Diabetic Food Pyramid and Diet Plan

The food you eat has a direct impact on your blood glucose levels, body fat, and overall health. That is why it is so important for diabetics to eat according to the best diabetes diet plan possible. As a diabetic you have special diet needs, and you need to pay special attention to what you put into your body.

Food is a subject of great debate and controversy, with lots of monetary interests at stake. Unfortunately, these interests have a dramatic influence on our health and foods we eat. One such example is the food pyramid. We all know the pyramid picture that represents how much of which food groups we should be eating for optimum health.

The problem is the existing USDA food pyramid recommendations as well as most other diabetic food pyramids that exists is that they are misguided.

We’ve been eating this way for the last few decades and the results are truly disastrous. Changing those recommendations on the official level is not easy, as the various interest groups of food producers will surely lobby against it. That is why it is imperative for each individual to get educated and adopt the new food pyramid for best possible health. This applies to all of us, and especially to people who already suffer from chronic disease, such as diabetes.

The healthy food pyramid emphasizes the healthiest foods: fresh vegetables, greens and fruits.

USDA Food Pyramid and Diabetic Food Pyramid

Whole grains are an important food group, however, most grains that we eat today are not healthy! The USDA food pyramid and the recommended daily allowances still mostly ignore the difference between whole and refined plant foods. White breads, pastas, processed cereals are not ideal food choices, especially for people who already experience health problems, such as high blood sugar. Additionally, wheat causes allergies that can go undetected, so for many people eliminating wheat altogether may be a good solution. These foods should be eliminated, and replaced with whole grains, such as whole wheat, whole grain cereals, barley, oats, quinoa, brown rice, etc.

The consumption of animal protein products should be limited. Some experts recommend going even further and eliminating them altogether, but of course, going vegetarian may not be for everyone. Buying organic meats, that is hormone free and antibiotic free is important. Ideally, a vegetarian diet is best, but even reducing animal protein to 2-3 times a week is going to produce good results for your health.

The next important group that is under-valued is fruits. People are afraid that eating too much fruits will cause blood sugar problems, but this fear is totally ungrounded. Fresh fruits eaten raw – not processed – are some of the healthiest foods for humans. Even people with diabetes should not be afraid to eat fruits, provided their diet is also LOW IN FAT. Too much fat causes problems with glucose absorption into the cells.

Check This Out: Shocking Facts That Pharmaceutical Industry Does NOT Want You To Know!

Diabetes is considered to be an incurable disease by most doctors.

What does that really mean to you as a patient?

This means that modern medicine provides no permanent cure for diabetes.

However, the line between what is curable and what is incurable is not as clear as the modern medicine would like us to believe.

For example, let's consider diabetes. It is commonly considered an incurable disease, meaning that patients need to learn to "live with the disease" using the prescription medications to control their blood sugar levels.

What the doctors typically will not tell their patients is that diabetes can in fact be reversed by making necessary improvements to one's diet and lifestyle - i.e. by following the science of healthy living. Of course, if you go back to your unhealthy habits, the diabetes will likely be back, as well as a host of other health problems that are lifestyle-related.

This is a message that is not very optimistic.

OK, so living with diabetes may not be so bad, but what about being completely diabetes free? Is that possible?

So, instead on constantly talking about what's curable and what's not, we should be talking more about what is preventable and reversible. We should take responsibility for our own health!

You don’t hear the media or doctors or pharmaceutical companies (!) talk about this very often.

Talking about preventing or curing diabetes is often referred to as quackery or empty promises.

That is why I’m always excited to read books and articles that provide a much more optimistic view on this subject, while being based on sound scientific research. And this is what I want to present to you – some research from an excellent book “The China Study” that I highly recommend for anyone living with diabetes (or with any other chronic ailment that is caused by our lifestyle and diet).

Recommended Reading: “The China Study”

The fact is that there is no research that links diabetes to one specific food that you eat or one specific thing that you do.

However, there is ABUNDANT evidence that demonstrates that by making some simple (although not always easy in our Western culture) changes to our lifestyle and eating habits, you will most likely prevent diabetes (and various other diseases) and even get rid of diabetes or pre-diabetes completely, if you are currently suffering from it.

The book presents plenty of data that clearly demonstrates what I’m talking about:

Like most chronic diseases, diabetes is found more frequently in some areas of our globe than in others. This fact has been well documented. It has also been demonstrated that the populations with lower rates of diabetic disease, consume a vastly different diet from what is eaten by populations with high rate of diabetes.

Almost seventy years ago, H.P Himsworth compiled all the existing research in a report comparing diets and diabetes rates in six countries. What he found was that some cultures were consuming high-fat diets, while others had diets high in carbohydrates. These fat versus carbohydrate consumption patters were the result of animal versus plant food consumption.

The compilation of data from these six counties – including the U.S., Holland, England, Scotland, Italy and Japan – clearly showed that as unrefined carbohydrate intake goes up and fat intake goes down, the number of deaths from diabetes sharply drops from 20.4 to 2.9 per 100,000 people.

The conclusion?

A high-carbohydrate (unrefined carbohydrate, not the processed carbs, like white flour), low-fat diet – a natural, unprocessed plant-based diet – may help to prevent diabetes.

Some other studies:

- The same researchers enlarged their study to eleven countries in Central and South America and Asia. The strongest association they found with diabetes was excess weight. Populations eating the most “Western” type of diet also had the highest cholesterol levels, which in turn was strongly associated with the rate of diabetes.

However, if you consider that these simple changes can prevent or even cure a condition that leads to heart disease, stroke, blindness, or amputation, a condition that might require you to take medications or inject insulin into your body every day for the rest of your life – the choice is simple.

(...)

Buy the book:

Read the entire article here: http://normalbloodsugarlevelchart.com/diabetes-research/

As you can see getting your blood glucose back to normal levels and keeping it there is not complicated. So get started right as soon as possible with these easy simple steps.

Because you are worth it!

For more studies, read The China Study.

Read more tips on this http://normalbloodsugarlevelchart.com site.

Gestational Diabetes Diet: What to Eat to When You Are Pregnant to Prevent Gestational Diabetes

Disclaimer #1. First of all I want to say that you should NOT DIET during pregnancy in the sense that you should not try to lose weight. When I’ll be talking about dieting, I mean a certain way of eating that is healthy, sustainable (not a calorie-counting, restrictive type of diet), rich in nutrients and health promoting. This type of eating is not a short-term solution to one problem – to lose 10 pounds, or fix a certain health condition - it’s a life-long commitment to your health and wellbeing.

I feel lucky I did not get gestational diabetes, but I was at high risk. When I was pregnant with my son 6 years ago, I was very close to getting gestational diabetes blood sugar levels. I gained lots of weight, much more than I should, according to general guidelines. On average, a woman can expect to gain 25 to 35 pounds during pregnancy. I gained twice as much, over seventy pounds! All that while following well-meaning, but completely misguided and potentially harmful advice coming from various sources, which at the time all seemed like knowledgeable authorities on the subject of diet and pregnancy.

Gestational diabetes is a condition that affects growing numbers of pregnant women. It is a condition when a woman's blood sugar levels get too high. It can be dangerous because it can cause the baby to gain too much weight, and lead to premature delivery, endangering the health of the baby.

If you are worried about developing gestational diabetes, you should know that diabetes is preventable with proper diet and physical activity. The important part is understanding what you need to be doing, and then implementing that knowledge.

So, what should you be eating during pregnancy? Diet to prevent gestational diabetes does not differ from a healthy diet that we should all be following every day to ensure the best of health and well-being. It's a diet that is based mostly on fresh plant foods - raw fruits, vegetables, and greens, with small amounts of nuts, seeds, as well as whole grains, and beans. The bulk of the calories should be coming from unprocessed, lightly cooked, or raw plant sources. Even in pregnancy, animal proteins, should be consumed in limited amounts.

Although it’s commonly believed that carbohydrates have the greatest impact on blood glucose levels, it’s really fats that are responsible for the blood sugar problems, as they interfere with glucose absorption into the cells.

You may be wondering "How about the protein? Will I be getting enough vitamins, calcium and other nutrients on this type of diet?" Diet rich in green vegetables, green leaf salads, fruits and other natural foods, will provide you and your baby with all the nutrients you need need. Unprocessed plant foods contain all the proteins, fats, vitamins, calcium and other nutrients our body need in perfect proportions to properly function and stay healthy.

Read more how to maintain normal blood sugar levels on my blog. Also, visit my hubpage on Gestational Diabetes diet.

Diabetes Early Signs: How Diabetes Progresses?

How diabetes progresses

The normal blood glucose levels of people without diabetes is about 80-90 mg/dL before eating and may rise up to 120 mg/dL or a little more after they eat, depending on what kind of food they had.

Pre-diabetes begins when your body is starting to lose control of blood sugar. While your fasting blood sugar levels may be not much higher than normal (100-125 mg/dL), but after meals, the levels rise much higher than normal to almost 200 mg/dL.


Because the peak is higher, it also takes longer for it to come down. Then 4-5 hours later, they may drop below normal – under 70 or even 50 mg/dL, causing symptoms of low blood sugar symptoms, such as shakiness, nervousness, and intense craving for food, especially something sweet.

What happens is your body produces too little insulin right after a meal to keep the blood glucose level down. When it tries to catch up, it releases WAY TOO MUCH causing your blood glucose levels drop TOO LOW. This can go on for years before the person is diagnosed with diabetes.

When you are diabetic, even the fasting blood glucose levels will be higher than normal, over 100 mg/dL. They will zoom to even higher an extremely high level after eating, and because it is so high it takes hours to go back to the starting level.

Diabetes Early Signs: Importance of Blood Glucose Monitoring for Early Diagnosis

Keep in mind that the fasting blood glucose level for a non diabetic person and a person with pre-diabetes may be very similar. Diagnosis of diabetes is usually based on measuring your fasting level, so a person with pre-diabetes may be told that there everything is OK. So such person will continue the unhealthy lifestyle, thinking nothing is wrong with him/her.

This is unfortunate, because being diagnosed with pre-diabetes would serve as an excellent wake-up call for many people to change their ways and adopt healthy habits. Obviously it is much easier to reverse pre-diabetes before it progressed to full-blown diabetes.

Diabetes is a serious condition can have a devastating effect on the entire body, including eyes, kidneys, hear, nerve, ultimately leading to blindness, kidney failure, amputations, heart disease and stroke. Everyone who has diabetes, whether type 1 or type 2 is at risk, and even people who have pre-diabetes can be affected - so it's never too early to take aggressive preventive measures by changing your lifestyle choices.

What is important that you can prevent, and in most cases reverse type 2 diabetes because the disease is largely influenced by the person's lifestyle choices, most importantly dietary choices and physical activity/exercise. Do not wait until it is too late!

The good news is that diabetes can be reversed and your blood glucose levels can be brought back to normal with a proper diet and exercise routine. It's essential to eat a natural plant-based diet, and avoid excessive amounts of fats (read more about the dangers of low carb high protein diet) and learn some low fat smoothie recipes that will help you lose weight and improve your health quickly. Go to http://www.diabetessecretweapon.info/ for more information.

If your blood glucose levels are out of the normal ranges indicated above - you need to take action TODAY!

Diabetes Blood Sugar Levels Chart - What is a Normal Blood Sugar Range?

If you are reading this blog, it probably means that you, or your relative, or a friend, is has diabetes or has been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. You may feel surprised and scared, and wonder why this is happening.

Having diabetes means that the level of glucose in your blood (or blood sugar level) above the normal range. Glucose is the main source of energy for human cells. Glucose levels are regulated by insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas and released into the bloodstream whenever glucose levels rise.

While everyone has glucose in the blood, as it is essential for living; having diabetes means you have more than your body needs – usually WAY TOO MUCH.

The good news is that diabetes can be reversed and your blood sugar levels can be brought back to normal with a proper diet and exercise routine. It's essential to eat a natural plant-based diet, and avoid excessive amounts of fats (read more about the dangers of low carb high protein diets and how to make healthy green smoothies that will help you lose weight and improve your health quickly. Go to http://www.diabetessecretweapon.info/ for more information.

Normal Blood Sugar Levels Chart

When you find out about being pre-diabetic or diabetic, one of the first things you need to learn is about normal blood sugar levels, abnormal blood sugar levels, and how to monitor your blood sugar. I hope the following blood sugar levels chart and explanation will make it easy for you.

The fluctuation of blood sugar (red) and the sugar-lowering hormone insulin (blue) in humans during the course of a day with three meals. One of the effects of a sugar-rich vs a starch-rich meal is highlighted.

The following article I published recently explains what are normal blood sugar levels.

Diabetes Blood Sugar Levels Chart - What is a Normal Blood Sugar Range?

Diabetes Blood Sugar Levels Chart - What is a Normal Blood Sugar Range?
By Joanna Verdan

When you find out about being pre-diabetic or diabetic, one of the first things you need to learn is about normal blood sugar levels, abnormal blood sugar levels, and how to monitor your blood sugar. The following blood sugar levels chart will make it easy for you.

Glucose, the main source of energy for human cells, is a type of sugar that enters your body whenever you consume carbohydrate foods. Glucose levels are regulated by insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas and released into the bloodstream whenever glucose levels rise.

Measuring your blood glucose has never been easier. There are literally dozens of types of meters that you can use at home or while travelling that allow you to easily and conveniently measure your sugar levels. Your doctor may also recommend a more sophisticated monitoring device that is also easy to use should you need more detailed data than a meter can supply.

The following is a simple blood sugar chart that will give you an idea what values you should be aiming for to maintain good health and avoid dangerous complications due to diabetes:

* Normal glucose range is between 70 and 150mg; these levels are typically lower in the morning, and rise after meals.

* Regardless of when you last ate, a random result of 200 mg/dL or higher means you have diabetes.

* A fasting blood sugar level taken, for example, when you wake up in the morning, should be between 70 and 99 mg/dL If it's 126 mg/dL or higher, you have diabetes.

When monitoring your blood glucose levels, it is crucial that you observe any patterns in your readings, and pay attention to what types of foods, medications or activities trigger undesirable increase or decrease in your readings.

Diabetes is a serious condition can have a devastating effect on the entire body, including eyes, kidneys, hear, nerve, ultimately leading to blindness, kidney failure, amputations, heart disease and stroke. Everyone who has diabetes, whether type 1 or type 2 is at risk, and even people who have pre-diabetes can be affected - so it's never too early to take aggressive preventive measures by changing your lifestyle choices.

What is important that you can prevent, and in most cases reverse type 2 diabetes because the disease is largely influenced by the person's lifestyle choices, most importantly dietary choices and physical activity/exercise. Do not wait until it is too late!If your blood glucose levels are out of the normal ranges indicated above - you need to take action TODAY!

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IMAGINE yourself enjoying a GOOD LIFE

despite your diagnosis of diabetes!

I’m constantly amazed that no one is talking about beating diabetes simply by making some easy alterations to the foods you’re already eating and getting more physically active.

No one (at least in the official media) ever talks about “beating diabetes”, everyone seems to be content with finding ways to “control diabetes” or “live with diabetes”. And there is a reason for that.

Just think about it, if somebody showed you how to beat diabetes… they wouldn’t make very much money off of you. But if somebody invents a pill or a shot that helps you live with diabetes… they’ll get your money week-after-week, month-after-month, year-after-year until the day you die.

In fact, there’s a saying in the industry that…

Cures Kill Profits!

Understand that diabetes is a serious condition that can be prevented and even reversed by making some radical changes to your lifestyle.

Do not wait until it is too late!

Diabetic blood sugar levels: the importance of blood sugar monitoring

If you are diabetic, you must be closely monitoring your blood glucose levels all the time.

Understand that even if you are taking your medications and following your doctor’s orders religiously, there are many variables that could result in a positive test for glucose in the urine, plus the fact that even if the urine was negative, the patient could still be suffering diabetic damage.

The urine becomes negative at a blood glucose level of 180 mg/dL, a level that could still cause damage.

Although you can achieve normal blood glucose most of the time if you treat your diabetes properly, there still may be times when, for no apparent reason, the glucose level is not normal.
There are many factors that determine the blood glucose level at any given time in a diabetic person. These factors include:

• Your diet
• Your physical activity
• Your mental state and stress levels
• Other diseases that you may have
• Medications that you are taking
• For women, the day of your menstrual cycle.
  

You have diabetes if your fasting blood glucose is greater than or equal to 126 mg/dL on more than one occasion OR your glucose after eating is greater than or equal to 200 mg/dL on more than one occasion.

Some diabetics claim that they can tell the level of their blood glucose by the way they feel.

However, the most common symptom of high blood sugar is having no symptoms at all! Which is why many people are living with prediabetes and diabetes without knowing about it! The fact is less than half of patients who try to guess come even close to the correct answer.

Sure, if your blood glucose is under 50 mg/dL and you have severe signs of hypoglycemia – you are sweaty, irritable, have palpitations and a headache – you know that your blood sugar level is low. And even then, you will not be able to tell for sure what your level is.

You must test yourself regularly and not depend on how you feel, or you risk one or several of the long term and short term complications of diabetes, such as excessive thirst, frequent urination, blurred vision, kidney disease, or nerve damage.

If you have type 2 diabetes, you should measure your sugar level a twice a day, before breakfast and supper. If you have type 1, measure it before meals and at bedtime. The more accurate information you have, the better will be your control over your glucose, and better chances of avoiding complications.

Frequency of monitoring of blood glucose level for people with diabetes:

• Before meals and bedtime for people with type 1 diabetes
• Twice daily before breakfast and supper for person with type 2 diabetes.
• Once daily for people with stable diabetes.
• Before meals and one hour after eating for pregnant woman with gestational diabetes or type 1 diabetes.