What you need to know about prediabetes
When some people find out that they have prediabetes, they can panic—or opt to ignore the bad news completely. Try the middle road instead—stay calm and use the diagnosis as motivation.
Prediabetes, as you may know, dramatically raises your risk of developing diabetes. But it’s not too late for you to change course. If you lose just 5 to 7 percent of your current body weight, you can reduce the chances of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes by up to 58 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you’re overweight and need to slim down, cutting calories is a must, says Sacha Uelmen, RDN, a certified diabetes educator and director of nutrition for the American Diabetes Association and spokesperson for Managing Type 2 Diabetes for Dummies. But you also need to be mindful of the impact that specific foods have on your blood glucose level. In other words, you need to start eating as if you already have diabetes.
As daunting as that might sound, people on a prediabetes diet (as well as those with diabetes) can eat pretty much anything they want, provided they watch portion sizes and follow a generally healthy, well-balanced plan. “When you tell someone they can’t have a particular food at all you create a monster,” says Marina Chaparro, RDN, a clinical dietitian, certified diabetes educator, and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For that reason, even pizza and ice cream aren’t totally off-limits.
While eliminating foods isn’t wise, you should remember that you can’t eat pizza and ice cream every day either. Those foods ought to be occasional treats rather than staples. What else makes the “eat less of” list? These other foods might surprise you.
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