Eating healthy is important for everyone, but it’s even more important for people with diabetes.

To manage your diabetes, you’ll want to:

• Eat meals and snacks at regular times each day
• Match how much you eat with your activity level
• Learn to count carbohydrates

You don’t need to ban any foods from your meal plan, but you may need to limit the amounts you eat or how often you eat some of them.

Your meal plan should:

• Include a wide variety of foods so that you get needed nutrients (the healthy things in food)
• Include many of your favorite foods so that you enjoy what you eat
• Be easy to follow

The goals of your meal plan are to help you:

• Keep your blood sugar within your goal range
• Manage your weight
• Manage your blood cholesterol and blood fat levels
• Manage your blood pressure

Making your plan is a snap with the handy menu planner you’ll find at Cornerstones4Care.com. Designed to take the guesswork out of meal planning, it lets you plan a week’s menu with foods you like. You can print recipes and a grocery list to make meal planning even easier.

Guide to healthy eating

Healthy eating means choosing the right amounts of healthy foods every day. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends that you:

• Choose fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and low-fat milk more often than sugary foods when choosing carbohydrate-rich foods
• Eat fiber-rich foods
• Keep saturated fats to less than 7% of total daily calories
• Eat at least 2 servings of non-fried fish per week
• Limit trans fats
• Restrict cholesterol intake to less than 200 mg/day
• Reduce sodium intake to about 1,500 mg/day or less

Making changes in the way you eat will take time. But the benefits are well worth it. Here are some steps to help:

• Start small. Make one or two changes in your meal plan. Then add another change
• Get support. Your meal plan is a healthy way for anyone to eat. So see if you can get others in your family to join you

Learn more about getting past barriers to healthy eating at Cornerstones4Care.com.