3 Nutrition Tips to Help Manage Diabetes
This Diabetes Awareness Month, our thoughts turn to various ways our patients with diabetes can improve their diabetes management. Managing your blood sugar levels can be stressful. You have to do it every day. And you know that if you don’t, you increase your risk of heart disease, eye problems, and neuropathy in your feet, to name a few effects.
One way to reduce the stress of managing diabetes is to focus on one management method at a time. This Diabetes Awareness Month, why not pick nutrition as your focus?
As we’ve noted before, there isn’t just one diet that works for everyone, including people with diabetes. “The Diabetes Diet” doesn’t exist because food affects different people’s metabolism differently. If you eat an apple and it doesn’t affect your blood glucose levels, that same apple might raise the blood sugar in another person.
However, there are some basic nutrition tips you can follow to better manage your diabetes:
- Drink more water. You already know that water won’t influence your blood sugar levels as soda and juices can. But another good reason to drink water is that it keeps all your cells hydrated and helps all your organs to function properly.
- Choose foods that don’t mess with your blood sugar as much – foods that fall on the low end of the “glycemic index.” The body absorbs low GI foods slower, so they can’t cause your blood glucose to spike. Low-glycemic foods include legumes such as chickpeas, lentils, and navy beans, high-fiber cereals, many fruits, and green vegetables. Foods higher on the glycemic index, such as white bread and potatoes, are absorbed quickly by the body and should be avoided.
- Eat some protein with your carbs. Pairing a carbohydrate with a protein food will keep you full longer, making you less likely to get very hungry and overeat. Think apple slices with peanut butter; whole-wheat toast with cottage cheese; or roasted chicken in a whole-grain tortilla.
Talk to your doctor about other ways to help stabilize your blood sugar levels. Visit our board-certified podiatrist, Dr. Kenneth R. Wilhelm, for excellence in diabetic foot care. Contact Clifton Foot & Ankle Center online or call our Centreville podiatry office at (703) 996-3000
