Eating right is important for everybody, but for diabetics it is crucial. Maintaining a proper diet not only ensures that you get all the nutrients you need, it also helps to regulate and control blood sugar. A proper eating plan is rich in nutrients and low in fat and calories. A diet based on an exchange system makes it easier to track what you are eating and what you can do to make your diet better.

Food Exchange Basics

A food exchange diet is set up with the help of a dietitian. The dietitian will set up a diet based on your individual needs. Foods are grouped into types such as milk, meat, starches, fruit and vegetables. The portion size of each item within the group will be set so you can exchange different foods within the group without affecting your blood sugar. Once the total number of exchanges is determined you will work with the dietitian to spread them out over the course of a day.

List Sources

A number of major health organizations have exchange lists online that you can use for your meal planning at home. That doesn't make it easy when you are on the road or even just out on the town for dinner. There are books that you can purchase that have exchange lists that you can keep with you. Smartphones can look up data online while you are out.

List Information

A good food exchange list will have more than the name of the food and the serving size. It will also include calories, fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, fiber, sugars and proteins. Really good lists will break down the fat into its different components, trans fats, saturated, mono- and poly- unsaturated fatty acids. The more information you have the easier it is to make good eating decisions.

Conclusions

Each meal and day that you follow your plan is great, but for long term success you need to keep a record of how you are doing week after week and month after month. A pocket food diary lets you record what you have eaten. Various websites have online food diaries that you can use to track your eating habits. These websites generally have large databases of food information so you can input either ingredient lists or menu items and they will calculate the caloric and nutritional values of what you have been eating. Once you have tracked your eating habits over time you can go back to your dietitian and fine tune your eating habits.

Source:

Mayo Clinic

American Diabetes Association

American Dietetic Association

Resource:

Fit Day

American Diabetes Association MyFoodAdvisor