Q:What are the keys to diabetes meal planning and good diabetes control?

A: It's important to take diabetes seriously from day one and to make taking care of your diabetes part of everyday life. If you need to lose weight, like so many people with type 2 diabetes do, then take a step by step approach to achieve this goal. Try this...

Maybe the first month you decide you will eat more fruits and vegetables and use less salad dressing, margarine and mayonnaise. Sounds simple, but that's plenty to bite off at first. Next, you may decide you want to transition from being a couch potato to taking a 15 minute walk 3 times a week. Again, not easy but put one foot in front of the other and get out there day after day. Slowly but surely, these lifestyle change will get easier. Overtime they will be the new way you choose to live your life. Add these changes together and they will help you control diabetes symptoms and your blood glucose.

Today there's no longer a diabetic diet per se. Eating with diabetes is eating healthy, more whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low fat dairy foods. And lightening up on the meats, fats, desserts, sugary foods and drinks. Read more details about the food and nutrition recommendations for diabetes? And of course, it's a matter of watching those portions no matter what you eat. You'll get hundreds of tips and suggestions to eat healthier in my book Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy.

If you want both tips and diabetes recipes with their nutrition content and diabetic diet menus, check out my book Diabetes Food and Nutrition Bible.