How do you track your glucose intake? Does that just mean moderating your carbs in general and sugar in particular, or something else? It’s none of my business. I’m just curious how other people manage their glucose in the real world as opposed to abstractly…
I keep an approximate tally of any sugars I consume using printed nutritional information from food packaging or other sources. For some years I used an app where you could enter what you ate, and it would tell you the nutrition. But it became popular and expensive, and I had already become good at estimating macronutrients. I have never had high sugars and would like to try monitoring at some point. I am a serious weightlifter and purposely increase glucose within an hour before or after a workout, and don’t count that. I don’t count fruits or vegetables. Although I won’t begrudge an occasional indulgence, I otherwise try to keep my daily sugar below 40 grams, which is not very demanding, and allows me plenty of treats should I want them and choose them carefully.
Actually lowest mortality rate is right around BMI 25 to slightly higher. Going below increases mortality rate as much as going higher does. FWIW.
BMI in the “overweight” category, especially the lower half of that grouping, is a very mixed bag, some very fit with little excess fat, and some over fat. Of course some under 25 are over fat …
It’s a great tool to follow populations and a reasonable screening tool, but personally I discourage following it, or weight on the scale, as a most important thing. The lifestyle patterns (inclusive of nutrition and exercise) are more predictive of health outcomes than anything else.
I was not the one asked, but I’ll add my answer about tracking glucose intake: I do not, not consciously anyway.
My belief is that in the context of healthy choices and regular exercise my glucose intake is best regulated like thirst is. I drink when I am thirsty and stop when I am not; I eat (a balanced selection of healthy choices, albeit I eat less legumes than I think I should as my wife is less a fan of them than I am) when I am hungry and stop when I am not. I eat very little highly processed food, no sweet beverages, and rarely eat desserts. For me exercise is key, not only in keeping up fat free mass, keeping down fat mass, heart and blood vessel health, and the host of other health benefits, but because it keeps me more mindful of sticking to healthy options and to paying attention to hunger rather than all the external drivers of consumption. (Not a serious weightlifter, like @Dr_Paprika, but do believe that modest amounts of strength training exercise is of significant benefit to add to a base of cardiorespiratory exercise, and that even a very little is of huge impact.)
Pretty comfortable that beneath my conscious level my brain and the rest of my body are counting much better than my consciousness ever could. As long as my conscious self keeps up its end: only choosing between healthy choices in reasonable balance and exercising regularly.
As far as my BMI comment goes, that was made somewhat “tongue in cheek” since many people swear by it as the only true measure of health, which is silly. I tend to ignore it since I am short, and calling me “overweight” because I was at BMI 26 seemed somewhat arbitrary. Nevertheless, many doctors use it as a measuring stick and lots of people work incredibly hard to get down to 25 even if they otherwise appear healthy and fit.
I agree that strength training, in addition to cardio training, adds many health benefits. After losing a lot of weight earlier this year I realized I had also lost some muscle. In an effort to build back my muscle I increased my cardio, adding a passegiata after every meal, and started upper body strength training with weights for the first time. My arms are now back to where they were before I dieted, and my legs are again where they should be.
The problem with treating sugar like you treat thirst, only partaking when your body tells you, is that for many people sugar is an addiction, and they overindulge because their brain is constantly telling them they need it. For those people counting sugar grams helps keep them on track and shows them when they are approaching an upper limit they have set for themself.
No question that many of us are addicted to sweetness. It results from fairly constant exposure from early childhood on to sweetness levels well beyond the levels that our ancestors were exposed to in the natural world: the constantly available juice box in the hands of many who are now young adults, sugar bomb cereals, frequent treats with lots of sucrose, many highly processed foods with added HFCS, and on and on. Sweet is a main contributor to hitting hard on that hedonic brain center that says eat more, and in those cases is packaged with very little that hits the satiety center, which says “fulla up.”
If counting works for some, wonderful for them. Still my take is that IF the exposure to sweet is in the form of real whole foods, minimally processed, therefore in smaller doses of sweet hit and amounts of sugar per unit of food, less extreme stimulation, coupled with the stuff that also hits the satiety center, then our brains working with the rest of our bodies, will regulate it just fine. Even a sugar addict is unlikely to overconsume baked beets, or roasted carrots, or sweet potatoes, or bananas, or apples … (exceptions like @puzzlegal duly noted).
Obviously diabetics have different ground rules.
I just have different satiety cues, I think. I need a chunk of flavor and a hit of calories to feel full, preferably some of those calories from things that aren’t sugar. So a small amount of fancy chocolate, or a little piece of meat coupled with a cinnamon stick (I really like cinnamon, so much that I sometimes chew on plain cinnamon sticks. My dentist is freaked out, but it hasn’t hurt my teeth yet.)
In general, I have a good intuitive sense of how many calories are in most foods. I counted calories rigorously for two weeks, when I started working with a nutritionist, and only a few items surprised me. (most by having fewer calories than I expected. Although if I hadn’t previously looked up the calories of 5 guys burgers, that would have surprised me on the high side.) I learned that left to myself, eating as much as I want of my own food at home, I usually eat about 1800 calories, with rare days when I over-indulge.
Agreed, as long as you can stay within your lane, but it’s easy for some people to be tempted by candy, cake, and cookies. Nobody I know is going to pick a moderate amount of beets or carrots over a sugary treat. Even though they know it’s “bad” for them, they will eat it for the cheap and easy sugar hit.
For people who just can’t stay in the “whole food” lane they can benefit from guardrails that keep them from consuming too much sugar. I try to keep my daily sugar below 50 grams, and usually find myself between 20 and 30, which is something I can live with for now.
Whatever you are doing, keep doing it. I use an app to make sure I stay under 1800 calories, because I’m not good at remembering everything I eat, even though I only eat three meals a day. For me it’s as much a memory thing as it is not knowing how many calories are in a particular food.
It isn’t that hard if you consider sweeteners a reasonable alternative. It is also easier if you tend not to eat dessert or prefer savoury snack foods anyway. Popcorn is loaded with healthy polyphenols, nuts are very nutritive, homemade jerky or pork rinds high in protein without much sugar…
You’re preaching to the choir. The only sweet I ever eat is a small piece of 90% dark chocolate every morning for medicinal purposes.
I like sweet snacks, but don’t usually have them handy-by, except a box of tiny chocolates. Three (my usual serving) is about 70 calories.
I’ve tried not to get into the habit of eating dessert regularly.
I eat too much when i eat out. I lost weight over the pandemic mostly because i ate at home, and not at the office cafeteria. And i gained weight in August because i was away from home (and also because i wasn’t sure where my next meal was coming from, so I tended to overeat at breakfast.)
I think some of these food preferences are related to how one was raised. We rarely had dessert at home, perhaps only on Sundays. Both cooking shows and fine restaurants often make some desserts that taste like, recall or resemble popular childhood treats. I have literally never polished off even a medium tub of ice cream in one sitting, which seems to be a thing with many.
I have taken steps so the most convenient snacks to eat are fairly healthy, especially at night. I’d say 80% of the time I crave a snack I prefer a savoury option. But I trust my body - I think it is pretty good at pushing me to drink, eat sugar, eat more calories or eat salty food when required.
My brother did that every afternoon when he was in the track team. It was cheap, fluffy ice cream, but he ate a LOT of it. He was also a teenager boy, and he ran so hard he vomited after practice. So the ice cream maybe just replaced his lunch. He was skinny, and did not get fat eating that tub of ice cream every weekday.
While I continue to plow through the data I thought it was appropriate to provide a short version of some of the results of my CGM testing. Once I have all the gory details worked out, I will then add them to this thread.
The Short Version:
I decided to wear an Abbott Labs Libre 2 Constant Glucose Monitor (CGM) for 28 days for three reasons. First, to see how different foods affected my glucose level, second, to see if I could lower my glucose spikes using glucose lowering hacks, and third, to better understand why my fasting glucose was so high.
It should be reiterated that I am neither diabetic nor prediabetic, but my higher than expected fasting glucose worried me even though my HbA1c was normal and my PCP wasn’t concerned. My Fasting Insulin and HOMA-IR tests did show I had Insulin Resistance. I was hoping the CGM would tell me how carbohydrates impact my blood glucose levels, and whether glucose-lowering “hacks” actually worked.
I discovered that my fasting glucose was high due to the Dawn Effect. If instead of being taken at 8:30 a.m. it had been taken at 5:00 a.m. before the Dawn Effect it would have been well within the expected range. I also learned that by moderating complex carbs and mostly avoiding simple carbs, I could easily keep my glucose within the “safe range” while still eating tasty and healthy food, including starches and fruit. Finally, I ascertained that some glucose-lowering hacks, such as passegiata (post-meal walk) and eating Resistant Starch, did help keep my glucose spikes lower.
I will likely re-check my glucose next year using the same type of CGM to ensure my glucose levels remain in the safe zone. I recommend anyone curious about their glucose levels try wearing a CGM and see what they can learn.
Thanks for the update.
As far as everyone should consider doing the same thing …
Did you learn anything that is other than what standard healthy advice would have already suggested?
Avoid simple carbs, moderate amounts of complex carbs and fruit, lots of vegetables, walk after eating … all pretty standard. Foods higher in resistant starch you’ve refined some, but to some degree that comes automatically as part of most healthy diet patterns (high RS foods include legumes, oats, barley, leftover rice and potatoes …)
It reassured you that your doctor was correct about your fasting level. That’s useful.
I do suspect that the future will include very useful indices gleaned from this type of data as it gets collected en masse though.
For example, I learned that while eating two kiwi fruit cause almost no glucose spike, I get an enormous spike from eating two ripe plums. Kiwi has a GI of 50 while plums have a GI of 40. I now know I should stick with eating kiwi fruit and avoid plums.That’s contrary to the common wisdom of the glycemic index, and I eat fruit almost every day.
That’s just one thing I learned. I think general advice is good, but people react differently to different food. The only way to know how YOU react is to wear a monitor.
Do large glucose spikes really matter in the long run? I don’t know, but I don’t see any harm in learning how to keep my blood sugar as low as possible. As far as I can tell, nothing bad can come from that.
As you likely have gathered sometimes I’m just contrary … but you have the risk of over generalizing from small n. You had two specific ripe plums and two specific kiwi. Maybe another set of less ripe plums wouldn’t give you any significant spikes at all? I’m not yet convinced that micromanagement of avoiding specific fruits based on these limited sample sizes is going to add to anything, and reducing the healthiness of foods to the one dimension of glucose spike is a bit incomplete to me.
Before publishing my CGM findings, I wanted to share a diagram I made showing a “virtuous glucose cycle”. I’ve found it quite useful for me. I’m curious if others think it makes sense, or is complete BS. Have at it.
While you best understand your own experience, I’m not sure everyone with lower glucose would experience less hunger, or that this would make people more physically active.
Point taken. In my case, high glucose spikes led to drastic drops in glucose, which in turn led to hunger and cravings, and snacking between meals. When I lowered my glucose spikes, my hunger and cravings were reduced dramatically and I was able to stop snacking. That helped me continue to lose weight even though I was no longer dieting. It may all be a coincidence, but it continues to work that way for me today.
Having lost over 30 pounds since the beginning of the year, I can attest that my activity level has definitely increased. Whether that increase is due to my losing weight or something else, is certainly up for debate.