Meal Sizes for Diabetics

Swings in your blood sugars damage your eyes, heart, kidneys and nerves. The larger the swings, the larger the damage.

Your aim is to minimise these swings as much as you can.

When you eat **large** amounts of carbohydrates, these swings are unavoidable, because your blood sugars rise far faster than your insulin can cope with.

If you are forced to eat large amounts of carbohydrate to avoid getting low, you are ‘feeding’ an incorrect insulin dose and/or type of insulin, rather than reducing your insulin to what your body actually needs to eat.

Speak to your doctor (or better, modernize your treatment with a new doctor) to start taking control.

There are several strategies to reduce swings:

• Inject 10-30 minutes before eating, depending on your starting blood sugar, and which insulin you use. Jade’s delayed eating suggestions can help here
• Use faster insulins like Humalog, Apidra, Fiasp and Novolog/NovoRapid. Your doctor can help with this
• Eat smaller meals. So rather than having 3 meals with 100 grams carbs, have 6 meals of 30-40 grams, or better yet, try to gradually lower the amount of carbohydrate you eat. You’ll need less insulin, have less mood swings, reduce weight and feel better.