7-Day Prediabetes Diet Plan — Reverse It Before It Becomes Diabetes

Prediabetes means your fasting blood sugar is between 100–125 mg/dL, or your HbA1c sits between 5.7% and 6.4%. You haven't crossed the line into diabetes yet — but without changes, most people do within 5–10 years. The frustrating part? Most doctors tell you "watch your diet and exercise" without telling you exactly what that means.

Here's what the research actually shows: losing just 5–7% of body weight — that's 4–5 kg for most Indians — and reducing refined carbohydrates can bring fasting glucose back to normal range in a significant number of people. Not medication. Diet and movement. The window where food is genuinely more powerful than drugs is right now, at the prediabetes stage.

This 7-day plan is built around the glycaemic index of Indian foods specifically — not Western foods. Brown rice versus white rice, besan versus maida, jowar roti versus plain roti. Every meal is chosen because of how it affects your blood sugar in the two hours after eating, which is where the real damage of prediabetes happens.

Most "diabetic diet" plans are written for people who already have diabetes — higher medication doses, stricter limits. This plan is calibrated for the prediabetes window, which is different. You still have functional insulin response; you just need to stop overwhelming it. That means focusing on glycaemic load (not just glycaemic index), meal timing, and the one intervention that is genuinely as effective as metformin at this stage: a 10-minute walk after every meal.

The plan targets ~1,600 calories with 40–45% calories from low-GI carbohydrates, adequate protein at every meal to slow glucose absorption, and strategic fibre placement — salad before the main course, not after. You'll also notice apple cider vinegar (2 tsp diluted in water) before meals — not a wellness fad, but a genuine acetic acid mechanism that slows gastric emptying and reduces post-meal glucose spikes. The evidence on this is solid enough to mention it specifically.

This plan is for anyone with a fasting blood glucose between 100–125 mg/dL or an HbA1c between 5.7–6.4%, whether diagnosed recently or discovered on a routine health check. It's equally relevant if you have a strong family history of type 2 diabetes and want to act before numbers start climbing. Many people on this plan are not yet on any medication — and the goal is to keep it that way.

It's also for people who've been told to "just watch their diet" but haven't been given specifics. If you've been eating "less rice" but your numbers aren't improving, it's likely because the problem isn't rice alone — it's the overall glycaemic load, meal sequence, and the absence of that post-meal walk. This plan addresses all of it, practically, with foods your family already eats.