4 Dietary principles for diabetes patients, what are some?

Diets for diabetes patients often make it difficult to choose foods. The reason is, fear of rising sugar levels, worrying about a recurrence of the disease, or gaining weight which can worsen the disease. The intake of finished food is very limited and tedious. Though diabetes patients can too loh enjoy life with various types of food.

What is the importance of maintaining a balanced diet and body weight for diabetes patients? What food intake is allowed and not allowed for diabetics? Check out the following reviews.

Maintain a balanced diet and weight intake for diabetics

Obesity is a risk factor for diabetes. The American Diabetes Association says that obesity can increase the risk of diabetes mellitus by 80%.

Excess weight can also lead to insulin resistance, which is a condition when the body cannot respond to insulin work properly. This hormone insulin is produced by the pancreas and is in charge of helping control the amount of sugar (glucose) in the blood.

When a person has insulin resistance, it means that glucose cannot enter the body's cells easily so that it accumulates in the blood. This makes insulin resistance can then result in an increase in blood sugar which is the basis for diabetes.

Obesity condition is one of the causes of insulin resistance in the body. Hence, by achieving a balanced body weight, this resistance condition will not worsen. For people with diabetes, their sugar levels will also drop and can even return to near normal.

How to lose weight for diabetes patients

Of course, to lose weight requires effort, commitment, consistency, and patience to do it the right way, not instantaneously.

In a diet program or weight loss for diabetes patients, I suggest doing two simple things, namely exercise and controlling calorie intake.

Sports

In a weight loss program, physical activity or exercise for diabetes patients is recommended as much as 150 minutes per week. The length of time can be divided into 5 days with an average of about 30 minutes per day. If you feel up to it, the length of time can also be divided into 1 hour per day for 3 days in one week.

The recommended sport is aerobic exercise such as running, jogging , swimming, gymnastics, or cycling.

During a pandemic of this disease, sports activities can be done at home. For example, walking or running in place using tools treadmill and do sports with video guides on social media such as YouTube. So a pandemic is not an excuse for diabetics not to exercise and let weight gain.

Targeted exercise for diabetes patients

There's no need to set a high goal to push yourself down 5kg in a month or 10kg in a month. Good weight loss should go through a steady and consistent process. Losing 2 kg of weight in a month is good, the important thing is that there is a gradual downward trend, aka little by little.

Instant or rapid weight loss is usually done with extreme measures, such as intense exercise for 7 days a week on a strict diet.

The main concept of diet and food intake regulation for diabetics is to maintain a balanced lifestyle for the rest of their life. Therefore, both exercise and a balanced diet must be done slowly consistently.

Food intake for diets of diabetic patients

I do not advise people with diabetes to adopt extreme diets that can lose a few pounds in a short period of time.

Diabetics are expected to be able to maintain a balanced diet. In fact, it is recommended that you still be able to do a diet with three meals a day. This can be done by controlling and counting the calories in each serving of food.

Calorie count

The amount of food intake when dieting for people with diabetes varies from person to person. It all depends on body weight, height, gender, age, and the physical activities he does daily.

To calculate these calorie needs, patients usually need to consult a nutritionist because they are very individual. Alternatively, you can try the following calorie counter calculators.

But in principle, of all the calories the body needs, the balanced proportion is divided into 45-65 percent coming from carbohydrates, 10-20 percent coming from protein, and 15-20 percent coming from fat. So diabetes patients also continue to eat fatty foods, carbohydrates, and proteins on the condition that they are in accordance with the portions.

People with diabetes can eat delicious food

Maintaining blood sugar levels is the key to a healthy life for diabetes patients. But does that mean you can't eat well? Simply put, diabetics can eat various types of food as long as that in the right amount and at the right time so that blood sugar is in the target range.

Patients can still eat cakes, goat satay, or fruits as long as they are still at the appropriate level. So you can eat goat satay but with a certain amount, for example, normal people eat 10 sticks of goat satay, people with diabetes eat 2 sticks and can't every day.

Permissible level of sugar consumption

Sugar has a small volume, so you may not realize that you are consuming refined sugar with high calories. In addition, the nature of this pure sugar can increase blood sugar levels quickly because it can be directly absorbed by the blood without needing to be digested.

Basically, people with diabetes can consume about 7 teaspoons of refined sugar or about 30 grams a day.

But what needs to be considered is that it does not mean that diabetic patients have a ration of consuming 7 teaspoons of pure sugar every day. Diabetes patients also need to remember that even other foods they eat contain refined sugar, for example in tomato sauce or in a small piece of cake.

Therefore, it is better to make your own food and snacks for people with diabetes so that the pure sugar levels in each portion can be controlled.

People with diabetes are not obliged to eat brown rice, they can still eat white rice

White rice is often a food that diabetes patients fear and thinks that diabetes patients should eat brown rice. This is not entirely true, because diabetics can still eat white rice according to their calorie needs.

Brown rice has a higher fiber content, so people who eat it will be full faster and more resistant to hunger because the absorption process is slower.

But that does not mean that if he consumes brown rice, he can eat twice as much white rice. Whether brown rice or white rice has the same amount of energy, the portions must match your needs. Brown rice is good, but by no means mandatory for diets for diabetic patients.