Total: 23.6 million children and adults in the United States—7.8% of the population—have diabetes.
Diagnosed: 17.9 million people
Undiagnosed: 5.7 million people
Pre-diabetes: 57 million people
New Cases: 1.6 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older each year.
Data from the 2007 National Diabetes Fact Sheet
Do you need to change your eating habits? Are you struggling to control your sweet tooth? When you have diabetes, including sweets in your diet requires careful planning. However, it can be hard to just save sweets for special occasions.
Learn MoreKeeping a careful eye on your diet is a crucial part of managing your diabetes and staying healthy. Eating a well-balanced diet at regularly timed intervals throughout the day helps to regulate blood sugar and makes diabetes much more controllable. Depending on whether you have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, your dietary focus will be on either carbohydrate moderation or weight control, respectively.
What you eat is extremely important. A person with diabetes should eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats as opposed to unhealthy fats, and cut back on refined carbs and sugar. A diet that contains balanced amounts of protein, carbs, and fats, is best, as our bodies need all three to function properly. While it may appear at first that you must cut out all sugar and carbs from your diet, this is not the case. The most important part of a healthy diet is balance and all things in moderation.
If you have recently been diagnosed with diabetes, the idea of completely changing the way you eat may seem daunting. While it is important to make some changes, there is no need to completely forgo your favorite foods and treats. Save sweet treats for special occasions only. Eat your treats slowly! Substitute fruit for overly-sweet desserts. Artificial sweeteners can also be added in place of sugar to a number of foods, with the added benefit of not adding additional carbs or calories. Stay away from most sugary drinks, and cut back on the amount of sugar in your favorite recipes. Having diabetes doesn't mean saying goodbye to all of the foods you used to love, it just means paying closer attention to the things you eat and making sure they balance each other out.
For people with Type 1 diabetes, it is important to keep track of how many carbohydrates you eat during a meal, so that you can determine how much insulin to take with your meal. Your carb intake should be consistent from day to day. Carbs are typically found in starchy foods such as bread, pasta, and rice. They are also found in a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, which makes getting your daily carb intake that much easier as you have a number of foods to choose from! As a general rule, choose fresh fruits over fruit juices or dried fruits, as those tend to have a large amount of sugar. Whole grain breads and pastas contain important vitamins and minerals , and there are many options available to you.
Fats are divided into "good fats" and "bad fats" . Bad fats include saturated fats and trans fats. Saturated fats are mostly found in animal products such as red meat, heavy dairy products, and eggs. Trans fats are the result of adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them less likely to spoil. To maintain a healthy diet, it is important to limit the amount of these fats that you ingest. This helps to keep cholesterol at a manageable level, lowering the risk of heart disease and stroke. Total cholesterol intake is ideally less than 200 milligrams per day. Avoid fried foods, which are high in trans fats.
Protein can be found in meat, poultry, fish, dairy, beans, and vegetables. As red meat is high in saturated fat, try to eat more poultry and fish. Trim any extra fat from your meat, and choose non or reduced fat options when eating dairy products like cheese or yogurt.
It is easy to become overwhelmed by all of the new information and dietary strategies you need to keep your diabetes under control. It may be beneficial to consult a dietitian to help you plan your meals and decide how to best balance your diet and all of the aspects you need to maintain your health. Each persons diet is different and depends upon activity level, weight, frequency of exercise, and other health risks. Consulting a professional is a good way to make sure you are eating the right things at the right time, in the appropriate amounts.