Come Christmas and the whiff of freshly baked plum cakes and cookies, roast turkey, mince pies, and Christmas pudding waft through the air. The matters of the belly and diabetes management. can quickly be forgotten when you have plenty of good food to delight your fancies.
All it needs is a little bit of extra effort in the festive fare and exercise department.
Since Christmas is almost upon us, it is a good idea to plan ahead so we are presenting to you some tips that will keep you covered. Let’s get right into it!
- The most basic tip: lean toward healthier, diabetes-focused recipes.
- If that feels a bit much, try giving your grandma’s recipes a healthy makeover by simply swapping out certain ingredients. For instance, replace your double cream with Greek yoghurt or your turkey stuffing from sausage meat to an orange, cranberry, and roast chestnut one.
- Ward off hunger on Christmas morning to avoid overeating and indulging in absurd amounts of sugar and fat over Christmas lunches and dinners. A healthy, fulfilling breakfast will go miles in effective diabetes management.
- Portion control is a clever trick that comes real handy around holidays. The benefits are two-pronged. Imagine being able to tingle your taste buds with the variety over having to choose and stick to select dishes without cranking up the sugars and carbs.
- Snack strategically. Nibbling at regular intervals will help cut down on the toxicity that is excess glucose by keeping your stomach filled up.
- Eat slowly, specifically at this time of the year. Believe it or not, it can help reduce the amount you eat.
- Pile up on the veggies and fruits. They have healthier carbs that will keep you feeling full for longer.
- Second helpings are usually not a good idea. Put away the holiday grub once you have enough on your plate. Out of sight, out of mind.
- Limiting your Christmas dinner to one day will save you a lot of calorie and sugar-induced trouble.
- Alcohol, in large, doesn’t abide by your diabetes diet. rules, especially when it’s taken on empty stomach as it lowers blood glucose and can cause hypoglycaemia. So if you want to raise a toast to better diabetes management, limit the intake to just one drink.
- Post alcohol, have a starchy snack before getting under your quilt at night time. A sandwich, jacket potatoes, or cereal are good options to consider.
- When you’re calling on a friend, it is a lot easier to sabotage your sugar goals because you’re not in control of the food prepped. Offer to bring a dish along that is on the healthier side so that you have an alternative and can avoid the hassles of poor glucose levels.
- When holiday season comes around, you know how it goes. One minute you’re in good control, exercising your way to decent sugar levels and the next you realise the glucometer is trending to the high side because you haven’t worked those muscles. Extra exercise and brisk walking post meals will help balancing out the spike in sugar.
- If you are on insulin injections, adjust timings to until you are about to intake food. However, it’s better to talk to your diabetes doctor before you make a decision. It addition, meal times can be pushed beyond normal during Christmas with all the socializing, so keeping a snack at hand can help prevent a glucose reaction.
- This one’s quite obvious but let us put it out there anyway. Test. Test. Test. More frequently. Just brushing it under the rug isn’t going to make spikes or depressions in your blood glucose go away. Catching it from time to time will keep you on alert and make diabetes management easier.
Making sensible choices in terms of your diabetes diet will save you from having to sacrifice the spirit of the season. These tips are totally doable and will get you through Christmas without leaving you or your body in regret. Simply ignoring your blood sugar tests. , skipping the regular diabetes tests and not being serious about hour diabetes treatment. is a one-way ticket to poor health. That being said, we are all human and it’s easy to get carried away. Sometimes things don’t go as planned and that’s ok. Rack up your efforts the following day. Since holidays are all about family time and togetherness, focus on spending quality time with your family. It can do much more for your diabetes by keeping you off eating unhealthily and reducing stress. Here is to a healthy Christmas!
