Free Daily Diabetic Type 2 Diet Plan and Diabetes Meal Planning Ideas

Exchange Lists and Your Daily Diabetic Diet Plan:

Your diabetes daily meal plan can help you control your blood glucose levels. Using diabetes exchange lists ensures that you’re getting adequate amounts of calories, carbohydrates, and other vital nutrients.

The recommended diabetes diet meal plan is nutrient rich and low in fat and calories. Following your diabetic diet meal plan can aid you in easily maintaining your blood glucose levels within your desired range. Meeting with a registered dietitian is the first step in learning how to formulate the diet plan for diabetes exchange system.

How the Diet Plan for Diabetes Exchange System Works:

Starches, fruits, milk, sweets, fats, and free foods form the basis of the exchange system. After consulting your dietitian, you’ll learn how much of each group you can consume in order to maintain proper nutrition. In the exchange system, you can swap out foods within certain groups that have the same nutritional content and similar glycemic effects on your blood. This forms the foundation of your diabetic diet meal planner.

Part of a dietitian’s job is to come up with a diet plan for a diabetic and help in diabetic diet meal planning. Based on your individual needs, your dietitian will show you some exchanges that you can make in your diet. Working along side your dietitian, you’ll come up with diabetic diet meal plans and decide the best way to space out the exchanges during the day. Doing this will help you to maintain tight control over your blood glucose, which is an important step in keeping diabetes in check.

Counting carbohydrates and trying to maintain a sugar free diet plan as much as possible is a central theme in the diabetic exchange system. This is an important part for any meal plan for type 2 diabetes. For example, in the plan, any food that has the same carbohydrate count — say 15 grams– may be swapped out for any other item that has the same amount of carbohydrates.

This can mean swapping apples for a portion of potatoes that has the same amount of carbohydrates as the apple. Once you start counting carbohydrates, the rest of your diabetic diet menu plan can be configured to your personal goals.

Put the following exchange lists, which are adapted free meal plans for diabetics provided by the American Diabetes Association and the American Dietetic Association, to use in order to help you to control portion sizes and to make sure that your diabetic diet menu plan has enough variety so that you don’t get bored with your meals.

A Sample Diabetes Type 2 Diet Plan :

If you have type 2 diabetes, you should follow a diet plan for type 2 diabetes. This free diabetes diet plan contains approximately 1,00 calories and 220 grams of carbohydrates. It is also important to drink at least 16 ounces of water with each meal. Your dietitian may also give you a diabetic diet plan sample to follow.

Breakfast

(360 calories, 52.5 grams carbohydrate)

1 slice toasted whole wheat bread with 1 teaspoon margarine
1/4 cup egg substitute or cottage cheese
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 small banana

Lunch

(535 calories, 75 grams carbohydrate)

1 cup vegetable soup with 4-6 crackers
1 turkey sandwich (2 slices whole wheat bread, 1 ounce turkey and 1 ounce low-fat cheese, 1 teaspoon mayonnaise)
1 small apple

Dinner

(635 calories, 65 grams carbohydrate)

4 ounces broiled chicken breast with basil and oregano sprinkled on top
2/3 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 cup cooked carrots
1 small whole grain dinner roll with 1 teaspoon margarine
Tossed salad with 2 tablespoons low-fat salad dressing
4 unsweetened canned apricot halves or 1 small slice of angel food cake

Snacks

(Each has 60 calories or 15 grams carbohydrate. Pick two per day.)

16 fat-free tortilla chips with salsa
1/2 cup artificially sweetened chocolate pudding
1 ounce string cheese plus one small piece of fruit
3 cups lite popcorn