 Hi everyone, this is Dr. Ahmed Ergen. I'm an endocrinologist and a diabetes education specialist. I primarily practice in Florida and New York. So guys, today we are going to talk about this plate method and what else? We're going to talk about the carbs, how the carbs can be on your plate, what kind of carbs you can have. We're going to discuss about that as well. And we're going to talk about what happens if your blood sugars are spiking no matter what you do or how little carbs you have or the healthy carbs you do, but your blood sugar is still spiking. And what do you do about that? So we'll also talk about this in this video. Now remember guys to give a thumbs up if you like the video and make sure you write a comment. We want to hear from you and we will start answering the comments on our YouTube channel. So make sure you write comments, make sure you share the video and let's get started. Today we are talking about diabetic diet, plate method. Well, here's the thing. A lot of people have an idea about this plate method. Everybody got a plate, they just don't know how to fill it. So today we are going to talk about the essentials of how you really fill your plate when you have diabetes. Now to be honest with you, you don't even have to be diabetic. I applied this on my own life as well. If you do this, you will stay healthy. If you're pre-diabetic, if you have insulin resistance, it doesn't matter. This plate is for you. You have to stick to this all the time. Now we talked about intermittent fasting before. You have a link below. You know, you can check that out. When you're intermittent fasting, you can be a little bit more generous with your plate. Not too much, a little bit more generous. If you're exercising a lot, you can be a little bit more generous. But in this case, I'm talking to you about a regular person who kind of takes a little walk here and there and people who cannot intermittent fast too long because of the medications they are on, etc. Then this plate is for you. Now I know a lot of you guys are thinking that, you know, oh, well, I do this, I do that. Now remember, everybody is different. God knows we have at least 30, 40 million diabetics in the United States. So everybody is different. Everybody is doing something different in their life. Their medications are different. So as a result, you know, what applies to you may not apply to everyone. Now I'm trying to make this apply to a lot of people just to be more balanced. A lot of people will be like, oh, just go on a keto diet and you'll be fine. It's just not the case. You know, a lot of people cannot stand keto diet. It doesn't work for some people. And to be honest with you, it's long term, it's hard to maintain for a lot of people. But again, you may be a hero, but try to be respectful when you're writing comments because I see sometimes very disrespectful comments from people who do keto. I don't know if keto makes people angry or not, but there's something about them. So but keto is fine. I'm not, I'm not saying keto is bad. I'm just saying that, you know, you don't have to impose what you're doing to everyone else because your way is not only the way. So this plate method, though, will work for a lot of you. So the way we create our plate, we always say that, you know, one fourth of this plate should be filled with protein. Now, this could be a lean protein, this could be a fatty protein. I don't really care as long as you're not eating too much carbs. If you're having like a steak, you can have a New York steak, you know, you can have a filet mignon, whatever you prefer, it is okay. Now too much fat, of course, if you have any combining with other things can cause weight gain. But again, I'm not trying to, you know, get rid of the fat totally from your diet. Fat is satisfying. Fat is going to fill you up and will prevent hopefully the snacking. So one fourth. So if you are eating more like a lean meat, you can maybe give a little bit extra here. If it is lean. But otherwise, I would suggest to stick to one fourth. Now, you know, a lot of people blame American Diabetes Association or other diabetic associations for recommending carbs. Well, in a healthy diet in a normal human being, you need some carbs. So the question is what kind of carbs you're having, right? We have tons of videos about this, the carbs that are healthy, the carbs that do not spike your blood sugar as much. And I'm going to give you a couple examples right now. For example, the carbs is going to be one fourth of your plate. And we can say, for example, you can have, you know, let's say you want to have potato, right? You don't want to fill the whole thing with potato because then that's going to be way too much. But you can have carbs such as, say, for example, cracked wheat, like a bulgur, or you can do brown or black rice, things like that that does not necessarily spike your blood sugar as fast with high fiber content. And there are alternative things you can find out. For example, people who are addicted to the potato are strongly recommend you to try parsnip. Okay, so parsnip is almost taste like potato, but the glycemic index is less than half of the potato, which means it's not going to spike your blood sugar near as half. Again, get a taste for bulgur, B-U-L-G-U-R, get a taste for brown rice, get a taste for barley. Even we have this called faro. So faro is another one, great grain. These are good grains that you can use as a carb on your plate. Now cooking them takes a little longer. You can use a pressure cook or you can just simmer it longer for those things with fiber. Again, the reason that the industry takes fiber away, because everybody wants to get everything quick and tasty and they just take their fiber away and then everything that's left is just the carbs. So stick with any carb that has high fiber content. Now, what about the rest of the plate? Well, the rest of the plate you can fill with salad. Now for people who are not big fan of salads, I would recommend that you can fill your half of your plate or maybe one quarter with salad and the other quarter with green leafy vegetables. So this could be cauliflower, but cauliflower is not necessarily green, but in that class. So you can have spinach, you can have kale, you can have broccoli, you can have collard greens, whatever you like. Don't be too shy to experiment. Just try different vegetables, try to roast them, try to open whatever you want to cook. Just try to find ways to get it on your plate. Eventually you will get a developer taste. A lot of people say, oh, I don't eat greens or I don't eat salad. I never do that. Well, start doing it. So you will get used to it. So everybody has a palette, everybody develops a taste in their life, but you really need to be open to new tastes, to open your palate and enjoy your life in a little bit differently. A lot of patients of mine will say, oh, all the thing I eat is steak and potato. I'm like, how boring is that? So steak and potato every dinner or like five days a week, that is so freaking boring. Man, you got to open your palate up. You got to enjoy your life a little bit. Life has a lot more to offer. So people enjoy greens, believe it or not. You will enjoy it too. You just need to come up with, when you go to a restaurant, for example, try those different salads that they have. Go to these super healthy restaurants that offer power salads or super foods and stuff like that. You will be like, oh my God, I never knew that these things tasted so good just because you are living in your own world and you only know it only one way, but you need to discover different things. All right, whatever you prefer here, that is not high in carb. Now you don't want to have too much protein. You don't want to feel, you don't want to eat the whole chicken. You know, eating too much protein actually have carcinogenic effects. Eating too much protein can lead to gout, some other kidney problems. So you don't want to overload your system with protein, but healthy fats are okay. So if you want to have nuts here, for example, it's okay. If you want to have, let's say you exercise and you want to reward yourself a little bit of fruit here, it's fine. And then make sure when you're eating meat, for example, you don't want to, you know, the thickness of your plate is also important, right? So let's say you're eating a meat, that's, we are recommending anywhere from four to eight ounces of meat. Now, if you are really athletic and you work out a lot, you can go up to 12 ounces. But again, that depends on the thickness, right? So a deck of cards, for example, a deck of cards is like four ounces. Or if you put your hand like anything that fills your palm of your hand and the thickness of your palm is going to be what you need as four ounces. Again, when it comes to filling the quarter of your plate, you want to make sure that you're measuring. You don't want to go more than one cup of any grain. So one cup of most grains are going to be around 30 to 45 grams of carbs, depending on their carb load. But again, you know, if you're sticking with high fiber carbs, they're not going to spike your blood sugar as much. And plus, remember, sometimes I see videos, they're doing testing, they test, you know, white rice to brown rice. Well, in real life, people don't just sit down and eat brown rice. So people eat like fat and protein, we call this a mixed meal. When you mix the meal, the blood sugar effect is much different, especially when you eat protein and fat together, it's going to slow down the absorption of carbs. That's why you may find yourself, if you sit down and eat a whole plate of fruits, you know, it's going to spike your blood sugar way more than if you're eating your fruits when you're having a regular meal. So remember, protein and fat slows down the absorption slows down your stomach. As a result, the blood sugar spikes are not as bad, not as spiky. Now, so you will be thinking that, oh, if I eat this way, I only eat protein, and I eat basically just protein, just because any carbs spike my blood sugar. If you are one of those patients who will not be able to eat anything, it could be vegetables or grains or anything with grains. You have a deep problem then, you know, there are people who will sit at home because gas is expensive. Well, they have a deep financial problem. So if you cannot get into your car and drive to a place because you're out of gas and you cannot fill your tank, that is sad and a serious problem. Okay. So, but the solution is not sitting at home. All right. So same thing with diabetics. Sometimes they'll say, oh, my blood sugar will spike with anything. So I rather not eat anything that is in any has any carbs healthy or not doesn't matter. I'll live on my steak and my chicken. And that's it. Well, that's a serious problem. That means that your body is making nothing no insulin and insulin. Yes, excessive insulin is not good for you. But you have to have some insulin to be able to function. So again, if you are having such a serious problem, nobody is asking you to change your entire life and turn into keto and that's like your punishment. If you like keto, that's great. But if you don't like keto, and you want to enjoy a little bit of a fruit here and there, you want to enjoy your some of your grains, your greens, etc., then you maybe need a medication. That's okay. You know, don't be too scared of medications. I mean, that's, you know, there's some people who are super scared of medication. So we came up with our own supplement, you know, check that out as well. So it's called sugar MD advanced glucose support. You can look at that. But I mean, there's a lot of ways to be able to have a life instead of like feeling like you are in a cage. I hope this helps you guys. And if it does give a thumbs up, share the video and please put a comment as well.