How to Picnic as a Diabetic

Most of us love picnics. They are casual events held for any reason or no reason at all. Americans have picnics to celebrate summer holidays, family and class reunions and church outings. The range of food available at such gatherings is generally heavy on fat and sugar and light on nutrition. Type 1 diabetics generally do not face the choices Type 2 diabetics have because they have been dealing with their condition since childhood. Those of us who have developed the condition more recently, however, need to learn to manage our lifestyle with a little more discipline than we're used to. With this condition becoming more commonplace, we need to make better choices for what we take and what we eat at these informal warm-weather parties. These suggestions are general and are not offered as medical or nutritional advice. Read on to learn how to picnic as a diabetic.

Things You'll Need

• Fruits and vegetables
• A hat for sun
• Shorts

Show More

Instructions

• 1

  Contribute to the party. Take a few dishes of food that you know you can eat. Get a list of "free" foods that have few or no carbohydrates (remember that 15 grams of carbohydrates equals one "carb") and find recipes using those foods with as little fat or sugar as possible. Take a great big "garbage salad" or "seven-layer salad" with lots of raw veggies and set the bowl in a bigger bowl of ice. You'll be the hit of the party and no one will notice that you had yours without chips or a brew.

• 2

  Put the emphasis on exercise and social interaction, not eating. Play volleyball with the gang or challenge your high school buddy to a game of chess. When you're busy, time flies by and you don't find yourself hanging about the buffet. Activity burns carbs, too.

• 3

  Spread your picnic over a period of time. If your schedule says that you can eat at 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., have your cheddar wurst with bun (hold the potato salad, please) at two and your piece of reunion cake at four. If you must have that potato salad, forgo the bun and settle for a half cup of the creamy stuff. If you concentrate on veggies (without the dip) and low-carb fruits, you'll do just fine.

• 4

  Pay special attention to what you drink. Sugary sodas and teas are part of the reason so many of us have ended up with uncontrollable blood sugar. Take your iced tea straight--you'll be surprised how refreshing it is. If there's no diet soda, drink water without whining--it's better for you on warm days because it re-hydrates without all that caffeine and those artificial sweeteners and flavors. Remember to figure wine and beer in your carb-count, too. Check up on various types of alcoholic beverages and opt for white wine or low-carb beer rather than one of those sugary wine coolers.

• 5

  Concentrate on what you can do, not what you can't. Enjoy the company and the event. There are people there with problems larger than yours and everybody needs a break from their worries.