Foods to avoid??? - Diabetes Message Board

bigsmiff · 02-21-2005, 04:41 PM

I was recently diagnosed with metabolic syndrome. That is when my blood sugar level is high,high cholesterol,high blood pressure, and overweight. I am trying to find out what foods to avoid for my high blood sugar. My doctor told me some things, but he is always too busy to get into detail. Thanks

lil_miss_bad · 02-21-2005, 05:46 PM

Hi!

It's too bad your doctor couldn't take more time to explain things to you. Have you asked him/her to refer you to a nutrionist? Assuming you are American you would probably have to check to see ifyour insurance covers it (sorry, I'm Canadian, and don't know a whole lot on the american health care system).

That would be my best advice.

One thing that will help is learning about the "glycemic index" of foods. You should be able to get the glycemic values for foods on the internet. the lower the number, the better it would be for you.

As for foods I can recommend you avoid? Well everybody's system reacts differently, but I find bananas, potatoes, breads (particularly bagels), pastas, refined sugar (including baked goods), carrots, and rice to name a few, shoots my sugars up. Also, soft drinks that are not of the diet variety are terrible for anyone sensitive to high blood sugars. Even further, caffiene can cause sugar lows which means cravings for sugar itself. I've recently stopped consuming caffiene (I don't drink coffee or tea -- my vice was diet pepsi -- which I simply switched to caffiene free). It was a miserable week of headaches, but in the end I feel it was worth it.

Also, try and find a sweetener (splenda, equal, sweet 'n low, sugar twin, etc...) you LIKE. A lot of times it will take a bit of time to get used to sweeteners -- when I was first diagnosed with diabetes, I was a pepsi addict -- I couldn't drink the diet variety. But after a month of drinking it, I can never go back to the regular variety -- I love love love my diet sodas, and find the regular varieties too sweet! It's nice to find at least one thing you like while on a diet of any kind; just one vice that won't hurt your goals, and the diet colas are mine

Perhaps getting a blood glucose monitor would help? You could monitor your blood sugars two hours after eating to see how that food affected your blood sugars.

Also, remember, 15 grams of carbs is one carb value. I'm on atkins now, which is very limited in carbs, but before that, I used to limit my carbs per meal to 2 or 3 which would be about 30-45 grams.

Best of luck!
LMB