Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood Sugar

Jessie Inchauspe is brilliant. This book is full of very useful and effective information building on her 10 Hacks found on her YouTube videos. As a biochemist and medical researcher, she is considerably more knowledgeable than many physicians I've met about nutrition and its impact on health.I have been struggling with borderline diabetes/pre-diabetes for years. Doctors wanted to put me on Metformin which I refused as I’m improving and reversing this condition through diet, exercise, and natural supplements. This is a very interesting easy to read book that fully explains how important it is to balance and flatten glucose spikes and improve insulin sensitivity.Many people know ”What” to eat and what foods to avoid, intermittent fasting addresses “When” to eat. This book discusses “How" to eat in a particular order to noticeably benefit health. She explains glucose spikes and insulin resistance and its relationship impacting health, chronic illnesses and aging. She states that chronic diseases including heart, cancer, obesity, diabetes, dementia, PCOS, and others are from inflammation stemming from uncontrolled glucose spikes. Feeding children in this particular order can also improve their health- childhood diabetes is a major concern.Inchauspe cites a 2015 Cornell Study which found that people who ate food in this order (described below) reduced glucose spikes by 73% and insulin spikes by 48% within 2 hours, along with a significant reduction in their A1C levels. This is huge! My own blood testing and eating a variety of foods in this order, including various desserts, shows an impressive further reduction in my 2 hour postprandial blood glucose readings which are typically in the 90's or lower.The 10 Hacks found in her YouTube videos are greatly expanded upon in this book to make these hacks even more effective in normalizing glucose and improving blood testing and A1C scores, while helping to lose weight by eating foods in a certain order: First- salads and/or veggies. Second- protein and good fats. Third and last- carbohydrates & starches. Yes, you can eat whatever you want, and however much you want (no counting calories) and even have dessert as part of the meal while minimizing glucose spikes and fat storage, improving insulin sensitivity and overall health. If you need to lose weight or have blood glucose challenges, skip dessert and reduce or eliminate bad carbs and limit good carbs. Eating in this order becomes a lifestyle and easy to implement daily. I find eating this way that I’m already pretty full by the time I get to the carb and dessert stage which helps maintain my weight. Other hacks include drinking a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in water or in a dressing, not eating naked carbs (take carbs with a good fat or protein), and walking after a meal.I have been doing intermittent fasting for a few years and recently incorporated Jessie’s 10 hacks. Combining fasting with these hacks has been the missing link to further improve my overall health that I can see, feel, and measure.Highly recommended!Update September 2024- I recently got a Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitor (CGM) which has been very educational in seeing how good quality sleep and walking after meals helps to further lower glucose levels, versus poor sleep and no walking after eating. I used to get up at 3am to go on the computer every morning. Forcing myself to break this habit and stay in bed has seen a further lowering of blood glucose after several days. A good night’s sleep and exercise after eating are as essential as diet.This is clearly shown on the CGM which reports glucose changes every 5 minutes. I had to pay for this out of pocket and it has been a worthwhile investment. When installing a new monitor every 10 days I find it necessary to recalibrate the Dexcom readings with a fingertip blood test, as the initial readings are too high.

My Dr recommended this book to me and I will admit like many of us when it comes to Dr advice and eating I didn't want to but decided to try. I have airways struggled with weight and cravings. One thing I have learned from this book is that we were never taught the proper information on how and what to eat. Eating some of the same foods but in different order can change your cravings. This is a must read for everyone but I would also say every parentshould read this book. Learning what a good bowl of cereal does to our kids before school is a wake up call as to why so many children are on adhd meds. We learn so many ways to stay safe growing up but never taught proper eating habits. Probably because in the past, the research on eating was missing so much information. I grew up eating everything the wrong way. This is probably why my mom is a type 2 diabetic and my a1c was pre-diabetic along with my brother. I have always struggled with weight and now I have learned why. This is NOT a fad diet book. It's a book on the research that was done on food and glucose spikes. Lowering glucose spikes doesn't necessarily mean giving up your favorite foods, it's about changing when you eat them. I suggest reading this book and make educated decisions on what and how you eat. I am very happy I took my Dr's advice on this.

Excellent information that is digestible and applicable to everyday life. She simplifies the 'science' and makes it readable and relatable.

My mother had type 2 diabetes and ultimately died from related kidney failure. For years I have exercised and managed my diet in an effort to avoid a similar fate. I was therefore stunned during a recent doctor's appointment when it was revealed that my hemoglobin A1c was above normal limits. I immediately ordered a continous glucose monitor and was dismayed to see that my blood glucose levels were regularly exceeding what would be considered normal. I am now trying to learn as much as possible about preventing these elevated glucose levels.In my research I was led to Jessie Inchauspe (Glucose Goddess on Instagram) and decided to buy her book, The Glucose Revolution. I will say that the majority of the information in this book is available for free on her Instagram account. However, I like the simplicity of reading through the book rather than scrolling through posts and reels.The author gives a thorough overview of glucose, explaining the different forms and how they act in our bodies. She explains glucose spikes and has a really good explanation of what the hemoglobin A1c test is measuring. She then shares 10 hacks to help lower your blood sugar levels that I feel are relatively easy to incorporate into your eating plan. Some of them, like eating dessert over a sweet snack (eat a sweet food after a meal rather than on its own) were things that I have already been doing intuitively.I do wonder at the description of our stomachs as a sink and the intestine as the pipe below. She claims that when we eat carbs first, they flow uninterrupted into the intestine. Drawing on information from my college nutrition classes many years ago, I seem to remember that chemical digestion begins in your mouth and that because of the churning in your stomach, the food that you eat will all be mixed around and therefore it doesn't really matter what order you eat your foods in. That being said, it's a relatively minor thing to eat a veggie starter and/or eat foods in the described order.I also question the idea that our blood sugar shouldn't rise more than 30 points after eating. If my blood sugar is at 80, that means after eating my glucose level should not be above 110. That is well below the generally accepted rise to 140. I'm not saying that we should always be going to that level, but even a modest rise to 120 would not be accepable according to the standards presented in the book.Of note, the author does not have diabetes or prediabetes and started the Glucose Goddess after working for a company that was developing continuous glucose monitors.Overall, I do think this book is worth reading to better understand blood sugar. I wouldn't limit your knowledge to just this one source of information though. I've been slowly working through articles and videos published on the Nourished by Science website. I really appreciate the perspective offered there. Women entering menoupause might want to investigate the effects of decling estrogen on their blood glucose levels too. The New Menopause by Dr. Mary Claire Haver is a fantastic book on this stage of life.

This is a great read if you are looking to learn about balancing your blood sugar! It offered a lot of tips throughout the book and I liked how it showed images for visualization! I learned a lot and I will for sure be picking it back up to refresh on what I learned. I highly recommend this book!