Planning Your Meals

The American Diabetes Association has created an eating plan, known as the exchange system, that has been proven effective for those with diabetes as well as for those without the condition. This system divides food into six different groups (starches, dairy products, meats, fats, fruits, and vegetables) based on carbohydrate, protein, and fat content. This grouping of foods based on their nutrients, calorie, and carbohydrate content is designed to make choosing foods easier. You can obtain an exchange list from your dietitian or online at www.diabetes.org. This system allows you to keep variety in your diet by exchanging one type of food for another in the same group while maintaining the overall nutritional content of your meals. For example, three meat exchanges (servings) may be two cups of cooked cubed chicken that can be exchanged for another meat or meat substitute, such as four cod fillets. This makes preparing your own recipes easy. Your dietitian will let you know whether you should use this system based on the day-to-day details of your eating habits (when, where, why, and how much you eat) along with your activity level.

No matter what type of meal plan you adopt, you will need to have a good understanding of correct serving sizes. As discussed earlier, many of us have become accustomed to eating very large portions that lead to very high caloric consumption and therefore lead to weight gain. The exchange list takes care of this problem by clearly defining portion sizes. Nutrition facts labels on packaged foods can be helpful as well because they all identify what the serving size is as well as the percentage of nutrients (carbohydrate, protein, and fat) based on a 2,000-calorie diet.