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Recommendation:Short video on a nuanced approach to weight loss
Stop Trying To Lose Weight: Do This Instead. (Secrets from a biochemist)/Episode 16 of 18, YouTube
I should start off by saying that I don't love the topic of weight loss for women because I feel that my generation of women received the message that we are all supposed to be smaller, skinnier and take up less space.
Nevertheless for women in perimenopause and post menopause, weight gain is one of the most common complaints and changing body composition can have very real consequences to our health.
To be clear, this is not a weight loss formula per se but a set of principles that will help stabilize your blood sugar, and therefore improve your body composition and likely result in weight loss. (For a review of what blood glucose is see below).
Jesse Inchauspé, The Glucose Goddess, is a passionate biochemist, best-selling author and one of the best educators on the internet.
Many of her videos and books explain why prolonged glucose spikes are HARD ON THE BODY. We are talking systemic inflammation, fatigue, aging, and if bad enough, diabetes, which affects many of our other organs.
She tells us in the above video that when we are able to keep our blood sugar steady we:
1. Reduce our cravings.
This is because after every glucose spike comes a dip in blood glucose which causes cravings for things like cookies and chips.
2. Reduce hunger.
If glucose levels are steady then we are likely getting a good amount of protein. This causes our hunger hormones to be steady and we can go hours without eating.
3. Reduce insulin in our bodies.
Insulin is a hormone released by the pancreas to help glucose get transported into the cells to be used or stored which is a good thing.
"The catch", she tells us, "Is that when there's a lot of insulin in our body, our body is told to not burn fat".
Burning fat for fuel is important if we want to be metabolically flexible. In other words, we want to be able to switch back and forth between burning glucose for fuel and fat for fuel.
Those that utilize mostly glucose for fuel end up with low blood sugar and being hungry every 2 hours. No good!!
So, by having steady glucose levels, we reduce the amount of insulin in the body, we use fat for fuel, and we reduce cravings and hunger.
She tells us that resulting fat loss is a natural consequence of all these other factors.
I love that this isn't a diet, it's not restrictive and there's no will power involved.
So how do we steady our glucose levels and avoid spikes?
Here are her top 4 hacks that she uses. I've had lots of feedback from people and they love her hacks. Worth trying!! I promise!!
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Eat a savory breakfast: She tells us that glucose spikes at breakfast cause a glucose roller coaster for the rest of the day.
If you like sweets, you don't have to eliminate them, just eat them as DESSERT after lunch or dinner instead of your breakfast.
This means hold off on most cereals, muffins, granola, fruit puree, honey, orange juice, etc. She considers all of this dessert (worth noting here that orange juice causes spikes equivalent to soda. People think it's "healthy" because it comes from fruit. Make no mistake about it, it can cause a largeglucose spike).
She recommends starting with proteins (whole fat unsweetened yogurt, meat, eggs, nuts, beans, fish) and fats (olive oil, avocado and butter). then if you want a starch for taste add a piece of bread or some potatoes. But again, save that other sweet stuff for later in the day as desert.
- A tablespoon of vinegar a day in a cup of water before your biggest meal of the day. Vinegar contains acetic acid which interacts with your digestive enzymes and cuts the glucose spike of your meal by 30%!!
- Veggie starter:For one of your meals eat some veggies first. It lines the intestines with fiber so that any glucose eaten won't get through your intestines into your bloodstream as quickly.
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Move after eating. Use your body and muscles for 10 minutes. Your muscles will use the glucose instead of it hanging around your bloodstream causing a spike.
You can walk, clean, dance. It really doesn't take much.
I highly recommend that you learn as much as you can about glucose spikes. Understanding them and minimizing them puts you in a much better position to manage your health.
You can also read her book, Glucose Revolution:The Life-Changing Power Of Balancing Your Blood Sugar.
or visit her YouTube Channel.
If you try any of these hacks please let me know what you think!!
****(Quick review:GLUCOSE is a type of sugar we get from both starchy foods and sugars and it's used as energy by our bodies.
As it travels through our bloodstream to our cells we call it blood glucose or blood sugar
When there is a lot of it in our blood stream we call it a glucose spike. The spikes here and there aren't such a big deal but it's the larger, prolonged and more frequent spikes that is very hard on the body).
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