10 Life-Changing Glucose Hacks: easy tricks that will change how you feel forever | Episode 3 of 18

And then after your veggie starter, eat whatever you usually eat. And the glucose spike of your meal is going to be much smaller than if you didn't have the veggie starter. And you're going to eat more in the process as well and help your body and your health at the same time. So it's kind of a win-win situation. Hello angels and welcome to the Glucose Goddess show. I'm Justine Chespe, a biochemist obsessed with helping you understand your body so that you can live your life to the fullest. In this episode, I'm going to cover something that is incredibly foundational to all of my work and incredibly foundational to helping anyone who wants to start feeling better to begin. I'm talking about my 10 core glucose hacks. I created these hacks after looking through hundreds, if not thousands of scientific studies on the topic of glucose levels and synthesizing them into 10 easy-to-follow guidelines or principles so that you don't have to read all the complicated scientific studies and so that you can actually get started today. So the hacks are amazing. Just kidding. So let me cover all the hacks for you. 10 hacks and you can also find them in a PDF, a free PDF in the description of this episode if you want a nice one-pager recap. So let's begin. Hack number one is eating your food in the right order. Scientific studies have shown us that if we eat the elements of a meal in a particular order, we can reduce the glucose spike of that meal by up to 75%. Now, why is it important to reduce glucose spikes? Because most of us have glucose spikes on a daily basis and we don't even know it. But these spikes are creating symptoms. Fatigue, cravings for sugar and chocolate and cookies, not sleeping very well, inflammation, hormonal issues like PCOS or difficult menopause. Every glucose spike also inches us closer and closer to developing type 2 diabetes. Essentially, if you want to feel better than you currently do, regulating your glucose levels is the place to start. It's like the foundation of the house of your health. If your glucose levels are spiking all the time, like most of ours are, you're just not going to feel good and you're not going to be able to go after the life that you want to go after. So glucose spikes reduction, super, super important. So this first hack, eating your food in the right order. So scientists discovered that if you eat the veggies first during a meal, then the proteins and the fats, and then the carbs, so the starches and the sugars, then you can reduce the glucose spike of your meal by up to 75%. So this is an easy place to start. Next time you're faced with a meal, if there's a clear separation between the elements in the meal, have the veggies first, then the meats and the fats, and then leave the carbs like the rice, the pasta, the potatoes, the bread and the dessert, obviously. Leave those for the end of the meal. And the reason this hack works is because veggies, when we eat them first, they create a powerful protective mesh in our intestine, thanks to all of the fiber they contain. This mesh then slows down how quickly glucose molecules from carbs coming later can make their way to your bloodstream. Easy one to start with. You don't have to change what you're eating, how much you're eating, just change the order and see how much better you feel. Check out this graph as an example. We have tofu, we have rice, we have broccoli. When we have the broccoli first, then the tofu, then the rice, the spike is much smaller than when we do the reverse. Hack number two. Hack number two builds on the same principles as hack number one, but it's slightly different. Hack number two asks you to add a veggie starter to the beginning of your meals. So what is a veggie starter? A veggie starter is a dish made from vegetables that you eat at the beginning of your meal. And this hack is actually a little bit simpler than hack number one, which asks you to sort of separate out the elements of your meal to eat them in the right order. The veggie starter hack harnesses most of the power of the food order hack and is a bit simpler to implement. So this is what you do. At the beginning of your lunch or of your dinner, you simply add a plate of vegetables to the beginning of your meal. And this can be raw vegetables, cooked vegetables. You can add dressing to them. You can add sauces. You can add some cheese, whatever floats your boat. But start your meals with a plate of vegetables to again harness the power of that fiber they contain. And then after your veggie starter, eat whatever you usually eat. And the glucose spike of your meal is going to be much smaller than if you didn't have the veggie starter. And you're going to eat more in the process as well and help your body and your health at the same time. So it's kind of a win-win situation. The easiest veggie starters are ordering a side salad at a restaurant, having some cucumber slices, some cherry tomatoes. And your veggie starter should ideally make up about 30% of the overall volume of your meal. Hack number three. Hack number three is stop counting calories. Now, of course, calories do matter. Like if you compare, I don't know, 1,000 calories of potato chips to 5,000 calories of potato chips. Obviously, the 5,000 calories of potato chips are way more potato chips and are going to have even more of a detrimental impact on your health. But what I want you to focus on is the fact that calories don't tell you what's inside of food. Two people can be eating the exact same number of calories, let's say 2,000 calories and 2,000 calories. One person can be eating in a way that's creating massive glucose spikes, a massive glucose rollercoaster. They can be exhausted, full of cravings, have lots of acne, have type 2 diabetes, have PCOS. While another person can be eating 2,000 calories but a food that is keeping their glucose levels steady. Therefore, they can feel freaking fantastic and have no health issues and be totally thriving. So the number of calories you're eating is not a good indication of how healthy you're going to be. And here's for the little story. Do you know how calories were originally measured? It's pretty fascinating. So what we've usually done, if you wanted to measure the calories in say a donut, is that you would take the donut, you would put it in a little box, you would close the box, and then you would put the box, submerge the box in a big aquarium filled with water. Following me, donut in box, at the bottom of an aquarium filled with water. Then you would have a system to light the donut inside the box on fire. And you would measure how much heat the donut is creating as it is burning. And then you do a little calculation with the volume of water, the temperature increase, and that's how you measured calories. Calories were simply a measure of how much heat is given off when a food is burned. So with that logic, you might notice that, let's say, this donut and then an avocado release the same amount of heat when they burn and have the same number of calories. But the calories are not telling you what is actually in the box. A donut is full of starch and sugar, big glucose spike, because starches and sugars are what break down into glucose in your body. The avocado, pretty much fat and fiber, great for your glucose levels. No glucose spike is going to be helpful for your health. So in conclusion, stop counting calories, focus on what you're actually eating. Focus on the hacks. Most of my readers, if they just completely ignore calories, start using the hacks, they feel so much better. And yes, if they were trying to lose weight, they can also lose weight really easily. Because when we study our glucose levels and we stop counting calories, a few key things happen. One, cravings dissipate. Two, hunger dissipates. And three, because with fewer glucose spikes, you have less insulin present in your body. Your body can burn fat more easily. So even if your objective is fat loss, this is a better approach to start with. Hack number four, have a savory breakfast. This is probably the most difficult hack for a lot of people, but also the most powerful hack to start with. So if you're feeling adventurous and you really want to see quick impact, I highly recommend you start with the savory breakfast hack. And this is what the savory breakfast hack is. So first of all, if in the morning, like most people these days, you have mostly starches and sugars, let's say you eat a bowl of cereal and an orange juice or some bread with a jam on it or granola with banana and honey, mostly starches and sugars, that is a big, big, big glucose spike in the morning. The problem with this is that if you have a big glucose spike in the morning, your hunger levels are going to come back up way more quickly and your energy is going to be out of whack for the whole day. With a big glucose spike at breakfast, you are hurting your mitochondria. Your mitochondria are the little factories in your cells in charge of making energy. And a big glucose spike hurts them, prevents them from making good energy for you to be able to do the stuff that you want to do. So sweet breakfast, no, no. You should really move on to a savory breakfast. It's going to change your life. Here are the guidelines for a savory breakfast. It should be built around protein. Sure, it can be eggs, but it can also be Greek yogurt. It can be nuts. It can be leftover meat or fish from your dinner. It can be tofu. It can be protein powder in a smoothie, etc, etc, etc. Then add some fat. Add a little bit of fiber if you want. You don't really have to add too much fiber in the morning because I know that veggies in the morning feels a little bit intense for some people. And then you can have, for example, some starch in there. So a little bit of bread, some potatoes. But importantly, a savory breakfast should contain nothing sweet except if you want whole fruit for taste. If this all sounds a little complicated, you can find some free savory breakfast recipes from my recipe club in the description of this episode. And I forgot to mention with hack number two, free veggie starter recipes as well to help you put this into practice because I know that theory is one thing and we can have good intentions, but actually starting is another story. So I just want to make this as easy for you as I possibly, possibly can. So that's where the recipes come in. So check them out. Hack number five, have any type of sugar you like. They're all the same. What do I mean by this? I mean that I do not want you to believe all the crazy marketing and stuff around organic sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, agave syrup, honey, etc. All of these things, whether you're looking at some simple white table sugar to a really fancy honey, they all contain sugar. They all contain glucose and fructose molecules and they're all going to make a glucose spike when you have them. So pick the one that you like. Honey is not necessarily better for you than table sugar. Agave syrup is not necessarily better for you than organic, unbleached brown sugar. Just eat the sugar that you like because when you're having sugar, it's a pleasure decision. It's not a health decision. It's purely for pleasure. So even if you're having some organic, whatever, honey-based cake, don't think that you're doing that for your health. That's for pleasure. Hack number six, pick dessert over sweet snack. Love this one. Whenever we want to eat sugar and something sweet, which is totally fine. Again, it's for pleasure purposes. There is a better time and a worse time to eat that sugar for our glucose levels. The worst time you can eat sugar for your glucose levels is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach or between meals on an empty stomach. Why the empty stomach thing? Well, because when your stomach is empty, anything you eat is going to go through your system really, really quickly and make its way to your bloodstream really, really quickly. So let's say you love chocolate cake like me. If I had chocolate cake first thing in the morning, that would make a massive glucose spike. And then with that glucose spike would then come a crash. That crash activates the craving center in our brain and tells us to eat more sugar. So if I have sugar first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, I can be pretty sure that I'm going to spend the whole day with crazy sugar cravings. And who wants crazy sugar cravings the whole day? Like nobody. So don't do that. Instead, when you want to eat sugar, eat it as dessert after a meal. So if I see a really good looking cookie, I'll buy it and then I'll eat it after my next meal. That way, the food from the meal that is already in your stomach is going to slow down how quickly the sugar from the sweet thing you're eating, the cookie or the chocolate cake, how quickly that sugar is going to arrive into your bloodstream. Therefore, you get all the pleasure from the sugar with less impact on your glucose levels. Hack number seven. The vinegar hack. So when I first discovered this science, I was quite surprised and taken aback. I thought, OK, this is maybe another just social media weird fad thing. But actually, there's some really good clinical trials showing us that one tablespoon of vinegar in a tall glass of water before a meal can reduce the glucose spike of that meal by up to 30% without needing to change what you're eating during the meal just by adding the vinegar drink. So try this before a meal that contains carbs, starches or sugars. And the way this works is because vinegar contains acetic acid. And acetic acid is a very cool molecule that slows down the breakdown of carbs in our digestive system. So again, slowing down how quickly carbs are going to go from our mouth to our bloodstream. That is the whole point. That's the whole thing we're trying to do here. Reduce the amount of glucose we're giving to our body and reduce how quickly that glucose is arriving in our bloodstream with all the hacks. Now, any type of vinegar works. The most popular ones being apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar. You can also do rice vinegar, cherry vinegar, whatever you want. The only one I would recommend you avoid is the very syrupy balsamic glaze. The sort of Italian aged one because that one has quite a bit of sugar in it. So it might negate the positive effects. A question I often get is if I don't want to drink the vinegar, what can I do? Well, you can use it as dressing on your veggie starter, for example. That's a great combination. Two hacks in one. But be very careful with the capsules and the gummies. I've done a lot of research over the past few years on these because you guys have all asked me for a capsule to take instead of drinking the vinegar. Unfortunately, the gummies and the supplements, the vinegar supplements, at best, they're not very effective or have very little science supporting them. And at worst, they're actually full of sugar and are going to create a glucose spike. I'm looking at you, the vinegar gummy product full of sugar. However, through my research, I've actually identified four really cool molecules that can replace the vinegar and actually are even more powerful than the vinegar. The molecules are mulberry leaf extract, lemon peel extract, cinnamon, and a bunch of antioxidants that I extracted from green vegetables. And I've put all of these into what I call anti-spike formula. It's a capsule I made. You take it before a meal. It cuts the glucose spike of the meal by up to 40%. It's more powerful than vinegar, 100% natural, 100% plants, has over 25 clinical trials backing up its efficacy, its safety, its impact on our glucose levels, and it works in everyone. So if you're interested in that as an alternative, there's a link to anti-spike in the description of this episode. Hack number eight, after you eat, move. What do I mean by after you eat, move? Well, every single cell in our body uses glucose for energy. So if you sort of shake your fingers like I'm doing here, your finger cells are going to be burning glucose in order to be able to contract and make this movement. So the more and the harder a muscle is told to contract, the more glucose it's going to need in order to do so. So we can use this to our advantage. And here's the hack. After one meal of your day, use your muscles for 10 minutes. Very simply. Within 90 minutes after the end of your meal, move, get up, go for a 10-minute walk. You can clean your apartment. You can walk your dog. You can do your laundry. You can do the dishes. Yes, that counts. Oh, you can do this really easy hack. So if you're sitting down, you put your feet on the ground, and then you raise your heels. I was going to say calves. You raise your heels up and down. You're doing calf raises. And as you're doing calf raises, you're activating a muscle in your calf called the soleus muscle. It's right here. And the soleus muscle is very good at soaking up excess glucose from your bloodstream. So let's say you're at work, and you want to do the movement hack, but you also don't want to just do squats in the middle of a conference room. So you can do this under your desk. You can put a little timer, 10 minutes, even during a meeting. Nobody will know. And you're going to be helping your glucose levels and your body through this very simple movement. Hack number nine. If you want a snack, go savory. So as I mentioned in hack number six about the dessert versus a sweet snack, we really want to avoid eating sugar between meals because that's going to kick off a glucose rollercoaster. So if you're really hungry between meals, have something savory. Maybe have a soft boiled egg with some delicious sea salt on it. Maybe have a Greek yogurt with some unsweetened peanut butter in it. Maybe you can have some cheese on toast. Think about something savory that you enjoy and have that as a snack. And always keep sugar for after a meal if you can. And again, if you want to help your body process that sugar even better and reduce its spike, anti-spike formula is a winner. And moving after eating the sugar. And now my dears, final hack. Hack number 10. Hack number 10 is put some clothing on your carbs. We're not talking t-shirts here. We are talking about anytime we eat carbs. So carbs being starches like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, oats, et cetera. Starches are sugars. Sugars are anything that tastes sweet from an apple to a chocolate cake. So every time we eat carbs, if we eat them naked, so if we eat them on their own, they're going to cause a glucose spike. What we want to do instead is add some clothing to them like protein, fat, and fiber to reduce how quickly the glucose in those carbs arrives into our bloodstream. So as an example, chocolate cake. Again, I'm a chocolate lover as you might have noticed so far. Chocolate cake alone is not a good idea. But if you add, let's say, some Greek yogurt to that chocolate cake, so that adds some protein and some fat. Or if you add 20 almonds to a cookie, that's going to add also some protein, some fat, some fiber to the cookie. That's going to reduce the spike of the chocolate cake and the cookie. You can also think about adding some chicken and some veggies and some cheese to a pasta dish, for example. That's going to slow down how quickly the pasta is going to turn to glucose and how quickly the glucose is going to arrive into your bloodstream. So you can combine some hacks or you can pick and choose. So for example, if you want to have a chocolate cake, you can do either the dessert hack, so having an after meal. You can maybe also add some clothing to it or you can have it at another time with some clothing on top. You can add the vinegar hack, anti-spike. You can do the movement, etc., etc. Or if today the only one that really sounds interesting to you is the veggie starter hack or the movement hack or the savory breakfast hack, start wherever you want. Start wherever with whatever hack is calling you. The most important thing is just to start and you're going to start feeling so much better so quickly that then you can add the other hacks on. Again, if you want a quick recap of the 10 hacks in a one pager, because I know it's a lot of information, there's a free PDF in the description of this episode. And let me know how it goes. It's been incredibly amazing to see all of your stories using the hacks and changing your lives so that you can live the life that you want to live and so that your symptoms don't control you anymore and you finally feel like yourself again. And by doing the hacks, you will know that as you age, your health is going to get better, not worse. And that's pretty great. So that's all we have time for today. Thank you for being here. I'll see you next time.