10 Ways to Keep Your Portions in Check if You Have Diabetes

Many people — with or without diabetes — have trouble estimating portion sizes. Weighing and measuring food can help.

“We can’t be healthy if we eat everything put in front of us, and weighing and measuring teaches us appropriate portion sizes,” says Jill Weisenberger, RDN, CDE, a health and wellness coach in Newport News, Virginia.

Women with diabetes can eat roughly 30 to 45 grams (g) of total carbohydrates per meal, and men with diabetes can eat about 45 to 60 g of total carbohydrates per meal, Kimberlain says.

So, how do you know if you’re eating the right amount?

“When I counsel patients, I show them common portion sizes and go through the equivalents for ‘counting carbs,’” Kimberlain says. “For example, the following portions all contain 15 g of carbs: one (average) slice of bread, one-third cup of cooked rice; one-half cup of cooked legumes like lentils, black beans, or garbanzo beans; and one tennis-ball-size apple.”

Kimberlain says it can be wise to measure foods yourself at home with measuring cups and spoons, so that you can see what common portion sizes look like. But if you have type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes and are on insulin, you may want to use a scale, she adds. Some scales will tell you how many carbs the food has.

When eating out, you can estimate portions by comparing them with familiar objects.

For example, 1 cup is about the size of a baseball, Kimberlain says, and one serving of meat, which is about 3 ounces (oz), should be the size of a deck of playing cards. A half-cup is about the size of a tennis ball, which is similar to 1 oz equivalents, such as one serving of grains like cooked pasta, cooked rice, or cooked oatmeal.

It’s important to read food labels carefully when monitoring portion sizes.

“The first thing to look at when reading a food label is the serving size,” Kimberlain says. “As food labels are currently written, they are not always just one serving. Therefore, if the serving size is more than one serving, you will need to calculate how much you’re eating. For example, if the serving size is five crackers, but you eat 10 crackers, you have to double all the information: 100 calories becomes 200 calories, 250 milligrams [mg] of sodium becomes 500 mg, etc.”

You also want to look at how much saturated fat you’re eating, Kimberlain says, as it could increase your heart disease risk.

“For saturated fat, I teach people to look at the percentages,” she says. “Giving them the range of 5 percent to 20 percent allows them to know if the food is ‘high saturated fat’ or ‘low saturated fat.’ If an item has 5 percent, it’s a better choice.”

“Decreasing the amount of sodium in the diet can help many people lower their blood pressure,” Kimberlain says. “Lowering blood pressure also means decreasing risk for heart attack or stroke, both of which are common diabetes complications.”

“Many people with diabetes might look just at the sugar category, but that doesn’t give the whole picture,” Kimberlain says. “For example, bread might have 1 g of sugar but 15 g of carbs. If you only looked at the sugar, you might opt to eat more, thinking that you’re not affecting your blood sugar levels when in fact you are.”

Common sense should tell you that all-you-can-eat buffets are tricky for everyone, but they’re especially risky if you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

“They typically lead to overeating,” Kimberlain says.

This can lead to dangerous blood sugar swings and weight gain. Kimberlain’s tips for portion control at a buffet include:

• Don’t starve yourself before going to the buffet. You’ll be more likely to overeat.
• Get an overview. Scope out what the buffet has before serving yourself. You may end up preferring healthier options.
• Take small portions.
• Watch the starches. This is more important for people with diabetes, because starches directly affect your blood sugar. So, be careful with grains such as bread, rice, and pasta, but also be mindful of “starchy” vegetables such as potatoes, corn, peas, and winter squash.
• Try to eat slowly. This can help reduce your overall food intake.

Buying smaller plates or using a salad plate instead of a dinner plate are good options for maintaining portion control, Kimberlain says.

“There’s less room, and it’s more difficult to pile them a mountain high,” she says.

Kimberlain also suggests using the salad plate for your protein and carb (main dish), then using a regular dinner plate for a big salad or all the nonstarchy veggies you want.

You may eat less when dining out if you prepare to take some of your meal home as leftovers.

But don’t wait until the end of the meal to ask for a to-go container, Kimberlain says. Ask your server to package half your entrée before it makes it to the table, or cut it in half yourself before starting to eat, to remove temptation.

“By already minimizing what’s in front of you, you’re more likely to have a proper portion, versus portion distortion,” Kimberlain says.

This also helps you avoid “cleaning your plate,” which is counterproductive when it comes to portion control, she says: “Sometimes when there is food in front of us, we tend to continue munching when we’re not even hungry, or because we don’t want to waste food.”

Other ways to avoid overeating when dining out include ordering one entrée to share with a friend or ordering an appetizer instead of an entrée, Kimberlain says.

Logging your food intake can help you manage portion control and blood sugar.

“By recording your intake and your blood glucose, you will learn how foods affect your blood glucose,” Weisenberger says. “Measure (your blood sugar) just before eating and two hours after your first bite. If you do this often enough, you will know the best foods and portion sizes for you.”

How much is a portion, anyway? It can vary.

“The portions in restaurants are quite supersized in general — portion sizes have grown a lot in the last several decades,” Kimberlain says. “For example, today’s bagels or muffins are often at least two servings, yet we tend to eat the whole thing, thinking we’ve only had one serving.”

Make sure you consider the size of the food you eat, as extra helpings mean extra calories.

“Supersize portions, for everyone, not just for people with diabetes, translate to a lot of calories consumed,” Kimberlain says. “Too many calories result in weight gain — a risk factor for both heart disease and diabetes. And if you already have diabetes, it puts you at risk for elevating your blood sugar.”

In general, it’s wise to avoid drinks that contain a lot of sugar.

“You’re taxing your pancreas to secrete enough insulin in order to cover the circulating glucose that’s just been consumed,” Kimberlain says. “With a normally functioning pancreas, this doesn’t tend to be an issue. But if you have diabetes, you create a quick surge in blood sugar that stays elevated and is harder to lower.”

These types of beverages may include:

• Soda
• Juice
• Sports and energy drinks
• Coffee with sugar
• Sweet tea and iced tea with sugar
• Lemonade
• Flavored water
• Sweetened, nondairy milks

Kimberlain says that healthier alternatives include:

• Water
• Unsweetened tea
• Sparkling water without sweetener
• Water infused with fruit or mint

Snacks can provide the carbohydrates that keep your energy high and help you maintain consistent blood sugar levels. When you eat is as important as what you eat, because you want to make sure you give your blood sugar enough time to come back down to normal before a meal, Kimberlain says.

“Perpetual high blood sugar levels can lead to complications,” she says.

Protein-only snacks can help you satisfy your hunger without spiking your blood sugar, Kimberlain says.

“For example, if breakfast was at 7 a.m., lunch at noon, snack at 3:30 p.m., and then dinner at 7 p.m., but you found yourself hungry at 10 a.m., I might suggest having a protein-only snack, which wouldn’t elevate your blood sugar [two hours before lunch],” she says. “Examples of protein-only snacks include a hard-boiled egg, nonstarchy veggies with a plain Greek-yogurt-based dip, celery and peanut butter, a low-fat cheese stick, or avocado with tomato.”

But for your 3:30 p.m. snack, there’s enough space in between meals to allow for your blood sugar to return to normal levels, so some carbs are okay and may also prevent you from overeating at dinner.

“Examples here could be a half sandwich (on whole-grain bread), an apple (tennis-ball size) with peanut butter, cottage cheese and pineapple, cheese and whole-wheat crackers, plain yogurt with fruit mixed in, or a handful of mixed nuts with a fruit,” Kimberlain says.