Carbohydrate impacts blood glucose levels the most. People with diabetes use many tools to budget carbohydrates. What is your favorite one?
I use a nutrition scale to count my carbs accurately. I’m not really sure what you mean by “budget”.
When I chat with my patients I use the concept of carbohydrate budgeting whereas each person determines the amount of carbohydrate per meal that best keeps their blood glucose levels within goal. We start with a carbohydrate goal per meal and then adjust up or down accordingly. Some people use scales, other estimate and others use their own methods. A patient of a colleague of mine when eating rice, mashes it to about 1/2 thickness and then creates a small circle and counts with his fork how many “forkfulls” are on the plate so he determines the amount of carbohydrates before applying his insulin. Very creative.
After several years of weighing my carbs , I now most of the time can estimate by amount food covering my cereal bowl , dinner plate and also read labels . Very often I eat simelar type of food , just because I like it. I have not mastered eating Chinese food yet…and do not miss NOT eating. Some restaurants can provide carb content , such as Boston Pizza . Have the use of The Calorie King carb counter pocket book
I like Calorie King and I find the PDA version very useful for my patients who eat out. My colleague, Hope Warshaw has a very helpful book on carbohydrate counting published by the American Diabetes Association
I guess I am so PDA driven that I loved the online version.