The holiday season is around the corner. It’s the season for celebrating with family and friends, enjoying some time for rest and relaxation, and eating delicious food, of course!
The holiday season doesn’t necessarily mean you need to gain a few pounds, and it’s NOT the time to be hangry, shaky between meals, ruled by food cravings, and eating foods that leave you feeling depleted and run down.
In my course, Sustainavore, I recommend a high protein, nutrient dense way of eating. But, this doesn’t mean that you can’t ever indulge during special occasions. To make sure you can enjoy your holiday time to the fullest, rather than worrying about what foods will make you feel low energy and crummy, I am sharing 5 tips for supporting balanced blood sugar during the holidays.
These tips and techniques are not an excuse for a poor diet, but they are great for extra blood sugar support around a holiday meal!
#1 – If you’re going to indulge, eat dessert AFTER a meal
Anyone who has tracked their blood sugar will know that eating a sweet treat or a carb-heavy snack on an empty stomach will impact their blood sugar much differently than a piece of cake after a meal. Why’s that? Pairing carbohydrates with protein, fat and fiber blunts the glucose spike.
This also means that a scoop of ice cream might be more blood sugar friendly than a piece of candy. The ice cream has some fat and maybe even some protein from the dairy making it a more balanced meal – pairing the sugar in ice cream with fat and protein will minimize the glucose response.
Enjoy your dessert after a meal, pair dessert with some added protein and fat, or choose a more balanced dessert, like a piece of dark chocolate.
#2 – Drink some vinegar before you eat carbs
Vinegar contains acetic acid, and studies show that acetic acid can inhibit enzymes in our digestive system slowing glucose release into the blood and even increase the rate of glucose uptake at the muscles. This means less glucose floating around after your meal and less of a glucose spike. One tablespoon of vinegar before eating can reduce a glucose spike by up to 30%!
I recommend adding 1 tablespoon of vinegar to a large glass of water and drinking it 20 minutes before a meal. You can drink it through a straw to protect your teeth.
Most people find apple cider vinegar the most pleasant, but any vinegar you like will work. Just be sure to avoid sweet vinegar like balsamic or vinegar dressings with added sugar.
#3 – Consider a green starter
Instead of diving right into the starches in your meal – like pasta, rice, bread, potatoes – start the meal with a veggie dish. As I mentioned above, fiber plays an important role in a stable glucose response. A vegetable starter will provide fiber which covers the small intestine and slows down gastric emptying. This means that the glucose from the rest of your meal is absorbed in smaller quantities, and you will experience a smaller glucose peak.
For example, before you dive into the thanksgiving stuffing, have a serving of green beans or braised collard greens.
Pro tip: You can even combine this with step two if you use a decent amount of vinegar for your salad dressing and get a double whammy of blood sugar support!
#4 – Go for a walk (or do some dancing) after your meal
This is an extremely simple hack that will have profound impacts on your blood sugar! Simply move 10-20 minutes after you eat. Our muscles need energy, mostly in the form of glucose, to move. When you use your muscles after eating, you give the glucose from the meal a place to go.
This is a great tip for the holiday season, because a quick walk after a festive meal is a great way to spend time with friends and family. If you are short on time or the weather is not great for walking, do 10-20 squats, pushups or jumping jacks to use your muscles a little bit and mitigate the glucose spike. You could even start cleaning up the dinner table and kitchen as your form of movement, rather than heading straight to the couch!
#5 – Try wearing a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) to see your body work
Did you know that different carbs spike people differently? That’s why the best way to manage healthy blood sugar is to test ourselves using a CGM.
A CGM constantly measures your blood glucose levels, and when used properly, it can give you the knowledge and motivation to make lifestyle changes to properly manage your blood glucose levels. You can use the CGM to test out my tips above and see which are most effective in balancing your blood sugar.
Levels provides convenient access to CGMs and shows you how food and activity affect your blood glucose in real time with their app. In short, you’ll get much more than just a CGM when you use Levels. I highly recommend that right now you head over to Levels and pick yourself up a CGM so that you can run some experiments in preparation for holiday festivities!
You can then use this information to determine how different foods or activities affect your blood glucose levels and what spikes and crashes you are seeing. Avoiding blood sugar spikes and managing blood sugar levels is one of the best things you can do for your health, and I can promise it will make your holiday season so much more enjoyable.
