bread, rice, potatoes. These are the

foods that people with diabetes are

often told to avoid. But these foods are

major staples in most people's cuisines.

So, good luck with that because it's not

realistic to cut those things out long

term. But the truth is, you can eat them

safely if you know how. I'm Dr. Leitkim,

and I want to show you how to enjoy

eating carbohydrates without sending

your blood sugar on a roller coaster.

So, I want to cover practical and

science-based strategies that you can

start today to flatten those glucose

spikes after meals and in the process

improve your insulin resistance. And a

quick note, even though I'm a physician,

I'm not your physician. So, please talk

to your doctor before you make any

changes to your diet or your medical

regimen. So, let's start with one of the

most powerful but probably least known

tools that we have for this, and that is

resistant starch. Now, most starches,

which would be things like bread and

pasta, things made out of flour, well,

they break down into glucose, and this

is what raises your blood sugar pretty

quickly. And those repeated blood sugar

spikes is what drives worsening insulin

resistance, and it leads to pancreas

dysfunction, which ultimately is what

makes your diabetes worse. But resistant

starch digests and behaves very

differently. Your enzymes are just not

good at digesting resistant starch. So

instead of being broken down quickly and

spiking your blood glucose, resistant

starch travels to the large intestine

where your gut bacteria fermented and

that fermentation is what produces

things like your short chain fatty acids

like butyrate which actually improve

your insulin sensitivity and it helps

reduce your inflammation and it even

feeds the lining of your colon cells. So

how do you get resistant starch? Well,

one good trick is you can take your

typical starchy foods that would

normally raise your blood sugar and you

just cool them and then heat them back

up before you eat it. And by doing that,

that will increase the food's resistant

starch content. So, you can take bread

and pasta and rice. And when you cool

it, part of the starch crystallizes into

this resistant form. And it's a process

called starch retrogradation where

gelatinized starch molecules like

amalos, they realign and form

crystalline structures that basically

resist digestion in your small

intestine. So you can still eat your

favorite foods, but just cool them and

heat them up later and enjoy the

metabolic benefits. And there's multiple

studies that show that just cooling

cooked rice or potatoes down to 39° F

for 24 hours significantly increase

resistant starch content compared to

freshly cooked starches. And clinically,

eating cooled and then reheated rice or

potatoes does lead to reduced

postprandial glucose and reduce insulin

spikes. So if you're eating at home, you

do not have to give up bread or rice or

potatoes. Just cool it or freeze it

first and then reheat it. It may not

taste the same, but it's going to be

pretty close, and the benefits are very

hard to ignore. Plus, there's many other

foods that are just naturally high

resistant starch that you can just add

to your regimen. So, those would be

things like beans and lentils and peas,

and you can add whole grains like oats

and barley. Okay. The next principle is

food pairing. So, with carbs, we rarely

eat them in isolation. And what you eat

alongside your carbs can dramatically

change the glucose response. And there

are studies like this meta analysis of

154 trials that show that just adding

protein to a carbohydrate meal can

reduce the glucose area under the curve

by up to 50% in healthy adults. And then

we also have evidence that fat can also

blunt early glucose spikes because fat

helps with delaying gastric emptying and

it can help with insulin clearance and

all of this eventually improves your

beta cell function of the pancreas. So

that's why ideally we do not want to eat

starchy or processed carbohydrates in

isolation. Some people call this

avoiding naked carbs. And that's why

rice and beans is usually better than

just rice alone. Um or potatoes with

butter or potatoes with olive oil.

Usually produces a gentler glucose spike

compared to just eating potatoes alone.

And another thing we can do is we can

add acid to our meals. So it would be

things like vinegar or lemon or lime. Um

many fermented foods can help with that.

So what they do is they lower the rate

at which starch is broken down. And

vinegar can also help with insulin

sensitivity in your muscles and it can

actually blunt glucose spikes all on its

own by working on your liver

gluconneogenesis. And I actually made a

separate video on all the benefits of

apple cider vinegar and how to use it.

And I'm going to post a link to the

video in the description below. And by

the way, another way you can supercharge

your food pairing is by eating your

carbohydrates last. Because food order

actually matters here. If you start your

meal with bread or juice, well, you just

get a sharp glucose peak. But if you eat

your protein and your vegetables first

and then finish with carbs, well, the

stomach releases a slower mix of glucose

into the intestines. So, we end up

absorbing that glucose much slower. And

the beauty is it's exact same food, but

if you eat it in a different order, that

will give you a completely different

glucose curve. So, this is especially

important in restaurants where they like

to give you bread or nachos before bring

out your salad or your main entree. So,

eat your salad and your protein first

and then go for the bread or the nachos.

It's a very small behavioral change, but

it pays off huge metabolic dividends.

And there's multiple clinical studies

that show exactly that, like this

randomized control crossover trial that

showed that people with type 2 diabetes

that ate their protein and their

vegetables before their carbohydrates

had a 40% lower glucose area under the

curve and 31% lower insulin area under

the curve. And then there was a recent

study in Japan. They use continuous

glucose monitors in healthy Japanese

adults. And that study showed that

eating rice last significantly reduce

postpranial glycemic excursions. Now

another thing that can make a big

difference is walking right after a

meal. And we have studies like this

randomized control trial that show that

just a 10-minute walk immediately after

a meal can lower your postprandial

glucose. And it doesn't have to be

walking. Any kind of light activity like

cleaning up in the kitchen or climbing

stairs can make a difference. But

walking has just been the most studied

and it's probably the easiest for most

people to do. And you just got to

remember that the best time to walk or

exercise would be as soon as possible

after a meal. And the reason walking

after eating is so powerful is because

walking activates your solio muscles.

Solius is that muscle in your calf that

runs just below the knee to the heel.

And the solio muscle is a metabolic

powerhouse because it can soak up a lot

of glucose very quickly. And another

thing that makes this muscle so special

is the fact that it's composed of slow

twitch fibers, which is what allows it

to sustain contractions for long periods

of time without fatiguing. So, you're

burning lots of glucose for a long

period of time before your muscle gets

tired. Okay. Next, a lot of people will

tell you just cut out all carbs and this

is going to help you to reverse your

diabetes and fix your insulin

resistance. But it's really not the

carbs per se. It's the type of carbs

that cause the issues with insulin

resistance and diabetes because not all

carbs are created equal. The way these

carbs are processed is what determines

how fast they're absorbed and how fast

they hit your bloodstream. So flour milt

into a fine powder like white bread or

instant oats digest extremely quickly.

But whole grains or coarser grains

digest much slower and they just don't

cause the same issues as processed

carbohydrates. So, think of it like

kindling versus logs in a fire. Fine

flour, which is what you see in white

bread or cereal or pastries or chips.

Well, that's like throwing sawdust into

the fire. It burns fast and it burns

hot. And then on the flip side, you have

your steel cut oats or intact grains or

high fiber carbohydrates. Now, they burn

more like logs, so they burn slower and

more evenly. And for your body, that

just means smaller and steadier glucose

curves instead of these sharp spikes and

crashes. So, just like with resistant

starches, choose carbohydrates that are

made from whole foods, foods that are

minimally processed and high in fiber.

Fiber is probably the most important

carbohydrate that you do not want to

miss if you choose to do a low carb

diet. Because for most people, the

benefits of extra fiber are huge and

just too hard to ignore. And one last

tip, do not eat late at night. The later

you eat, the worse your glucose

response. And we have numerous studies

that show that eating close to bedtime

worsens your ability to process glucose

even if you do not eat a carb heavy

meal. And that's because physiologically

our insulin sensitivity, um, our ability

for the pancreas to secrete insulin, all

of that follows a circadian rhythm to

where we just can't process glucose as

well in the evening as we do earlier in

the day. And what makes us worse is late

night is when we get elevated levels of

endogenous melatonin which actually

further reduces insulin secretion. So

less insulin means more glucose in our

bloodstream. So the earlier you eat your

dinner the better. And I would recommend

eating your last meal for the day,

ideally at least 3 hours before bedtime.

All right, I hope this is helpful. Stay

healthy and I'll see you in the next