Knowing how to balance blood sugar is the key whether you fight cravings, mood swings or want to prevent diabetes.
The obvious way to do it is by eating whole plant foods, but this is not enough! In addition to eating unprocessed you also need to make sure your insulin works efficiently.
Because there is no point in having too much insulin circulating in your blood if it can’t get sugar into your blood cells.
The real secret to having blood sugar balanced is a SYNERGY of eating slow energy releasing carbs while allowing insulin to do it’s job as efficiently as possible.
Then, your body starts working like a Swiss watch. You turn into an Energiser bunny producing and burning energy on demand. You get rid of moodiness, reduce inflammation and become nearly disease proof.
Sounds good?
Let’s see how to do that.
1. Ditch the oil
The main reason why insulin works inefficiently aka insulin resistence, is too much fat in your diet. (study)
Fat gets in the way and is deposited into muscle cells. Then like a sticky gum in a key hole, it doesn’t allow insulin to open the door of a cell wall so sugar can’t get in. As a result there is too much sugar and too much insulin circulating in the blood but neither is doing its job. This is what makes you float up high in a sugary cloud or dip low feeling shaky and irritable.
Solution?
Ditch the oils and replace them with small amounts of nuts and seeds. They come packaged with a whole lot of nutrients and phytochemicals as well as fibre. And fibre slows down the release of energy.
So whether you decide to add a handful of walnuts to your bean burgers or make home-made muffins with some almond butter, as long as you avoid processed oils, your blood sugar will remain steady.
2. Blended is good, whole is better
Making blended soups is quick and easy. It’s a great time saver but it can back fire when it comes to blood sugar balance. When you blend vegetables, sharp blades of your food processor “pre-digest” the food for you. Then as you eat your soup as a thick liquid, it takes very little work for your stomach to break it down.
Glucose is released quickly into your blood stream which can be the reason why you feel hungry shortly after your soupy lunch or have cravings in the mid-afternoon.
Instead while enjoying a blended soup add some whole steamed veggies. Then instead of having a sweet potato bisque on it’s own, you’ll have for example kale or broccoli florets mixed in.
3. Resistant starch rocks
Resistant starch is mostly found in beans, peas and lentils. Your body digests it slowly and releases glucose even slower.
Did you know about the second meal effect of lentils?
You can check the study here but in a nutshell it goes like this:
When you eat lentils for dinner it affects your blood sugar even the following morning after breakfast. Regardless of whether you had some complex carbs like porridge or processed like a croissant. This is amazing!
The bottom line is, if you want your blood sugar to be steady, eat legumes every day. Have at least 1/2 cup of beans, peas or lentils a day to see the effect.
That’s it. Simple, yet effective.
See if you can try at least one of these in the next meal you have.
Cheers to steady hands, a levelled head and a healthy body.
Lenka
