Counting carbohydrates is an easy part of diabetes management. Milk, grains like rice etc., flour, bread from that flour, and corn products are all carbohydrates. So is butternut squash soup, pasta, yogurt, pinto peas, and potatoes in general, whether a sweet potato or a white potato or a yam, it is a carb. Tomatoes also have a carbohydrate count along with peas. Carbohydrates impact your blood glucose in such a way as to raise it. Lettuce, however, has no carbohydrates in it, which lessens the additional impact on blood sugar. Protein also has less impact than carbohydrates. Yogurt is both a protein and a carb.
You have to look at serving size while calculating how many carbs you are taking insulin for. Total grams of carbohydrate help you calculate how much insulin you need as well as the use of sugar, starch, and fiber. Carb counting helps you measure how much you are having in one sitting. Carbohydrate counting allows the user to control how much insulin to cover the carb with. Carb counting helps your blood glucose levels since carbs affect your blood glucose more than other nutrients can. Grains, fruits, and vegetables are part of an overall dietary plan that can help one prevent constipation, lower cholesterol, as well as control your weight loss if that’s what you seek right now.
However, sugar is an unhealthy carbohydrate that sneaks its way into food or drinks like soda or juice. Cereal is another type of food that contains carbohydrates. Non-starchy vegetables are asparagus, broccoli, carrots, celery, green beans, lettuce, and other salad greens, peppers, spinach, and tomatoes as well as zucchini. Source. Carbohydrates in large quantities do make you gain weight. Meat, fish, and chicken do not contain carbohydrates but the ketchup you used on them does.
Cheese is also a no-carbohydrate sort of food to eat when you have diabetes, whether type 1 or 2. Carbohydrate counting helps you stay healthy longer as a person with diabetes. Delaying diabetes problems such as kidney disease, nerve damage, or blood vessel diseases mean that you can avoid side effects of diabetes such as amputation, heart attacks, or strokes. Each gram of carbohydrate provides 4 calories, you then divide the number of calories you get from 43 carbohydrates for a French bread pizza, and MyFitnessPal makes this very easy besides not having to make a calculation like this yourself.
If you eat 1800 calories a day, or shall we say 1900 in my case, you may get 45 percent of your calories from carbohydrates; you aim for 200 calories from carbs daily. My diet is 50% carbohydrates, so I’m going to divide 1900/. 50 or I get 950 calories from carbohydrates according to the formula. Grain-based foods do contain sugar in them such as donuts. Carbohydrate counting can save your life if you use it religiously. My insulin pump is set for 1 unit of insulin for every 70 grams of carbohydrate. This is a recent change from 1:15. I take less insulin or bolus less because of this change my doctor and I made. Cereal may have one gram of sugar but 21 grams of carbohydrate or in the case of my Cheerios 25 -27 grams of carbohydrate. I cannot necessarily have sugar cereals as I cut those out of my diet. Blood sugar readings before carbohydrates and two hours after carbohydrates help improve your coverage of your carbs. Portion control is essential to carbohydrate counting, so eating off of a smaller plate is useful to you. I do this when I’m really working not to have too many carbs in one sitting. Measuring cups are quite useful in your carb counting endeavors.
I use MyFitnessPal as a food journal give or take that I’d rather use my phone than paper. Eating non-starchy vegetables can be helpful in your carbohydrate counting. You have to make sure your soda is diet by using a ketone strip to test whether or not it is. Lower calorie doesn’t always mean lower carbs so you have to watch out even with light food options. Source. Diabetes changes over time, so you have to look out in order to keep up with those changes.
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Iria Vasquez-Paez
I have a B.A. in creative writing from San Francisco State. Can people please donate? I'm very low-income. I need to start an escape the Ferengi plan.
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