/Video/10 Sugar Hacks to Change Your Life

10 Sugar Hacks to Change Your Life

An expert from the popular YouTube channel Glucose Revolution offers tips on how to use sugar safely and effectively to manage blood glucose levels and maintain your health.

Tip 1: Eat foods in the right order

Scientific studies have shown that eating the components of a meal in a specific order can reduce the meal’s blood sugar levels by up to 75%.

Why is reducing blood sugar important? Because most of us experience daily glucose spikes without realizing it, and these spikes cause symptoms like fatigue, sugar cravings, chocolate or cookie cravings, insomnia, inflammation, and hormonal issues like PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) or difficult menopause.

Each glucose spike also brings us closer to developing type 2 diabetes. Essentially, if you want to feel better than you do now, managing your glucose levels is a good starting point. It’s like the foundation of your health. If your glucose is constantly spiking like it does for most of us, you won’t feel good and won’t be able to live the life you want. That’s why reducing blood sugar is crucial.

The first tip is to eat foods in the right order. Scientists have found that if you eat vegetables first, followed by protein and fat, and finish with starches and sugars, you can reduce blood sugar spikes by up to 75%. This is an easy starting point. The next time you sit down for a meal, if there’s a clear division between the food components, eat the vegetables first, followed by the protein and fat, and save the starches like rice, noodles, potatoes, bread, and dessert for the end.

The reason this tip works is because eating vegetables first creates a protective mesh in your gut, thanks to all the fiber they contain.

This mesh then slows the entry of glucose molecules from the starches that follow into your bloodstream. It’s an easy trick to start with. You don’t need to change what you eat or how much you eat, just change the order and see how much better you feel. Here’s an example: if you eat broccoli, tofu, and rice, eating the broccoli first, then the tofu, and finishing with the rice leads to a much smaller glucose spike compared to doing it in reverse. Tip number two builds on this.

Tip 2: Start with a vegetable appetizer

This follows the same principles as tip one but with a slight twist. Tip two suggests starting your meal with a vegetable appetizer to harness the power of the fiber.

After the veggie starter, you can eat whatever you usually eat, and the blood sugar spike from the meal will be much smaller than if you skipped the veggie starter.

Your vegetable appetizer should ideally make up about 30% of the total meal.

Tip 3: Stop counting calories

Calories still matter, but they don’t tell you what’s in your food. Two people could eat the same amount of calories—say, 2,000 calories—but one could do it in a way that causes large glucose spikes, leading to fatigue, cravings, acne, type 2 diabetes, or PCOS. Meanwhile, the other person could eat 2,000 calories of foods that keep their glucose levels stable, allowing them to feel great, stay healthy, and thrive.

So, the number of calories you eat isn’t a good indicator of your health. Stop counting calories and focus on what you’re actually eating.

Tip 4: Eat a savory breakfast

This might be the hardest tip for many people, but it’s also the most powerful one to start with. If you’re feeling adventurous and want to see quick results, I highly recommend starting with a savory breakfast.

If in the morning, like most people today, you mainly eat starches and sugars—like a bowl of cereal with orange juice or some toast with jam or granola with bananas and honey—you’re giving yourself a huge glucose shock in the morning.

The problem with this is that after such a large glucose spike in the morning, your hunger will return much faster, and your energy levels will be unstable throughout the day. That big glucose spike in the morning damages your mitochondria—the little factories in your cells responsible for creating energy—and this glucose shock hurts them, preventing them from making the energy you need to do what you want.

A sweet breakfast is bad; you really need to switch to a savory breakfast, and it will change your life. A savory breakfast should prioritize protein, like Greek yogurt, nuts, leftover meat or fish from last night’s dinner, tofu, or protein powder in a smoothie. Then, add some fat, and if you want, a bit of fiber.

You can add a little bit of starch, like some bread or potatoes, but a savory breakfast should not contain anything sweet unless it’s a piece of whole fruit for flavor.

Tip 5: Don’t eat sugar on an empty stomach

Just eat the sugar you like, because when you eat sugar, it’s a decision for pleasure, not health. It’s purely for enjoyment, so even if you’re eating an organic honey cake, don’t think you’re doing it for your health—it’s for pleasure.

But don’t eat sugar on an empty stomach!

When we want to eat sugary treats, that’s perfectly fine because the purpose is enjoyment. However, there are better and worse times to eat sugar for our glucose levels. The worst time to eat sugar for your glucose is early in the morning when your stomach is empty or between meals when your stomach is empty. Why an empty stomach? Because when your stomach is empty, anything you eat passes through your system quickly and enters your bloodstream fast.

This causes a large glucose shock, followed by a crash. That crash activates the craving center in our brain and makes us want more sugar.

So, if you eat sugar early in the morning on an empty stomach, you can almost be sure you’ll be craving sugar for the rest of the day.

Tip 6: Have dessert

You can eat anything sweet as dessert. If you want to eat sugar, enjoy it as a dessert after a meal.

Tip 7: Use vinegar to reduce glucose spikes

Clinical trials show that a tablespoon of vinegar in a large glass of water before a meal can reduce the glucose spike of that meal by up to 30% without changing what you eat—just by adding the vinegar.

Try this trick before a meal containing starches, sugars, or sweets. Vinegar works because it contains acetic acid, a very helpful molecule that slows the breakdown of starches in our digestive system, thereby slowing the rate at which starches enter the bloodstream. The whole point is to reduce the amount of glucose your body receives and slow the glucose entry into your blood.

All types of vinegar work, but the most common ones are apple cider vinegar and white wine vinegar. You can also use rice vinegar, cherry vinegar, or any kind you like. The only one I suggest avoiding is balsamic vinegar, as it contains quite a bit of sugar, which could reduce the positive effect.

However, my research has identified four other useful molecules that can replace vinegar and are even more powerful: mulberry leaf extract, lemon peel extract, cinnamon, and various antioxidants from leafy greens.

Tip 8: Move after meals

Every cell in our body uses glucose to create energy. So, if you move your fingers, the cells in your fingers will burn glucose to contract and do this movement. The more muscles you use and the harder they work, the more glucose they need to perform. We can use this to our advantage.

The tip is to use your muscles for 10 minutes after one of your meals during the day. Very simple: within 90 minutes after finishing a meal, move around, go for a 10-minute walk, clean your apartment, walk your dog, do laundry, wash the dishes—all of it counts.

Or, you can try this very simple tip: if you’re sitting down, put your feet on the ground and lift your heels up and down. By doing this, you’re activating a muscle in your calves called the soleus. The soleus is very good at absorbing excess glucose from the blood.

Tip 9: If you snack, choose savory foods

If you’re really hungry between meals, choose savory snacks. It could be a soft-boiled egg with a pinch of good sea salt, Greek yogurt with some unsweetened peanut butter, or a bit of cheese on toast.

Tip 10: Don’t eat naked carbs—add protein, fat, fiber

Whenever we eat carbohydrates without anything else (called “naked carbs”), they cause a glucose spike. Instead, add some toppings like protein, fat, or fiber to slow the glucose absorption of the carbs into your bloodstream.

This content is derived from the video “10 Life-Changing Glucose Hacks” on the YouTube channel Glucose Revolution.

Received monthly

We will send you the latest information to help you proactively care for and manage your health.

Thank you for subscribing to the newsletter.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Biên Tập Viên

Biên Tập Viên

Comment

Hãy cho chúng tôi biết ý kiến của bạn

You May Be Interested