What lifestyle changes should I make if I have diabetes?
Most of the recommended lifestyle changes for diabetics would actually benefit people without the disease. In this video, HealthMaker John Merendino, MD, an endocrinologist, talks about the main issues and the role of carbohydrates in diet.
Transcript
JACK MERENDINO: For the most part, the lifestyle changes that should be made by somebody with diabetes are probably those that most of us
should be making anyway, right? I mean, it's not anything extraordinary. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Most of us should be exercising a good bit more than we do. For the average person with diabetes,
there's nothing extraordinarily different about the kind of exercise that they should do.
From a standpoint of diet, again, I think that weight management is the most important thing, and that's probably not much different for people
with diabetes than it is for the rest of us. But one exception may be that, for many people with diabetes,
restricting their carbohydrate intake is probably a critical part of their diet.
Carbohydrates, of course, means starch or sugar. The average American probably consumes 200 grams
of carbohydrate a day or more. For most people with diabetes, it's appropriate to consume far less than that.
I tend to recommend on the order of 30 grams of carbohydrate with each meal, possibly a little bit more.
Some people can do a little bit less. That's not very much if you start to look at the way a lot of us eat.
living with diabetes
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