I recently came across an everything nutrition podcast by Dr. Hyman, an American physician and author. I decided to listen to one of his episodes during one of my long morning walks. I specifically listened to episode 720, which was “The Doctors Pharmacy: How to Reduce Sugar Cravings, Balance Blood Sugar, Improve Energy and Feel Better”.

 While I am not a registered dietitian, this episode got me thinking about another approach to reaching my nutrition and overall health goals in general, and that is learning and understanding how to balance your hormone and glucose levels properly. These can affect your mood, energy, and productivity levels throughout your day, but what you choose to consume has a large impact on these levels. During my dive into some research on this topic, I accumulated five main tips to achieve this goal:

1) Eat a savory breakfast

Allowing your first meal of the day to consist of sugary ingredients, including foods such as pancakes and maple syrup, donuts, cereal, and croissants can set your glucose levels up for failure for the rest of the day. Having a savory breakfast will help your blood sugar remain stable through the day resulting in fewer crashes and more energy.

My go-to breakfast the last few weeks has been avocado toast topped with over medium eggs, salt, and pepper. This combo not only helps to fuel me before or after a workout with its combination of healthy fasts, carbohydrates and protein but also keeps me feeling light at the start of the day, which is very important to consider when eating your first meal after waking up.

2) Drinking apple cider vinegar before meals

Adding 1 tbsp of vinegar to a cup of room temperature water 15 min before you consume food can reduce a glucose spike by 30%. When you consume vinegar the acetic acid in the vinegar helps your muscles soak up the glucose faster so your mitochondria can burn more fat resulting in no blood sugar crash after eating. One of the simple tasks that I have implemented into my morning routine includes a glass of warm lemon and ACV water to help waken my digestive system after it slows during the time that you are sleeping. In doing so, I have seen quite a difference in how I feel coming out of my first meal of the day.

3) Eating veggies AND FIBER first

 Eating veggies first before you eat simple carbohydrates helps reduce your glucose spike by up to 73%! When veggies are first it slows down the speed at which you digest starches, so glucose trickles into the bloodstream more slowly than if you had eaten the same foods in reverse order.

4) Hydrating!

It is so important to be drinking enough water in a day for several other reasons than just keeping your blood sugar level low. But in this specific case, drinking enough water can rehydrate the blood and therefore lower blood sugar levels. In addition to this, water can help to flush out toxins such as excess sugar in your kidneys.

5) Walking post-meal

Using your muscles for at least 10 minutes after a meal can help reduce glucose response because when you move your body, your muscles use up remaining glucose in your bloodstream which reduces insulin resistance & is especially beneficial for anyone who has PCOS. I usually like to take at least a 5-10 minute walk post-meal. However, realistically, during the days I don’t have the time to do so, I either choose to walk around the house for a bit and be productive, or stand at my standing desk and take care of some online work.