Prediabetes For Dummies Cheat Sheet

The good news about prediabetes? You have the power to prevent it — and even reverse it. By making a few key changes to what you eat, how you move, and how you manage stress, you can take control of your blood sugar and feel better overall. This cheat sheet highlights essential steps: boost fiber with whole grains, legumes, and colorful produce; swap saturated fats for healthier oils like extra virgin olive oil; and enjoy a Mediterranean-style diet rich in antioxidants. Alongside healthy eating, focus on regular physical activity, quality sleep, stress management, and checking your blood glucose after meals. Desserts are still possible — just choose carefully and watch portions. Combining smart nutrition with healthy habits gives you the best chance to prevent or reverse prediabetes.

How to prevent and reverse prediabetes

You can prevent and reverse prediabetes (and many other diseases) by following the proper eating pattern and certain lifestyle measures. These lifestyle measures which are explained in great detail in Prediabetes For Dummies include:

• Taking control of your health – accept that living your best life is ultimately your responsibility and that you can make changes which will help you.
• Boost your fiber intake: Soluble fiber helps keep blood sugar levels balanced. Add more oats and whole grains, beans, lentils, fruits like apples, pomegranates, oranges, lemons, and berries, and vegetables like carrots, red cabbage, artichokes, peas, leafy greens, and cruciferous vegetables.
• Choose the right fats: Replace saturated and trans fats with healthier unsaturated fats from nuts, seeds, avocados, oily fish, and especially extra virgin olive oil (EVOO).
• Read food labels: Get into the habit of checking for hidden sugars, trans fats, and ultra-processed ingredients. Look for natural, whole-food options.
• Embrace a Mediterranean-style diet: This plant-forward way of eating is rich in fiber, healthy fats, and antioxidants, especially polyphenols that reduce oxidation and inflammation while helping to keep blood sugar balanced.
• Including all three macronutrients in their best forms – a portion of a complex carbohydrate, a healthy fat, and a lean protein at meal and snack time.
• Controlling blood glucose with complex carbohydrates such as (whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables) combined with healthful fats (such as extra virgin olive oil and avocado),  and quality proteins (such as eggs, nuts, beans and legumes, fish, or chicken) at each meal.  
• Getting fresh air and regular exercise that you enjoy daily.
• Practicing a sport or active hobby such as gardening that you can do with friends or family.
• Enjoy the outdoors as often as possible.
• Measuring your blood glucose after meals so that you can identify which foods give you the best control over your blood glucose.
• Getting good quality sleep and naps which have been shown to benefit physical and mental health including a healthy gut microbiome and an improved blood sugar levels.
• Practicing relaxation and stress reduction techniques.
• Seeking the proper mental health strategies. Poor mental health, stress and anxiety cause us to want to eat more and less nutritious foods, therefore practicing mindfulness and tending to our emotional and psychological health will help curb food cravings.  
• Preparing your own delicious and nutritious meals as often as possible.
• Choosing the best options when dining out.
• Being part of a community and socialization, includes having supportive people in our lives helps our mental and physical health as well as our dietary habits. Those close to us can provide us with valuable support to meet our goals in diabetes control.
• Adopting a positive outlook on life; practice gratitude religiously and focus on the good. Feeling balanced in your life will help you to regulate unhealthy cravings and support great choices in what and when you eat.  
• Eliminating added sugars and artificial sweeteners in foods and drinks, processed foods.
• Enlisting help when you have difficulty completing the tasks on this.; a nutrition professional to help you determine which foods to eat and when, a health coach to help keep you on track with a goals, a positive confidant for moral support, and/or an exercise buddy to help you get the physical activity that you need, etc.

How to improve eating habits

You can take simple steps to improve your eating habits for reversing prediabetes. While most people don’t want to take time out of their busy lives to analyze what they’re eating, this simple step could be the one that has the most impact on your overall health. By setting the foundations for good nutrition you will be able to reverse and prevent prediabetes.

Follow these simple tips to make a difference in your health:

• Make lists of healthful foods in each food category (vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and seeds, lean poultry and dairy, fish, herbs and spices.
• From the previous lists, decide which foods that you like in each category.
• Make a separate list with all of the healthful foods that you enjoy eating and base your meals around them.
• Keep a food diary.
• Figure out why you eat the way that you do and what you’d like to change.
• Avoid missing a meal; eat at regular times.
• Eat with others as often as possible.
• Sit down for meals, pause before eating and make a decision to eat slowly and enjoy the food.
• Drink water as your primary drink and avoid juices and sugary drinks as often as possible.
• Include various vegetables in all meals and try to eat multi-colored vegetables throughout the day.
• Adopt good quality extra virgin olive oil as your fat of choice and use vinegar or lemon juice with it for salad dressings.
• Avoid packaged, prepared, and processed foods as much as possible.
• Add a tiny amount, if needed, of unrefined sea salt to home cooked foods or use fresh baby dill for a salty flavor instead.
• Flavor foods with large amounts of fresh herbs and spices.
• Use the best quality ingredients that you can find and try to eat as much fresh food as possible.
• Be sure to enjoy a serving of beans or legumes every day.
• If you’re not a vegetarian, try eating fresh fish a few times a week.
• Follow portion sizes. To determine the size of a portion, compare it to something you see regularly.  

How to choose the best foods for optimal health

Choosing the best ingredients will keep you healthy, optimize your blood glucose control and protect you from complications of diabetes.  

You can consider the following general principles when shopping or eating out:

• Choose natural foods, and build your meals from legumes, vegetable and wholegrains.
• Learn delicious and nutritious recipes, such as those featured in Prediabetes For Dummies which will keep you on track.
• Stick to low GI carbohydrates, high quality proteins especially from plant sources, and healthy fats.
• Buy organic or locally grown foods where you can from producers you trust to take care of their environment.
• Keep a copy of the Mediterranean Diet or other Heritage Diet pyramid in the kitchen to remind you what should fill your cupboards and refrigerator.
• Explore new plant food flavors including bitterness and pepperiness.
• Eat a rainbow – remember that colorful fruits and vegetables often contain bioactive compounds that may have beneficial antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.
• Look for added sugar or artificial sweeteners in foods.  Either may have an adverse effect on your blood glucose, weight and gut microbiome.
• Avoid processed foods and those that contain lists of ingredients which include preservatives, artificial flavorings and stabilizers.
• Take care to limit or take out processed meats from your diet, especially those with preservatives such as sodium nitrite.  
• Feed your trillions of gut microbes with healthy pre and pro biotic foods.
• Use extra virgin olive oil for preparing, cooking and finishing dishes.
• Add herbs and spices to meals, and snack on unsalted nuts and seeds every day.

How to determine portion sizes

Many people around the world are out of touch with what actual portion sizes are. While activity levels, stages of life, and physical structure determine how much of a certain food that each individual needs, there are general guidelines regarding serving sizes that can be used as a reference point for most people.

You may consult a nutrition professional to determine which serving sizes and foods are appropriate for your specific needs, but in general, serving sizes of specific items include the following.

To determine the size of a portion, compare it to something you see regularly. For example:

• A serving size of meat, fish or chicken is three ounces cooked. Three ounces of meat is the size of a deck of cards.
• A medium-sized fruit is considered a serving size. This is the size of a tennis ball.
• A medium potato is a serving size. This  is the size of a computer mouse.
• A medium bagel is a serving size. This is the size of a hockey puck.
• An ounce of cheese, the size of a domino, is considered a serving size.
• A cup of fruit, the size of a baseball.
• A cup of broccoli is the size of a light bulb and is considered a serving size.

Keep in mind that there are some foods which are naturally low in calories, packed with health-boosting antioxidants, and are also considered low GI, meaning that they have a minimal impact on blood sugar. These foods should be included into your daily diet. They include:

• Leafy greens and fresh herbs: Spinach, kale, romaine lettuce, arugula, chicory, dandelion greens, collard greens, and Swiss chard.
• Cruciferous vegetables: Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage.
• Additional Vvegetables: Celery, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplants, mushrooms, and artichokes.
• Fruits: Berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries), grapefruit, lemons, limes, tomatoes, cherries, apricots, pears, avocado, and green apples.

Prediabetes and desserts

You don’t have to completely give up desserts if you have a prediabetes diagnosis or are trying to avoid one. The following tips will help you to “have your cake and eat it too,” quite literally.

Eat more fruit-based desserts

Fruit is nature’s dessert. When fresh and in season, fruit is the best option. The high amount of fiber and other nutrients in fruit make it the perfect food for people on the go.  According to researchers, the water and fiber in fruits increase volume and therefore reduce energy density of the food. This is important because foods with high energy density have a high number of calories per weight of food, and cause weight gain. Fruits make you feel fuller faster with fewer calories. The study also illustrated the importance of dietary fiber in weight regulation.  

Pay attention to portion sizes

It’s always a good idea to pay attention to portion sizes, as mentioned above. While it may sound like a no-brainer, understanding portion sizes is difficult for many thanks to the number of prepared foods and restaurant portion sizes available. Most modern restaurant dessert servings could easily feed four people. If preparing dessert from a cookbook, be sure that it gives nutritional information for the specific portion size. The key is to allow yourself a little indulgence of nutritious desserts so that you don’t go overboard with unhealthful options after refraining from eating any dessert for a long time.

Swap out the following ingredients when baking desserts.

Fat: Swapping out extra virgin olive oil in your desserts gives you powerful antioxidants, a healthful source of fat and even helps to lessen its glycemic load and helps you to extract more nutrients already present in the dessert. You can swap EVOO for butter and other oils in recipes. Avocados, nuts, and seeds also contain healthful fats and antioxidants.

Protein: If you have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes it’s important to balance the sweeteners in recipes with good protein choices. Full-fat Greek-style yogurt, ricotta cheese, tofu, eggs, nuts, and seeds like sesame, flax, and chia are all good sources of protein that keep blood sugar balanced. Swap sour cream and heavy cream for the yogurt, and add in seeds wherever you can.

Community Involvement

Prepare and enjoy sweets with others when you indulge. The communal aspect of eating is good for our mental and physical health. Invite your loved ones into the kitchen to whip up some desserts with you. The quality time is therapeutic, and you might just find some new favorites in the meantime.!

Meal Planning

If you’d like to enjoy desserts, one of the first things that you need to accept is that if you have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes is that choosing which type of desserts to eat and when is an important part of your daily life. This takes planning because if you want to eat a dessert after a meal, you have to plan ahead for it.  

If, for example, you plan on eating a dessert which is high in sugar and carbs and has a high glycemic load, it should follow a meal which is made of predominately lean protein and green leafy vegetables. If a high sugar/high carb dessert comes after a meal which contains a significant amount of sugar and carbs, your blood sugar will spike.

Exercise

Regular physical activity is important for everyone, but it is extremely important for those with diabetes who wish to maintain blood glucose. Activities such as walking, bike riding, playing sports, gardening, running, jogging, working out at the gym, yoga, Pilates, and dancing before or after consuming desserts will help your body to metabolize them better. If you exercise in fresh air, your body gets even more benefit from it. According to the CDC, “the goal is to get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity every week. One way to reach that goal is to be active for 30 minutes on most days.”

Consider monitoring your blood glucose levels before eating meals or dessert

If you’ve already been diagnosed with prediabetes or diabetes, always test your blood glucose levels before eating dessert. If it is high, this is not the time to indulge. Walk around, drink water, listen to peaceful music, meditate, and be sure that you’re taking your medicine and/or insulin properly. Only indulge in desserts and foods with a higher GI or glycemic load when your glucose levels are within a normal range.  

By following these simple principles about positive nutrition, healthy lifestyle habits, good food choices, and getting the right ingredients in your pantry, you will have the best chances at preventing and reversing diabetes, and you’ll be able to live your best life, adding years to life, and life to years.  

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