I learnt that rajma was not as healthy as I thought it was, and that exercise made far more of a difference than I thought it would
July 15, 2021
<aside> 💡 Disclaimer: I am a data scientist, not a doctor. The post below should not be taken as medical advice. Please consult your doctor before making drastic lifestyle changes.
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This April, I spent a fortnight with a continuous glucose monitor in my arm. It was a device with a tiny needle that monitored my blood glucose continuously, and saved the resultant data in the cloud. As someone with a family history of diabetes, I thought this would be a good way of understanding how my body reacts to different kinds of foods and exercise. While it was expensive, I learnt much more than I would have anticipated.
How I wore the Continuous Glucose Monitor (I used Abbott's Freestyle Libre) – it had a tiny needle that went in painlessly in my arm
Note: I cooked all foods listen in the post below at home to make sure that I was using healthy ingredients
I used to believe in indiscriminate intermittent fasting, and would often have a single large meal a day after not eating at all throughout the day.
This happened on April 5th, for instance. My blood sugar was around 90mg/dl throughout the day (which is very healthy) when I did not eat at all But after having a large serving of rajma with brown rice, it rose rapidly to 160 mg/dl.
While a mild spike after eating is normal, frequent extreme spikes like this can be unhealthy. When you eat food, it is broken down by your digestive system and results in a rapid release of sugar into your blood stream. When this happens and you have more sugar in your body than you need, your pancreas releases insulin into your blood stream to signal to your liver that some of this glucose be converted to glycogen.
But if the glucose spikes in your body are too frequent, the liver eventually gets desensitized to normal levels of insulin and stops effectively converting glucose to glycogen. This is a problem, as high levels of glucose can cause damage to your organs.
As a result of this, I learnt that having a carbohydrate heavy meal to break your fast is likely a bad idea.
On April 6, I had a fairly healthy breakfast and lunch. I made a protein smoothie with whey, blueberries, banana, and peanut butter for breakfast. This led to a very mild spike in my blood sugar (which is normal), as shown below.
For lunch, I just had a banana with some nuts. This also led to a very mild sugar spike.
Feeling pleased with myself, I let myself have 4 rotis and paneer for dinner. And this caused a drastic sugar spike. While going for a short 10-minute walk after eating helped mitigate blood sugar in the short-term, it continued to climb after I had stopped walking.