Balancing Blood Sugar in the New Year (Part 1)

Happy New Year, folks.  How’s that sugar hangover from the holidays?

Don’t worry, I’m not judging.  All of us have the right to enjoy ourselves and after the last couple of years, celebrating and having a good time is more important than deprivation.

But now that it’s a new year, it’s time to reign it in and remind ourselves that as pleasurable as sugar may be, in excess, it can be a problem.

Blood sugar dysregulation as a result of a high carb diet (particularly processed carbs!) can potentially lead to a host of health issues including obesity, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes!

Sugar is highly addictive, it’s hidden in everything and we typically find we're eating more than we think when we start really paying attention.  

The good news is, taking some time to eliminate sugar from your diet can help reverse many of its detrimental effects.  Further, giving up sugar means more energy once your body re-acclimates to life without it (or with less of it).

No more energy crashes and afternoon cravings!Say goodbye to the afternoon dip in energy!
Understandably, the idea of giving up sugar can be overwhelming so, I’m giving you some of my favorite tips to make it as easy as possible.  Rather than throwing it all into one long post, I’ve decided to split it up for you.

Below, I go over what balanced blood sugar looks like, the stages of blood sugar dysregulation, and I give you some ideas on how to be successful at breakfast (since that’s often the most difficult meal to remove sugar from).  In part 2, I give you more tips on setting yourself up for success by prepping, planning, and batch cooking your meals.

Balanced vs Imbalanced Blood Sugar
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So what exactly does it mean to have balanced blood sugar?  Here’s the simple rundown:

When you wake up in the morning after a 12 hour fast, your blood sugar should be at a healthy level, around 85 mg/dL.

After consuming a well-balanced meal, the body digests the macronutrients from your meal and they are absorbed into your bloodstream. This causes a healthy rise in blood sugar over the next 2 hours (to around 115 mg/dL) and a signal to the body to release the hormone insulin from the pancreas.

Insulin’s job is to remove any excess sugar from the blood and store it in the liver and/or muscles for later use.

After a few hours without a meal, the blood sugar levels begin to drop back toward the fasting levels (85 mg/dL) and the brain sends a signal to the pancreas to release the hormone glucagon.

Glucagon's job is to release stored glucose from the liver back into the bloodstream to be used as energy until the next meal is consumed.

Although the internal mechanisms are far more complex, this is the gist of what happens in our body.  However, when we over consume carbohydrates, the system can go haywire. 

When you wake up in the morning after an 8-12 hour fast, your blood sugar should be at a healthy level, around 85 mg/dL. However, if the hormones that regulate blood sugar overnight cannot function properly, it is not uncommon to see blood sugar levels drop below 79 mg/dL. This often causes people to crave carbs, sweets and/or caffeine.

As a result of the extra glucose from a high carbohydrate meal, our body responds by pumping out extra insulin.  It’s important to note that since our cells only have a limited capacity for glucose, the excess will be converted and stored as body fat.

The excess insulin causes a sharp decrease in blood sugar causing us to feel that “crash” (think: hangry, shaky, irritable).  In this scenario, we typically reach for more carbohydrates to bring our levels back up.  Simultaneously, the body releases the stress hormone cortisol which is also capable of increasing our blood sugar.  (Isn’t it interesting that the body sees low blood sugar as a stress state and responds accordingly?)

The increase in cortisol leads to an increase in insulin and the vicious cycle continues.

Many of us are sadly living with some sort of blood sugar dysregulation, even if we don’t realize it.  The best way to better understand what your body is doing is by purchasing a glucometer or continuous glucose monitor.  I recommend tracking for a minimum of two weeks, while also keeping a food and mood journal.  This will give you an opportunity to see exactly what is going on so that you can make the necessary changes.

Sugar Goes By Many Names
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The first suggestion for eliminating sugar from your diet is to focus on the foods found in the perimeter of your supermarket.  That means fresh vegetables and fruit, meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy (if you can handle it).

The sad truth is, most of the sugar that leads to health issues can be found in packaged products found in the aisles of the store.  And often, people don’t even realize they are consuming sugar because it goes by so many names.

The American Diabetic Association recommends a daily sugar consumption below 20g for women, 36g for men, and less than 12g for children. The average American consumes 71.14g of sugar every day, well over the recommended amount. One of the simplest ways to reduce the intake of added sugar is by learning to read food labels.

Look for foods with 5g of sugar or less per serving!
Keep in mind that:

• As of July 2018, added sugars are listed separately on food labels in America, but not in all countries.
• Naturally occurring sugars from whole foods are not considered added sugars.
• Lactose is the naturally occurring sugar from dairy. The amount of sugar from dairy can vary from product to product. Generally speaking, there is approximately 5g of sugar per 100g of dairy with no added sweeteners.

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Check the ingredient list for any added sugars!
There are currently 61 different names for added sugar in the US, which makes them challenging to identify. 

The main things to keep in mind are:

• Words ending in “-ose” are
  
• added sugars.
• Words ending in “-tol” are added sugars.
• Words such as “syrup,” “juice,” “concentrate,” and “crystals” are sugars.

​Just because the label lists “zero” sugar, does not mean that there are no added sugars in the ingredients. You must check both!

Making Breakfast Sugar Free
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For most folks who eat a Standard American Diet (SAD) diet, breakfast can be the hardest meal on any type of sugar detox program. SAD breakfasts are usually very high in sugar and carbs:

• oatmeal (usually with sugar and dried fruit because who eats oatmeal by itself?!?!)
• flavored yogurts (high in sugar) with more fruit and granola
• cereals
• pancakes/waffles with syrup
• pastries

In a standard American breakfast, it is not uncommon to see upwards of 30g of sugar in that single meal. Take for example a yogurt parfait. A single serving of Chobani black cherry flavored greek yogurt has 17g of carbohydrate (which includes 15g of sugar). Top that with 1/2 cup of organic Love Crunch granola, and you've added an additional 40g of carbohydrate (which includes 12g of sugar). That's a 400 calorie breakfast that includes 57g of carbohydrates and 27g of sugar!!!! WHOA!

Your hormones are fighting to keep approximately 5g (that's 1 tsp) of sugar in your blood stream at any given time. That means that your "healthy" greek yogurt parfait just created a crisis in your body because you now have over 5x the amount of sugar in your blood stream. This causes the body to rapidly release the hormone insulin from the pancreas in response to the high levels of sugars in the blood.

To ensure you are successful with eating a balanced breakfast without the excess sugar, I highly recommend you plan your meals in advance and prep them as much as possible.  Rather than thinking “breakfast foods”, remind yourself that any food is fair game for breakfast.
Here are my Top 10 Breakfast Recipes while on a sugar detox:

1. Nourishing Warm Paleo Breakfast Salad

2. Spicy Spaghetti Squash Egg Bake

3. Breakfast Stuffed Delicata Squash. Need to up the veggies? This is great served with a breakfast salad (see #4).

4. Breakfast Salad with Everything Bagel Seasoning Dressing. Look for a sugar-free sausage, or make your own using ground turkey or pork!

5. Breakfast Casserole

6. Mashed Cauliflower Breakfast Bowl

7. Smoked Salmon Breakfast Bowl

8. Pesto Cauliflower Rice Breakfast Bowls

9. Green Smoothie. Add your favorite clean protein powder to up the protein!

10. Creamy Zucchini Blueberry Smoothie. Add your favorite clean protein powder to up the protein!

Coming Up Next
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Now that you know what healthy blood sugar should be, what to look for on a label so that you can avoid excess sugar, and are equipped with breakfast ideas, we need to dive into panning and batch cooking food.

In our busy world, it’s imperative that we plan ahead otherwise we will find ourselves reaching for convenience food.  And, trust me, those are the ones jam packed with sugar (even the so-called healthier options.