Carb counting and portion control -
Carbohydrates are a primary source of glucose sugar , which is used as fuel by every cell in the body. Because carbs consist of sugar, consuming them can flood your bloodstream with glucose. If you have diabetes, this may affect your blood sugar balance and insulin levels.
Carb counting is a measured way of keeping your carb intake in check, so as not to throw off your glucose control. Carb counting is an easy way to follow a low-carb diet, but the quality of food you're eating still plays a big role in your overall health.
It may be easier to rely on packaged foods with nutrition labels than whole foods like fruits and vegetables, which don't have carbs listed on them. Not all foods contain carbohydrates, but still may be high in calories and fat, such as steak or bacon—this can become hard to track if you're only counting carbs.
The takeaway here is that carb counting can be a healthy way to manage blood sugar and make it easy to visualize and keep track of your intake, but that the quality of the carbs you're eating does matter. For best results, focus your carb choices on high-quality, less processed foods such as whole grains, fresh or frozen fruit, and vegetables.
The American Diabetes Association ADA recommends carb counting for people with type 1 diabetes on intensive insulin therapy as it helps to improve overall glycemic control.
There are two primary methods of carb counting. Learn more, then pick the style that works for you. If you're using the diabetic exchange system , you will have a meal plan, likely provided by a dietitian, that organizes the amount of food you should eat at each meal and snack as choices.
a number of breaks down the food you can have with each meal as choices. For instance, you might have one carbohydrate choice and one lean protein choice. One carbohydrate choice is usually equal to 15 grams of carbohydrate or often, 10 to 15 grams.
The exchange system does the math for you. Rather than reading labels and calculating carbs, the diabetic exchange lists provide you with "choices" that are roughly equal to each other in terms of carbohydrate and, for the other categories, including vegetables, proteins, and fat.
A carbohydrate choice should equal 80 calories, 15 grams of carbohydrate, and 0 grams of fat. That doesn't mean that every carbohydrate choices is the same serving size.
For instance, each of these servings of food is equivalent to one carbohydrate choice:. With this method of meal planning for diabetes, instead of shooting for a target number of carbohydrate servings at each meal, you'll have a target for grams of carbohydrate—for example, between 45 and 60 grams of carbohydrate per meal and 15 to 30 grams of carbohydrate per snack.
If you'd like to then translate the total grams of carbohydrate in a serving of food into "carbohydrate servings," you can take the total number of grams of carbohydrate and divide by For instance, say you want to figure out how many carb servings are in a serving of lasagna.
If you look up lasagna in the nutrient database, you'll see that a 1-cup serving has 31 grams of carbohydrate. Divide by 15 and you get 2 it's OK to round up or down to the closest whole number.
So that 1-cup serving of lasagna is worth two carbohydrate servings. There are a few key steps to take before you're ready to begin:. There are several useful carb counting apps available to help you keep track of your intake with easy, on-the-go access. A simple-to-use carb tracker, this app offers basic carb tallying, helping you account for over 1 million foods.
Take a look at your averages with handy graph analyses, plus get access to over 1, low-carb recipes, Carb Manager also syncs with most fitness trackers. The app is free to download and use but also offers a premium paid subscription for additional services.
An all-around food and fitness tracking app, MyFitnessPal offers a straightforward way to log daily meals and keep a running count of carb intake as well as protein, fat, and micronutrients.
App notifications provide helpful reminders to enter your food choices each day. The app is free to download and use. The app is free to download and use but also offers a premium paid subscription for additional features.
Keep the lines of communication open with your healthcare team and be sure to reach out to them with any questions, but here are a few helpful tips. American Diabetes Association. Get smart on carb counting.
Evert AB, Dennison M, Gardner CD, et al. Nutrition therapy for adults with diabetes or prediabetes: A consensus report. Diabetes Care. Diabetes Teaching Center at the University of California, San Francisco. Carbohydrate exchanges. Salad dressing, yogurt, bread, spaghetti sauce.
Sugars are added to many foods during processing, and added sugars mean added carbs. Carbs are measured in grams. On packaged foods, you can find total carb grams on the Nutrition Facts label. You can also check this list or use a carb-counting app to find grams of carbs in foods and drinks.
For diabetes meal planning , 1 carb serving is about 15 grams of carbs. For example, most people would count a small baked potato as 1 serving.
However, at about 30 grams of carbs, it counts as 2 carb servings. Lunch 2 slices whole wheat bread 24g 4 oz. low-sodium turkey meat 1g 1 slice low-fat Swiss cheese 1g ½ large tomato 3g 1 TBS yellow mustard 1g ¼ cup shredded lettuce 0g 8 baby carrots 7g 6 oz.
plain fat-free Greek yogurt 7g ¾ cup blueberries 15g Total carbs: 59 grams, about 4 carb servings. Dinner 6 ounces baked chicken breast 0g 1 cup brown rice 45g 1 cup steamed broccoli 12g 2 TBS margarine 0g Total carbs: 57 grams, about 4 carb servings.
Snack 1 low-fat string cheese stick 1g 2 tangerines 18g Total carbs: 19 grams, about 1 carb serving. The amount you can eat and stay in your target blood sugar range depends on your age, weight, activity level, and other factors.
A dietitian or diabetes care and education specialist can help you create an eating plan that works for your unique needs and lifestyle. You can also visit the Find a Diabetes Education Program in Your Area locator for DSMES services near you. Talk with your dietitian about the right amount of carbs for you, and be sure to update your meal plan if your needs change for example, if you get more active, you may increase how many carbs you eat.
Ask about tasty, healthy recipes that can help you stay on top of your carb intake—which will make it easier to manage your blood sugar levels, too.
Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search. Español Other Languages. Carb Counting. Español Spanish. Minus Related Pages. Added Sugar Is Hiding in Your Food.
Conting D. Kulkarni; Carbohydrate Counting: A Practical Meal-Planning Option for People With Diabetes. Cntrol Diabetes Carb counting and portion control July ; 23 3 : — L ena has been overweight for a few years. She is 52 years old, and she found out that she has type 2 diabetes 1 year ago. Carb counting is one form of contril planning Performance optimization consultancy people with portoon use Carb counting and portion control help them coujting their countting sugar levels. Doctors might recommend a Anti-angiogenesis drugs range of daily carbs as part of an individualized meal plan. In the United States, Diabetes is an incurable yet manageable medical condition in which the body struggles to regulate blood sugar. This happens when the body cannot produce enough insulinor when insulin does not work correctly.
0 thoughts on “Carb counting and portion control”