Does anyone know a website where it lists the exchange diet information like # of exchanges you need for a certain amount of calories. I'm pre diabetic but I found out my insurance won't pay for the nutritonist unless I'm actually diabetic. So I was looking for some alternatives. Thanks for any help.
Take a look at the Sticky section at the top of the forum. Thre you will find links to both the CDA (Canadian Diabetes Association) and the ADA (American Diabetes Association) websites. Lots of information on both of them.
You might also take a look at the Sugar Busters Forum and the South Beach Forum (Phase II) here at 3FC. Both are very acceptable plans for diabetics.
I follow an exchange based plan, but try to choose most of my foods in accordance with principles I learned from South Beach, Weight Watcher's Core, and Volumetrics (Volumetrics can basically be summarized as bigger food is more filling).
hillbillyhousewife.com and TOPS.org also have exchange based information on their sites. hillbillyhousewife is easy to navigate, and on the TOPS (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) website you'll want to click on the tools bar.
I found both of them and many other sites when I googled diabetic food exchange plans, exchange diets....
Weight Watchers was based on the diabetic food exchange plan prior to 1997 so I've bought a few at garage sales, thrift stores and amazon.com. I also recently ordered a book from amazon.com called Exchanges for All Occasions by Marion Franz
I haven't received it yet, so I don't know whether it was a good choice. But I've also got Exchange Lists for Meal Planning by the ADA on my wish list at Amazon.com, as well as the book The Weight Watchers Complete Cookbook and Program Basics (1994).
You are very, very smart to take matters into your own hands at the pre-diabetic stage. No one explained to me, when I was told that I was pre-diabetic, what was shutting down in my body, and at the time I was stressed and finishing my master's thesis and working full time....a diet and exercise disaster. Well, guess what, of course, now I"m full-blown diabetic type 2. No surprise there, NOW that I've met with the dietician who has explained what my body is doing. It seems like the insurance companies would save a lot more of their precious profit if they WOULD send pre-diabetics to a dietician. Now I have monthly dr exams, metformin, other meds, etc. for them to pay for.
Oh - calorieking.com is fabulous; he also has mini books that you can put into your purse, it's got every food and restaurant that you can think of, and lists all of the nutrition information for just about everything!!! Excellent! I bought mine from my dietician, but you can buy it online from him. I also like hillbillyhousewife, and there are good exchange lists at mayoclinic.com (google diabetes exchange and you'll see the direct link).
My problem is, is that the ADA exchanges have too many carbs for me....I'm better with lower carbs.
I'm insulin resistant, prediabetic and I also do better with fewer carbs than the ADA recommends, but that is easy enough to tweak, you just replace some of those carb exchanges with protein exchanges.
The hillbillyhousewife site (the pages for exchanges are now under dieting on a budget, or budget dieting or something like that) lists three different carb levels, and the Duke Diet book also describes two carbohydrate level exchange plans in their book. I just created my own after I studied several exchange diets. I used all of the minimum servings I had seen at my calorie level, and then I created a flexible category that could be used for either carb, dairy, fruit, bread, 2fat, or protein. Usually I use it for protein.
Exchange list
