Food and diabetes
Balancing your diet when you are diagnosed with diabetes can be challenging.
Enjoy a variety of foods
Although the food choices you make and your eating habits are important in helping you manage your diabetes, you should be able to continue enjoying a wide variety of foods as part of healthy eating.
Eating a balanced diet, managing your weight, and following a healthy lifestyle, together with taking any prescribed medication and monitoring where appropriate will benefit your health enormously.
Make small changes you can stick to
Remember, in the long run it is better to make small changes that you feel you can stick to rather than completely altering your diet and not sticking to it.
Take steps to balance your diet
Taking steps to balance your diet will help you control your:
- blood glucose levels
- blood fats – cholesterol and triglycerides
- blood pressure.
It will also help regulate your weight. If you are overweight losing weight will help you control your diabetes and will also reduce your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke.
Speak to your dietitian
You are sure to have lots of questions about your diet. A registered dietitian will be able to answer your questions.
Diabetes UK recommends that everyone with diabetes:
- should see a registered dietitian at diagnosis
- then have regular reviews for specific advice on their eating habits.