What can you do to keep your blood sugar stable?

What can you do to keep your blood sugar stable?

Unfortunately, the Diabetes Fund's National Sugar Challenge is almost over. But it doesn't have to end here. In fact, there are always things you can take away from such a challenge. In this blog we will therefore discuss what sugars do to your body, what you should pay attention to when it comes to added sugars, what you can take into your daily life to watch your sugar intake and what you can do to keep your blood sugar stable.

Sugar

Sugar belongs to the macronutrient carbohydrates. Macronutrients are nutrients that give the body energy. Besides carbohydrates, you also have the macronutrients proteins and fats. The nutrients from macronutrients provide our body's growth, metabolism and other body functions. Macro means large, meaning our body needs these nutrients in large quantities.

What is sugar?

But what exactly is sugar? Sugar or sucrose is a sweet substance found naturally in foods such as fruits, corn, sugar cane and sugar beet. Sugar made from cane or beet sugar is also called granulated sugar. Of course, we all know granulated sugar; it is added as a flavoring to processed products such as soft drinks, candy, cookies, cakes. In addition to these sugars, you also have sugars such as milk sugar (lactose) and fruit sugar (fructose). In addition, potatoes and cereals also contain sugars in the form of starch, these are long sugar chains that are less bad for the body than the sugars mentioned above.

Carbohydrates

As just mentioned, sugar belongs to the macronutrient carbohydrates. Carbohydrates can be divided into "fast carbs" and "slow carbs. But what's the difference? The name actually says it all 'fast carbohydrates' are quickly absorbed into your body and 'slow carbohydrates' are slowly absorbed into your body. "So where does sugar belong?", you may be wondering. Sugar belongs to the fast carbohydrates and is absorbed into your blood fairly quickly. This therefore gives you some quick energy, but also a quick rise in your blood sugar levels. After this energy boost, your blood sugar also drops quickly again and you then become tired. Which then leads to even more sugar consumption to get another energy boost. This fluctuation in your blood sugar is not really conducive to your mood and energy level.

Blood sugar levels stable

So how do you keep your blood sugar stable? To keep your blood sugar stable, you need to find a balance in eating 'fast and slow carbohydrates'. 'Slow carbohydrates' are in fact absorbed slowly in your body, this is due to the complexity of the carbohydrates. Slow carbohydrates make you feel fuller (more satiated), so you experience less hunger and have energy over a longer period of time, so no peaks and troughs! It also has the advantage that you are less inclined to snack (unhealthily). Also, most products with slow carbohydrates contain more fiber, which also ensures that your blood sugar levels fluctuate less and these fibers are also good for bowel movements. Other tips for keeping your blood sugar levels up are:

1. Exercise regularly: For example, take the stairs more often, cycle to work, or walk to the supermarket.
2. Watch your diet: Think eat more products with slow carbs than fast carbs.
3. Ensure sufficient relaxation: When you don't relax enough and are under too much stress, your body produces cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline. This causes your body to produce more insulin and store more body fat. Of course, you don't want that!

Why the "National Sugar Challenge?

Of course, you've just read about why it's better to eat less sugar, but why a specific challenge? The "National Sugar Challenge" was created because the consumption of added sugars has increased greatly in recent years. Accordingly, World Health Organization advises adult women to ingest only 50 grams of free sugars per day, and an adult man is allowed 60 grams of free sugars. When talking about free sugars, this refers to all added sugars in products. To get a better idea of how much 50 or 60 grams of free sugars are, one sugar cube contains 4 grams of sugar. So women should consume 12.5 sugar cubes and a man 15 sugar cubes. According to the Diabetes Fund, Dutch people are far above this advice. In fact, we Dutch eat an average of 20 sugar cubes of free sugars per day!

Consequences of too much sugar

Therefore, there are several consequences to consuming too much sugar. Above we mentioned unstable blood sugar levels, resulting in fatigue. In addition, too much sugar is a major cause of obesity in children and adults. And it follows that overweight people are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. In this type, the body no longer responds well to insulin. Insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. So without properly functioning insulin, you have unstable blood sugar levels that your body cannot control.

The National Sugar Challenge

The "National Sugar Challenge" was therefore started to make people more aware of how much sugar they consume and also to reduce it when necessary. Added or free sugars are often found in products where you might not expect it. Therefore, read carefully what the ingredients of a product are. Sugar appears in many different names on an ingredient list. There are three rules of thumb for recognizing sugar on a label:

1. All words ending in 'ose' (glucose, fructose, dextrose, etc.)
2. Any words containing "syrup," "honey" or "nectar.
3. And of course anything ending in "sugar" (milk sugar, cane sugar, soft sugar') On this site you will find a list of as many as 77 synonyms for sugar.

If you want to reduce your sugar intake, buy mostly fresh produce and try to avoid as many packets, sachets and bottles as possible.

We hope you've become a little wiser again. Want to know what else Simple Check has to offer for you and your colleagues in the area of prevention and health? Then feel free to contact us.