What I Learned From the Glucose Goddess
One of the people who has really changed the way I think about food is Jessie Inchauspé, better known as the Glucose Goddess. Jessie is a French biochemist and the author of Glucose Revolution and The Glucose Goddess Method, and what I love about her work is that she takes something that can sound incredibly complicated — blood glucose — and makes it understandable and practical.
This subject is particularly important to me personally because I have been told that I’m prediabetic. That made understanding my blood sugar much more than simply an interesting piece of nutritional science. I wanted to understand what was happening inside my own body and what everyday things I could do to support my health.
So what actually happens when we eat?
When we eat foods containing carbohydrates, our digestive system breaks much of that carbohydrate down into glucose, which enters our bloodstream. Our body then releases insulin, which helps move glucose out of the bloodstream and into cells where it can be used or stored. Our blood glucose naturally rises and falls throughout the day — that’s normal. What interests me is how the composition of our meals, our activity and our overall lifestyle can influence those rises and falls.
Jessie’s work made me much more conscious of how I put a meal together, rather than simply thinking about calories.
One of the habits I now follow is making sure my meals contain protein and plenty of fibre. I might have eggs, fish, lentils, chickpeas, yoghurt, seeds or another protein source alongside vegetables, salad or other plant foods. If I’m eating carbohydrates, I’m much more conscious of what I’m eating them with rather than necessarily eating them on their own.
Fibre is something I’m particularly passionate about anyway because of my interest in gut health. I love eating a huge variety of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds and other plants throughout the week, so this fits very naturally into the way I already like to eat.
Jessie also talks about the order in which we eat a meal. Her approach is generally to start with fibre-rich vegetables, then eat protein and fats, with carbohydrate-rich foods afterwards. There is research suggesting that meal sequence can influence the glucose response after eating, although I don’t think we need to become obsessive about eating every meal in a perfect order.
I simply find it a useful thing to know.
Another habit I’ve adopted is one of the easiest of all: walking after eating.
I often go for a short walk after a meal. I love this because it isn’t complicated, doesn’t require gym clothes and doesn’t feel like another enormous health commitment. Your muscles can use glucose when they’re active, and research has found that exercise after meals can reduce the rise in blood glucose following a meal.
Ten or twenty minutes of movement can fit surprisingly easily into everyday life. Walk the dog, walk around the block, do a little housework or simply move rather than immediately sitting down for the next couple of hours.
What I particularly like about all of this is that it isn’t about banning carbohydrates or being frightened of food.
I still eat oats. I eat fruit. I eat lentils and chickpeas. I enjoy food.
I’m simply much more aware of what I eat alongside those foods and what I do afterwards.
This also fits beautifully with the way I work as a personal trainer. Muscle isn’t only important because it makes us stronger. Regular physical activity and resistance training are also important parts of metabolic health. For people at increased risk of type 2 diabetes, established medical guidance recommends regular moderate physical activity and can include resistance training as part of a diabetes-prevention lifestyle.
So when I talk to my clients about strength training, walking, protein, vegetables, fibre and eating well, these things aren’t completely separate.
They fit together.
I do want to add something important. I love Jessie’s work and it has genuinely influenced the way I eat, but I don’t treat any one book, Instagram account or nutritional approach as a replacement for medical advice. Prediabetes and diabetes are medical conditions, and individual nutrition advice can differ depending on somebody’s health, medication and circumstances.
What Jessie gave me was something slightly different.
She made me curious about my blood sugar.
Instead of thinking about food simply in terms of whether it will make me gain or lose weight, I started asking different questions.
Does this meal contain protein?
Where’s the fibre?
Could I add another vegetable?
Could I go for a little walk afterwards?
How is this food actually nourishing my body?
Those are questions I now use in my own life and ideas I love sharing with my clients.
We don’t have to eat perfectly.
We don’t need to fear food.
But understanding a little about what happens to our blood glucose when we eat gives us another tool for making informed choices about our health.
And sometimes the most useful changes aren’t enormous.
Add the protein. Add the fibre. Eat lots of beautiful plants. Build some muscle. And take a little walk after dinner.
Simple things, repeated consistently, can become powerful habits.
Selena
Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher & Wellbeing Coach
In Flow Wellbeing Studio, Cheltenham
