For people with diabetes, it is essential to keep a check on their daily intake of carbohydrates so they can understand how much starch and sugar they are adding to their food.
Monitoring carbohydrate intake helps diabetics to maintain steady blood sugar throughout the day and avoid fluctuation.
Medicine Net, a medical information website, has recently published an article on its website, explaining how much carbs you must eat if you are having diabetes.
The article, medically reviewed by California-based pediatrician Dr. Dan Brennan, says diabetics should try to get half of their daily calories from carbs.
“For example, if you consume 1,800 calories daily, you should aim for 900 calories in carbs a day,” it mentions. “There are four calories per one gram of carbs, so that means you should aim to eat at least 200 grams of carbs. However, this dramatically differs between people based on how many calories they need to eat to maintain a healthy weight.”
It is always advised to check with your doctor or dietician to determine how many carbs you should eat on a daily basis. That’s because carbs intake differs in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Typically, people with type 1 diabetes who take insulin shots need an advanced method of carb counting, while those with “type 2 diabetes do not need to track the exact number of carbs in each meal.” Rather, they can have a generalized version of carb counting.
Check with your doctor or nutritionist to work on the best method for carb counting.
You can simply check the food labels that mention the amount of carbs. You can even go through a wide range of websites and apps to understand how much carbs fruit and vegetables contain.
Medicine Net says you must consider two important things when you are looking at nutrition labels – serving size and total carbohydrates. For more information on these things, check the article titled “How Many Carbs Should a Diabetic Have in a Day?” published Monday on Medicine Net.
