Here’s a dull management saying for you:

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

That’s true in business, but it’s also true if you have, or are approaching diabetes.

You need to literally measure your food – or at worst have a good understanding of it. And when I say measure, I don’t mean in inches, I mean in a thing called its Glycaemic index.

Each food has a glycaemic index (GI), and your meal makes up a glycaemic load (GL).

Knowing what the GL of a meal is key to reversing diabetes. And it’s pretty easy to see how it works too:

Your body’s preferred fuel is a sugar called glucose, which it makes from carbohydrates. Your liver converts the carbs in to glucose, and decides whether to burn it there and then, or whether it is stored for later use (there’s no limit to how much it can store – it’s called being fat).

It’s insulin that ships the glucose around your body. So when a load of glucose suddenly appears, your body needs to produce a load insulin to deal with it.

Now, this process happens with everything you eat. It doesn’t matter whether it’s broccoli or doughnuts. The only thing that differs is how quickly this process happens.

High GI foods are converted in to glucose really quickly. Low GI foods take longer.

Here’s why that’s important. If you’ve spent years chomping on high GI foods, your body has had years of dealing with them. That’s years of creating enough insulin to deal with the fast and snappy glucose deliveries made by your liver. Trouble is, too much insulin is a really bad thing. I mean really bad.

And don’t forget, overtime, the more insulin you make, the more resistant you become to it. So the body has to make even more. It really is a vicious circle.

It’s pretty easy to see why a diet that isn’t going to give you an abundance of glucose in a couple of mouthfuls, attacks diabetes and its symptoms head on.

Low GL meals, snacks and drinks lets your body deal with the glucose without needing a big dollop of insulin.

It’s pretty much like shopping – when everyone hits the checkout isle at the same time, the shop has to scramble and it’s all hands on deck. But if all the shoppers drifted through at different times, the checkout lady could manage happily on her own.

Anyhow, if this has made sense to you, have a look at these 5 simple tips too. All quick and easy.