Maintaining a healthy body weight and controlling glucose levels are important parts of the treatment of diabetes. If you're overweight, your body may not use glucose and insulin effectively, making blood sugar more difficult to regulate. Following a low-calorie, low-glycemic diet will make it easier to reach your ideal body weight and avoid both low and high blood sugar levels.
How Many Calories Do You Need?
The number of calories you need is based on your age, weight and activity level. To maintain your weight, adults need between 12 and 15 calories per pound of body weight. To lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than you use. When you create this calorie deficit, your body will burn stored fat for energy. It takes a 3,500-calorie deficit to lose one pound. Cutting 500 calories from your current daily diet should result in losing 1 lb. per week. Another way to determine caloric intake is to eat 12 calories per pound of your goal weight. If you want to weigh 130 lbs., limit your calories to about 1,500 per day.
What Is The Glycemic Index?
Developed in Australia at Sydney University, the glycemic index measures the potential of carbohydrates to affect your blood sugar. Foods are compared to pure glucose, which scores 100 on the glycemic index, or GI. The higher a food scores on the GI, the faster and higher your blood sugar will rise after eating it. Diabetics should use the GI as a guideline for making healthy choices that have little impact on blood sugar. Low-GI foods, those which score 55 or less, should make up the majority of carbohydrates in a diabetic diet.
General Diabetic Dietary Guidelines
Once you know how many calories to eat, you still need to know where those calories should come from. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, carbohydrates should account for between 45 and 65 percent of your calories, 25 to 35 percent of your calories should come from fat and 12 to 20 percent of your calories should come from protein. These guidelines are similar to the 2010 USDA dietary guidelines, except that the protein intake is lower for diabetics. Protein digestion can burden your kidneys. Because diabetes is the leading cause of kidney disease, protein intake is reduced to slow the progression of kidney disease.
Other Aspects of a Diabetic Diet
Diabetes increases your risk of heart disease; limit sodium to no more than 1,500 mg daily to lower blood pressure and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. Limit saturated fat, trans fat and dietary cholesterol for the same reasons -- they can increase your risk of heart disease and stroke by elevating cholesterol. The American Diabetes Association recommends practicing good portion control by filling half your plate with non-starchy vegetables, one-fourth of your plate with lean protein and the remaining one-fourth should contain a low-GI carb. If you have trouble controlling your blood sugar, you may need to meet with a dietitian to design an individualized meal plan.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Diabetes Diet -- General Dietary Guidelines
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases: What I Need to Know About Eating and Diabetes
- Glycemic Index: About Glycemic Index
- American Diabetes Association: Create Your Plate
- MayoClinic.com; Diabetes Diet -- Create Your Healthy-Eating Plan; Sept. 17, 2010
