#Kids type 1 diabetes meal plan chart how to

It’s the idea of subtracting the total amount of dietary fiber from the total grams of carbohydrates. If you eat 1/2 cup and dose for 3 grams of sugar instead of the 13 grams of carbohydrates, you’ll miss out a large dose of insulin.Īnother issue for nutrition label reading for people with Type 1 diabetes is the concept of “net carbohydrates.” This concept is spread widely through health blogs as well as in the Type 2 diabetes community. However, let’s say there are 3 grams of sugar in the food example we just explored. Especially when a person with Type 1 diabetes is newly diagnosed, sugar can seem like the scary thing you need to stay away from. If you eat a cup, you’ll have consumed 26 grams of carbs.Ī few ways people may make errors when reading nutrition labels is to equate the sugar with carbohydrates. First is “serving size,” and the second is “total carbohydrate.”įor example, if a food label says a serving size is 1/2 cup, and total carbohydrates equal 13 grams, there are 13 grams for each 1/2 cup eaten. If we look at our nutrition label, there are two things we want to look at, and only two.

#Kids type 1 diabetes meal plan chart how to

How to read a nutrition label for carb counting

Large-scale restaurant websites that provide nutrition information.Nutrition labels –– most accurate way to measure carbs.There are many resources to help children and families count carbs. There is a strong correlation between knowing carb counting and overall A1C blood sugar control. The individuals who most accurately estimated their carbs had the lowest A1C levels, a measure of blood sugar. This age group may be newly diagnosed, or they just now are gaining their own independence with their care and diet management. Only 23% of them were able to estimate within 10 grams the true amount of carbs in a food. Participants were given a carbohydrate estimation survey. Why is carb counting important?Ī study by Barton Center for Diabetes Education Data Center looked at 48 individuals, ages 12 to 18. If your blood sugar rises and stays high after correctly counting your carbs and dosing according to your insulin-to-carb ratio, you’ll want to talk to your endocrinologist about adjusting your ratio numbers. Insulin works in the body for about three hours, and the goal is that within the three-hour window after eating, that your blood sugar may rise slightly but return to normal, or have little to no rise at all. You take 60 (amount of carbs eaten) divided by 10 (your unit of insulin per 10 carbs, as recommended by your endocrinologist) and you will take 6 units of insulin before you eat lunch. You are having 60 grams of carbs at lunch. Here’s an example: Say your insulin-to-carb ratio is 1 unit of insulin for every 10 grams of carbs. This means 1 unit of insulin will cover a certain number of grams of carbohydrates. This is called the insulin-to-carb ratio. Our goal is to use a calculation that matches the two: So, we take the correct amount of insulin for the correct amount of carbs that we’ve eaten to have the best blood sugar levels possible after we eat. When we deliver insulin into our body, it lowers our blood sugar. When we eat carbs, they are digested and broken down into glucose into our bloodstream, which in turn raises our blood sugar. Insulin-to-carb ratio: How carbs work for Type 1 diabetes Starchy vegetables such as peas, corn, potatoes.Examples of carbsīefore we get started, what are these carbs that we’re going to be counting? Examples of foods with carbohydrates include: If you take carb counting out of the three pillars, we would start to see our blood sugar be affected because we are not getting the correct dose of insulin. You can do a sliding scale or set dose of insulin, but if we don’t count carbs, it’s likely that we won’t have the best blood sugar levels we could have.

Each one of these is as important, and they are all interconnected and related. Carbohydrate counting is both a science and an art –– let’s discover it.ĭiabetes management has three pillars: checking your blood glucose (blood sugar) regularly, insulin delivery and counting carbs. It can be a lot, and it can be easy to become frustrated sometimes. And that’s because there’s a lot of math to think about when you sit down to eat when you have diabetes: You have to count carbohydrates (carbs) and calculate your insulin-to-carb ratio. Carbohydrate counting is as integral to a meal to me as chewing. I have lived with Type 1 diabetes for 21 years.