If you have diabetes and you are working to adopt a healthier lifestyle, keep in mind that small changes that focus on achievable goals will help keep you motivated and give you a sense of satisfaction.

When you are setting goals for healthier living, remember that you can’t change everything at once. Keep your goals realistic. Think about these points when setting goals:

• Is it specific? For example, “I will eat more fruit” is general, and hard to follow, but “I will eat one apple at lunchtime each day” is more specific and easier to achieve.
  
• Is it realistic? For example, “I will lose 20 pounds this week” is nonsense, but “I will lose two pounds this week” is possible if you are diligent.

Here are some other ideas for small changes that can add up to big improvements in your health and your ability to manage your diabetes:

• Order the small. If you go to a fast food restaurant, order the single hamburger and small fries, rather than the triple hamburger and huge fries. You’re not depriving yourself, but you are making a change for the better by keeping your daily calories under control. Next step: Make a healthier food choice and make sure your burger has lettuce and tomato on it, and choose mustard over mayonnaise.
  
• Move a little more. Although 30 minutes of exercise is optimal, start with 15, or even 10 minutes. If you watch two TV programs in the evening, stand up and walk around the house for 5 to 10 minutes between programs. That’s a small step, but any activity gets your blood flowing and promotes better health. And who wants to watch commercials anyway? Next step: Take a walk after your TV program ends.

Once upon a time, doctors thought that sugary foods would cause a rapid spike in glucose levels, and people with diabetes were warned to avoid sweet treats, or to stick to sugar-free desserts. We now know that it’s the total carbohydrate in a meal or snack that impacts glucose levels, not the sugary nature of a food.

If you have diabetes, you can have your cake and eat it, too, as long as you factor the carbohydrates from a dessert into your daily diet the way you would any other carbohydrate. If you want a dessert, cut back on another carbohydrate in the same meal or during the same day. For example, if you have a turkey sandwich for lunch and you want to have two cookies, swap the two slices of regular bread for a low-carb bread, one slice of bread, or a low-carb tortilla wrap instead, and have the cookies. The total carbohydrate amount for the meal will be approximately equal.

The same principle applies to any sweetener with calories, such as sugar, honey, or molasses.

And remember that low-calorie artificial sweeteners, including aspartame (found in NutraSweet and Equal), saccharin (found in Sweet ‘n Low and Sugar Twin) and sucralose (found in Splenda) are freebies for people with diabetes because they make food taste sweet without adding calories, and they don’t contain carbohydrates or fats, either. These artificial sweeteners have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and the American Diabetes Association accepts that they are safe for people with any type of diabetes.