Avoiding Sugar Spikes

Chrysallis_1

:ohwell: Sugar spikes, I have found, are especially due to white bread which almost instantaneously turns into sugar. Had some french bread the other night, not really thinking, and my blood glucose level shot up to a high 186! Needless to say, it made me feel physically sick. Not worth it.

jenmom2myboys

Are you diabetic? When I had gestational diabetes milk and white rice would shoot my numbers up.

Dragonwolf

The easiest way is to just not eat much bread or other high-carb/starch items (and, of course, stuff that has a lot of sugar).

Instead, plan your meals around protein and fat, with sides of non-starchy carb sources (like green vegetables). Fat is the other source of fuel besides carbs, and the only bad fat is trans fat, so don't be afraid to have some (in fact, your body needs fat to work properly and absorb a lot of the nutrients that help deal with glucose control and metabolic issues).

So, something like:

Breakfast - omelet with cheese, ham, peppers, mushrooms, spinach (if you really want bread, a slice of toast with some butter and/or nut butter would work well here)

Lunch - steak or chicken on a mixed green salad (with good complex greens like spinach, arugula, etc), sunflower seeds, carrots, cucumbers, avocado, and an oil & vinegar based dressing

Dinner - Spaghetti squash with a generous helping of hamburger or sausage meat sauce and some cheese.

Snacks - berries and whipped heavy cream, peanut butter (or other nut butter) on celery sticks or carrot sticks, kale chips, a good quality jerky (without a ton of fillers or added crap), etc.

Barring just avoiding the starchy/sugary stuff is to always pair the carbs with fat and/or protein. This helps modulate the glucose spike (though keep in mind that the glucose will still go up in proportion to the carbs you ate that aren't fiber, the protein just keeps it from going quite so high and spreads the spike out over time; this may or may not be a good thing - if you're over 140 at all, you're risking nerve damage, so 145 for three hours isn't necessarily better than 185 for an hour).

Point202

I'm insulin resistant, and I avoid all white bread like the plague for this reason. For my body, it just sends me into too high a sugar spike and leaves me feeling icky and tired later. I stick to whole wheat breads and whole grains. I also try to eat protein with every snack or meal, especially if I'm enjoying something carb heavy like pasta. I also find that when I'm following a healthy diet day-to-day, my blood sugar level is more stable overall.