Lower Your Blood Sugar With An Insulin Resistance Diet Plan

Insulin resistance is a condition I’m very familiar with because it’s a battle I fight every day. Insulin resistance is where the body produces insulin, but it doesn’t use it properly. Your body will break down the food you eat, into glucose, which is then moved through the bloodstream to the hungry cells. Insulin is the hormone that is produced to help the body’s cells use that glucose (sugar) for energy.

credit: gabrielsaldana

When you eat, the glucose (blood sugar) rises and the body produces insulin to handle it. That insulin does two things.

• Allows the glucose to go through the cell walls and be used by the cells.
• Tells your body to store the excess glucose, not needed at that moment, as fat.
  When you become insulin resistant, your body gets the second message – to store fat – but malfunctions and doesn’t use the glucose to feed the cells. So your cells are screaming they are hungry, while your glucose levels continue to go up and up and your body produces more insulin which tells your body to store fat.

Insulin Resistance Symptoms Are

• Obesity around the waist (central or abdominal obesity)
• Type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Abnormal cholesterol levels
• Heart disease

And you don’t necessarily have to have all of them. For me, my cholesterol levels were fine, but my blood pressure was high. The obesity around the waist was an obvious problem ☺ and even though my doctor had never mentioned diabetes, I knew that if I were to grabbed a handful of chocolate kisses and ate them I had all the symptoms of diabetes (excess thirst, weakness, fatigue, and if I had a big enough handful of those kisses, even blurry vision).

Insulin Resistance Treatment

So the treatment of Insulin Resistance is fairly obvious. You want to lower your blood sugar, and thus your insulin levels. You don’t want to take insulin (like type 1 diabetics) because your body already has too much.

You want to reduce your carbohydrate intake and then gradually your insulin level will go down. Unfortunately, your insulin levels go down more slowly than your blood sugar so in the beginning you may have some pretty intense food cravings. But this too will pass. This is one of those times where you just have to grin and bear it.

Insulin Resistance Diet Plan

Here are 5 simple things you can change in your diet that, coupled with exercise*, will help you turn your diet plan into an insulin resistance diet plan and reverse your insulin resistance.

• Add Healthy Oils
• Get Adequate protein
• Eat Often
• Get Plenty of Fiber
• Lower Your Carbohydrate Intake

Good Healthy Oil

So, why is it so important to get “good oil” and for that matter what would be considered good? Good oil is oil high in omega-3 content. You get good omega-3 from certain fatty fish and flax among other places. And why is this important? Good fat in the diet is essential because the cell membranes are made up of these oils and the higher the quality of oil the less likely it is your cells will become or remain resistant to insulin.

There are a lot of advantages to getting enough omega-3. Oddly enough getting adequate omega-3 will not only make your cell walls more permeable by insulin it also makes those walls stronger and more resistant to damage.

Get Plenty of Protein

Protein is one of the essential components of the human body. In fact over 15% of our total body weight is protein. Our muscles, hair, and skin are mostly made of protein. Even our hormones, neurotransmitter, and even our digestive juices are at least partially made up of protein. So it stands to reason our body needs an adequate supply.

But how much is enough? Well that’s easy enough to figure. Just multiply your weight in pounds by .3 (in kilograms by .65) and you’ll get the total grams you need to consume each day. If you consume less, your body will start breaking down your muscles to use their protein as needed (not good).

Keep Blood Sugars At A Healthy Level By Eating Often

You’ve probably heard it before; eat smaller meals every 2 to 3 hours. This sounds difficult and the temptation is to eat twice as much food. But there really is good reason for this advice. Let’s start by determining the best way of doing this and then we’ll discuss why. You don’t want to eat more than you did before; you just want to eat more often.

By determining what you want to eat at a meal in advance, you can simply eat half and then eat the other half a few hours later. In this way you haven’t increased the amount you eat, you’ve simply spread it out. So if you were going to have a bagel (not a really good choice I might add, but an easy example to use ☺ ) you would eat half at breakfast and the other half for a snack 2 to 3 hours later.

By doing so, you have reduced the spike in your blood sugar. By the time you eat the other half, your blood sugar will have dropped again. You get the same amount of food without the huge spikes in blood sugar and insulin. This is very important. It is the large spikes in blood sugar that fuel our cravings for more carbohydrates later in the day and perpetuate our insulin resistance.

Remember, when you are insulin resistant no matter how many carbohydrates you eat, your body is going to produce more insulin than it needs. So 2 or 3 hours after you eat, you’re still going to have too much insulin in your system and you’ll be suffering from food cravings. If you ate the whole bagel, you’re going to be hungry and want to find something more to eat. If you only ate half, you may be hungry, but you’ll still have that other half to eat.

Fill Up On Fiber

Eating foods high in fiber fills you up and slows down your body’s absorption of the carbohydrates you have eaten. If you fill up on fiber you will eat less (because you feel full) and that is always a good thing for lowering your blood sugar. And because the fiber slows the rate your body absorbs carbohydrates, you will keep your blood sugar from spiking . . . which lowers your insulin level, which keeps you from having food cravings.

You can get your fiber naturally in your food by eating complex carbohydrate – such as vegetables and fruits, or you can supplement your fiber intake by taken psyllium (think Metamucil or Citrucel, etc.) Follow the link to a list of food fiber and calorie content. You should try to get 30 grams of fiber each day.

I shoot for 10 grams of fiber with breakfast, lunch, and supper. If a particular meal is less than 10 grams, I’ll take enough Metamucil to bring it up to 10 grams about 30 minutes before the meal. (That also keeps me from being so hungry when I sit down to eat so I eat less.)

Lower Your Carbohydrate Intake

Now up until this point the things you have been asked to do have been fairly simple. Most of them involve eating more food. More food is fun. But this last one is a bit of a doozy. Lowering your carbohydrate intake is hard. But if you have followed all the previous suggestion you’ll find it is not as difficult as you might think.

The easiest way to start is to simply cut your carbohydrate intake in half. If you’re going to have a sandwich, eat it open face (with only one slice of bread ☺). If you were planning to have a baked potato, only eat half. In this way you can still eat the foods you like, but without having the blood sugar spike you would normally have.

Another way to keep these carbohydrates from wreaking havoc with you system would be to find the highest fiber version available. For instance, eat all the potato skin from baked potato (the skin has the most fiber & vitamins) but carve out most of the inside which is not as nutritional. If you are going to have a piece of bread, make sure the bread has 5 grams of fiber per slice. (You may have to read quite a few labels to find bread with the highest fiber count.)

Cutting your carbohydrate intake is hard at first, but after the first few days and weeks it gets easier because as your blood sugar goes down and your insulin levels go down you stop craving food. Once you get your levels down you’ll find this is one of the easiest diet plans you’ve ever tried.

By following these 5 suggestions, along with at least 30 minutes of exercise 5-7 days a week, you should be able to positively impact your blood sugar levels and with consistent improvement you could completely reverse your insulin resistance condition.

Sample Insulin Resistance Diet Menu

Start today. Don’t wait. Here is a sample menu you can use to get started. But remember, if you are insulin resistant it will take a couple of weeks (or even up to a month) before your insulin level begins to stabilize. The first 3 days are the absolute worst, but by the time you reach your tenth day you will see this is not only doable, it gets easier with every passing day. By the time you pass the 2 week mark you may find yourself saying this is the easiest diet you’ve ever been on.

Breakfast (the most important meal of the day)

Getting enough protein at breakfast isn’t too difficult. I either have bacon and eggs or a protein shake. If you’ve been used to having cereal for breakfast this will be quite a change. I’ve shopped quite a bit and as of September of 2011 I have yet to find a low carb cereal to eat. There are a lot of them that say they are low carb, but either their idea of low carb and mine are much different or they are just big fat liars ☺ ).

Bacon and eggs are easy. I either boil or scramble my egg and then I use precooked bacon I buy at Sam’s and keep in the freezer. Because this meal is low in fiber I usually supplement with Metamucil before breakfast.

If I don’t eat eggs, I have a protein shake instead. I only use whey protein – (soy protein is not only more difficult for your body to absorb, it is lower in protein, and soy will slow down your metabolism. Most insulin resistant people don’t want their metabolism any slower). You’ll want to experiment to find a shake you like. I usually mix 4ozs of skim milk and 4 ozs ice water with a handful of berries for flavor. I also mix my psyllium husk in with my shake to thicken so that takes care of my fiber.

Lunch

There are lots of choices for lunch. You can have a sandwich, but you need to have it open face (or a bend over) using only one slice of 5 gram fiber bread. You can also use low carb high fiber wraps. READ THE LABELS! Fiber One has a great wrap that has 9 grams of fiber and only 3 grams of carbohydrates. You can have a whole wrap. Fill with the protein you need each meal and top with some at least 1 gram of fibers worth of veggies and you have a great meal.

You can also have a Cobb Salad. I love Cobb salads. Almost every restaurant anywhere serves their version of these salads and so you never really have an excuse to eat poorly. Do be careful of sweet salad dressings with lots of sugar and leave the crackers alone. A good Cobb salad will have all the protein and fiber you need for your meal.

Cottage cheese and tomatoes or some other vegetable is a great lunch. A little over a half a cup of cottage cheese will meet your protein requirement and your vegetable and fiber supplement will provide adequate fiber.

You can also have soup or chili. We love chili and I usually make huge batches of chili and freeze the extra. It’s not difficult to freeze small single serving portions to carry to work. And I usually keep several low carb soups on hand for quick lunches or suppers. See below for some great insulin resistance diet recipes.

Supper

Once again a Cobb Salad is always a great choice. They a good when you eat out but are also quite easy to make so you can toss one together fairly easy.

As mentioned above soup and chili are favorites at our house for dinner. During the colder weather sitting down to a bowl of chili or soup is very comforting.

Every meal plan for supper at our house begins with the choice of protein. Lean chicken, pork, fish, or on occasion beef has certain side dishes that go well. Lean pork with coleslaw and ranch style beans are a great combination and low in carbs. Chicken, a salad, and seasoned black beans go well together. Experiment and decide what you like best.

(Helpful Hint: One healthy thing you should do whether you are insulin resistant or not is to give yourself a last bite deadline every day. Your body needs at least 12 hours every day when you are not eating anything. Your body needs this to complete the digestion process. So if you normally eat breakfast at 7AM, you should make sure you don’t eat anything after 7Pm the night before. This gives your body a full 12 hours to process the food from the day before, and truly makes breakfast a “break-fast”.)

Insulin Resistance Diet Recipes

I’m not a great gourmet chefs that go into the kitchen and whip up these ridiculously difficult meals presented beautifully on the plate. I just make plain ole food for plain ole folks who value how good the food tastes and not how highbrow the recipe or ingredients. With that said here are a few of our favorite recipes:

German Salad Dressing

• ¼ cup Balsamic Vinegar
• ½ cup Olive Oil
• 1 Tbls Honey Mustard
• ½ cup Water
• ½ Tbls Crushed Garlic
• ½ tsp Minced Tarragon
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Put all ingredients in a seal-able bottle and mix well.

Favorite Meatloaf

• 1 ½ lb. Ground Beef
• 1 cup Cracker Crumbs (approximately 20 crackers)
• 2 Beaten Eggs
• 1 (8oz.)can seasoned tomato sauce
• ½ to 1 cup Finely Chopped Onions
• ¾ tsp. Salt

Combine all ingredients; mix well. Shape mixture in a loaf in a shallow baking dish. Bake about 1 hour at 350º. Makes 6-8 servings.

Favorite Spicy Chili

• 1 Box Carroll Shelby’s Chili Spices
• 2 pounds Very Lean Ground Beef or Ground Turkey
• 2 cans Del Monte Diced Tomatoes with Zesty Mild Green Chiles
• 1 can Rotel Tomatoes
• 1 8oz can of Tomato Sauce

Brown the meat and drain the fat. Dump in the spices from the Carroll Shelby Chili Spice package, throw out the maze flour and save the salt to be used elsewhere. Add in tomatoes and sauce and simmer for at least a half hour and serve hot. (We like a little grated cheddar cheese as garnish.)

Hamburger Soup

• 2 cans Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic and Oregano
• 1 lb Ground Beef or Turkey
• 2 cans of Tomato Sauce
• 16 oz Beef or Chicken Broth
• 1 Chopped Onion
• 1 package Chopped Frozen Spinach
• 1 can Cut Green Beans - drained
• 1 Garlic Cloves - minced
• 1 Green Pepper - chopped (you can half this if you'd like)
• 1 Celery Stalk - chopped
• 1 Bay Leaf
• 1 Tbls Chopped Parsley
• ¼ tsp Italian Spices
• ½ tsp Pepper
• 1 tsp Salt

Brown meat, drain the fat and then dump all ingredients in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour.

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