Patients diagnosed with type-2 diabetes, with high blood sugar, are most likely morbidly obese. This obesity is not arrived at by eating healthy foods, but instead it is the creation of bad nutritional habits, a sedentary lifestyle, and a personally held belief that change is neither desirable nor possible. The antithesis of this belief of course rests in the mistaken belief that foods which may be considered healthy and desirable are not palatable. The most commonly held belief is the notion that healthy food tastes like cardboard and my only be eaten in small quantities. Sure, this is not correct, but to not only intellectually understand this but also innately believe it and to maintain a healthy level of blood glucose, diabetes type-2 sufferers need nutritional counselling that helps to dispel the food myths to which they might have subscribed over the years.

Take for example the notion that healthy food is not tasty food. This is born primarily from ignorance with respect to available foods. By and large, obese patients are not known for their discerning palate but instead the rut they have created for themselves when it comes to choosing food items. It is this rut that leads such patients to believe that partaking of an appropriate diet for the management of type-2 diabetes is in direct opposition to their desire to eat delicious food. To such a patient healthy and tasty are two opposite ends of the spectrum that are not known to meet.

Overcoming this limited range of foods is the primary goal of nutritional counselling and in doing so the patient will learn to control the spiking of glucose, diabetes management, and also behaviour modification. In order to accomplish this feat the dietician must shy away from providing the stereotypical meal plan associated with weight loss — the one that relies on dried toast and black coffee — and instead use the likes and dislikes of the patient and craft an exciting meal plan that offers a variety of choices to the individual. Some physicians have balked at this notion and at first glance it is easy to understand why: with a closely restricted meal plan the success of failure of the diet can be ascertained quickly and easily, patients may be fed through the program, and a routine of treatment may be established.

While this permits more patients to be scheduled for a practice it denies the fact that patients are first and foremost individuals and thus require individual attention. Doctors who understand this are by far more successful in treating their diabetic patients by offering a regimen that makes it possible to level glucose diabetes type-2 sufferers are seeking to achieve while at the same time providing the kinds of food choices that provide for a sustainable behaviour modification instead of a temporary fix of obesity. It is these doctors who will have fewer patients on prescription drugs for glucose management and who will show greater results in obesity management.  As a patient, it is this approach that will net the most desirable results on a long term basis.