Pre-Diabetes and How Portion Control Can Help

By Patty Cocchiarella

Many people have the condition known as pre-diabetes, and they don’t know it. Often pre-diabetes if caught early enough can stop an individual from getting to type 2 Diabetes before it happens.

According to the American Diabetes Association, there are 57 million people living with pre-diabetes in the United States. This basically means that they have high levels of blood glucose, but it isn’t quite high enough to say that they have diabetes.

In order to make circumvent getting diabetes, here are some actions to take:

Make better food choices The average American diet exists to live on fast food and lots of sugar. This can cause problems to your metabolism, and it can make your glucose fluctuate. A better idea is to make good food choices that include lots of fruits and vegetables, whole foods and grains. The Diabetes Food Pyramid is a great guide to help you choose from the spectrum of colored foods.

Part of any food plan will include an idea of portion control. This is important to people who have diabetes or who are in pre-diabetes because it can help you lose weight and keep it off. If you aren’t sure what types of foods to eat you can always talk to a nutritionist.

One way that the American Diabetes Association suggests to make sure you get the right portions is to play a game they call “rate your plate.” This basically means that you would start with an imaginary line drawn through the middle of your plate and then put another line on this one. Then, you would do the following:

Take one fourth of your plate and fill it with grains or foods like potatoes, corn, peas or pasta. Fill another fourth of your place with meat, tofu, fish, poultry or other protein. Save the last part of your plate for vegetables like carrots, salad, tomatoes or cauliflower. Then, Bon Apptit!

If these sounds like a lot of work and you need a visual, a great device we have found is called the Meal Measure. It’s a great device you sit on your plate and then fill it. This takes the guess work out of how to set your portion control.

You can also add a small roll, a piece of fruit or a glass of non-fat milk to your meal for a little more variety. Adding exercise is very important so that your body loses any weight that may put you in the risk category for pre-diabetes.

Patty is a wife, mother of 3 children, an inventor, and entrepreneur. She invented a tool to help people who need to control their portions whether for Diabetes or weight loss. There are 16 hospitals and numerous stores around the country selling her new product. It has been featured on the Today Show and is a 3 x Editor’s Pick on RealAge.com. Her web site is MealMeasure.com.

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