Diabetes meal planning: A brief about diabetic diet
I get a number of queries on a daily basis but this time I got a forwarded message from a patient which mentioned that a diabetic must fast in order to prevent or cure diabetes. A few days back another forwarded message said that a diabetic must count the number of carbohydrates sources in their diet and reduce it to a minimum.
Whenever patients receive such forwarded messages they try to follow those suggestions but it worries me when I see people following such diet fads as eventually they lose their motivation and fail to achieve their health goals.
Do you feel the same when it comes to managing diabetes with diet? I can understand why… All these WhatsApp messages or TV ads saying that diabetes can be treated by “this” method or “that” method can be confusing.
In this blog, we will cover the management of diabetes through a proper diabetic diet and diabetic menu planning. First, let’s begin by explaining what diabetes meal planning is…
Diabetes meal planning
Diabetic meal planning is the process of creating a meal plan that will help a diabetic in controlling his/ her blood sugar by guiding them on what to eat, when to eat, how to eat and explaining why to eat.
A diabetes meal plan ensures that the menu is created in such a way that it considers the medical history, medicines, lifestyle and taste (likes/ dislikes) of a diabetic.
Before moving on to what a diabetic diet includes and avoids, one big question arises here and that is why a diabetes meal plan is required? So, let’s answer this question…
The need for a diabetic meal plan
Diabetes is a condition identified by high sugar levels in the blood. Whenever your Doctor diagnoses diabetes, the first thing they advise is improvement in lifestyle through diet. This is because irregular eating habit is one of the major causes of diabetes.
Skipping breakfast or fasting for 5–6 hours at a stretch or eating a high carb/ fat diet or regular intake of outside-processed food is quite common for everyone.
You might be doing this to keep your carb count under check or you don’t have enough time to watch what and when you eat or sometimes it’s just ignorance… But while doing so, you’re not aware of what’s happening inside your body.
As a result of strict dieting or ignorance of improper eating patterns, your blood sugar levels keep on fluctuating! It can go to the lower side (hypoglycemia) or towards the higher side (hyperglycemia).
And when it continues for a long time then it can further affect your eyes, kidneys, heart, nerves etc. Thus it becomes important for you to work on the root cause of diabetes which is irregular eating habits.
This is where the need for a diabetes meal plan comes in!
A diabetic meal plan will help in keeping blood sugar levels under control along with managing the effects of high blood sugar levels on other body organs.
Now that you know the importance of a diabetic meal plan, let’s see what exactly a diabetes meal plan includes…
What does a diabetes meal plan include?
1. Small and frequent meals
A small and frequent eating routine can help you in avoiding peaks and valleys in the blood sugar range. Frequent meals keep your metabolism active and thus, help in controlling your blood sugar levels.
This means eating frequent but small meals every 2–3 hours.
You can eat 5–6 meals per day which will include 3 main meals i.e. breakfast, lunch and dinner and then small snacks in between.
The objective is to never feel too full after eating and to enter your next meal not feeling starved.
2. Break-the-fast — Your most important meal of the day
When you wake up in the morning, your body is in a fasting-like state. Eating within the first few hours helps in breaking the fast.
A study, conducted in Harvard University School of Public Health, women who skip morning meal has 54% more chance of developing Type-2 Diabetes. People who miss breakfast are prone to developing hypertension which in turn can lead to clogging of arteries.
If you are tight on time, try to have a handful of almonds (badam) and walnuts (akhrot) along with milk or egg whites or fruits. This will kick start your metabolism for the day. To know which fruits you can have, read our blog, “Fruits that a diabetic can eat: A complete guide”
3. Foods to be eaten with diabetes
This list of food items will help in clearing all your diabetes myths and misconceptions:
- Moderate carbohydrates
A diabetic can have up to 2 servings of carbohydrates in a meal. But you must make sure to include complex carbohydrates instead of simple carbohydrates. Keep on reading to know about these terms.
Complex carbohydrates increase your blood sugars gradually after being eaten and help in maintaining blood sugar levels within normal limits. It includes:
- Whole wheat chapati
2. Whole pulses (dal)
3. Oats
4. Quinoa
5. Bajra (pearl millet)
6. Besan
7. Jau (barley)
- Lots of fibre
Fibre delays stomach emptying and this decreases the absorption of glucose in the blood thereby preventing blood sugar spikes.
In order to fulfil your fibre requirement, you must have 2–3 fruits per day, vegetables as sabzi/ veg curry in main meals and salads as pre-meals, whole grains (whole wheat chapati and whole dal) and nuts
- Healthy fats
Unsaturated fats called Monounsaturated (PUFA) and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFA) must be included in the diet.
These include unrefined and kachi ghani tel (cold-pressed oil) such as olive oil, coconut oil, mustard oil, sunflower oil, canola oil. To know more about cooking oils for diabetes, read our blog, “What are the 9 types of cooking oil for diabetes?”.
You can also take overnight soaked 6–8 almonds (badam), 2–3 walnuts (akhrot) after waking up. 4–5 cashews (kaju) and pistachios (pista), one tablespoon each of pumpkin (kaddu ke beej), flax seeds (alsi ke beej) and sunflower seeds (surajmukhi ke beej) at any time during the day.
Limit intake of saturated fats. Ghee & homemade butter are some of the most popular fats among Indians and can be taken in moderation i.e. up to 1 tsp (5 ml) and 1 tbsp (10–12 ml) per meal respectively.
4. Foods to avoid with diabetes
- Refined carbohydrates
These are basically those carbohydrates that have undergone processing in which their outer layer containing fibre has been removed. Since the fibre is removed, the glucose in it gets absorbed quickly cause a spike in blood sugar levels.
These include refined flour (maida) and products prepared from it like white bread, pizza and pasta.
- Trans fat and outside food
Avoid foods that have saturated fat such as processed butter and trans fat such as fried, packaged or outside food as these are high in preservatives, sugar, salt and fat which could cause sugar levels to rise quickly.
- Intake of sweets, fruit and vegetable juice
Sweets and fruit juices are just another source of simple carbohydrates and they can rapidly shoot up your sugars. Prefer avoiding them at all costs.
Instead, prepare and have homemade sweets without sugar and choose raw fruits and vegetables over juices or smoothies.
You must’ve seen “sugar-free”, “zero sugar” or “no sugar” mentioned on the packaging of food products. They seem to be healthy but are not as they contain artificial sweeteners.
Artificial sweeteners can lead to food cravings, overeating and thus weight gain. They can also cause metabolic diseases like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar etc.
Now you are well aware of what to include and what to exclude from your diet so let’s discuss a few methods which help in diabetic food planning.
Methods of diabetes meal planning
I know that you must be thinking of creating your own diabetes diet menu, so here are some easy diabetic diet guidelines for you to follow. But for a proper diabetes nutrition plan, I will suggest you consult an expert.
1. The plate method
Let’s begin with an easy method that is called “the plate method”. It is simple, quite easy to learn and follow.
All you have to do is take a plate and then divide it into servings of carbohydrates, protein and vegetables. But let me inform you that these servings won’t be equal! So… how much to take?
Here’s how you’ll do it:
- Fill half of your plate with non-starchy vegetables like onion, tomato, cauliflower or capsicum etc and fruits. Limit starchy vegetables like potatoes and colocasia (arbi).
- Next, fill a quarter of your plate with protein from whole pulses (dal), chicken, egg whites, fish or curd.
- Lastly, fill the leftover quarter with whole and unprocessed carbohydrates like whole-wheat chapati or millets or rice without starch.
- The oil used in the preparation of sabzi/ veg curry and dal/non-veg will be minimal enough to fulfil the fat requirement.
- Finish it with a glass of water or some other fluid.
2. Carbohydrate counting
We Indians eat carbohydrates as our main source of energy like chapati, rice, millets etc.
After eating, carbohydrates are broken down into sugar (glucose) and get absorbed into the bloodstream, directly affecting your blood glucose levels.
For diabetics, the type and amount taken have a huge impact on their blood glucose levels. The three types of carbohydrates present in food are:
- Starch: Present in potatoes, rice, bread, colocasia root (arbi), yam (zimikand), dals, and sweet potato (shakarkand). These can be taken in moderation and in less frequency
- Fibre: Present in brown rice, whole grains like whole wheat flour, pulses, oats, quinoa, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. These must be included in a diabetic diet.
- Sugar: Present in dairy products and fruit and can be taken in moderation. But the other types of sugar i.e. glucose present in glucose powder, sweets etc must be avoided to prevent blood sugar spikes.
It is important for a diabetic to choose the right type of carbohydrate and divide it in an adequate manner throughout the day. Its division will depend on the number and types of medicine or insulin diabetes is taking.
Roughly, your breakfast, lunch and dinner can include:
- Whole, unprocessed carbohydrates like oats, daliya (porridge), millets or whole wheat flour chapatis
- Either whole pulses (dal) or skimmed, toned or double toned milk and milk products
- And lastly, sabzis or veg curries
Here are some examples:
- Vegetable oats (1 medium bowl) with milk (1 glass)
- Chapati (2–3) with curd (1 small bowl) and sabzi (1 medium bowl)
- Rice (1 medium bowl) with sabzi (1 medium bowl) and dal (1 small bowl)
On the other hand, your mid meals and pre-meals can roughly include:
- Fruits
- Salads
- Whole pulses (dal)
- Skimmed, toned or double toned milk and milk products
Here are some examples:
- Fruit salad (1 medium bowl)
- Buttermilk (1 glass) with fruit (any 1)
- Sprouts salad (1 medium bowl)
- Vegetable soup (1 medium bowl)
- Salads (1 quarter plate)
I would again like to mention that every individual is different with a different medical history, so it is better to consult a dietitian who can explain to you how to do carbohydrate counting depending on your lifestyle, taste, medicine/ insulin etc.
3. Glycemic Index (GI)
Glycemic Index (GI) measures how quickly the carbohydrates (or carbs) in the food will break down into glucose. The blood sugar levels increase rapidly when the breakdown happens fast,.
A carbohydrate-containing food is divided into three types as per their GI:
- Low GI (55 or lower): Food with low GI means that these will be absorbed slowly by your body and so they will not raise your blood sugar levels quickly. Examples: oats, pulses (dal) etc.
- Medium GI (56–69): Food that has a Medium GI can be said to be diabetes-friendly! They neither raise nor drop down your blood sugar levels. Examples: whole wheat chapati, rice etc.
- High GI (70 or higher): A diabetic must stay away from these as these food products increase blood sugar levels very rapidly. Examples: maida, sweets, fruit juices etc.
Hence, it is important for you to choose low and medium GI food items only to manage your blood sugar levels.
Choosing the right food filled with fibre, protein and healthy fats at the right time can help to keep your blood glucose and energy levels stable throughout the day. This way you’ll be able to follow a diabetes meal plan in a proper way.
Certain foods such as maida, white bread, and artificial sweeteners make blood sugar rise rapidly. Keep these food items in your “not to be included” list for better management of blood sugars.
Low Glycemic index foods digest slowly and maintain the blood sugar due to their fibre content. So choose your food wisely! And for more information on food and diabetes meal planning, you can get in touch with us at Zyla!
Zyla can help you manage diabetes by guiding you about the right food as per your medical history and lifestyle. We are a team of endocrinologists, nutritionists, physiotherapists and psychologists who provide you with a holistic approach to health management.
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