Meal Plans and Food to Eat with Type 2 Diabetes

What you eat is very important especially if you have diabetes. If you have diabetes type 1, your goal is to balance what you eat with the right amount of insulin in order to help use up the glucose in your blood. To help you find out the amount of insulin you need, you would need the advice of a dietitian or a CDE (certified diabetes educator). If you have diabetes type 2, then oral medications help in maintaining normal blood glucose levels. Both types require a diet and exercise plan, among others. Below you will learn more about the Diabetes Type 2 diet.

One of the food groups you have to watch out for when you have diabetes is carbohydrates. Almost immediately after eating carbohydrates, your blood glucose gets affected. The key in Diabetes Type 2 diet is limiting your intake of carbohydrates.

There are three major meal plans for a Diabetes Type 2 diet, and this usually involves keeping track of your carbohydrates intake.

If you don’t want to eat the same food every day, you still have options. The exchange meal plan provides you with the choice of trading one food for another. Even though it’s a different food, it still contains more or less the same amount of calories, carbohydrates, protein and fats. For example, you can exchange half an English muffin for a ¾ cup of cold cereal. You can find an exchange food list from your dietitian, or in books and the Internet.

The next food plan entails you to count carbohydrates and adjust your insulin dosage based on the amount of carbohydrates intake. This is more flexible as you can eat almost anything, provided that you correctly count the carbohydrates and adjust your dosage based on that amount. Ask your doctor or dietitian for the unit of insulin for every gram of carbs consumed, basing on your body’s response to carbohydrates.

The constant carbohydrate food plan is also another option for Diabetes Type 2 diet. It is often the first choice for people who are starting out, as it is easy and simple to follow. Your doctor or dietitian would provide you with a constant amount of carbohydrates you should eat every day, together with insulin doses. You then eat a meal that corresponds to the constant amount.

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