Raising Your Sugar IQ – Part 3

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Part 3 – Sugar is everywhere these days and many of us have varying degrees of sugar cravings. My friend and colleague, Lynne Stephens, is a health coach who specializes in helping people move beyond their attachments to sugar and embrace healthier eating. I am so very excited for her to share a series of four posts with us this month on the topic of Raising Your Sugar IQ. Enjoy these eye-opening posts and increase your awareness of how to better care for your health in our sugar-saturated culture! Feel free to post comments or questions, and Lynne will respond.

Previous Posts: Part 1; Part 2

Have Your Cake . . . and Fiber Too

Before we get to the cake part, let’s talk about fruit. Which is better for you—fruit juice or whole fruit? From a blood sugar perspective, it’s a better idea to eat the whole fruit, and here’s why. Fruit juice—even unsweetened—is a more concentrated form of sugar and is more likely to raise blood sugar to an unhealthy level. The fiber in a whole piece of fruit slows down the absorption of the sugar. Plus, when you drink a glass of orange juice, you are probably getting the juice of TWO oranges (or more), raising the level of sugar even further when compared to whole fruit. Other benefits of eating whole fruit include additional nutrients (like the bioflavonoids in the pith of an orange) and a greater feeling of fullness than juice alone provides.

So where do you begin if you just can’t imagine breakfast without a fruity beverage? If you’re hooked on fruit juice but would like to reduce its impact on your blood sugar, try pouring yourself 50% less juice and substituting water or sparking water for the rest. You can also experiment with replacing your fruit juice with fruit-infused waters like these. (I recommend using all organic ingredients when you make these.) This can be a challenging transition if you love your morning orange juice. But it can also be a good place to start to move away from a breakfast that spikes your blood sugar and incites cravings a few hours later.

This guideline of eating fiber to help prevent blood sugar spikes extends beyond the idea of choosing whole fruit over fruit juice. It’s a good principle to apply to entire meals. This study found that eating the protein and non-starchy vegetables of your meal first raised blood sugar less than eating bread and juice first. So including a fiber-rich salad, preferably at the beginning of the meal, is a great practice to adopt, while starting with bread or a starchy appetizer may raise blood sugar higher, encourage cravings and lead you to eat more.

imageSo back to the cake. Most of us are not going to go through life without the occasional piece of cake, pie or fudge. (I know I’m not.) But when you know you’re going to indulge in a treat, it makes sense to load up on some crunchy vegetables first. You’ll most likely not only eat less of the treat food, but you may prevent a damaging blood sugar spike that puts you one step closer to insulin resistance and diabetes. (For more on that, see the previous post.) Healthy, non-starchy vegetable fiber (raw seems to be preferable to cooked) before sugary or starchy carbs is, in my opinion, a good eating practice to adopt. It’s just one tool in the toolbox for helping to keep blood sugar stable. If you want to work on minimizing your risk of type 2 diabetes or if you already have symptoms of insulin resistance (see the previous post), two other tools to consider are a low-glycemic diet and regular exercise. Healthy for Life by Dr. Ray Strand, is a great book to seek out to learn more in this area.

Lynne Stephens is a certified health coach who enjoys helping people break free from sugar-controlled eating to experience new energy and vitality.

You can find her at:

http://lynnestephenshealthcoach.com

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Comments

Raising Your Sugar IQ – Part 3 — 5 Comments

  1. You know, Martin, I really think the key is being mindful of what we’re eating. If you eat healthy 90% of the time, a piece of bread before your meal is not going to impact you very much. It’s the mindless eating of piece after piece or cookie after cookie that’s more harmful. And for me there’s the psychological piece as well. I am such an “all or nothing” girl that if I indulge in two or three pieces of bread at a restaurant, I’m tempted to say to myself, “Well, I’ve just blown it. Might as well go whole hog.” A lot of healthy eating has to do with knowing ourselves, being aware of what we’re doing and having a plan.

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