OK, friends. We’ve talked about the biochemist Jessie Inchauspé, aka the Glucose Goddess, and the importance of stabilizing your blood sugar throughout the day. This is a constant battle for me, and after reading her most recent book, the The Glucose Goddess Method, I decided to experiment with one of her key tenets, which is to eat a savory breakfast.
As a bit of backstory, I have been having smoothies for breakfast for years— off and on for maybe 15??— and love them a lot. I’ve done a mix of DIY and Daily Harvest, and always felt good about myself because I’d add extra collagen protein, fats like peanut butter, spinach, and various adaptogenic herbs and potions. I’ve never had a huge appetite in the AM, but I could drink these and love them. However, after some digestive issues my acupuncturist suggested that I would do much better with warm, cooked proteins i.e. eggs and greens, and my Dr. was not impressed with my smoothie habit because of *sugar* even though I took out some of the fruit and would add all this good stuff! Basically, I was primed to give the ol’ Glucose Goddess a chance.
I started experimenting with making scrambled eggs for breakfast and felt… fine? I did notice I was full for a lot longer, and the main tenets of her ideal breakfast are that it is savory and keeps you full for four hours. I realized that my smoothie would keep me full for maybe two, which means that my blood sugar was spiking and then crashing.
As kind of an experiment I ate leftover spaghetti (gf with ground turkey meat sauce if you care to know) a few mornings during the week, and then the next day I had a smoothie for breakfast. WOW. I couldn’t believe how much better I’d felt eating leftover spaghetti for breakfast! I might have ben getting the same number of grams of protein, but the feelings were night and day. I truly couldn’t go back to having a smoothie for breakfast when I realized how crummy I felt having it. Also, this might be obvious but savory breakfasts or eating leftover dinner for breakfast is extremely common outside of the U.S. The inventor of corn flakes, Dr. Kellogg, may or may not have invented them as part of a bland diet to promote sexual abstinence, but he definitely did not care about your blood sugar.
Anyways, after my spaghetti experience I’ve stuck with savory breakfasts ever since. Here’s how the changes have affected me:
I’m not hangry when it comes time for lunch, which means I can make healthier choices.
I DON’T GET HANGRY, PERIOD. Even when I had to wait for nearly an hour outside a restaurant, or accidentally had a very late dinner. It just isn’t that dramatic, I can wait to eat and don’t need to immediate eat anything around me to keep me feeling ok. If you’ve known me for more than a year you know that’s huge for me.
My energy is steadier during the entire day. I no longer want to nap in the late afternoon.
I still snack at night which is not ideal, but I don’t usually feel the intense cravings for dessert or snacks I used to. I know I keep restating the obvious, but basically my blood sugar was/is just staying stable all day which low key changes everything.
These changes are so big for me that even when I want to eat something sweet for breakfast, because I’m tired or hungover or just not in the mood to make something, I always stop myself because I know that it could derail my whole day.
I will say that literal spaghetti, which I sometimes eat, can briefly make me sleepy bc of the amount of carbs, so you might do better with something like scrambled eggs and avocado. Eat what you want, with two qualifiers— it should be savory, and it should keep you full for four hours. Honestly, just following those two things has blown my mind and upended what I’d been eating for years.
Other food I’ve experimented with is: avocado toast with lots of olive oil, ideally also with some sort of cheese, and various egg permutations. She believes that starches should be for flavor in the AM, and that your focus should be on protein and fat. I agree! I recommend all of her work, but the main takeaways from her latest book are: savory breakfasts, vinegar before meals, and walks after meals, and I truly think that just changing your breakfast can be transformative.
Maybe try out the old adage: eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper? For any of you who aren’t super hungry in the morning- I’m with you. I tend to eat a later breakfast (1030/11), which then means a later lunch. I would like to have an appetite earlier and am trying not to snack late at night in the hopes that I will be hungry in the AM. Regardless, whenever you start eating for the day if you eat this way I believe you’ll feel better.
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What I’m watching:
Valeria
I’m positive that I’ve written about this Spanish series on Netflix before, which recently released its third season. The best descriptor is Sex and the City in Madrid, but not, I should say And Just Like That (which I keep trying to watch. I am no snob but it is not good and really quite bad). Anyway, this charming series about a writer and her three friends in their late 20s/ early 30s has just the right amount of sex, friendship, and everything else that is great about the og SATC, although the fashion is not quite as au courant.
Hijack
You may have heard of this AppleTv series where Idris Elba is a negotiator who happens to be on a plane that is HIJACKED. This could probably be a 90 minute movie and not a limited series, but I do find each episode compelling. The gist is that this flight from Dubai is hijacked by a team of nefarious Brits who must control the passengers on the flight’s journey to London until they get what they want (what is it? they just revealed that maybe five eps in!), and each episode is equivalent to an hour of the flight a la 24. Are there some plot holes? Yeah, probably, but if your plane is going to get hijacked (hopefully it won’t!!!) you want Idris sitting next to you. Or just in general.
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That’s all, folks. Stay cool.
x alex
P.S. I’m going to try to be more regular sending out this thing. If you have a friend who might like it please consider sharing!