Embrace The Fat
How can we best keep blood sugar stable? Do what our body is designed to do – use fat for energy.
Our species did not survive the Ice Age because of vanilla coffee lattes and cheesecake. Throughout most of our history, we ate a diet that was likely 50-70 percent fat. Look at the old family photo albums, specifically pictures of people in the first half of the 1900s, before we had so many processed foods. You won’t see many fat people--in fact, most look darn skinny. If they lived on the farm, they ate lots of eggs, meat, milk, and vegetables out of their own backyards. “Diet foods” were non-existent. Heart disease was almost non-existent.
Our metabolism is designed to work much better with fats better than with sugar. Fats provide the slow and steady fuel our body likes to use for energy. Think of fats as a slow-burning log on the fire. One log (i.e. one meal containing fats) lasts for hours. Starchy carbs, on the flip side, are like kindling. You constantly have to throw more twigs (chips, pasta, bagels) to keep the fire burning.
The first step is to know your sugars by reading the labels, and then avoid said sugars as much as possible.
| Sugars By Name | Hidden Sugars | (More Hidden Sugars) |
|---|---|---|
| brown sugar | high fructose corn syrup | malt, malt extract, maltose |
| powdered sugar | corn syrup | rice extract |
| turbinado sugar | disaccharides | brown rice syrup |
| white sugar | molasses | golden syrup |
| cane sugar | succanat | |
| beet sugar | polysaccharides | |
| corn sugar | sucrose | |
| date sugar | fructose | |
| maple sugar | invert sugar | |
| dextrose | ||
| glucose | ||
| lactose | ||
| sorbitol | ||
| mannitol |
*Note: Hidden sugars also include processed starches (empty calories) such as bread, pasta, bagels, chips.
Naturally occurring sugars in whole fruit and other whole foods are okay. Our cells can re-sensitize themselves to insulin, but where added sugars are concerned, this is no “safe level” if you are trying to “reset” the body’s ability for normal blood sugar handling. Keep your daily intake of added sugar as low as possible. 5 grams of sugar is about 1 teaspoon. Reducing insulin surges by eating more good fats and less processed food (with all its starchy carbs) will help the body utilize fats for energy rather than sugar/glucose.
So say “no” to processed foods with their sugar and unhealthy fats, and bring on the bacon and eggs for breakfast! That serving of protein and fat is good fuel that can last until lunch. If lunch is a salad, include some protein in the form of egg or meat and learn to bring your own salad dressing made with a good fat. Want an afternoon snack? Try celery with nut butter or a hardboiled egg.
Looking for more information on healthy fats? Check out my blog Experimenting with Oils Part 1. Within this article I provide a useful table for choosing the right kinds of cooking fats--you might just want to print it out and bring it with you next time you go grocery shopping. Want to hear more about the sugar scourge? Check out my blog series on that too.
Sugar cravings and prolonged time without healthy fats can cause imbalance in your blood sugar. Balancing your blood sugar is essential to helping your body use healthy fats well. This is one of the issues I help clients with most! Balancing their blood sugar. Schedule a
Health Discovery Session to talk to me more about your symptoms and learn how I can help you balance your blood sugar for good.
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Heidi Toy Functional Medicine Blog
