In order for obesity related diabetes to be undone, a healthy diet for type 2 diabetes must become a lifestyle rather than a temporary fix. This requires an incorporation of a paradigm shift with respect to the view a patient has about the food choices they make, the reasons why they may choose to eat even though they may not actually feel hungry, and of course the availability of palatable food alternatives the patient is likely to enjoy. This explains why the cornucopia of fad diets, most notably those that the require the forsaking of one food group over another, are fast paths to dietary failure and thus unsuited as a diet for type 2 diabetes patients. It should be noted that gestational diabetes is often also due to obesity.

Cases in point are the various low carb diets that have been making the rounds over the last few years. Although there was some bona fide weight loss success associated with them, the available menu options become rather boring and even as some of the menu items were indeed quite tasty, in the long run this kind of diet change was not sustainable. Cravings soon go the better of the dieters and in the case of already obese patients seeking to follow a diet for type 2 diabetes, these cravings would soon develop into all out gorging sessions.

Some patients may have even fallen back into the old lifestyles and habits and thus were convinced that there was no viable diet available to them, persuading them to simply give up and learn to control the glucose with medication instead of seeking to gain control with the help of a healthier lifestyle. This very failure can be headed off easily enough when enlisting the aid of a healthy and workable diet plan. Granted, weight loss success is a lot slower in coming and thus at the onset the risk of failure is the greatest, but for those patients who have the discipline and will power to stay on task, the odds are good that their diet change will indeed result in a lifestyle modification.

Another component at odds with allowing a new, healthier way of eating to become a workable lifestyle is seen in the availability of pre-packaged meals that are formulated with the diet for type 2 diabetes in mind. Although convenient, these diets revolve around expensive meals that may be questionable when it comes to taste, and that are simply not cost effective. In the same vein, they do not permit for the lifestyle change and instead solely rely on the nutritional change in the home. This, of course, will set up the patient for failure the very first time they set foot inside a restaurant and are once again assaulted by the yummy choices they may have denied themselves for such a long period of time already. In this sense, the use of such ready made diets is highly suspect and should be avoided unless a change in eating habits must be brought about the very day of diagnosis for fear of dire health related consequences.