By Kendra Lay, Acupuncture Physician, Applied Clinical Nutritionist

To keep blood sugar balanced, stick to a few guidelines:

• Eat a meal with balanced macronutrients ("macros" for short). This means eating some protein, good fat and carbohydrate at each meal. Snacks would also follow this guideline - so eating an apple with some peanut butter or some cheese would be the way to do this instead of having just an apple.
  

• Eat protein and fiber (veggies) at the beginning of your meal. Don't start off with carbohydrate. Starting with protein and veggies helps to buffer the glucose rise

• Eat an unlimited amount of non-starchy veggies each day and try to get 25-35 grams of fiber in per day.

• Keep carbohydrates (but not including vegetables - those are unlimited) to less than 75 grams per day. Some people may need to go a bit lower. So carbs from starches such as flours, bread, pasta, rice, sweets, potatoes beans (yes, beans are healthy and do have protein but they have a lot of starch)

• After meals, be active. Walk, or if you can't go on a walk, at least be active around your house. Being active after eating helps to burn up glucose in your blood to be utilized for energy.

Meal Ideas:

Breakfasts
Eggs-fried, scrambled, poached, hard boiled (any way)
Omelets with Veggies
Bacon (2-3 slices)
Pork or Turkey Sausage
Cream cheese on cucumber or tomato slices
1-2 small slices of cheese with 1 hardboiled egg, ½ green apple
Cottage Cheese with ½ cup raspberries
Protein shake with ½ cup berries and almond milk, chia seeds added


Lunches and Dinners
Green salad with protein on top
Any protein (pork, chicken, fish) with low sugar veggies
Chicken or Tuna Salad with salad greens
Fajitas with no tortillas and beans
Chili with no beans or small amount of beans
Bell peppers stuffed with ground meat


Snacks
Cheese
Olives
Small handful of nuts
½ apple or celery with 1 or 2 tbl of sugar-free peanut butter/almond butter
Hardboiled Egg/Deviled Egg
½ an avocado
Guacamole and tomato, cucumber, celery or other veggies
Good quality lunch meat with veggies (carrot, pepper) and avocado wrapped inside


Carbohydrates
Some carbohydrate in your diet is important, otherwise you can suppress some important metabolic processes. Some people are more sensitive to carbohydrate than others though, so we’ll need to monitor how you do with carbs.  See below for best carbohydrate choices. As a rule, limit your consumption of carbs to about ½ cup at meals. Eating a breakfast of protein, fat and some non-starchy veggies is the best way to go to boost your metabolism (so no starchy carbs or fruit at breakfast if you can avoid it). Make sure to always eat carbohydrates with some fat and protein.


Eating Out

Order salads with protein, no croutons. Eat some carbohydrate on the side, but just limit the amount, and have it more towards the end of your meal
Try a burger or sandwich without the bun—ask for a couple of large lettuce leaves and wrap it in that, have some fries but just have a smaller amount than you might have had
Mexican—order fajitas and just eat the meat and veggies and guacamole, only eat a few chips
Chinese/Thai/Vietnamese—meat and veggie stir fry, hold the rice or noodles (or just have 1/2 cup)
Breakfast-omelet with veggies, meat if you want it. 1/2 cup hashbrowns.

Low Sugar Fruits

All Berries
Apples
Avocados
Pears
Tomatoes


Best Starchy Carbs
(limit to about ½ cup at lunch
and ½ cup at dinner)

Winter Squash (butternut, acorn)
Root Veggies (beets, rutabaga, turnip)
Beans
Sweet Potato
Potato
Green peas

(consume starchy carbohydrates with some fat and protein to help lessen the impact on your blood sugar)


Non-Starchy/Low Sugar Veggies
(these all have carbohydrates in them, but they are also full of fiber so they lessen the impact of the sugar in your system)

Asparagus
Artichoke
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Spinach
Cucumber
Lettuce
Mushrooms
Zucchini and Summer Squash
Green Beans
Jicama
Kale
Celery
Spaghetti Squash
Carrot
Collard Greens


Drink a sparkling water with a flavor added instead of you crave a “soda.” There are also many stevia based natural sodas available, such as Zevia.

Eat when you are hungry, don’t let yourself get extremely hungry. Practice preemptive eating—try to have some food before you are very hungry. This looks like eating every 3-4 hours of so for some people. Some people have breakfast, lunch and dinner and 2 snacks and some people like four small meals per day.

Drink plenty of water.

This video from Marlene Merritt is helpful for understanding blood sugar.