Let me provide some insight to what I eat as Diabetic, I am carb restricted only eating enough carbs to fuel myself for 2- 3 hours. I eat 5 – 6x per day smaller meals consisting of 1 -2 carbs depending on my blood sugar. Staying away from candy, potato chips, French fries, as I am often fond of saying, “I remember those foods”. Now I eat a healthy diet. You too can eat a healthy diet, today we will begin some discussions around healthy eating choices.

Time to stop here and talk about eating habits, obesity is one of the main triggers of Type II diabetes. In Men over the age of 45, if your waist is over 40” you are at risk if you are a women your waist should not exceed 35”. Another measure is your BMI. This stands for Body Mass Index; it is a correlation between your height and weight, if you are over 25 you are at risk.

With that being said, if you are a runner or work out regularly your BMI might be higher. The BMI is a good measure if you do little or no physical activity a week. Want to work your BMI out head over to http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm there is a calculator there.

We learn as a diabetic that food can be basically lumped into groups. These groups are Carbohydrates, Fats, Proteins and Sugars. If you want to live a healthy lifestyle a balance of these groups are needed. Sugar as you can imagine is just that, simple sugars basically anything that ends in –ose. These are high on the GI and digest very quickly and get into the blood stream.

As a diabetic we have to restrict those to maybe 2 x 5g per day. So if you are diabetic your favorite brand of Candy bar is OUT. There is diet candy out there and is excellent. But not calorie free, my advice as a diabetic AVOID it if you can, if you must have something with sugar in it make sure you eat with something that is lower on the GI scale so it digest slower.

Fats, watch your fats not all fats are equal, cooking try to use a cold pressed Olive oil or even an oil spray to minimize oils. Use butter instead of margarine when looking at foods by low-fat yogurts’ and dairy products. Limit your fats at your meals; avoid butter on your toast. Watch when you buy processed foods light foods often are a trade off, low fat usually means high sugar, low sugar means high fats. Avoid processed foods where you can.

Proteins can come from a variety of sources including meat, fish, fowl and soya. We do not need a lot of protein maybe 30% of are calorie needs. How big a portion of meat should you eat, if its bigger then a deck of cards it’s most likely to much, figure on 4-5 oz.. Raw that is a portion at meal time. Salmon is a great choice, not only for protein but for those Omega 3-6-9 fats.

Carbohydrates are the biggest part of our diets, 50% of our diet should be carbohydrates. A carbohydrate comes in all kinds of forms, Grain, Fruit, Veggies, Beans, and yes those evil Sugars. But of course we avoid those. When choosing a Carbohydrate we should be looking at 10 x 15g per day which will give you about 900 Calories.

A normal man needs only 1800 calories a day if he does not exercise. Some examples of what constitutes a Carbohydrate, 1 Cup of milk, ½ cup of cooked rice/pasta/bean, 1 medium apple, 1 small baked potato, 1 slice of whole wheat bread and ¼ of a bagel, one cup of most vegetables and ½ cup of Fruit juice. Want to know more check out http://www.diabetes.org/nutrition-and-recipes/nutrition/foodpyramid.jsp this is a good site provided by the ADA.

For those who like the use the “Diet” word, throw it away. Refer to your eating habits as healthy eating. There is no such thing as a Diabetic diet, just healthy eating. Balance your meals and you will live healthier life styles. I think we will need to talk about what the term GI means. But that is another day.

I want to look at a typical breakfast and see how fast a normal breakfast adds up in terms of food choices. For example you get up Sunday morning and have this for breakfast at your favorite restaurant.

4oz. of orange Juice = 1 carb
2 slices of toast with Butter and Full sugar jam 2.5 - 3 carb + .5 fat
2 slices of bacon - 2 fat choices Sorry not a good protein choice.
2 eggs – 2 protein exchange = 2oz of meat
3 small pancakes with syrup- 3 carbs if not more or maybe hash browns fried in oil
Coffee with 2 sugars and cream -1

So we are looking at 6 carbs just for breakfast, considering we should be looking at 6 – 11 a day we just had are full compliment of carbs in one meal. It’s a wonder why society is becoming more obese. Not to mention the Fat in the butter, bacon and cream in are coffee. The above breakfast is not a great way to start a day.

For me typically when I go out for breakfast, I will have: there are only 2 carbs and a bit in the breakfast below. We don’t need a breakfast like above.

1 slice of brown toast buttered
2 eggs
2 slices of bacon
Usually will have ½ cup of potatoes or exchange for 2 slices of brown toast.
Coffee with milk and artificial sugar.

You can see the big difference in the Meals, smaller meal, eating healthy means smaller portions and making choices about the foods we eat.

This is only a very basic look at foods, I will get into Food exchanges and GI (glycemic index) later.

Harry Jacobs
The diabetic Runner.