3 Ways Meal Prepping Can Help Manage Diabetes For Women
Meal prepping or preparing your meals ahead of time can help you better manage your diabetes.
When you plan your meals and make them in advance, you’ll be less tempted to eat foods that aren’t diabetes-friendly. This can give you some control over your diabetes management even at times when other things can feel out of control.
Being diagnosed with diabetes can feel overwhelming. It’s difficult to know where to start, what to believe and how to make changes to your routine. As with most health changes that we want to become habits, the trick is to start small. Perhaps begin by cutting out sugary drinks and stick to water, then try to cook more at home—starting with just one meal or snack—then consider focusing more on adding plenty of non starchy vegetables, fruits, lean protein and more whole grains.
There are a few key changes that can help improve your blood sugars:
Protein: Eating protein, like meat, chicken, eggs, fish, Greek yogurt, nuts or other vegetarian proteins with most of your meals helps improve your blood sugars. Protein slows down the digestion of carbohydrates and the absorption of glucose into your bloodstream, which means your blood sugars will stay more stable.
Fiber: Fiber, a type of carbohydrate that isn’t digested, helps improve our blood sugars. Like protein, it’s broken down slowly and prevents blood sugar spikes. High-fiber foods include whole grains (quinoa, whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, whole-wheat pasta), plus fruits, vegetables, beans and lentils.
Weight loss: If you’re overweight, losing weight (even just 5% of your body weight) can make a big difference in blood sugar control. Typically, if we focus on healthy nutrition changes to lower your blood sugar, like increasing protein and eating more vegetables, weight loss tends to follow on its own.
Cut back on sugar and simple carbohydrates: Because sugary drinks can pack in a ton of sugar, avoiding them is often the best first step to improve your blood sugar control. Stick to drinks that have zero calories, like water, seltzer and unsweetened tea.
Regular meal routine: A routine of three meals a day with one or two high-protein or high-fiber snacks helps keep our blood sugars stable. Skipping meals then overindulging leads to blood sugar lows and spikes, which leaves us feeling lethargic. Plus, eating regular meals and snacks prevents us from getting too hungry and makes it easier to manage portions.
Exercise: A combination of cardio exercise, like walking, jogging or biking, plus strength training helps lower blood sugars. Moving more is beneficial, but it doesn’t have to be an hour of back-breaking exercise at the gym.
What to Eat with Diabetes:
Chicken
Turkey
Lean beef and pork
Fish
Beans
Lentils
Nuts, peanuts and natural nut butters that don’t contain sugar
Olive and avocado oil
Avocados
Fruits, especially fruits with skin and seeds, like berries, apples and pears
Vegetables, especially low-carb non starchy vegetables, which is most vegetables except corn, peas and potatoes
Higher-fiber complex carbohydrates, like oatmeal, quinoa and starchy vegetables
Greek yogurt
Be sure to rotate recipes so you’re not always making the same thing and continue to look for new healthy recipes to add to your collection.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Meal planning and prepping when you have diabetes can be tricky, but the payoff can be great.
If you’ve been living with diabetes, or any chronic health condition, it can be difficult to stay on the path toward better management. Staying healthy takes time and energy, both of which are things that are likely in short supply if you have a chronic disease. Meal prepping is one part of making sure that you’re staying healthy in your diet. It’s easy to fit into your schedule and happens as a result of planning your meals for the dietary demands diabetes will place on your body. Learn how to meal prep properly and diabetes will become less of a challenge for you.
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Take some tips from my meal prep webinar!
In the past six years, I’ve been vegan for nearly two of them. And it has changed my life. I eat vegan because it is a healthier way to live. Whenever I start doing something healthy, like eating better or exercising more, there’s always an excuse to not continue with that behavior. But when you’re feeling so much better in every aspect of your life, you can’t find an excuse not to continue.
My whole life I have suffered from migraines and joint pain due to arthritis in my whole body (I have no cartilage in my knees and hips). Also, for as long as I can remember, depression has been a part of my life too. Nowadays I can’t remember the last time I had a headache or a migraine! And since starting on this path of health, I haven’t caught any other illnesses either. My joint pain is almost completely gone! Feeling this good has made me realize that if you are eating well then so many other problems seem to just disappear. The fewer chemicals we put into our bodies the better they function overall!
Eating plant-based food also helps us lose weight and keep it off because we are consuming fewer calories than before without even trying! When we do this our bodies start absorbing nutrients more efficiently without having to work as hard to digest meat products which makes digestion easier on our gut and improves our immune system by killing harmful bacteria that lives in animal protein products.
For more instant tips and helpful information, you can follow Certified Health Coach, Chaundria Singleton!