7-Day Low Glycemic Meal Plan

Last Updated on December 16, 2021 by Dr Sharon Baisil MD

Do you often struggle with keeping a good and balanced diet that considers all your diabetic health needs? Do you find yourself short of food choices that are safe for your blood sugar levels?

Let us tell you about the plenty of food options and dishes that are safe for you and good for diabetic blood sugar levels.

Keeping your food choices under low glycemic meal plans is an efficient way to cope and combat your diabetic health conditions. You can ensure that your blood sugar levels do not undergo any sudden or harmful spikes.

What is glycemic index?

Diabetic patients are required to keep an eye on their everyday carbohydrate intakes by understanding their food choices. The food items that you eat regularly have carbohydrates in varying amounts that can impact your blood sugar levels differently.

Learning about the glycemic index of foods can be a helpful way to decide what is best for you. The Glycemic index value of a food is a measure of how the carbohydrates in that food impact one’s blood sugar levels.

It represents how quickly a food can increase blood sugar levels depending on how these carbohydrates are broken down in the body to convert into glucose.

The glycemic index of foods is determined on a scale from 0 to 100 according to their sugar content. According to these ranks, the food is then classified into three categories.

As per the above table, you can see that the foods with a lower Glycemic index are better for you and your overall diabetic health.

Moreover, low GI foods help to manage body weight and also improve insulin functioning. This also assists in overall diabetic management.

The rankings vary from types of foods like grains, bread, vegetables, fruits, etc.

But the best part about it is that you can have a lot of low and medium-glycemic index food options available in all varieties of food. They can lead to not just a healthy diet but also a delicious and versatile meal plan.

The nutritional composition of food also impacts health. So planning a diet takes more effort and focus on your health.

Today, we will go through several low glycemic food items and create a diet plan for 7 days. But first, let us look at the parts that we need to include in a healthy diet plan.

What are the important elements of a diet?

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We usually have 3 to 4 meals in a day, and it contains many types of foods and dishes. But if you are a patient with diabetes, you have to have more than the conventional 3 – 4 meals.

There need to be healthy snacking times between these meals to compensate for and maintain the fluctuating blood sugar levels. For a diabetes patient, the daily meal routines are divided into:

• Early morning
• Breakfast
• Mid-day snacks
• Lunch
• Evening snacks
• Dinner

And

• Bedtime snack

To ensure that all these meals are fruitful and do not hamper health, you need to plan them right with healthy food choices.

To assure that you are following a healthy diet, here are some nutritional elements that you have to include in your diet with the following classes of food:

1. Grains

Grains like wheat and rice are the most common portions of our major meals of the day. They form the main sources of carbohydrates in the body that supply energy.

However, refined white flour and white rice, which are common components of an Indian meal plan, are high in starch and can contribute to a lot of sugars in the body.

Processed flours are refined by removing their bran and germ layers that contain fiber. Thus, it is important to replace them with better alternatives that give you more fiber.

Refined grains can be substituted with healthy options like whole grains and multigrain. You can choose – whole wheat, millets, barley, oats, quinoa, rye, etc.

2. Pulses and legumes

Pulses are rich sources that deliver protein to the body. Dal, beans, lentils, etc., are included in the diet to ensure a good supply of protein that helps with the functioning and development of the body.

Besides protein, they also enrich the diet with more fiber and antioxidants. You can decide to choose from a wide variety of beans and lentil options available and cater to tasty and healthy cuisines.

3. Fresh vegetables

Vegetables must be a part of any healthy diet. They are essential sources of fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Green leafy vegetables are among the healthiest fresh veggies that you can stick to.

There are several options that you can choose from and cook the vegetables in various ways according to your preferences. They are also helpful sources of antioxidants that boost immunity and protect the body from diseases.

4. Fruits

Fruits can often be a hard choice for diabetic patients as they are sweet and contain sugars. They are lead to higher blood glucose in the body.

But there are many fruits with a low glycemic index that you can choose from and include in your diets. Fruits like citrus fruits and berries are very healthy and strengthen the body’s immunity power as well.

We will tell you about several low GI fruits in the following 7-day low GI meal plan section.

5. Dairy

Milk and milk products are also crucial parts of your everyday diet. They supply us with fats that are healthy and help with several systems of the body.

However, for diabetic patients, it is recommended to stick to low-fat milk and its products. This ensures that you do not add too much fat to your body.

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Products like Greek yogurt, low-fat paneer, low-fat buttermilk, etc., have a good effect on the body without any harm.

With all these pointers about the necessary food types and nutrients needed in mind, let us move on to determine a healthy combination for a 7-day diet plan for diabetic patients.

7-day low glycemic meal plan

We will also list down the GI of the food items in brackets in this plan.

Note – all GI mentioned is that of the food item and not the preparation. Cooking methods also add more carbs and must be carried out efficiently.

1. Day 1

2. Day 2

3. Day 3

4. Day 4

5. Day 5

6. Day 6

7. Day 7

REFERENCES

https://www.prima.co.uk/diet-and-health/diet-plans/news/a21104/gi-plan/

https://www.nhrmc.org/~/media/testupload/files/1400calorielowgiplan.pdf?la=en

https://foodstruct.com/

• Author
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Dr Sharon Baisil MD

Medical Doctor at Beat Diabetes

Dr Sharon Baisil MD is an international award-winning doctor, known for creating innovative technologies for the prevention and treatment of Diabetes. He developed the android app called Beat Diabetes, which is presently the most downloaded diabetes app in India. It was chosen as ‘Diabetes-App of the Year’ globally by Healthline. Dr Sharon has helped over 100,000 individuals with Diabetes from 140 countries, during the past 4 years, to control their sugar levels. You can read all the best-selling Diabetes eBooks by Dr Sharon Baisil MD , by clicking here .  All the diabetes articles written by Dr. Sharon are thoroughly researched and draw from peer-reviewed journals like the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, ensuring the highest quality and reliability of information.

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