda, mustard or soy sauce. You eat an assigned number of exchanges from each category depending on your caloric needs and any other underlying health issues. Always consult your physician before beginning any weight loss program.
Step 1
Determine how many exchanges from each category you'll eat daily. The University of Maryland Medical Center recommends you eat 12 calories per pound of your ideal body weight. If you'd like to weigh 120 lbs., eat approximately 1,440 calories each day. That would allow eight starch exchanges, five protein exchanges, three exchanges each from the vegetable, fruit and fat categories and two milk exchanges. You'll want to space your food intake evenly throughout the day, probably by eating three meals and two snacks daily.
Step 2
Use Excel or other spreadsheet template to make your exchange diet chart. List your meals and snacks -- breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack one and snack two across the top of your spreadsheet. Add a total column at the end. Down the left-hand side, list the six food categories -- starch, protein, vegetables, fruit, fat and milk. After each category title, put the total amount of exchanges you'll eat in parenthesis. For example, Starch (8) Protein (5), etc. One of the benefits of the exchange system is it's flexibility -- you can design your meals based on what you like to eat and when.
Step 3
Every time you eat, make a notation of the number of exchanges you used for that meal or snack. If you ate a hard-boiled egg, a serving of low-fat yogurt and a small apple for breakfast, you used one exchange each from the protein, milk and fruit categories. Write a 1 under in the breakfast column in those three categories. If you have diabetes, you can also record your glucose levels with each meal right on the same sheet -- making it very easy to see the connection your diet has on your blood sugar levels. This can be very useful information of you have chronic high or low blood sugar; you'll be able to look for foods that trigger glucose problems.
Tips and Warnings
- Keep your chart on the refrigerator or in plain sight. Try to keep a pen close by. The easier it is to use, the more likely it is you'll use it. If you eat out often, you may want to keep your chart with you -- in your purse or briefcase, or keep it digital on your laptop.
- Pay attention to serving sizes -- exchange sizes are not the same. For example, a hamburger would use two starch exchanges; one exchange is 1/2 a hamburger bun or english muffin. And 1 oz. of protein is often an exchange -- your 3-oz. hamburger is three protein exchanges.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Diabetes Diet - Weight Control for Type 2 Diabetes
- MayoClinic.com; Your Diabetes Diet -- Exchange List; May 4, 2010
- "Diabetes Spectrum"; Choose Your Foods: Exchange Lists for Diabetes: The 2008 Revision of Exchange Lists for Meal Planning; 1. Patti Bazel Geil, MS, RD, FADA, CDE
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