Sugar Wise and Sweet Smart

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To determine the amount of sugars and sweets to eat, answer these questions:

Is your blood glucose in good control and your hemoglobin A1c at a desirable level?
Are your blood fats in good control -- total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglycerides?
How much do you enjoy sugars and sweets, and how often do you want a small serving to help you stay on track with your eating plan?

Get sugar-wise and sweet-smart by keeping the following healthy eating guidelines in mind:

Prioritize your personal diabetes goals. Which comes first -- blood glucose control, weight loss, or lower blood fats. Your priorities dictate how you strike the balance with sugars and sweets.

Choose a few favorite desserts and decide how often to eat these in light of your personal diabetes goals -- maybe twice a week, just when dining out, or only at a special celebration.

Note the calories, total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol of the desserts you prefer. Make your choices with these numbers and your diabetes goals in mind.

Quench your sweet tooth with a small portion of your favorite sweet.

Split a dessert in a restaurant (ask your server for one serving and four spoons).

Take advantage of smaller portions when options present themselves, such as at an ice cream or frozen yogurt shop.

Substitute a sugar-free sweetened food for the regular -- hot cocoa or a popsicle.

Use the Nutrition Facts panel on food labels to determine the number of grams of carbohydrate per serving size. This will let you know how to swap a sugary or sweet food in your meal plan for a starch, fruit, or milk.

Test blood glucose and observe the affect of different sugars and sweets. Let this information help you decide what sweets to eat.

Keep a watch on hemoglobin A1c and blood fats to see if eating more sweets leads these number on an unhealthy up swing.

It's Your Health!

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