Start here for a great foundation and helpful resources when doing diabetes diet education.
Manage Type 2 Diabetes with good education
A good diabetes education can make the difference between your patient who’s in control of their health, and one who’s constantly struggling with their blood sugars.
Many people who have been diagnosed with diabetes, never have anyone fully explain to them how to manage this new challenge well. They were diagnosed and then promptly told by their doctor to avoid all rice, potatoes and bread.
As dietitians, we know better.
The sooner someone learns the ropes of managing their diabetes and blood sugar status, the more likely they are to be in control of their health outcomes.
Where to begin in diabetes education
There are so many things a person with diabetes should know how to do, it can feel overwhelming. Medication management, taking finger sticks (and understanding what it all means), figuring out how and what to eat right — all of these things are big subjects with a lot of nuance.
All of this can be very hard to wrap their head around for many people who’ve been recently diagnosed. And it can feel like an impossible battle for people who’ve been struggling with management for years.
Starting with the basics of T2DM can be a great way to begin the conversation on managing their health with diabetes.
What to teach during a diabetes education?
There are 2 great places to start talking about managing blood sugar levels that will give your clients an immediate sense of empowerment:
- Understand what is a carbohydrate (and how to count a carb serving)
- Know how to read a nutrition facts label
Know how to explain these two things really well and you’ll start to see a lot more confidence and success in your patients with diabetes.
For extra credit, it’s helpful to teach these two things in the following order.
First: explain what a single carbohydrate serving is.
Second: explain how to apply that understanding to a food label.
These concepts build on each other. So with an understanding of carbs comes a strong foundation for food labels.
Essential DM education handouts to use
Diabetes Basics
Sometimes our patients just need a reminder about the small things. What their numbers mean, a nudge to get up and get moving a few minutes a day, a reminder that weight loss doesn’t have to be massive to be significant.
These are some of the fundamental elements that go into a diabetes education. They’re also exactly what’s on this handout. This Diabetes Basics handout makes remembering all of this much easier.
This handout makes it easy for clients to post a reminder on their fridge or keep handy for quick references.
Download this and more simple patient education nutrition handouts HERE.
Introduction to carbohydrates
Being diagnosed with diabetes is not a life sentence to a carb free life. But for many of our clients, this is a real fear.
Helping our clients understand that they can eat carbohydrates even with a diagnosis of diabetes can go a long way to helping them sustain a healthy diet. Learning portion sizes and moderation can go a long way to giving them more power and a sense of control over their food choices.
Using a carbohydrate information handout like this is a great place to start.
This first page has a complete list of all the foods that will impact their blood sugar levels (ie: carbohydrates).
After seeing a list of carbohydrates like this, it’s common for clients to start panicking a little.
There’s probably going to be a lot of people immediately asking you: “then what’s left to eat!?”. This handout helps you answer this question by also identifying the foods that will NOT significantly impact their blood sugar. (So you don’t have to write them all out).
Lastly, there’s an easy reference to carbohydrate serving sizes on this page to help you begin a conversation on carb counting.
The second page of this handout is a very simple carbohydrate exchange list. It starts with a reminder of what one serving of carb is. Next it gives some common examples of that how that 15 g portion size is looks in real food.
Of course this is not an exhaustive list of carbohydrate foods. However, something to keep in mind is most people eat the same 30 foods over and over again. Once you and your client have a good idea of their favorite carb foods, it becomes much easier to have a targeted conversation for each patient.
Find this handout and others perfect for diabetes education HERE.
How to read a nutrition facts label for diabetes
Many people don’t know how to read a nutrition facts label,. Or at least read it properly. This doesn’t suddenly change when they’re diagnosed with diabetes.
It’s easy for clients to get caught up in sugar content or even counting calories and fat, thinking this will help them manage their diabetes.
It’s also equally easy we’re teaching label reading, to feel like we need to explain everything on that food label. Because we want our clients to be as healthy as possible, we often try to tackle explaining calories AND sodium AND carbs AND added sugars all in one sitting.
This can be overwhelming for a lot of people.
It can be especially overwhelming when someone is new to a diabetes diagnosis. With so much to learn all at once, it’s helpful to keep things as simple as possible. When we distill the most important part of reading a food label down to a single thing, it’s becomes a lot easier for our clients to remember where to start when they’re in the real world.
For this reason, sticking to a single item and explaining it clearly can go a long way to helping someone gain confidence in their ability to make a stick to a change.
This handout does that well by keeping the conversation focused on total carbohydrates.
Using the carbohydrate exchange list as a reference point, can go a long way to having a conversation with clients that they can really wrap their head around.
Find this handout and others for diabetes education here.
And That’s It!
When you start with these 2 handouts, you can really focus the diabetes education you do in a way your clients can immediately use and succeed with.
This is how to use Nutrition Cheat Sheets patient education handouts to support your next conversation with your patients managing diabetes.
Want all these handouts to use on your own? Grab them HERE.
Want even more to help in clinical?
Check out The Nutrition Cheat Sheets Shop for all the nutrition education and clinical resources that will make your life easier.
