Ninety per cent of individuals suffer from Type 2 diabetes; therefore, it is very important to know about diabetes diet in order to control it. You need to follow healthy eating habits and regular physical activities, along with controlling your weight in order to manage diabetes. Managing diabetes is important, since with the help of it one can stay away from the complications of being a diabetic patient.

A good diabetes diet should have high fibre and less carbohydrates e.g. cereals, wholegrain breads, fruits, and vegetables. A diabetic patient should also minimize fat intake. As a diabetic patient, you should have normal meals and snacks, and should not overeat.  You need to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well. You should refrain from overeating, as this would lead to adding pounds on you.

Given below are some of the well known ways to follow a diabetes diet:

Control carbohydrate intake:
For a diabetic patient, carbohydrate is definitely not a friend. Therefore, you should take a limited portion of carbohydrates at each meal. A normal body requires 30 to 50 grams of carbohydrates, so sticking to that range is necessary. In between meals, you can have carbohydrate snacks of up to 20 grams. The spreading of carbohydrates gives the much needed energy your body requires, but at the same time, does not change the blood sugar level to a critical limit.

Have variety in what you eat:
A patient with diabetes should intake a variety of foods in order to maintain his or her condition. Taking fruits, vegetables, cereals, lean meat, and low fat dairy products are some examples of foods that you can take. Such a variety keeps diabetes related complications away from you.

Diets to be avoided:
A good diabetes diet should NOT contain saturated fats and sweets. Keep away from ice creams, cheese, butter, whole fat milk, chocolates, and sweetened soft drinks. However, you can take a limited amount of unsaturated fats like canola, sunflower, olive oil, poly or mono-saturated margarines, oily fish, seeds, avocado, and nuts. Also, limit the intake of baked items. When dining out in a restaurant or fast food joint, always see the menu carefully and decide what each dish contains. If you have any difficulty, you can ask the staff at the restaurant about it.

A diabetes diet should achieve the following goals:

• Maintaining your ideal body weight
• Maintaining normal blood sugar level
• Minimizing the intake of foods that exaggerate the disease

If your diabetes diet helps you achieve all the above stated goals, then this is the best diabetes diet for you. And remember, as individual body needs are different, a diabetes diet suited for someone else might not suit you. In addition to the aforesaid measures, you also need to do regular exercises so as to stay away from becoming obese.

Good food plan
As per the recommendation by the American Diabetes Association, a diabetic patient should have 50-60 per cent of carbohydrates, 12-20 per cent of proteins and less than 30 per cent of fats. Remember, there is NO recommended diabetes diet as of now; hence you have to resort to the ‘Hit and Trial’ method while having food.