Your Meal Planning Could be Making You Diabetic
My diabetes meal planning was based on the Exchange diet. The exchange system is widely used in formulating diets for patients with diabetes.
Meal planning can be a necessary chore for diabetics, but anti-diabetes approach saves lives.
Check out these topics related to diabetic diets:
- American diabetes diet
- Anti-diabetes diet
- Best diabetes diet
- Diet recommendations
- Diabetic meal plan
- Diabetic vegetarian diet
- Glycemic index list
- Healing foods pyramid
- Healthy eating pyramid
- Low glycemic food
- Meal planning
- New food pyramid
- No-carb food
- Vegetarian diets
- Vegetarian food
- Weight control diet
- Whole food market
These diabetes diet guidelines were tailored specifically for me based on several factors, which included body weight, physical activity level, blood cholesterol level, etc.
It's personal, so it may not fit you, but I show it here for illustration purposes.
Was my meal planning bad for my health?
This is actually how my diabetes meal planning panned out. Here is the actual plan that my dietitian worked out for me. I have added some comments in the notes column of the table.
| TIME | MEAL | No. of EXCHANGES (Food Group) | Notes |
| 7:00 A.M. | Breakfast | 4 (Carbs) |
One carbohydrate serving = 15 grams CHO (could be 11 - 20 grams); 1 Fat serving = 5 grams of fat, 1 meat serving = 7 grams of protein Carbohydrates to be chosen from the starch, fruit, and milk groups (in any combination) Meat and meat substitutes could include things like peanut butter, tofu, and peas and beans My personalized plan for controlling diabetes with diet may be similar to that of many type 2 diabetics. HOWEVER, the number of exchanges would vary from person to person, depending on other factors such as weight, cholesterol level, age, physical activity, etc. |
| 2 (Meat/Meat Substitute) | |||
| 2 (Fats) | |||
| 10:00 A.M. | Morning Snack | 1 (Carb) | |
| 12:00 Noon | Lunch | 4 (Carbs) | |
| 2 (Non-starchy vegetables) | |||
| 2 (Meat/Meat Substitute) | |||
| 2 (Fat Group) | |||
| 3:00 P.M. | Afternoon Snack | 2 (Carbs) | |
| 6:30 P.M. | Dinner | 4 (Carbs) | |
| 2 - 3 (Non-starchy vegetables) | |||
| 2 Meat/Meat Substitutes) | |||
| 2 (Fats) | |||
| Night | Night Snack | 1 (Carb) | |
| 1 (Fats) |
As I have mentioned in talking about this business of controlling diabetes with diet, this kind of meal planning did not take care of the problem. It worsened my situation.
How? you ask...
Well, things got worse when I went on this diet. I found that my A1c rose every time I would go back for a check up. My doctor eventually prescribed medication (Fortamet), and 'threatened' to put me on insulin.
How do I know this Exchange meal planning never helped?
Things got better when I changed the diet. This is how my calorie intake was broken down from the different food exchanges on the diabetes diet that was recommended for me:
| GROUP | Weight (grams) | % Calories |
| Carbohydrate | 265 | 50 |
| Protein | 100 | 19 |
| Fat | 76 | 31 |
| No. CHO Exchanges/day: 16; Total Calories: 2100 | ||
How much better did I get after I scrapped this diet? Well, would you like to know I no longer need medication, and that I have normal fasting and postprandial glucose readings? Isn't this what every diabetic strives for?
Meal planning, chore? The anti-diabetes lifestyle is fun.
Good meal planning can help achieve more than "control"
Even if you look carefully at the planned meal info in the table and the dietary guidelines above, you may not notice the inherent inconsistencies. The thing is, it was recommended by the reputable health care system.
This is the kind of diet that is recommended in the treatment of diabetes in the medical industry today. The intention is to achieve "control of the diabetic symptoms." But I wanted more than just control of my symptoms. Every diabetic should.
It is my belief that this diet actually prolongs the disease. In my case, I grew worse, until I scrapped the whole thing.
Imagine being put on a 31% fat diet. That means 31% of my caloric intake was to come from fats. Don't you know what that means?
If type 2 diabetes is caused by dietary and body fat (as shown in medical experiments), why would I need to get 31% of my calories from fats - the very thing that causes or promotes the condition?
I searched, and I found that...
Today there is so much evidence that type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle illness. Therefore, lifestyle modification should be a significant part of the recovery program. This is true especially in the area of the diet.
Many diabetics may continue their old ways of meal planning because it was recommended by a caregiver. Many treatment specialists are set in the ways they were taught - to prescribe and dispense symptom-masking synthetic drugs.
They follow a "cookie-cutter method" of treatment, and this is what the drug companies want.
Proper meal planning can give much more than control of diabetes symptoms. I know that because today I eat three meals a day, and no snacks.
If you want to take your diabetes meal planning to the next level, read about what really causes diabetes then learn about the anti-diabetes diet and lifestyle. You'll be glad you did.