In this blog post, I am going to build on the simple strategies you can use to balance your blood sugar for a healthy weight, metabolism, and hormones.
Eating foods in the right order can help prevent large blood sugar spikes after meals. As we’ve learned before, carbohydrates turn into blood sugar quickly. If you eat a carbohydrate like rice on an empty stomach, it is quickly digested and will cause a blood sugar spike.
One simple solution is to eat the rice at the end of the meal. Remember, at each meal, we aim for a balanced plate of vegetables, protein, and carbohydrates. Let’s take this strategy a step further. To reduce blood sugar spikes even more, we should eat foods in a specific order.
Step 7: Eat Your Vegetable First!
Begin your meal with a non-starchy vegetable. Non-starchy vegetables include salad greens, cabbage, squash, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, and more. The fiber in non-starchy vegetables helps prevent blood sugar spikes in three ways:
- Fiber delays gastric emptying. This means fiber slows down the digestion and absorption of glucose (sugar from food), giving your body more time to process the carbohydrates. By slowing down digestion, you will reduce the blood sugar spike after the meal.
- Fiber creates a viscous mesh in the small intestine. If you’ve ever juiced vegetables, you’ve seen the fibrous pulp left behind. That’s similar to the viscous mesh fiber forms in your gut. This mesh slows the absorption of carbohydrates, preventing them from turning into blood sugar too quickly.
- Fiber reduces the action of alpha-amylase. Alpha-amylase is the enzyme that breaks down carbohydrates into glucose. By blocking this enzyme, fiber prevents carbohydrates from being fully digested and absorbed as blood sugar, helping to prevent a spike.
The combined effects of fiber work wonders to prevent blood sugar spikes.
Fiber allows carbohydrates to be digested more slowly. Complex carbs that are higher in fiber, like beans, oats, quinoa, and brown rice, are often called “slow-burning” carbs. These foods take longer to digest, meaning their glucose is released into the bloodstream more gradually, providing a longer-lasting energy source. It’s another reason to increase the variety of grains and lentils in your diet. These complex carbohydrates are a great source of energy for the body.
Bonus Tip: Try a Veggie Appetizer Before Dinner
You can even add a vegetable starter before your meal to support blood sugar control. I typically include vinegar in these appetizers. Vinegar, especially apple cider vinegar, contains acetic acid, which slows carbohydrate digestion by deactivating the enzyme alpha-amylase.
This enzyme helps prevent blood sugar spikes, making it a great choice for people with PCOS or insulin resistance. This is why apple cider vinegar shots are trending, but I personally don’t do them—they feel too much like a health fad to me.
Instead of drinking vinegar before meals, I sometimes make it part of my veggie appetizer. It not only tastes better but also feels like a natural part of the meal, not a “health gimmick.”
Easy Ways to Add Vinegar to Your Starter:
- Dark leafy salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil
- Carrot salad with apple cider vinegar and olive oil
- Sautéed collard greens with butter and vinegar
- Sauerkraut or pickled vegetables
- Vinegar-roasted veggies
- Fresh tomatoes with balsamic vinegar
Adding vinegar to your meal is a simple, flavorful way to help keep your blood sugar stable and make your meals more satisfying.
Step 8: Eat Protein Second
After eating your fiber-rich vegetables, the next step is to eat protein. The order in which we eat foods also affects how they are digested. If your small intestine is busy digesting protein, it can’t focus on digesting carbohydrates right away. The carbs must wait their turn.
Protein, like fiber, helps slow gastric emptying, which prevents a sharp rise in blood sugar. Fat also helps slow down digestion, and it’s usually found in protein-rich foods. For example, beef, pork, dark poultry meat, fish, and eggs all contain fat, which further helps flatten the blood sugar spike by slowing down the digestion process.
Step 9: Eat Carbohydrates Last
Finally, after you’ve had your vegetables and protein, you can enjoy your carbohydrates! By eating carbs last, you help prevent post-meal blood sugar spikes. This delayed digestion keeps the small intestine from absorbing all the carbohydrates at once, allowing them to slowly release glucose into the bloodstream. This gives your body a more sustainable energy source.
Having a small blood sugar curve after meals also means less insulin is needed. Less blood glucose equals less insulin. This is an effective way to improve insulin sensitivity and help reverse insulin resistance over time.
9 Steps to Balance Blood Sugar
Let’s review the 9 steps you can take to balance your blood sugar every day.
- Eat breakfast within the first hour of waking up.
- Balance your plate with protein, carbohydrates, and fiber.
- Eat energy-dense meals instead of small snacks.
- Snack when necessary.
- Honor your hunger and fullness cues.
- Time your meals right.
- Eat your vegetables first.
- Eat protein second.
- Eat carbohydrates last.
Take the steps you can to balance your blood sugar. In Part 6, I will teach you one more step you can take to balance your blood sugar.