Meal Planning

Creating a diabetes-friendly meal plan is all about determining in advance:

• What to eat

• How much to eat

• When to eat

Eating smaller, more frequent meals or snacks throughout the day can improve blood sugar and weight management. You will spread your calorie and carb intake across more occasions. The fully customizable meal plans on this Web site include six daily eating occasions.

If you’re managing your diabetes with medications, meal planning consistency also helps you know when to take medicine prior to meals and when to test blood sugar before and afterward. Planning will help you ensure you’re getting all the right nutrients and will help you avoid harmful highs and lows in blood sugar.

To give you an example, below is the average distribution of calories from carbohydrates, protein, and fat in the meal plans on this site:

• Carbohydrates: 55%-58% of total calories

• Protein: 20%-23% of total calories

• Total fat: 24%-26% of total calories (less than 10% is saturated fat)