EDIT Your Meal’s Courses
You’ve heard about the problems related to eating a diet full of processed carbohydrates or added sugars. Have you experienced the blood sugar spike and subsequent crash that brings hunger and cravings along with it? You may not have realized what was happening inside, but the result is the same.
Your body is designed to seek balance, so it responds to the blood sugar spike these foods cause with insulin that signals your liver to store excess glucose (sugar) as glycogen. However, if you repeatedly choose foods that cause a blood sugar spike several times a day, your liver glycogen capacity can be quickly exceeded. In this case, insulin signals fat cells to store the excess as triglycerides.
Has your doctor warned you that your triglycerides are high? You are feeding this situation with your food choices … and the order in which you eat your food.
I’ve shared how you can build a healthy plate by including protein, carbs and healthy fats. And you can control the level of blood sugar spike by eating these in a certain order. Really!
Studies have been exploring how the order in which you eat your foods affects the blood sugar spike, and have presented some interesting results.
It seems that eating processed carbs or high-sugar foods at the beginning of your meal (or by themselves) will result in high glucose and also high insulin levels, which essentially “flip the switch” to prompt your body to store fat.
However, the studies found that eating protein and vegetables at the beginning of the meal, followed by carbohydrates, resulted in lower glucose levels and significantly lower insulin levels.
I find this intriguing, but how does this affect you?
What are your common snack foods? If they come from a vending machine, they are most likely processed carbs that would “flip the switch” to storage mode. Eat protein and vegetables – perhaps apple with nut butter or veggies with hummus would be an example.
In my last newsletter, we talked about eating out. When you eat at a restaurant, what is the first item they often put on your table? Bread or chips and salsa came to mind for me. Now you know that eating these first is setting you up for trouble.
What if you asked the server to bring them with your entree, and you ate at least half of your protein and vegetable (those are on your plate, right?) before eating any of the carbs? I think this approach would allow you to eat a portion of processed carbs without putting your blood sugar level at risk.
I would normally advise my clients to omit these carbs altogether. yet this approach seems to provide a compromise with which we can both LIVE! Isn’t that the goal?
Would you find that incorporating this EDIT would be sustainable? I believe you would benefit as you adopt this approach and choose to pursue wellness for you, for life – because health is wealth.
