Blood Sugar Regulation Part 2: Northfield Chiropractic Discusses Problems With Blood Sugar

What you SHOULD do

This blog is intended to be practical. I want there to be an easy and immediate change that can be made that will really help with health.

Let’s look back at the graph. The goal is to keep within the green for as long as we can. We don’t want a roller coaster at all. We

Blood sugar graph

want there to be a low graded hill (for the math people we want a small slope on the graph). How can we do that? We need to find food that causes the slope to be lower.

 

Protein

This has been getting a bunch of hype lately. Food companies are starting to market it. However, please don’t be fooled. There is little to nothing that you can get in a package that helps you all that much (i.e. cereal bars, cereal, etc.). It is best from a natural source; however, people do use protein powders that help in a shake form. I would make sure that there is no fruit of sugar added to keep from spiking that sugar. I find that the easiest way to get protein is using eggs. If you don’t have a lot of time, then hard boil a bunch of them at the beginning of the week. I guess you could say that they are portable. Protein is great for keeping your blood sugar stable.

 

Another tip is to keep healthy nuts around with you such as raw almonds. These will help you in a quick way if you are very busy, and new research shows that people who eat more nuts are much healthier. Keep in mind that you have to eat these as a snack BEFORE you get to the low blood sugar moment. Once you hit that level it is too late, and you will search for those high glucose foods. It is nice to know that you now have more time if you ate enough protein in the morning. That is right! Eating protein in the morning causes you to feel fuller longer!

 

Shouldn’t this be a happy egg?

Fiber

When people think of fiber they think grains. I AM NOT THINKING OF GRAINS. I am thinking of vegetables. Try to get as much of these in your breakfast as you can. The fiber in these foods will really lower that graph’s slope. Another aspect of veggies is that they really cause you to feel fuller after breakfast also! This is due to the bulk of the fiber in the veggies causing stretch on the stomach telling your brain, “had enough”. They also have an added benefit as there are some soluble fibers that feed the good bacteria in your stomach! We will go over that later.

 

There are a couple of issues that we have to establish. One of the worst veggies to eat is the baby carrots. They are not all that bad, but they do contain the least amount of fiber and the most amount of sugar. Avoid them if you can, but they are still better than a fruit. It should also be noted that corn is considered a grain. Another popular trend is juicing. I think juicing is great, but make sure you are getting every part of the veggie. Don’t just drink that juice. Also, make sure that there is enough protein in there. Also make sure there is enough:

 

Fat

I used to hear it from my dad when I was a child, “you eat fat, you get fat”. Why did my dad think this? It was pretty common knowledge at the time, but that idea is going away fast. There was a debate in the mid ‘70’s between Ancel Keys and John Yudkin. They were trying to figure out why we were having a problem with heart disease. Keys blamed saturated fats and Yudkin blamed sugar. At the time Keys won that debate (with a lot of pressure from the food industry trying to discredit Yudkin).

 

This lead to food companies getting fats out our food, because fat-free is now healthy! However, that food didn’t taste very good, so they had to add a little something. That’s right they added more sugar. Heart disease incidence didn’t go down (however survival did thanks to a few drugs), and diabetes and obesity went up!

 

Fat is not bad for you. It never was. There are some bad ones called trans fats (they come from processed vegetable oils so stay away from those). They actually do some of the same things as fiber and protein in your breakfast. They help you feel satisfied (feel fuller longer), and they keep your blood sugar from spiking.

 

The big question is what is healthy and how can I get it in my breakfast? Olive oil is one of the best! It actually has a bunch of heart healthy aspects to it. There are good and bad olive oils though. The smell test is a pretty good way to tell if you have healthy olive oil or you just have crumby stuff. If it has an earthy smell to it, then it is most likely really good. If it does not have a smell at all, then more than likely it has been rendered inert and probably not worth what you paid for it. Luckily in Northfield we have a store that only carries the good stuff.

 

Another good one is coconut oil. You can use the same logic with this oil. Smell it. Does it smell like coconut? Butter is also a good oil to use. I would look for the organic stuff. Nuts are also a great source for fats along with avocados.

 

Grains

JUST SAY NO IN THE MORNING! People worry about the loss of nutrition when you take these out, but you don’t have to worry. You will get plenty of nutrition with the veggies you eat in the replacement of grains.

 

I am not paleo (this diet eliminates grains from the diet) myself, but in the morning I am. Most grains are processed to the point that they don’t have much more than glucose left in them (causing a spike in the blood sugar). During the process of these grains the fiber has been taken out of them. This is because it takes a lot of time to cook fiber. There is not a lot of time to cook in the morning, so they get rid of it to speed up the process. If you are going to eat grains make sure it takes a long time to cook them, and eat them at night. These are basically putting you on a roller coaster of blood sugar dysregulation. This is the problem that we discussed in the previous blog.

 

Fruit

I am going to take heat for this. Don’t eat fruit in the morning. Even healthy blueberries can spike your blood sugar. If you are having trouble with blood sugar or weight just don’t eat them in the morning. Please eat a ton these with a diverse pallet as they have amazing qualities, but stay away from them in the morning. Also, don’t drink the juice. That is one of the biggest spikers of blood sugar. It will start that roller coaster real quickly.

Sauces

This is an overlooked portion of the topic. If you look at just about every sauce such as ketchup, syrup, BBQ sauce, salad dressing, (my breakfast favorite that I had to rid sriracha) all have sugar or corn syrup very high in the ingredient list. I know it is not a meal that we are talking about, so the caloric intake is pretty minute with comparison. However, we are not talking about calories! We are talking about blood sugar and even this minute amount can cause your hormones to go awry.

Where can I find these foods?

People can complain all they want about teenagers being glued to their phones, but we live in an amazing age! We used to have cupboards full of grandma’s recipes, but now we can get all we need with the push of a button! I am not very creative, and who has the time to be, especially in the morning. The great thing about the internet is that plenty of creative people have already done the work for us. We have a great PINTEREST page with TONS of recipes. Ours is not even the best, so check around. My goal for this was not to eliminate things from people’s diets. That causes stress and that works against you. Using this information and PINTEREST you can find fun recipes that you can look forward to eating as opposed to thinking about the foods you shouldn’t. This is very important.

 

Give it a try!

Give yourself a 4 week trial! Try these tips for four weeks without measuring anything. Just assess how much energy you have along with looking to see if you no longer have a sleepy feeling at the 10 and 2 times. If your energy is up, then you are getting healthier. This will cause you to lose weight as a side-effect! Make this change in your breakfast for 4 weeks and see how you feel. I am willing to bet that you will crave less crumby foods and reduce the amount of food you eat throughout the day.

 

Please write to us any questions that you may have!