Losing Weight and Feeling Great

Posts Tagged ‘blood sugar’

It’s no secret that foods that raise blood sugar are the whites:  sugar, white bread, white rice, etc.  In fact, you’re pretty much safer staying away from anything white (cauliflower being an exception to the white rule).

But there are other foods that can raise blood sugar that aren’t white, and that may be good for you.  These can include sweet fruits like pineapple and potatoes (although potato skins are OK).  Raisins and many dried fruits also fall into that category.  Corn and peas are two other foods that can raise blood sugar more quickly than other healthy foods.

You need to be careful about yogurt.  If it’s low-fat or fat-free, there might be a great deal of sugar in that container.  Fruit on the bottom also has sugar, generally in a syrup.  Yes, yogurt can be healthy, but plain is best as far as sugar goes.  Otherwise…read labels carefully.

Foods That Raise Blood Sugar to Stay Away From

In addition to “the whites” as listed in the opening paragraph, what other foods fall into this category?

As expected, items like cookies, cakes, pies, ice cream show up in this category.  But also are chips and pretzels.  The chips and pretzels contain white flour or corn (both can raise the bloods’s sugar). 

Fruit juice can be counted among the foods that raise blood sugar — and quickly!  Part of it is that most fruit juices for sale include HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) that can send blood sugar skyrocketing.  Otherwise, juice tends not to have any pulp, present in fresh fruit — and the pulp (fiber) helps slow the release of sugar into the blood.  If you must have fruit juice, make it freshly squeezed.

Know Your Body

Some people are sensitive to wheat, even whole wheat, rye, pumpernickle, etc.  If that’s you, stay away from these as much as possible.

Others are sensitive to most fruits, due to the high fructose concentration.  If you’re ultra sensitive to fruit, eat extra veggies instead.

High blood sugar isn’t anything to laugh about, even if it’s not officially up to diabetic levels.  It can damage your body, not to mention help you gain weight (or have trouble keeping it off).  Hmmm, sounds like I’ll be needing a post on the damage high blood sugar can cause the body. 

But for now, be mindful of what you eat.  It’s perhaps unreasonable for most people to cut out high sugar foods in the cold turkey method.  But you can start gradually reducing and then eliminating the foods that raise blood sugar from your diet.

The previous post was the first 20 ways that sugar affects our health.  Anyone up for 20 more reasons?

Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.  (This is called Syndrome X.)

Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.  (Do you get enough vitamin E in your daily diet?  Or should you take more?)

Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.  (As we get heavier, our blood pressures tend to go up…we don’t need help from sugar.)

Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.  (The is the flip side of the hyperactivity sugar can cause in children; this is the infamous “sugar slump”.)

High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)  (Sugar molecules attaching to and thereby damaging proteins in the body).

Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.  (Protein builds muscle, and it’s also important in slowing down the absorption of sugar into the blood.)

Sugar causes food allergies.  (I know it does in me!)

Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy. 

Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.  (Eczema is not only itchy, but it can be disfiguring if the patches show up on exposed body parts.)

Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.  (As our hearts and blood vessels age, they lose function — we don’t need extra help to hasten heart attacks and/or strokes.)

Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA.  (This can open us up to all kinds of diseases.)

Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.  (This can be the pre-formation of cancer.)

Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen.  (We don’t need more wrinkles!)

Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness.  (I wonder if this is part of the “aging eyes”?)

Sugar can cause emphysema.  (This is a terrible disease.)

High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body.

Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.  (Enzymes are critical in the day-to-day  operation of your body.)

Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.  (Not a fun disease; we need to do everything we can to avoid it.)

Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide and it can increase the amount of liver fat.  (This can be a pre-cursor to cirrhosis and/or cancer.)

Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones.  (If you’ve ever had a kidney stone, you know how terribly painful they are.)

So, that’s 20 more reasons to take a long, hard look at your diet today.  Now I’m not saying you should ban all sugar forevermore.  What you might want to do, however, is take steps daily (or weekly if you are severely addicted) to reduce the amount of sugar you eat on a day-to-day basis.

Sugar is sweet; a healthy life is sweeter.