Almost every Type 2 diabetic faces a dilemma about dessert. If you are newly diagnosed, chances are you will find that you can sneak in a dessert and your blood sugar levels the next morning will not be unusually high (although they will be if you eat two or more desserts). If you have had Type 2 diabetes for a long time, you may find that the more you need to avoid desserts, the more appealing they are.
The real problem with any kind of sugary food is that it engenders insulin resistance. When blood sugar levels rise past about 170mg/dL (9.4mmol/L), the fat cells, muscle cells, and liver essentially say “No more!”
If cells absorb too much glucose from your bloodstream, they become overactive. They literally can burn themselves out. They protect themselves from this end by reducing the number of sites on their outer membranes that respond to insulin, becoming ‘insulin-resistant’.
If you eat dessert, your blood sugar levels go up. If you blood sugars go up, your cells become insulin-resistant. Ironically, because your fat cells are not being fed, you get hungry… and you eat more sugar, get higher blood sugar levels, and become even more insulin-resistant. And it all starts, for most type 2 diabetics, with eating too much dessert.
The American Diabetes Association advises Type 2 diabetics that about 100 calories (420 kilojoules) a day in desserts will not really harm your health. The problem is, a typical dessert serving is 400 calories (1680kj) and a typical dessert container is 800 to 1000 calories (3360 to 4200kj). It’s very easy to eat entirely too much.
If you are going to eat dessert, you should eat a single small serving of a food you really enjoy. This should be a food you can easily obtain, because you don’t want to eat as if you would never eat the food again. But it should also be a food you do not keep around your home or place of work.
You should not eat both a dessert and starchy foods at the same meal. And, hard as it may be to get used to, you really shouldn’t save the rest of a dessert for later. Share the dessert with a friend or family member, eating just a taste, but remove temptation. Don’t keep cartons of ice cream and boxes of cake in the refrigerator. If you can’t eat just a taste, then don’t eat desserts at all.
This is how you can help yourself keep weight off and have lower blood sugar levels.