Diabetes control staple food

The core of staple food control for diabetes has never been a one-size-fits-all rule such as "cut out staple foods" or "eat all cereals", but rather the three core principles of "quantitate according to your own sugar metabolism level, give priority to low-glycemic products, and dynamically adjust according to your activity level." There is no universal standard answer, and the one that suits you is the right one.

Last week, I met 62-year-old Aunt Zhang at a community free clinic. She was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes just 2 months ago. She heard from fellow patients in the community that white rice and white flour are "glycemic poisons" and she couldn't touch a bite. She ate steamed multi-grain rice with oats mixed with brown rice, and she didn't even dare to touch steamed buns. As a result, the fasting blood sugar did drop from 7.8mmol/L to 6.4mmol/L, but I had stomach pain for less than half a month and severe constipation. I went for a gastroscopy and found that the original superficial gastritis had worsened. She pulled me and sighed: "Is it worth ruining my stomach just to control sugar? ”

In fact, this kind of extreme situation is really too common. When many people are newly diagnosed with diabetes, the first thing they do is to draw a clear line with staple foods. However, different schools of thought have great differences in sugar control ideas. What suits others may not be suitable for you. For example, the extremely low-carbohydrate diet, which is very popular right now, advocates limiting carbohydrate intake to less than 100g per day, or even less than 50g. Many people use this method to lower their blood sugar to the normal range in a short period of time, and lose weight quickly. However, many clinical endocrinologists do not recommend everyone to try this - especially people with type 1 diabetes, people with damaged liver and kidney functions, or people who usually need to do heavy physical labor. Long-term very low carbohydrates can easily induce ketoacidosis, not only general fatigue, but also serious dangers. There is also the carbohydrate recycling method that has become popular in recent years. It strictly controls carbohydrates during workdays and relaxes appropriately on exercise days or weekends. It is suitable for young people with type 2 diabetes who have fixed exercise habits. However, if it is older people with diabetes who have poor memory and do not usually exercise, they may mix up the amount on one day, which will easily cause their blood sugar to go on a roller coaster.

Many people ask me how much staple food I should eat. There is really no need to use a food scale to weigh it every day. Ordinary people can just use their fists to compare. A meal of cooked staple food the size of a fist is not much different. If you plan to go to the park all afternoon or walk for half an hour to pick up the kids from school, eat half a bite more. ； If you spend the weekend at home watching TV shows, reduce the amount by 1/3, which is very flexible.

Don’t think that cereals are a “gold medal to avoid death.” Last month, a 30-year-old man was diagnosed with diabetes for half a year. He heard that cereals had low blood sugar, so he ate three corn buns in one meal. As a result, his blood sugar spiked to 11.2mmol/L two hours after the meal, which was higher than when he ate a bowl of white rice. In the final analysis, whether it is coarse grains or refined grains, they are essentially carbohydrates. Eating too much will still raise blood sugar. It is just that there is more dietary fiber in the grains and the rate of raising blood sugar will be slower. Oh, by the way, some people deliberately eat the rice cold, saying that resistant starch raises sugar more slowly, but I don't think it is necessary - the glycemic index of resistant starch is indeed only half of that of hot rice, but cold rice is also more irritating to the gastrointestinal tract, and people with stomach problems will suffer after eating it. What's more, if you heat the cold rice again, the resistant starch will turn back into ordinary starch, and it will be a waste of time.

The old diabetes patients I have met who have suffered from diabetes for 20 or 30 years and still have no complications are not so particular about it. For example, Uncle Wang, who came for a review last week, is 72 years old. He has been suffering from diabetes for 21 years, and his glycated hemoglobin has been stable at around 6.2%. Many people would not believe his eating method: half a bowl of white rice with one meat and two vegetables every meal. He occasionally eats half a fried dough stick in the morning to satisfy his cravings. He walks around the community for 40 minutes every afternoon. He never eats those internet celebrity sugar-control cookies or bread, nor does he eat grains every time. He always said, "Don't treat yourself as a patient, and don't take it seriously. Eating a full meal of staple food is better than anything else."

After all, there really aren’t that many rules and regulations when it comes to controlling staple food. No matter how good other people’s experiences are, they belong to others. Measuring your blood sugar two hours after a meal twice more is more effective than reading ten popular science articles. If your blood sugar levels are high after eating two bowls of noodles today, eat half a bowl less next time, or stand for ten minutes longer or walk hundreds more steps after eating. Gradually, you will figure out the laws of your body. After all, controlling sugar is a lifelong matter, and you can’t afford to eat it every day just for the sake of a few values, right?