Principle #1 for Good Glycemic Control

Principle #1 Carbohydrate tolerance

How many carbs can I eat?  Atkins?  The Zone?  Ornish?  How many carbohydrates one can tolerate is an individual thing known as carbohydrate tolerance.  The first principle in balancing blood sugar is to stay below one's carbohydrate tolerance.  Carbohydrate tolerance is defined as the amount of carbohydrates/sugar the body can optimally process.  This is how much carbohydrate/sugar that can get into the cells without having excess in the blood stream.  When carbohydrate tolerance is exceeded then the most common symptoms are fatigue and sweet/carbohydrate cravings.  In some individuals post meal fatigue is prominent, in others it can be cravings for sugar or starch.  If symptoms cannot be appreciated (or correlation needs to be made) then post meal glucose measurements can be checked.  This can be done with a glucose meter.  The One Touch Ultra Mini is an accurate meter.  2-4 hour post meal glucose measurements of 85-100 are considered optimal.  Measurements above 100 are typically associated with fatigue and/or sweet/carb cravings, and would be considered exceeding one’s carbohydrate tolerance.  While there are many contributors to blood sugar disruption, overconsumption of carbohydrates and sugar is probably the single biggest contributor.  Stay tuned and I will discuss the other contributors to disrupted blood sugar.      

Yours in health, Dr. Chris Caffery

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