What is a Diabetic Exchange Diet?

You may eat a specific number of items from each food category in any given day, but you can exchange one item for another within the category as long as you keep the portion sizes correct.

To initially set up your diet you will want to sit down with:

• Your physician
• A registered dietician or
• A diabetes educator and determine what items should be in each of your food categories.

You will also want to figure out how much you should be eating from each category, or in other words, how many exchanges you are allowed.

A diabetic exchange diet will typically be using the following food groupings:

• Breads and starches
• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Dairy
• meat and meat substitutes and
• Fats.

Depending on the specific diabetic diet you set up with your advisor you may have some food items that are off limits.

While following a diabetic exchange diet you will still want to have three meals each day, as well as one or two snacks.

How you plan these meals will depend on your lifestyle and schedule, as well as when you take any insulin or oral medications.

When you exercise will also make a difference.

This is important because it will help you regulate your blood glucose levels.

These things can be worked out with your advisor.

To provide you with some examples of what to expect, here is a typical category breakdown in the diabetic exchange diet.

We’ll look at the breads and starches group.

It may include items such as:

• One slice of bread
• Half an English muffin
• One third of a cup cooked rice
• Half a cup mashed potatoes and
• One small dinner roll.

If you are allotted five breads and starches exchanges a day you can choose any five items on the exchange list.

If you choose to have two pieces of toast for breakfast you will be using two of your exchanges.

If you choose to have half a cup of mashed potatoes and a dinner roll at dinner, you will use two more.

That would leave you with one breads and starches exchange from your diabetic exchange diet to use at lunch or for a snack.

Looking at the vegetables category in the diabetic exchange diet category you may be told that you can eat one cup raw, or half a cup cooked of most any vegetables.

This may include:

• Salad greens
• Broccoli
• Tomato or
• Green beans.

For the most part, vegetables should be a mainstay in your diet, so you will likely get several exchanges in this grouping.

The nice thing about the diabetic exchange diet is that you always have a list of food options.

You don’t have to count calories, you don’t have to figure out how much you can eat of a food, it will all be on your list.

You simply keep track of how many items you have eaten in various categories.

The most important thing to do if you are treating your diabetes, trying to overcome obesity, or simply trying to improve your health, is to focus on eating healthy foods with a lot of nutrients, and avoiding foods that have little nutritional value or are loaded with calories and fat.

Making smart decisions is what it is all about.

One of the smartest decisions you can make is to follow simple, proven steps to losing weight like the ones below.

• Incorporate a proven, complete nutritional program into your daily life.
• Enhance your nutritional program with a complete mutivitamin supplement because no nutritional program is perfect.
• Use a behavior modification and motivational program that will help you stay on track with your nutritional plan.
• Exercise at home with your own:
  Treadmill

  Stairstepper

  Exercise bike

  Elliptical trainer

  Hand weights or

  An aerobic video.

• See what kinds of weight loss aids your health insurance covers such as:
  Hypnotism

  Gym membership discounts

  Nutritional counseling.

By following these steps you will be well on your way to losing weight and controlling your diabetes.

Good luck on your journey.