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How Many Carbs A Day For Type 2 Diabetes


Carbs Per Day For Prediabetes

How many carbs should you eat each day with type 2 diabetes?

If you have prediabetes, follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations by losing 5 percent to 7 percent of your body weight to prevent the onset of diabetes 18. The best way to lose weight is to eat a healthy diet and follow a safe, effective workout routine. The UC Davis Health website recommends working with your doctor to figure out what your daily carb intake should be 9.

The ADA says that counting carbs is one way to manage your blood glucose levels. You can use the glycemic index, or GI, which measures how much a carb-containing food raises your blood glucose levels. Opt for low-GI foods that measure 55 or below rather than high-GI foods that measure 70 or higher.

A good rule of thumb is to limit your intake of refined carbs and opt for complex carbs instead. Refined carbohydrates like white bread, white pasta and sugary breakfast cereals have been processed to remove fiber and other nutrients. Processed sugars, like high-fructose corn syrup and table sugar, are also categorized as refined carbohydrates.

How Many Carbs Should A Person With Diabetes Have In A Day

Studies have shown that many different levels of carb intake may help manage blood sugar, and the optimal amount of carbs varies by individual.


The American Diabetes Association used to recommend that people with diabetes get around 45% of their calories from carbs.

However, the ADA now promotes an individualized approach in which your ideal carb intake should take into account your dietary preferences and metabolic goals .

Its important to eat the number of carbs at which you feel best and that you can realistically maintain in the long term.

The typical American diet provides around 2,200 calories per day, with 50% of them coming from carbs. This is equivalent to 275 grams of carbs per day .

A severely restricted intake of less than 50 grams of carbs per day appears to produce the most dramatic results and may reduce or even eliminate the need for insulin or diabetes medication. This represents 910% of daily calories on a 2,0002,200-calorie diet .


When tracking carb intake, experts sometimes recommend focusing on your net carbs instead of the total amount of carbs you eat. Net carbs is total grams of carbs minus grams of fiber .

People with diabetes can also benefit from diets that allow up to 26% of their daily calories to come from carbs. For people who eat 2,0002,200 calories a day, this is equivalent to 130143 grams of carbs .

Carbs Drive Blood Sugar Levels

Compared with proteins and fat, carbohydrates have the biggest impact on blood sugar levels, which is why keeping tabs on carb intake is so important for managing diabetes.

The digestive system breaks carbs down into glucose, or blood sugar, which is a main source of energy for the body. When sugar enters the blood, the pancreas usually releases the hormone insulin, which allows cells to process and absorb that sugar. As they do, blood sugar levels fall.

However, diabetes affects how people are able to produce or use insulin. In people with type 1 diabetes, their pancreas is unable to make insulin. People with type 2 diabetes can’t make enough insulin, or their cells have stopped responding to it effectively, so glucose builds up in the blood.


In both types of diabetes, this can lead to dangerously high blood sugar levels if not treated. Consistently high blood sugar levels can damage blood vessels, eyes, feet, kidneys, and the heart.

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Great Now Which Foods Have Carbs

Generally, the foods with the highest carbohydrate counts are grains, starchy vegetables, sugar, and processed foods.

Low-carb foods include leafy vegetables, lean meats, dairy, oils, nuts, and seeds. These foods wont spike your blood sugar and will help your energy levels feel more even throughout the day, especially when eaten consistently at every meal.

How Many Carbs Can I Eat Per Day

Amount Of Carbs Per Day For Type 2 Diabetes

As we said, it varies by person, but the average person with diabetes gets 40 to 45 percent of their daily calories from carbohydrates. Some very low-carbohydrate diet plans may contain half this amount per day.


Starting slowly and steadily lowering your carb intake will help you avoid feeling fatigued or overwhelmed by the lifestyle change.

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Treating Type 2 Diabetesand Why ‘eat Less Exercise More’ Doesn’t Work

With the explosion of type 2 diabetes, there has also been an explosion in the treatments offered. Many new drugs have been brought to market, and there are hundreds of lifestyle interventions to choose from.

The problem with a medication-based approach is that youâll most likely have to be on these medications for the rest of your life. They are expensive and many come with a host of side effects. The medication approach focuses on management of diabetes, not reversal. Taking medications for type 2 diabetes combats the end result, which is rising blood sugar, but does not address the root causesâinsulin resistance and carbohydrate intolerance.

âShifting the paradigm to diabetes reversal, however, means addressing the root causes of type 2 diabetes.


Most lifestyle interventions focus on eating less and exercising more. But many patients have tried this and have seen minimal results, while also fighting unsustainable hunger and cravings. The problem with these programs is that they tend to be high in carbs, even if they are cutting back on calories. When you eat a high-carb diet, the resulting increase in your blood sugar triggers an insulin response in your body, and insulin blocks your bodyâs ability to burn fat. Insulin actively blocks the breakdown of stored body fat, meaning that as long as insulin is high, it will be very difficult to lose weight, even if you are eating very little.

What Is Carbohydrate Counting

Carbohydrate counting is a meal planning approach that evenly distributes your carbohydrate calories throughout your day by counting out the right amount of carbohydrate foods for each meal and snack. The emphasis with carbohydrate counting is on how much carbohydrate you eat at any one time, NOT on which type of carbohydrate you choose. Stay away from fad diets that restrict the amount of carbohydrates you can eat.

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How To Eat Lower Carb

If you focus on eating the right types of carbohydrates, then you wont really have to focus on carbohydrate counting so closely .

The easiest way to get started is to cut out the high carbohydrate foodssugar, potatoes , bread, rice, pasta, noodles, cereals and most flour-based foods.


Choose real whole foods over packaged and processed foods.

Eat lots of fresh vegetablesthese are carbohydrates, the best type you can eat.

This sounds complicated and it may at first sound restrictive, but its not. This way of eating is very flexible.

How Many Carbs Should You Eat In Each Meal

How Many Carbs Do I Need to Eat for Type 2 Diabetes?

Half of each meal. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that you get between 45% and 65% of your calories from carbs. You could think of this as half your plate at each meal can be taken up by carbs.

Carbohydrates in grams. To be more precise, count the carbs. You can see how many grams of carbohydrates are in packaged foods by reading the nutrition facts labels. For non-packaged foods, you can look this information up online.


The Recommended Daily Allowance for carbs is 130 grams per day. Per meal this comes to about:

  • 60-75 grams of carbohydrates per meal for men
  • 45-60 grams per meal for women

Carbohydrate choices. This can help you eyeball the number of carbs youâre going to eat once you know approximately how many carbs are in different foods. Using this method, you have a certain amount of âcarb choicesâ you can have in a meal or snack.

  • Men can have 4 to 5 carb choices per meal
  • Women can have 3 to 4 carb choices per meal
  • Whether youâre a man or woman, snacks should be 1 or 2 carb choices

So what is a carb choice or serving of carbs? A carb choice is an amount of food that has about 15 grams of carbs in it.

For example, 1 slice of bread is one carb choice. But 1/4 of a large baked potato is also one carb choice. So having a whole baked potato could blow your whole carb choice budget for one meal.

You can find lists of carb choices for different foods online. You can also ask a nutritionist or diabetes instructor.


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How To Determine The Number Of Carbs I Need

How many carbs you can eat based on actually is based on your gender, your age, your activity status, and your diabetes duration and severity. Im going to give you an example. Lets say you have been a diabetic for 20 years and you are 65 years old and you are a woman. You are on three oral medications. And youre on basal insulin and youre on three oral agents. You are inactive you have your problems such as your joint problems. You are generally sitting at home. Youre really not doing anything much. You are around 230 pounds. I would consider that an obese.

So, in this case, how many carbs should you eat? My answer to that would be very little very carbs. Little because I can imagine you as being very insulin resistant. Anytime you eat very little carbs your blood sugar is going to skyrocket.

What’s The Connection Between Carbs Insulin And Blood Sugar

You might be wondering why your care team is so concerned about carb counting, and why it’s important to space out the carbs you eat over the day. Here’s why: When you eat foods with carbohydrates, the carbohydrate is broken down into glucose , which enters your bloodstream, raising the amount of sugar in your blood. This signals the pancreas to release insulin. Insulin then takes the sugar from your blood to your cells to be used for energy. Subsequently, the amount of sugar in your blood comes down. The next time you eat, this process happens again.

If you have diabetes, your body doesn’t use insulin properly, making it hard for your body to regulate the amount of sugar in your bloodstream. Because carbohydrates cause your blood sugar to rise, controlling your intake of carbohydrates helps control your blood sugar as well.


But here’s a little tip: While there are three types of carbohydrates-sugar, fiber and starch-they are not all digested the same.

Nonstarchy vegetables contain mostly fiber and little to no sugar, so they don’t raise your blood sugar very high and therefore, not as much insulin needs to be released.

In contrast, fruit juice, soda and refined grains , contain little to no fiber, so they spike your blood sugar and more insulin is released. The glycemic index further explains the effect that different foods have on your blood sugar level, but eating a healthy, low-carb, vegetable-packed diet is a good place to start.

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T2 Diabetic Carbs Per Day Recommendations

Did you know that one of the most commonly asked questions we get is how many carbs per day is best for a diabetic to eat?


And like many other people you may also be totally confused by that question?

Its not surprising because the amount of carbs recommended does vary depending on where you read it or who tells you.

Why is this?

Well, believe it or not, no specific carbs per day recommendation has been set for people with type 2 diabetes thats why there are so many different numbers.

So what we are going to share today is:


  • A range of information
  • Some view points for you to consider carefully
  • The latest scientific research on carbs
  • The experience of other people with diabetes

Here at DMP we use a natural whole foods, lower carb approach and encourage our subscribers and members to aim for around 50-80 g carbs per day.

This is quite low compared to some recommendations, but not so low as others, for instance, a ketogenic diet of just 20 grams/day average.

However, if you find 50-80 grams per day is a little low for you, research shows that anything below 130 grams per day, which is still considered a low carb diet, can provide benefits for managing blood sugar and A1c. But 50-80 grams a day seems to achieve better results.

Its also an attainable and sustainable goal for many, as a super low carb diet is often harder to stick with long term and we do want you to adopt this new healthy eating plan as your way of life, not just as a diet youre on for a short time.

How Many Carbohydrates Can I Have Per Day If I Was Told To Watch My Carbs Due To Being Pre Diabetic

How many carbs per day for people with type 2 diabetes ...

I dont think you got the message right, or the message is wrong. From three large studies trying to prevent pre-diabetes developing into clinical diabetes, we know that the most effective measures are lifestyle modification being lose weight exercise In losing weight we need to be eating less, lowering fat intake , less saturated fats , more fiber eat a little, cutting carbs is helpful but only part of it, modest portion, no seconds, no snacking, no cakes, no sugared soft drinks of fruit juices, no alcohol, resulting in at least 5% weight loss. According to this interesting video-cast by Gary Taubes for docs CME avoiding sugar to lose weight is quite important Eating less is far more effective for weight loss than exercise, listen to this podcast by Dr. Aseem Malhotra You cant outrun a bad diet: @DrAseemMalhotra on weight loss strategies Exercise: at least 150 minutes of moderate, or 75 minutes of intensive exercise a week. These are the percentage of less type 2 diabetes developing over the duration of the study The Da Qing Chinese diabetes prevention trial , the Finnish diabetes prevention trial and the Diabetes Prevention Program DPP Lifestyle trial the intervention was a lifestyle change see above. with quite a reduction in the rate of development of diabetes, less after 20 years in the Da Qing trial.Continue reading > >


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I Am Pre Diabetic And Need To Lose 25lbs On A Carb Diet Of 1500 Calories How May Carbs Can I Have Drama Ward

Answered By dLife Expert: Franziska Spritzler, RD, CDE Certified diabetes educator and registered dietitian living in Southern California. The content of this website, such as text, graphics, images, and other material on the site are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for, and dLife does not provide, professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this site. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. dLife does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on this site. Reliance on any information provided by dLife, its employees and other contributors or visitors to this site is done solely at your own risk. Any information you submit to dLife or this site may be published on this site and in other dLife products. dLife retains all rights to all contributions including submitted questions and expert answers.Continue reading > >

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    Carbohydrate Goal And Diabetic Diet For Older/elderly Diabetic Patients

    On the other end of the spectrum, people who are like really frail, some already losing weight unintentionally at an already advanced age are a different class of diabetics. As we discussed in the previous articles, I m not super strict with their blood sugars in that class. I let them go to 150 mg/dl range in the morning up to 200 mg/dl after meals. Again, that is for those older, frail individuals. I dont restrict them too much because they dont have a good appetite, to begin with, Some are cancer patients. We sometimes limit their carbohydrates because sugar really drives your cancer cells. But, if you are like youre really losing too much weight and you really are not looking to cure this cancer, really theres no point in torturing these people with low carbs. I just tell them, if your cancer doctor said that the chances of recovery from this cancer are nothing, then maybe just enjoy your life. Some are already on heavy chemo and dont even have an appetite. I am not going to give that person a diet.

    Yet, the majority of the time most diabetics fall into the previous category who needs tight control. I hope it is now clear how many carbs should a diabetic patient eat. I hope this article was helpful. For individualized goals and treatment regimens please do not hesitate to contact our office at 561-462-5053.

    Please feel free to contact us directly for any questions or concerns.

    Ahmet Ergin, MD, FACE, CDCES, ECNU

    Endocrinologist in West Palm Beach, FL and New York.

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