The Glucose Goddess’s Guide To Blood Sugar

First, what exactly is glucose, and why do we need it?
If we go back to basics, glucose is the body’s preferred energy source. Each cell uses glucose: our eye cells to see, our heart cells to contract, our brain cells to think. We get glucose from the food we eat (from starches and sugars, which break down into glucose) but the body can also make glucose from within, which debunks the myth that we need to eat sugar to have energy. The body thrives when the amount of glucose it receives is equal to the amount of glucose it needs for energy. More glucose isn’t better. If there is much more glucose than needed, problems start to pile up.

What exactly do we mean by a glucose spike?
If we eat a meal that releases too much glucose too quickly to our body, that’s a glucose spike. For a long time, we thought only people with diabetes should care about their glucose spikes. In 2018, that changed, as scientists discovered that 80% of people without diabetes experienced glucose spikes every day. These spikes cause inflammation, ageing, and insulin release in the body. Taken together, these create short-term symptoms (cravings, hunger, poor sleep, acne, weight gain, fatigue, mental health disturbances and worsened menopause symptoms), and contribute to chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and heart disease.

How does glucose affect appetite?
Glucose spikes have a direct impact on our hunger hormone levels. The more spikes we experience, the more swings in hunger we get – we go from eating a meal to being extremely hungry again in an hour or two, instead of being full for hours. For example, look at two breakfasts that contain the same number of calories: the one that creates a big glucose spike makes us hungry again in two hours; whereas the one that keeps our glucose levels steady keeps our hunger hormones down for up to five hours. Even though you just ate the same number of calories. It’s all about the glucose spike.

How is blood sugar regulated in the body – and do lifestyle factors affect this?
Our body has a mechanism in place to deal with glucose spikes. Every time we experience a glucose spike, a hormone called insulin is released by our pancreas. Insulin takes excess glucose and stores it in our liver, muscles and fat cells. Indeed, one of the ways our body protects us against too much harm from glucose spikes is by making us put on weight. So, we should thank our body for putting on fat – it’s a protection mechanism. That said, insulin doesn’t erase completely the damage caused by a spike. It helps, but spikes still have consequences. 

Factors that impact how well we can deal with spikes include: how much muscle mass we have, how rested we are, how active we are, the health of our pancreas, our sensitivity to insulin, our genetics, and what part of our menstrual cycle we are in. However, how and what you eat remains the dominant factor.

So, where to start when it comes to controlling blood sugar?
Eating your food in the right order is a great place to start. Here’s the deal: during a meal, if we eat our food in a certain order (veggies first, then protein and fats, then starches and sugars), we reduce the glucose spike of the meal by up to 75% compared to eating the foods in no particular order. You don’t need to change what you’re eating, just how you’re eating it. You can go one step further and add a plate of vegetables to the beginning of your meals. The fibre in the vegetables will coat your intestine and prevent the body from absorbing too much of the glucose crashing down afterwards.

What are some of the best foods to control blood sugar?
A vegetable starter can have a huge impact on blood sugar. Find your favourite vegetable (for me, it’s roasted cauliflower), make a batch on the weekend, and have some before every meal during the week, even if just a few mouthfuls. Then, healthy proteins. Anytime you’re eating carbs, adding protein is a simple way to enjoy it with steadier glucose. For a steady-glucose breakfast, think of starches and sugars as optional ingredients you can add for taste and pleasure. Build your breakfast around protein – think eggs, beans and sausages – and eat the toast last. If you’re not ready to say goodbye to a sweet breakfast, first eat protein, fats and fibre – an egg, for example, or a couple of spoons of full-fat yoghurt – then have the sweet food, such as jam, granola, cereal or a sweetened coffee. Remember that when a stomach contains other things, the impact of sugar and starch will be lessened.

For lunch, start with a green salad, followed by a meat roll or sandwich and a handful of nuts for extra fibre and protein. For dinner, start with some broccoli sprinkled with sea salt, followed by some meat, pasta or potatoes, with the carbs eaten last. For dessert, try Greek yoghurt with berries or a couple of squares of dark chocolate.