How to Reverse Pre-diabetes and Prevent Diabetes through Healthy Eating and Exercise

By Hillary Wright, M.Ed, RD

The balanced-plate approach focuses on restructuring how different kinds of foods populate your plate based on their carbohydrate content. This method is similar to those of other organizations, including the USDA’s ChooseMyPlate.gov, which replaced the Food Pyramid with the plate approach; the American Institute for Cancer Research’s New American Plate for cancer prevention; and the Harvard School of Public Health’s Healthy Eating Plate—all of which are designed to promote a healthier weight, better heart health, and a lower risk of diabetes and cancer. The idea is to manage what’s on your plate so you’re visually satisfied and don’t feel deprived, but the net effect of what happens in your bloodstream is conducive to lowering your circulating insulin levels and trimming calories from your diet. Let’s break down the balanced-plate approach into steps (Carb-Distributed Diet Approach 1 (pages 54-59).

Adapted with permission from The Prediabetes Diet Plan: How to Reverse Prediabetes and Prevent Diabetes through Healthy Eating and Exercise by Hillary Wright, M.Ed, RD (Ten Speed Press, © 2013).” http://www.randomhouse.com/book/222668/the-prediabetes-diet-plan-by-hillary-wright

Balanced Plate: Step 1

Cover half your plate with nonstarchy vegetables. Covering half your plate with vegetables helps take up space in your stomach with foods that are low in carbohydrates and calories because they’re mostly water. Part of what contributes to the biological process of feeling full is that as your stomach stretches out, chemicals are released into your system, stimulating that feeling of fullness. If you don’t have any vegetables on your plate, you’ll be relying on more calorie-dense foods—like meat, chicken, cheese, bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes—to do all the stretching. You want less room on your plate—and in your stomach—for carb- and calorie-rich food.

Balanced Plate: Step 2

Cover about 25 percent of your plate with lean protein, including some plant sources. Protein slows the rate at which food leaves your stomach, lending a greater feeling of fullness to a meal. Because the same fats that are bad for your heart (saturated and trans fats) may worsen insulin resistance, it’s important to pick lean sources of protein. These include the following:

• Chicken or turkey breast (not fried)

• Fish and seafood (not fried)

• Lean meat (anything with the words “loin,” “round,” or “flank” in the name, or 90 percent lean or leaner)

• Tofu, tempeh, and other foods made with soy, like veggie burgers, tofu dogs, and TVP (textured vegetable protein) • Beans, such as kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas (garbanzos), white beans (cannellini), black beans, and pinto beans