Type 2 Diabetes: How Many Carbs Per Meal

If you’ve had a type 2 diabetes diagnosis for more than about 5 minutes, you may have come across some misguided nutrition advice stating that you can eat several hundred grams of carbohydrates every day and still achieve good blood sugar control.

Many diabetes-centered publications even suggest that you should consume plenty of high-carb grains like rice, oats, and wheat regularly. While this advice may be acceptable for the general population, if you have diabetes, knowing how many 

Here’s what we suggest you do instead…

Give a nutrient-dense low carb diet a try!

Here at DMP, our goal is to help you treat your diabetes through healthy diet and lifestyle changes. We don’t want you to merely “get by.” We want you to thrive! That’s why we continually push a science-backed, lower carb approach for those with type 2 diabetes and prediabetes.

A whole food, low carb diet has been shown to be the best diet for improving fasting blood sugar levels, A1c, cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, inflammation, and other factors over the long-haul.

So, now you may be wondering what a low carb diet looks like in practice. How do you pick a carb goal for yourself and how do you plan your meals accordingly?

How Many Carbs Per Meal?

Some people with diabetes will find they can tolerate a moderate amount of carbs every day, while others need to keep within a tighter range in order to maintain their optimal blood sugar levels.

In general, we’ve found that the “sweet spot” is usually around 50-80g of net carbs per day, with 100g per day as the maximum. In terms of total carbs, this would probably be around 70-130 grams per day.

Of course, some people eat a ketogenic diet, which is under 50 grams, but we’ve found it isn’t necessary to take your carbs that low, and you can still achieve the same results with more variety in your eating plan. 

If you want to figure out how many carbohydrates you can consume per meal, simply take your daily carb goal in grams and divide it by the number of meals you eat in a day.

For this example, we will aim for a goal of 70g of carbs per day and assume that 3 meals and 2 snacks will be eaten throughout the day.

A total of 70g of carbs per day divided over three meals and two small snacks could look like this:

• Breakfast: 20g carbs
• Mid-Morning Snack: 5g carbs
• Lunch: 20g carbs
• Afternoon Snack: 5g carbs
• Dinner: 20g carbs

This is just an example. Of course every day and every meal may vary but you can use the model to tailor your menu to meet your personal needs and goals, but generally your carbs should be divided up throughout the day.

If you “save” all of your carbs until nighttime, for example, and then binge on a huge bowl of pasta, it’s a guarantee that you’ll have high blood sugar levels afterwards.

Likewise, using this model you could choose to slurp down 20g of sugar in the form of a Frappuccino and call that breakfast, while still remaining within your daily carb goal. But that misses the point entirely.

Counting carbs is just a jumping off point, and you still need to be wise with your food and beverage choices even within the boundaries of your carb goal.

Now that we’ve got down the basics, let’s take a look at a few example meals and see how you could piece different meals together to make a daily menu.

Breaking Down Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner (Counting Carbs)

Let’s keep going with the example goal we set earlier: 70g of total carbs per day, spread across three solid meals and a few snacks.

How can we meet this goal?

Breakfast

Feel satisfied with a homemade Bircher Muesli at 15g carbs.

Lunch

For lunch, let’s select a chicken burrito meal that you can share with a friend or family member, which comes in at around 22g for the meal.

Dinner

This warm and savory Chicken Massaman Curry contains 21g carbs.

Don’t Forget About the Snacks!

For a mid-morning snack, you could try something rich and protein-packed like these tasty peanut butter balls that only have 5g carbs. 

Let’s change things up and swap out our second snack of the day for a delicious after-dinner dessert that’s sure to hit the spot.

This decedent chocolate mousse tastes sweet enough to please the palate but amazingly it has just 6 grams of carbs!

If you add up all three meals plus the snack and dessert, we have a grand total of just 69g of carbs. 

The high amounts of protein, healthy fat, and dietary fiber in these meals and the lack of carbohydrates is a recipe for stable blood sugar and, eventually, a lower A1c.

Want even more low carb meal inspiration? Take a look at a few more daily menus we’ve put together as examples…

Another Example Menu

John has a goal of staying under 70-80g of total carbs for the day. His carb per meal guide was 25 grams per main meals and one or two snacks at roughly 10 grams.Here’s what John’s daily menu could look like:

Breakfast

This low carb breakfast smoothie is ideal for John because he loves the sweet flavor and the energy it gives him to power through his morning! It contains 25g of total carbs (15g of net carbs) – the amount of berries used can push the carb count up here a bit, but there’s also lots of protein and healthy fat. Plus, John is most active in the morning so he’ll burn that extra energy pretty quick.

Midmorning Snack

John could crunch on some simple and nutritious cucumber “crackers” that contain 9g of total carbs (8g net carbs).

Lunch

For lunch, John opts for a light but satisfying turkey ramen soup containing just 9g of total carbs (5g net carbs).

Afternoon Snack

Still feeling a little bit hungry in the afternoon, John indulges in a small serving of homemade guacamole with carrot sticks for a total of about 11g of carbs (4g net carbs).

Dinner

At dinner time, John wants something that feels like he’s still eating delicious pasta but without all the carbs, so he prepares a chicken pesto “zoodle” salad that contains 24g total carbs (15g net carbs).

At the end of the day, John has met his goal! He has consumed a total of 77g of total carbs exactly. As you can see, John ate ample food throughout the day – and tasty food at that!!

How do you calculate the carbs in your food?

There are some great free food database tools that can help you calculate the carbs in foods easily. 

The two we usually recommend are:

• Cronometer
• FatSecret

Conclusion: Mix & Match to Meet Your Goals

The big takeaway is that there is no shortage of fun and tasty ways to meet your health goals by altering your diet. Eating low carb doesn’t mean that you have to eat a plain bowl of lettuce with grilled chicken for every meal. Sure, who doesn’t love a good chicken salad, but it can get so much more flavorful than that!

There are hundreds of inspired recipes that you get access to when you join as a member.  These recipes are designed to take the stress out of eating low carb and add a little sparkle to your dinner plate while still helping you reach your goals.

So think big, get creative in the kitchen, and don’t be afraid to enjoy amazing food!

RECAP:

Carbs per day: we’ve found that the “sweet spot” is usually around 50-80g of net carbs per day, with 100g per day as the maximum.

Carbs per meal: can vary but gets distributed over the day based on your goal. Recommend main meals are capped at 25 grams.