How to Eat when You Have Gout and Diabetes - Part2 Changing Your Eating Habits

1 Eat six small meals per day. This should include three regular meals and three snacks in between meals. General dietary guidelines for diabetic persons include:

§  Carbohydrates should provide 45 - 65% of total daily calories.

§  Fats should provide 25 - 35% of daily calories.

§  Protein should provide 12 - 20% of daily calories

2 Calculate how much food from each food group you can eat. Basically, carbohydrates and protein each provide 4 calories per gram, while fat provides 9 calories in each gram.

§  For example, if you have eaten 100 grams of fat in a meal, then the number of calories consumed is 900 (9 multiplied by 100). If you have eaten 100 grams of protein, then you have consumed 400 calories (4 multiplied by 100). If you have eaten 200 grams of carbohydrates, then you have consumed 800 calories (4 multiplied by 200).

§  Once you know the number of calories from fat, carbohydrates and protein, add them up to get the total calories for that day. So 900 + 400 + 800 = 2100 calories. After this you can now determine the percentage of calories you have consumed.

§  To do this, divide the number of calories from each nutrient by the total number of calories for that day and multiply it by 100. So, for fat: (900/2100) x 100 = 42.8 percent. For protein: (400/2100) x 100 = 19 percent. For carbohydrates: (800/2100) x 100 = 38 percent.

§  Once you are aware of the general dietary guidelines for diabetic persons using this basic computation, you can easily tell if your diet falls in the normal range.

3 Eat 45-60 grams of carbohydrate with each meal. In order to guide you, according to American Diabetes Association, there is about 15 grams of carbohydrate in:

§  200 ml of milk or orange juice

§  6 to 8 hard candies

§  ¼ French fry

§  1 cup of soup

§  1 small piece of fruit (about 4 oz)

§  1 slice of bread

§  ½ cup of oatmeal

§  1/3 cup of rice or pasta

§  4 to 6 crackers

§  ½ hamburger bun

§  3 oz of baked potato

§  2 small cookies

§  2 inches (5.1 cm) of cake without frosting

§  6 chicken nuggets

§  ½ cup of casserole

4 Eat 0.8 grams of good-quality protein per kilogram of body weight each day. For example, if your weight is 64 kilograms, the recommended protein intake is 51.2 grams (0.8 multiplied by 64).

§  Good-quality protein sources are defined as those that have PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility–Corrected Amino Acid Scoring Pattern) scores^[10]. This is essentially a grading scale for protein, with 1 being the highest score and 0 being the lowest. Here is a breakdown of the common proteins and their PDCAAS score:

§  for casein, soy products, egg white, whey

§  0.9 for beef and soybeans

§  0.7 for black beans, chickpeas, fruits, vegetables and legumes

§  0.5 for cereals and peanuts

§  0.4 for whole wheat.

5 Get 25 - 35% of your daily calories from fats. For diabetics, 1500 to 1800 total calories is the ideal daily intake. Fat provides 9 calories per gram.

§  To compute for the daily recommended intake in grams: if the diabetic patient has a diet of 1500 calories per day for example, then multiply 1500 by 0.25 and .35 to get a range of 375 to 525, then divide each by 9. So 375/9 = 41.6, and 525/9 = 58.3.

§  This gives you a range of 41.6 to 58.3 grams of fat per day. For diabetics, healthy fats such as Omega-3 fatty acids are recommended.

6 Avoid skipping meals. This can lead to hypoglycemia or low blood sugar levels because the body uses up the stored blood glucose in the body when it cannot get energy from food.

7 Eat meals and snacks at the same time every day. This will help your body to develop a routine in terms of its consumption of glucose from foods. This helps to prevent the occurrence of either high blood glucose or low blood glucose levels.