Hi John,
I read your post on Irony and you said you tested your blood sugar levels and the closer to 80mg you could keep your levels 2 hours post meal the leaner you were able to get. I started this experiment – my plan is for 30 days – give or take. I just started here is what I got:
Fasted: 97
Post 2 eggs and black coffee (cooking spray used): 103
Post walnuts: 87
Post sausage (grilled) and cauliflower (mashed – lemon pepper and a bit of smart balance): 107
Post chicken (pan seared) and asparagus (steamed): 109
What do you think? I’d like to get as close to 80mg as I can – this is EXACTLY what I ate. Can you give me some feedback on how I can get my levels lower? I live a Paleo lifestyle – but I do have agave and I was eating fruit – but not the last two days. I started testing today.
Thanks for any insight.
Angela
I knew when I wrote that I was going to start getting these emails. I have avoided this topic because this has nothing to do with being strong and fast. This has less to do with performance but more with health. If you are 165 lbs and reading this and thinking, I want to try this, stop and go watch the 13 Warrior. See the part where Antonio Banderas can’t life the sword and the big Viking tells him to “grow stronger.” Then remember it is perfectly acceptable for a grown man who lifts weights to have body fat. Words like lean are used to describe filet mignon and 13 year old Ambercrombie & Fitch models, not grown men.
*Let me start by getting the legal stuff out of the way. I am not a doctor, a medical practitioner or licensed physician. I am a former NFL football player that has spent a whole life training and eating for performance. Anything I say or do is anecdotal and is not meant to cure any diseases. I am not liable for anything you do that was discussed on this site. I am a trained professional; do not attempt this at home.
Look at what spikes blood sugar. Everything spikes blood sugar to some degree. It just so happens that some foods spike sugar to a great level than others. And it also just so happens, that habitually low blood sugar levels are synonymous with a disease free, healthy body.
Rewind to 2002, I am having a conversation with a friend, Tom Incledon, from Human Performance Specialists in Tempe, AZ. Tom is a former strongman and Ph.D and generally one of the smartest people I know. I have a few people I contact when I have questions…between Robb, Mat, Tom and Jeoff Drobot, I am covered.
Tom told me of an experiment he did where they monitored blood sugar levels of an athlete and found combinations of foods that allowed him to eat mass quantities and not spike blood sugar levels above 90. They found that keeping him between 80-90 worked to keep his body fat very low.
I decided to get a blood glucose meter and give it a shot. Through frequent testing, I was able to find out my blood sugar levels peaked between 80-90 minutes and what foods worked well to keep my blood sugar in range. I also found certain foods and supplements that were able to control blood sugar.
I found fresh cinnamon, mulberry extract, fish oil, alpha lipoic acid and vitamin D were contributors to keeping blood sugar in check. Fresh cinnamon (and I mean fresh cinnamon, no old stuff) worked the best to control my blood sugar levels.
So, I ended up putting cinnamon on everything. I took 5000 ius of Vit D, 5-6 grams of fish oil and the alpha lipoic acid in the morning and night.
I found gluten, fruit, processed foods with starch or foods with ingredients I could not pronounce and some dairy products increased blood sugar above where I wanted it. I found sugar, whether it is sucrose, fructose, HFCS, agave or maple syrup all had similar effects, with HFCS being the worst.
A bunch of grapes had the same effect as a candy bar. Wheat was really rough on blood sugar and Chinese food about killed me. I also ended my 25 year love affair with cereal…I still miss Kracklin’ Oat Bran. Nonfat milk had the same effect as sugar. Which makes sense, since the reduced fat relates to increased absorption time. Fermented dairy, like Greek yogurt and raw cheese, had a lesser effect.
Any caffeine caused blood sugar to spike, as caffeine increases the stress hormone, cortisol, which translates to increase blood sugar. One of the primary functions of cortisol is to increase blood sugar.
I found exercise after a large meal brought blood sugar down to range. I ended up taking a walk after eating most nights. This was simple, as I was living in Philadelphia and walking the dog was fun.
I also found the lower my body fat got, the easier it was to control my blood sugar. Now, before you guys run out buying up glucose meters screaming you want to be lean, remember this…I did not say lean, I said low body fat…big difference. I was weighing about 315 lbs when I started using the glucose meter and I scored a 8.6% body fat in the BodPod at 306 lbs. That is over 280 lbs of LBM.
There is no right or wrong answer to your question. You are going to have to baseline your blood sugar. That means test it every 15 minutes for 2 hours and chart when blood sugar peaks. Once you establish this, check your blood sugar after meals. You find what works and what does not. You eliminate foods until you are left with those foods that do not spike blood sugar above your desired range. If you have a new meal, check your BS and if it spikes you can take a long walk to bring it back in range.
There is an excellent site, run by Dr. William Davis, called Heart Scan Blog. He discusses findings on blood sugar and the glucose meter being the window to good health. He is a cardiologist in Wisconsin. Check it out, I highly recommend it.
Hope that helps.
John
Some great info there John [and experience, more importantly ]. I hope people realise value they are getting from your ‘free’ website.
Looking forward to attending my 3rd CFFB seminar in July too mate.
Thanks, John!! Awesome repsonse. Much appreciated.
I didn’t have the coffee with the eggs this morning and my level was 90 (from the 116with the coffee).
I couldn’t agree more with you or Dr. Davis “blood sugar and the glucose meter being the window to good health.” Exactly why I am doing this experiment. It is one thing to guess that a food is good fuel – but knowledge is power; and in this instance knowledge is a few more lbs on the RDL!!!
Angela
Speaking of walks and their effects on blood sugar, whenever I go for a longish walk, i.e., > 30 min, I inevitably want a nap pretty bad. For example, this weekend my wife and I went for a little hike with my wife’s sister & her family, and I fell asleep in the truck on the way back. Does it seem likely that I’m actually crashing my blood sugar with this walk? I’d love to know your thoughts on this. In the mean time, I might try to set this situation up, and then have a piece of fruit and see what happens.
The 13th Warrior. Love that movie. There are a number of great quotes from it.
agreed, more great advice/experience, and for free!
thanks man!
I can’t wait to get to a CFFB cert… damn day job that doesn’t pay enough! LOL
Thanks again.
The walks, IMHO are great. I walk daily and it’s actually part of our ancestry, our ancestral health – our cavemen ancestors, yeah, they like: WALKED. I try to tell my students this all the time when they bitch at me about having to park a mile from College buildings. Ridiculous!
John,
Tim ferriss did some work with Blood sugar and actually found a correlation between the speed at which you eat the meal, and the spike in blood sugar. Along with Cinnamon, and Lemon juice, has a pretty interesting take on controlling it.
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Good article. I’m diabetic myself so I consider myself a bit of a barometer for what food does to you. I will tell you all this…I don’t know what they do to it, but Asian food (Thai, Chinese, etc.) makes my blood sugar ROCKET through the roof. I don’t have full blown type 1 yet, but I do take insulin with high carb meals (so infrequently since I eat mainly paleo). I cannot take enough insulin it seems to control BS after chinese or thai food. Eater beware. I have found that anything with gluten makes my blood sugar go up, but full fat milk and cottage cheese are pretty easy. I’m not sure that there are universals on any of this stuff, but I would be surprised to find that the proof of the paleo diet isn’t in the pudding – or the ingredients of some of these “foods.”
As an addition to my earlier post…I do find it hard to put on weight without the dairy. I don’t GOMAD, but if I put milk into the starting strength program, I can put 10-15 pounds on pretty quickly (walk around weight of 180 generally without this in my routine). I would like thoughts on how to get calories in otherwise given the lack of empty high calorie garbage in my diet :). Thoughts?? How many chicken breasts can man really be expected to eat?
Evan C / John,
I was just about to suggest Tim Ferriss’ book – The 4-Hour Body. I saw it on KStar’s Mobility WOD page. It has been a very interesting read and adds some good insight on how to control your blood sugar as well as other experiments he’s run on lowering your body fat percentage.
John – As usual, thanks for the awesome info. Some of my buddies just attended your cert in San Antonio. Next time you’re in Texas I’ll be there.
The great website “The Healthy Skeptic” has a whole article on this very subject. and the author, Chris Cresser, has been recommending the use of a BG meter precisely the same way you suggest. I got one and checked my blood sugar level like a maniac every day for about 2 weeks. My fingers were perforated. In the end I was able to really get a grasp on how my body reacts to various foods and that has allowed me to make better choices. Using a BG meter is the most practical, effective way to track your reaction to different foods and get immediate feedback. If health and longevity outweigh the desire to grow big and strong then keeping one’s BG reading sub 90 is the goal. if getting big and strong is more important (like me) then intermittent spikes over 120 may occur. After all, insulin is anabolic. It’s a trade off. What works for me is eating starchy insulin spiking carbs like sweet potatoes and whole milk post wod in order to take advantage of the enhanced insulin sensitivity and cut back on those things the rest of the day.
Very good article! Inspired me to look how much such a glucos meter acutally costs and after finding out that they are pretty cheap, I think I’ll be doing some experimenting myself!
Thank’s for the awesome insight and ideas!
Reference to Chris Duarte’s ‘Texas Sugar Stat Magic” album?
Great post!
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What does it mean if your blood sugar is quite a bit lower than that? I had a measured glucose score of 62, about 2 hours after I ate a big omelet with cheese. The doctor asked if I was fasting! Is that super-duper good news or a sign of something wrong?
John,
I am interested in trying this out but am wondering how PWO nutrition comes into play with this. When you were doing this were you ignoring the increased glycogen synthesis of the liver after a demanding workout/met-con? Or is your BS levels significantly depleted that eating a high carb PWO meal doesn’t elevate your BS levels too high? I listened to the Robb Wolf podcast with Mat Lalonde and he discussed his experimentation with crossfit and a ketogenic diet. When he was doing it he claims to have deprived his brain of all glucose and thought it was one of the worst things you could do to yourself. Not sure if these are differing goals but would love to be pointed in the right direction, specifically the one that doesn’t have my brain fizzle/pop due to glucose depletion.
The amount of information you give out on TTMJ is unreal, thanks for everything you do.
-Matt
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