The Worst Fruits to Eat If You’re Watching Your Blood Sugar

First things first: fruit is your friend. Sure, a staggering one in 10 Americans has diabetes, but bananas are not the culprit. Unlike ultra-processed foods that are filled with added sugars (think: corn syrup and cane sugar), fruit contains natural sugar called fructose. Fruit also provides hydration—most fruits are about 90% water!—and fiber. The presence of fiber helps to slow down the body’s absorption of sugars like fructose from the gut into the blood, meaning you experience less of a blood sugar spike after eating an apple compared to, say, a cookie. Of course it’s possible to overdo anything, fruit included. Consuming very large amounts of fruit everyday (fruitarianism, anyone?) may hike up blood sugar levels over time. This is especially important to consider for people with insulin resistance (IR) or Type 2 diabetes who are striving to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. Or for the 88 million Americans—that’s more than 1 in 3 adults—living with prediabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But we want to be clear: Nobody needs to cut fruit from their diet, even if they have IR or diabetes. Fruit is an essential part of a nutritious diet. That said, it’s helpful for everyone to have a sense of which fruits are the highest and lowest in sugar, and to be aware of what a serving of fruit looks like. Because a whole bag of grapes is not a single serving (sorry!). RELATED: Healthy Eating for Diabetes: The Best Nutritious Snacks and Tasty Breakfast Ideas In general, we recommend sticking to two or three servings of fruit per day. Be sure to choose whole fruits instead of juices, which lack that critical fiber we mentioned earlier. Curious which fruits are the highest in sugar? Read on for our high-sugar fruit list and then check out our low-sugar fruit list here. 5 Highest-Sugar Fruits 1. Pomegranate Pomegranates are high on the sugar scale, with 1 cup of the juicy kernels serving up nearly 24 grams of sugar. But the vibrant fruit is also jam-packed with longevity-friendly antioxidants like anthocyanins. Stick with ½ cup as a serving (which will cut the sugar down to 12 grams) and combine it with a source of high-quality protein so you aren’t eating the carbs alone. We love sprinkling pom seeds on top of Greek yogurt for a tart topping. 2. Mango One cup of mango can bring 23 grams of sugar to the table, but it also provides two-thirds of your daily needs for vitamin C. Stick with ½ cup as a serving of this tropical fruit. Another option? Whip up this Avocado and Mango Salsa that pairs the sweet fruit with heart-healthy fats thanks to the avocado. Add it to your fave fish tacos or use it as a dip for crudite. 3. Cherries Anyone else get super excited for seasonal fruits? For us, summer screams cherries (and watermelon and berries and, let’s be real, ice cream). Go for ½ cup of cherries to cut the sugar content down to about 10 grams per serving. 4. Banana Bananas get a bad rap, but the potassium-rich fruits are satisfying and versatile. After all, what other fruit can become pancakes and ice cream?! Stick with 1 small banana or ½ of a large banana as a serving and you’ll get about 12 grams of sugar from the fruit. Also smart: pair your ‘nana with a source of healthy fat or protein if you’re looking to level off your blood sugar response. We love our Chocolate, Banana, Almond Butter smoothie that combines bananas with protein powder, collagen peptides and nuts for a balanced breakfast. 5. Oranges One large orange contains 17 grams of sugar and is packed with goodness. That same large orange provides more than 100% of your daily value for immune-supportive vitamin C, plus 4.5 grams of fiber. Stick with a small orange as a serving. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Watching your sugar? Here are 5 lowest-sugar fruits that satisfy your sweet tooth (Image: Shutterstock)

How Gut Health Impacts Blood Sugar

Created in partnership with Pendulum How we keep our digestive system in tip-top shape, and improve our overall health, is one of the hottest topics in wellness. There are countless studies and articles about the importance of taking care of our tummies and the impact it has on our overall health. Our gut influences everything from heart disease to arthritis to cancer. Now, research has found that gut health—or lack thereof—may be linked to type 2 diabetes.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 1 in 10 people have diabetes, with about 90 percent having type 2 diabetes. Someone who has type 2 diabetes can’t process blood sugar effectively because they’re not responding to insulin or their bodies aren’t producing enough. And this means that people living with type 2 diabetes are at greater risk for heart disease, nerve damage, kidney issues, eye damage, hearing impairment, sleep apnea, and Alzheimer’s disease.  WHAT THE HECK IS BLOOD SUGAR ANYWAY? Now, we’re about to get our science on, so stick with us here. We promise you’ll thank us.  After we eat a meal, our bodies get busy breaking down food to be used as energy or to be stored as fat. After the food is broken down we are left with glucose, the simplest form of sugar. A hormone called insulin gets released from our pancreas and starts traveling through our bloodstream looking for the glucose to bring into our cells.   Picture this: imagine all the sugar in our blood has a little padlock attached to it, and the only way to get the sugar in our cells for energy is to unlock it. Insulin is the only key we have for this padlock. People with type 2 diabetes produce little to no insulin, or over time, they become resistant to the insulin they are producing. The key no longer fits in the lock. Therefore, their cells are starving for energy and screaming “feed us, feed us!”   In an attempt to quiet them down, the pancreas keeps pumping out more and more insulin, but it’s just not fitting in the padlock. When this happens, there is no way to get the sugar out of the blood and into the cells for energy. This causes high blood sugar levels, which is the trademark symptom of diabetes.   HOW OUR GUT MICROBIOME WORKS—AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT Now that we’ve gone over blood sugar, let’s dig into the gut microbiome. Whether you’ve heard it called microbiome or flora, the bacteria in the gut play a role in everything from weight management to cognitive functioning and immunity to digestion.  In your gut, there are billions of bacteria, viruses and fungi. Billions. You’re hosting colonies and armies of microscopic bugs which we collectively call microbes. This is what’s known as your microbiome. These microbes are essential to your immune system, heart, lungs, skin, and gut.  The foods you eat help to diversify the microbes in your GI tract. This is GOOD. You want lots of different bacteria, viruses, and fungi to have a nice rainbow of microbes that will help to keep you healthy and in fine tune. Research is looking at how diverse and rich your microbiome is as it relates to several areas: Weight Management: There is really good research out there, even twin studies that find that the more diverse and active the gut microbiome, the better, when it comes to weight management. Microbe imbalance is linked to overweight and obesity intimately.  Digestive Disorders: Science is linking digestive disorders like IBS and leaky gut to microbiome imbalance. Introduction of a higher fiber diet and more diversity in foods as well as probiotic rich foods (like kefir and sauerkraut) can help to manage symptoms and prevent flare ups.  Heart Health: There’s evidence showing that probiotics (from food and supplementation) may be beneficial to your heart by lowering total and LDL cholesterol. Blood Sugar: A rich microbiome may help regulate blood sugar and prevent spikes and crashes.  A NEW APPROACH TO MANAGE DIABETES While diet and exercise are pivotal to the management of type 2 diabetes, there is a new cutting-edge microbiome company, called Pendulum, that is dedicated to making people healthier through microbiome-targeted solutions. The company’s flagship product, Pendulum Glucose Control, is the first and only medical probiotic that is clinically shown to lower A1C and blood sugar spikes.*  Many with type 2 diabetes have lost beneficial bacterial strains that help digest dietary fiber and produce butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid which plays a key role in the body’s natural ability to signal insulin production, stabilize blood glucose and provide anti-inflammatory properties. That is how digestive health, insulin and diabetes are all connected. Pendulum has found a way to combine targeted probiotic strains of beneficial bacteria and prebiotics to restore the body’s natural ability to metabolize fiber and manage glucose levels.* New discoveries in microbiome research indicate that the lost or reduced ability to metabolize fiber and manage blood glucose can be restored by replenishing strains in the gut microbiome. Through DNA sequencing, Pendulum has identified unique, targeted strains of beneficial bacteria that help restore disrupted gut function in people with type 2 diabetes. This medical probiotic can help to metabolize fiber and produce butyrate, and as an added bonus, it can help restore the gut lining.  BOTTOM LINE Our gut is extremely important in terms of our overall health. While healthy eating and physical activity (and your doctor’s guidance) is paramount to managing type 2 diabetes, this new medical probiotic could be an additional resource for those with type 2 diabetes to help lower A1C* and manage blood sugar spikes through your gut. What’s even better is that by using the Nutritious Life code, NL33, you can get 30% off your first bottle of Pendulum Glucose Control!   *A nutrition study demonstrated a significant reduction in A1C and blood sugar spikes in people with type 2 diabetes. The study was randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, and across multiple sites in the U.S. **Consult

What’s Better: Several Small Meals or Three Larger Ones?

Ask Keri: Is it better to eat several small meals throughout the day or three larger ones? Keri Says: First, when it comes to diet and our health, it’s a little less about how frequently you eat and more about what you’re eating when you do. But, that’s the very short answer. So here goes… Many observational studies have suggested that smaller more frequent meals might improve metabolic health, satiety and weight. Yet, mixed results from recent intervention studies suggest there is no significant difference between several small meals or three large ones, which means again, there’s not a one-size-fits-all recommendation. Instead, choose the option that works best for you and your lifestyle.  I will say that, over the years my clients have done better when incorporating at least one snack a day within a healthy diet. But, proper snacking is key and that’s a whole other q & a. Here’s a little more on what research has to say:  Metabolism One argument for eating several small meals throughout the day is that it keeps your metabolism revved. Your body uses energy to digest food, so the theory is that the more frequently you eat, the more calories your body is burning. Leblanc and colleagues fed study participants the same number of calories divided into either one or four meals and found that increased meal frequency increased post-meal energy expenditure and fat utilization.  On the other hand, intervention studies utilizing metabolic chambers (a tool for measuring metabolism in a controlled environment) such as this one and this one did not find significant differences in resting metabolic rate or energy expenditure between low and high meal frequencies.  Weight Even if meal frequency doesn’t have an effect on calories burned, does it influence how many calories you consume? The research is mixed as well. Two studies—one in obese men and one in lean men—both assessed how eating breakfast in one meal vs divided into four smaller meals would influence subsequent appetite and energy intake. In both cases, increased meal frequency lowered hunger and appetite, which may mean that several small meals could potentially prevent you from overeating. That being said, only the lean men ended up consuming less in the following meal.  What about overall weight? Many observational studies have noted trends between increased meal frequency and lower risk of obesity. In addition, research suggests that specifically consuming protein more frequently may help preserve lean body mass while decreasing total body and abdominal fat. Still, there are other studies that have not found a significant difference in body weight. For example, an 8-week intervention study of obese adults on a restricted diet did not find a difference in weight loss when participants ate the same amount of calories from 3 meals a day or 3 meals plus 3 snacks a day.  Chronic Disease Risk Factors Maintaining normal blood sugar and lipid levels is key for preventing chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Some intervention studies have found that eating smaller portions reduces insulin excretion, while others did not find any significant difference in insulin or blood sugar responses.  Mixed results have been found with lipid and cholesterol levels, too. In a 1-year clinical trial, 140 study participants were randomized to eating either three meals a day or three meals plus 3 snacks a day. There were no differences in metabolic variables except for an increase in HDL (aka the good cholesterol) in the 3-meal group. Yet, another small study of nineteen healthy individuals compared 3 vs 9 meals per day and found that more frequent meals significantly decreased LDL (aka the bad cholesterol).  The Bottom Line This one is personal. With various findings likely due to varying study designs, more research is needed.. Regardless, what’s most important is the quality of food you eat, the proportion of nutrients you eat and understanding your behavior and lifestyle. Do you binge if you go into dinner hungry? Or, do you pick all day if you take out even a portioned healthy snack? .  If you find yourself so hungry by dinnertime that you’re scarfing down an entire box of mac and cheese and tearing into a package of cookies, then more frequent smaller meals might be a better fit to prevent poor food choices and overindulging thanks to hunger. Again, I’ve found this to work for most clients. On the other hand, more eating occasions for others might just turn into more opportunities to overeat or rely on less nutritious convenience foods. If your smaller meals aren’t actually small or consist of chips and baked goods, then you might want to stick to three meals a day. Either way, make sure to fuel up on whole foods including those that are high quality protein, healthy fats and high fiber carbohydrates.  –

Blood Work 101: What Lab Results Really Mean

Blood work is so confusing. What do all those numbers mean? How the heck do you even pronounce that word? What do the results say about overall health? I know what I’m looking for when clients come to me with their lab work. I learned lab values in grad school and have used them in my practice for years. I indeed understand why they can be confusing, but you really should have a cheat sheet to refer to since, after all, the results tell you lots about what’s going inside of that bod of yours. It’s back to school today friends. Now, keep reading! You don’t want to miss this lesson. Blood Work 101: What’s the Deal? Even with my training, looking at lab results can be confusing – they aren’t always straightforward to read and results can be put in different orders, depending on the lab. Sometimes the normal range is in front of the result and sometimes it is the other way around. Unlike lab results, a lot of the work I do is incredibly subjective: “how much pasta do you think you ate?” and “do you remember what you had to drink with your dinner?” I kind of like the black and white and concrete evidence I get when I look at lab values. I use blood pressure results when I teach my clients with high blood pressure how to be mindful of sodium in their diet — eliminating their salt shaker use, drinking enough water and managing their stress. Or I teach clients with high cholesterol how to watch the trans and saturated fat found in animal foods and processed foods. Even if you brush off your lab results because your doc says you are in a “healthy range”, you should always ask for a copy of your blood work so you can compare it through the years. If you want to know what the digits mean, check this out. Blood Pressure You may not even be aware, but every time you go to the doctor’s office, the nurse checks out your pulse and blood pressure. Your blood pressure is the force of blood against the walls of your arteries. Hence, the word “pressure”. It helps us look at two numbers, the systolic pressure (as the heart beats, it’s the number put on the top of the fraction) and the diastolic pressure (as the heart relaxes, the number on the bottom of the fraction). Blood pressure is written as systolic/diastolic pressure. For example, you may be told your blood pressure is 110/70. Optimal—120/80 or lower Prehypertension—120-139/80-89, (note: higher number equals more “pressure”) High—140/90 or greater Hypertension is the same thing as high blood pressure; you have it if your blood pressure is 140/90 or higher. If you have high blood pressure, you are at greater risk for developing heart disease and stroke. If you get a higher than normal number for the first time, rest and relax a few minutes and take your blood pressure again. Sometimes the stress alone of being at the doc can make your heart work overtime. Basic Metabolic Panel You’re going to get something called a basic metabolic panel at your annual checkup as well. It’s a blood draw that tells the physician: how your kidneys and liver are doing their jobs, how your blood sugar is doing, your cholesterol and calcium levels, and your electrolyte and protein levels. Remember that you can’t eat for 8 hours before you get your blood work done or the results won’t be true! Just as a note, don’t freak out if the numbers I have below are slightly different than your lab’s normal range. What is “normal” from a laboratory can vary slightly from place to place. Albumin: 3.9 to 5.0 g/dL – this measures protein in your blood Alkaline phosphatase: 44 to 147 IU/L – this looks at your liver and nutrition status ALT (alanine aminotransferase): 8 to 37 IU/L – measures your liver functioning/status AST (aspartate aminotransferase): 10 to 34 IU/L – looks at kidney and liver status BUN (blood urea nitrogen): 7 to 20 mg/dL – indicators of heart and kidney functioning Calcium: 8.5 to 10.9 mg/dL – important for almost all organs in the body, can be a marker of many disease states, this is not measuring the calcium in your bones, but the calcium in your blood Chloride: 96 – 106 mmol/L – can measure poisoning and alkalosis/acidosis (how well your pH is regulated in the body) CO2 (carbon dioxide): 20 to 29 mmol/L – measurement of metabolic function and pH balance (how basic, neutral or acid our blood is) Creatinine: 0.8 to 1.4 mg/dL – marker of kidney functioning Glucose test: 100 mg/dL – diabetes marker and measure of insulin functioning Potassium: 3.7 to 5.2 mEq/L – may be high/low because of medications and affects many organs in the body Sodium: 136 to 144 mEq/L – measures hydration status, is a marker for many disease states and balances the pressure on your artery walls Total bilirubin: 0.2 to 1.9 mg/dL – liver functioning marker Total protein: 6.3 to 7.9 g/dL – measure of infection and kidney/liver diseases Cholesterol Panel You’ll also get your cholesterol panel taken: this test measures the different fats in your blood. You need some fat in your blood for your body and organs to work, but doctors are specifically looking at the good fat and bad fats to make sure there is a balance in the ratio. Just to be clear, this isn’t a ratio of fats in your diet – your body makes cholesterol in your liver and that process is influenced by your genetics, age, lifestyle and other factors. Too much bad fats (LDL and triglycerides) in your blood will make your arteries hard and can be responsible for heart disease and stroke. The good cholesterol (HDL) are responsible for undoing some of the damage from the bad cholesterol and support your body’s health. Total cholesterol: <200mg/dL – measure your combined LDL & HDL LDL cholesterol: <100 mg/dL is optimal – your