Summary
Maintaining healthy glucose levels is crucial for overall health and preventing conditions like diabetes. Key lifestyle strategies include a balanced diet rich in whole foods, regular physical activity, and maintaining a healthy weight. Eating smaller, more frequent meals can help stabilize blood sugar, and incorporating fiber, healthy fats, and protein can prevent spikes. Regular exercise improves insulin sensitivity, allowing the body to use glucose more effectively.
Controlling your blood glucose levels is sometimes a struggle, especially for prediabetics or diabetics. Here are a few lifestyle changes that can help:
1. people who walk for 2 minutes after every 20 minutes of sitting, or walk for 5 minutes after every 30 minutes of sitting have low pos-prandial (after the food) blood glucose levels. A linked concept is that if we take a walk after a meal then the glucose spike is reduced as the muscles will use up the glucose that just got absorbed. This walk should be 15-30 minutes after eating so that there is digestion and absorption of the food. (Study 1 linked below)
2. If you add an acidic food item with carbs, e.g. lemon juice/lemonade, vinegar, or pickle then the oral alpha amylase enzyme is neutralized. This leads to reduced glycemic response (blood glucose levels after a food) by 20-50%. It can mean a bowl of rice may be only as good as half a bowl. A linked concept is that moving carbs to the later part of the food, for example by eating salads, eggs, proteins before the carbohydrates also reduces the glycemic response. These both effects i.e. acidic food item plus delayed carb eating are additive. (Study 2 linked below.)
References
Apr 15, 2023 at 1:59 PM
The Acute Effects of Interrupting Prolonged Sitting Time in Adults with Standing and Light-Intensity Walking on Biomarkers of Cardiometabolic Health in Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis – Sports Medicine https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-022-01649-4
Apr 15, 2023 at 9:13 PM
Acid induced reduction of the glycemic response to starch-rich foods: the salivary α-amylase inhibition hypothesis – PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30230497/