Glucose Revolution: The life-changing power of balancing your blood sugar

by Jessie Inchauspé

I started keeping a diary of everything I ate. For each entry in my diary, I zoomed into four-hour windows. For instance, ‘5:56p.m. – glass of orange juice’. I looked at my glucose measurements starting one hour before I drank the juice and ending three hours later.

Starch, fibre, fructose and sucrose – the various forms glucose can take – exist thanks to photosynthesis.

Any part of a plant we eat turns back into glucose (and fructose) as we digest it, except for fibre, which passes right through us. One parent, four siblings

Carbohydrates = Starch + Fibre + Sugars (glucose, fructose, and sucrose)

we can make glucose from the food we eat – from fat or protein. Our liver, through a process called gluconeogenesis, performs this process.

when glucose is limited, many cells in our body can, when needed, switch to using fat for fuel instead. This is called metabolic flexibility. (The only cells that always rely on glucose are red blood cells.)

some diets such as Atkins and keto deliberately restrict the consumption of carbohydrates in order to keep a person’s glucose levels extremely low and thus push the body into burning fat for fuel. This is called n...

Nature intended us to consume glucose in a specific way: in plants. Wherever there was starch or sugar, there was fibre as well. This is important, because the fibre helped to slow our body’s absorption of glucose.

When the starchy parts of plants are processed to make supermarket goods, they are stripped of their fibre. Fibre-packed seeds and roots are turned into starchy bread or crisps (and sugar is usually added).

The basis of food processing is to first strip away the fibre, then concentrate the starch and sugars.

Another way to describe flattening your glucose curves is reducing glycaemic variability. The smaller your glycaemic variability, the better your health will be.

Until they do, remember that if the food you ate was sweet and it created a glucose spike, it also created an invisible fructose spike, and that’s what makes a sweet spike more harmful than a starchy spike.

When we spike, we deliver glucose to our cells too quickly. The speed – or velocity – at which it is delivered is the issue. Too much at once, and problems pile up.

Free radicals are a big deal because anything they touch, they damage. They randomly snap and modify our genetic code (our DNA), creating mutations that activate harmful genes and can lead to the development of cancer. They poke holes in the membranes of our cells, turning a normally functioning cell into a malfunctioning one.

When there are too many free radicals to be neutralised, our body is said to be in a state of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a driver of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline and general ageing. And fructose increases oxidative stress even more than glucose alone. That’s one of the reasons that sweet foods (which contain fructose) are worse than starchy foods (which don’t). Too much fat can also increase oxidative stress.

Maillard reaction. He discovered that browning happens when a glucose molecule bumps into another type of molecule, causing a reaction. The second molecule is then said to be ‘glycated’. When a molecule is glycated, it’s damaged.

The more glucose we deliver to our body, the more often glycation happens. Once a molecule is glycated, it’s damaged forever – which is why you can’t untoast a piece of toast.

Fructose molecules glycate things 10 times as fast as glucose, generating that much more damage. Again, this is another reason why spikes from sugary foods such as cookies (which contain fructose) make us age faster than do spikes from starchy foods such as pasta (which doesn’t).

The combination of too many free radicals, oxidative stress and glycation leads to a generalised state of inflammation in the body.

When our glucose levels increase, our pancreas becomes the orchestra conductor of Tetris. One of the pancreas’s main functions is to send a hormone called insulin into the body. Insulin’s sole purpose is to stash excess glucose in storage units throughout the body, to keep it out of circulation and protect us from damage.

Our liver turns glucose into a new form, called glycogen. It’s equivalent to how plants turn glucose into starch. Glycogen is actually the cousin of starch – it’s composed of many glucose molecules attached hand to hand. If excess glucose stayed in its original form, it would cause oxidative stress and glycation. Once transformed, it does no damage.

The second storage unit is our muscles. Our muscles are effective storage units because we have so many of them.

Once insulin has stored all the glucose it can in our liver and muscles, any excess glucose is turned into fat and stored in our fat reserves. And that’s one of the ways we gain weight. And then some. Because it’s not just glucose that our body has to deal with, it must also dispose of fructose. And unfortunately, fructose cannot be turned into glycogen and stored in the liver and the muscles. The only thing that fructose can be stored as is fat.

The fat our body creates from fructose has a few unfortunate destinies: first, it accumulates in the liver and drives the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Second, it fills up fat cells in our hips, thighs and face and between our organs, and we gain weight. Finally, it enters the bloodstream and contributes to an increased risk of heart disease. (You may have heard of it as

This is another reason why, if two foods have the same number of calories, I’d recommend that you skip the sweet food (which contains fructose) in favour of a savoury food (which doesn’t). The absence...

Insulin, as I’ve explained, is vital to this process, as it helps stash excess glucose in those three ‘storage lockers’.

However, the more glucose spikes we experience, the more insulin is released in our bodies. In the long term, chronically elevated levels of insulin bring problems of their own. Too much insulin is the root cause of obesity, type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and more.

If you compare two meals that contain the same number of calories, the one that leads to a smaller glucose spike will keep you feeling full for longer. Calories aren’t everything (more on that in Part III). Second, constant hunger is a symptom of high insulin levels.

TRY THIS: Think of your favourite veggie or salad. Prepare it with care, and eat it before lunch and dinner for a week. Notice your cravings and whether they change.

If you do wait, try not to leave more than a couple of hours between your green starter and the rest of your meal. That’s because two hours is around the time it takes for fibre to go through the stomach and the top part of the small intestine.

Soup is a great dish – it contains plenty of nutrients and vitamins, it’s filling and it’s one of the healthiest starters you can order at a restaurant. But it’s not healthier than eating a whole vegetable.

people on a glucose-flattening diet can lose more weight while eating more calories than people who eat fewer calories but spike their glucose levels.

Breakfast is the worst time to eat just sugar and starches,

My go-to smoothie recipe is 2 scoops of protein powder, 1 tablespoon of flaxseed oil, ¼ avocado, 1 tablespoon of crunchy almond butter, ¼ banana, 1 cup of frozen berries and some unsweetened almond milk.

Fruit The best options to keep your glucose levels steady are berries, citrus fruits and small, tart apples, because they contain the most fibre and smallest amount of sugar. The worst options – because they have the highest amount of sugar – are mangoes, pineapple and other tropical fruit. Make sure you eat something else before them.

Sugar is sugar. Choose whole fruits over dried fruit.

And as much as you can, choose fruit for your sweet fix

Other ingenious additions to either oatmeal or yoghurt include cinnamon, cacao powder, cacao nibs, shredded unsweetened coconut, or unsweetened nut butter

The best sweeteners that cause no side effects on glucose and insulin levels are: • Allulose • Monk fruit • Stevia (look for pure stevia extract because some other forms of it are mixed with glucose-spiking fillers) • Erythritol

There are some artificial sweeteners I’d recommend you avoid, because they are known to increase insulin and/or glucose levels, especially when combined with foods, or cause other health issues. They are: • Aspartame • Maltitol (turns to glucose when digested) • Sucralose • Xylitol • Acesulfame-K

The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to use sweeteners to wean ourselves off the need to sweeten everything. Because sweetness is addictive.

I also like drinking teas that are naturally sweet, such as cinnamon or liquorice. It always helps me.

if you want to eat something sweet, it’s better to have it as dessert rather than as a snack in the middle of the day on an empty stomach.

TRY THIS: If you feel the urge to eat something sweet between meals, put it aside – in the fridge or somewhere else – and enjoy it for dessert after your next meal instead.

vinegar is more effective than many thermogenic supplements touted as fat burners.

Second, once acetic acid gets into the bloodstream, it penetrates our muscles: there, it encourages our muscles to make glycogen faster than they usually would, which in turn leads to more efficient uptake of glucose.

What’s more, acetic acid not only reduces the amount of insulin present – which helps us get back to fat-burning mode – it also has a remarkable effect on our DNA. It tells our DNA to reprogramme slightly so that our mitochondria burn more fat. Yep. For real.

Here are some recipes from Glucose Goddess community members: • A cup of hot cinnamon tea and 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar • A glass of water, a pinch of salt, a pinch of cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar • A glass of water, a pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon of liquid aminos and 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar • A teapot of hot water, with a wedge of lemon, some ginger root, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and a pinch of allulose, monk fruit, stevia extract or erythritol for sweetness • Sparkling water, ice and 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar • Vegetables fermented in a jar full of apple cider vinegar

And here’s the kicker: when we move after eating we flatten our glucose curve without increasing our insulin level – just as was the case with vinegar. Although our muscles usually need insulin to stash glucose away, if they are currently contracting, they don’t need insulin to be able to uptake glucose.

If you’re looking for energy, and I know it’s counter-intuitive, opt for a savoury snack rather than a sweet one. And not a starchy one, either, since starch also turns to glucose.