Most people know that eating more fruits and vegetables and choosing lean meats like fish, chicken and turkey are good starts to a healthy diet. Reducing your sugar intake, eating whole grains and avoiding fried and fatty foods are also well known ways to move towards a healthier diet.
However, many people do all of these things but still make one cardinal mistake when it comes to their dietary patterns — they don’t take steps to balance their blood sugar.
Blood sugar swings can put an extraordinary amount of stress on your body and can contribute significantly to weight gain, type II diabetes, inflammation and possibly cancer. It’s important to keep in mind that the dietary mistakes that create blood sugar swings can be in the context of what may seem like healthy food choices.
Simple carbohydrates like baked goods, pasta, potatoes, crackers, cereals, and even many fruits are broken down by the body into sugar (glucose) very quickly. Even whole grain breads and cereals can have what is referred to as a “high glycemic index.” The glycemic index (or GI) is a measurement of how quickly a food breaks down into glucose in your body after it is ingested. Knowing the glycemic index of the foods you eat is very important information when it comes to balancing your blood sugar levels.
Insulin: Friend and Foe
When you consume a high-glycemic food, it creates a sharp rise in your blood sugar levels. Elevated levels of sugar in your blood can damage certain cells in your blood vessels, eyes and kidneys. To prevent this damage, your body releases a flood of a hormone called insulin.
Insulin helps to transport sugars out of the bloodstream into the cells. It also triggers the storage of energy in the body primarily as fat. It is the most potent trigger for fat storage in the body. This is why low-carb diets are so successful at helping people lose weight. By reducing their intake of carbs and simple sugars, low-carb dieters greatly reduce the glycemic index of the food they eat, and significantly decrease the overall release of insulin within their bodies.
Frequent spikes in blood sugar throughout the day cause these periodic floods of insulin. If your cells are constantly being exposed to high levels of insulin, they start to become desensitized to its effects. This is the start of insulin resistance, also referred to as type II diabetes.
Insulin is also known to trigger pathways of inflammation, and in some laboratory studies, it has been shown to increase the metabolic activity of cancer cells.
The Aftermath
A large insulin spike in response to the consumption of high-glycemic food causes a resultant blood sugar crash. An extreme example that most people can relate to is the “sugar high” and resultant crash that comes after eating a large of amount sugary foods.
Blood sugar crashes put significant amounts of physiological stress on your body. When blood sugar (glucose) levels fall after an insulin surge, the brain begins to panic. This is because the brain is one of the only organs that relies exclusively on glucose as its primary source of energy. In response to this lack of cellular fuel, the brain triggers the release of cortisol which is the body’s primary stress hormone. Cortisol in turn stimulates the liver to liberate stored glucose into the blood.
Don’t we have enough stress in our lives already? Blood sugar swings are one of the few stressors you can have complete control over. Most people report significant increases in energy levels and a greater overall sense of well-being when they remove blood sugar stresses from their lives. This is in fact one of the most effective therapies for significantly increasing overall energy levels and general sense of well-being.
What to Eat?
The most important concept to remember when eating to stabilize your blood sugar is to always consume high quality fats and proteins at every meal. Combining fat and protein with foods that have a higher glycemic index will reduce their negative impact on blood sugar levels.
For example, many people are proud to say that they eat a piece of fruit every morning for breakfast, perhaps with some juice and some coffee. Although better than a doughnut or muffin, most fruits and juices have a high glycemic index and will trigger the cascade of blood sugar and insulin spikes and the resultant blood sugar crash. A better breakfast might be some scrambled eggs (or just egg whites) along with fruit — skip the juice. The protein from the eggs will help to lower the glycemic index of the fruit. The blood sugar will rise more gradually and significantly less insulin will be released. By combining a food with a higher fat and protein content with the fruit, you can avert an insulin spike and subsequent blood sugar crash.
Diets like “The Zone Diet” and even the popular “South Beach Diet” are designed to prevent blood sugar swings. The “Zone” in “The Zone Diet” refers to eating in a way that maintains a healthy range of blood sugar and insulin levels.
Vegetarian sources of good fat and protein can be found in nuts and nut butters, avocados, coconuts and legumes. Good animal-based sources of protein include dairy products, eggs, chicken, turkey, wild fish, game meats and 100% grass-fed beef.
source: stopagingnow
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