Eat to beat diabetes: Getting started

Maintaining a healthy weight is so important for diabetics.  Success depends on factors such as whether you're on medication, how long you've had diabetes and any health issues that require caution when exercising will influence your goals.

Take a few minutes to define your weight-loss goals and make sure you have the information you need about your blood sugar levels and your ability to exercise safely.

Next, a food diary can make interesting reading because it can be so revealing. It's the only way to get an accurate picture of your real eating habits — and that's important to do before you start trying to change them. Most people think they have a pretty good idea of what they eat. Unfortunately, when it comes to meal and snack recall, we're all too prone to senior moments. You got home, made supper and relaxed with a magazine. True. But what if you began by opening a bag of chips? What if you constantly nibbled on supper ingredients? What if you ate leftovers from the pan? Just one week of food diary entries would reveal whether you eat extra food while preparing meals; it uncovers hidden calories that you eat out of habit.

The better you understand the way you're really eating right now, the better you'll be able to identify your biggest downfalls — and your biggest opportunities for improvement. Weight loss is all about choices like these that we make every day, and the choices you can make become clearer in light of the choices you do make.

Each day should be a small victory. Little triumphs will start showing up on the scale and in your blood sugar readings. There's no set timetable and no pressure to drop huge amounts of weight at once. In fact, you don't want to rush into big changes right out of the starting gate. Instead, make slow and steady progress at a pace that seems right for you.

Can you eat a mini-bagel instead of a full-size one? Can you take a 10-minute stroll most days? Changes like these are small but can add up to differences that are a big deal.  Dramatic diets can produce dramatic results, but the next thing you know, you go back to your old ways — and those dramatic results evaporate. One small change by itself won't make you lose all the weight you want to get rid of. But it will start to make you lose weight.