Eating Well

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Managing Diabetes

- The interactive web tool for children and families. It may be helpful to look at this section with your parents at first.

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For Healthcare Professionals

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As a person with diabetes, you make important decisions every day about food. What you eat has a greater impact on your blood glucose levels than anything else you do.

You can meet this daily challenge by meal planning. With a meal plan, you can make choices when eating at home, grocery shopping and dining out. By working with your healthcare professional and learning about nutrition and the effect of food on blood glucose, you can turn meal planning into a pleasurable experience.

Most food turns into sugar—or blood glucose—before entering the bloodstream. Insulin then helps blood glucose move from the bloodstream into your body’s cells—from your brain to your muscles—where it is used for energy. Without insulin to unlock those cells and let the glucose in, your body does not get the nourishment it needs, and excess glucose stays in the bloodstream.

When you eat, you put fuel into your body. This is why your blood glucose level rises after you eat and why many people with diabetes need to use insulin near mealtimes. The insulin moves the blood glucose from the bloodstream to the cells, where it can be used.

Planning what, when, and how much you eat plays a key part in keeping your blood glucose levels in the range your healthcare professional has set for you.

Planning Your Meals

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The goal of a meal plan is to control your blood glucose levels, maintain a healthy body weight and feel good. Your healthcare professional can assist you in meal planning by suggesting the right amounts, types and timing of the food you eat.

Different types of foods have specific roles within the body. Keeping track of what you eat, when you eat and how much you eat, along with regular testing, can help you and your healthcare professional understand how the food you eat affects your blood glucose levels.

As you develop your meal plan, think about the foods that you normally eat. One way to identify this is by creating a list of everything you eat for 3 days. After completing your list, work with your healthcare professional to analyse your list and ask yourself the following:

What are my favorite types of food?
Do I have "problem foods" that are not healthy or that I may eat too much of?
What size are my food portions?
How often do I eat?
How frequently do I over eat?
Is there a time of day when it is more difficult for me to follow my meal plan?

Eating at regular intervals gives your body a chance to use up blood glucose between meals. In general, you should eat every 4 to 5 hours. Skipping meals may lead to overeating at the next meal, resulting in higher blood glucose levels.

If you take insulin, talk to your healthcare professional about using insulin with meals and snacks.

Glycaemic Index

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Studies show when considering the affect of carbohydrates on blood glucose, it is not just how many carbohydrates you eat but their source as well.¹ Some types of food cause a quick rise in blood glucose after a meal, while others cause a smaller peak and more gradual decline. The measurement of how fast a food causes blood glucose to peak is called its glycaemic index, or GI.

What is a Glycaemic Index (GI) Number

High-carbohydrate foods are ranked on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 representing the effect of pure glucose on the body. The lower the GI of a food, the slower its peak. The way the food is cooked (for example, frying vs. baking) can also determine the GI level of the food. The GI breaks foods into 3 levels:²

Low: less than 55
Intermediate: between 55 and 70
High: above 70

A few low-GI foods include:

Whole-grain breads and cereals
Brown rice
Dried beans and lentils
Old-fashioned oatmeal
Sweet potatoes
Dairy products
Apples and oranges

Meats and fats are low in carbohydrates and do not have a GI ranking.

Used in combination with carbohydrate counting, looking at food GI levels may help you stabilize your blood glucose throughout the day. The rule of thumb is that the higher the GI, the smaller the portion you should have. Conversely, you can eat more of lower-GI foods with a less adverse effect on glucose levels.

Try choosing foods from the low-GI category more often and see if it helps you to maintain closer to normal blood glucose levels.

¹ Archives of Internal Medicine 2006;166:1466-1475 'Comparison of 4 diets of varying glycaemic load on weight loss and cardiovascular risk reduction in overweight and obese young adults: a randomised controlled trial.' Available at http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/166/14/1466 . Accessed on November 17, 2008.

² International Diabetes Institute. Glycaemic Index. Available at http://www.diabetes.com.au/about.php?regionID=254. Accessed on November 17, 2008.

Planning Your Meals
Glycaemic Index
Maintaining a Healthy Weight


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For Healthcare Professionals

Under 18?

Email this page

Eating Well

Planning Your Meals

Glycaemic Index

Maintaining a Healthy Weight

Diabetes and Pregnancy