Blood Sugar : The Sweet Lies We Tell Ourselves
In today’s world, health trends spread faster than a dodgy TikTok hack. Keto, carnivore, celery juice cleanses—every week, there’s a new “miracle” diet promising to fix everything. But under all the noise, one fact remains true:
💡 More and more people are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes every single day.
The Bitter Reality of Diabetes
In 2021:
📍 Australia – 1 in 20 Australians (5.1% or over 1.3 million people) were diagnosed with diabetes.
📍 United States – 38.4 million people—11.6% of the population—had diabetes.
That’s not just a lot of people. That’s an epidemic.
And while diabetes is complicated, one undeniable villain lurks in almost every bite we take: SUGAR.
The Dark Truth About Sugar: A 50-Year Cover-Up
If you’ve ever wondered why the world demonised fat for decades while sugar slipped under the radar, here’s the not-so-sweet truth: we were lied to.
Back in the 1960s, the sugar industry pulled off one of the biggest nutrition cover-ups in history. Instead of taking responsibility for the rising rates of obesity and heart disease, they paid scientists to shift the blame onto fat instead.
Yep. Cold, hard cash.
According to an exposé by The New York Times and NPR, sugar executives quietly funded Harvard research to downplay sugar’s role in heart disease while pushing the idea that fat was the real problem. The results?
🍩 Low-fat everything flooded the market—but guess what replaced the fat? Sugar.
🍪 Suddenly, “healthy” cereals, yoghurts, and snack bars were loaded with more sugar than a doughnut.
🥤 High-fructose corn syrup was born, making sugar even more addictive and harder to escape.
And the sugar industry got away with it.
This is why so many of us grew up believing low-fat = good, while completely ignoring the fact that our food was being pumped full of hidden sugars.
Fast forward to today, and we’re hooked—sugar is as addictive as nicotine, and we’re eating more of it than ever before.
The Cake Incident: My Sugar Crash Awakening
I’d love to say I figured all this out after reading stacks of research, but in reality, my aha moment happened after eating an entire cake.
It wasn’t even a fancy cake—just your standard fluffy, frosting-loaded, sugar-packed delight. At first, I felt amazing. Energised. Euphoric. Like I could run a marathon (or at least enthusiastically binge-watch a series).
Then, the crash hit.
My brain fogged over like a dodgy Windows update. I was sluggish, irritable, and craving even more sugar—as if my body was demanding another hit just to feel normal again.
And that’s when it clicked.
This wasn’t just hunger. This was a sugar cycle keeping me trapped.
This resonated perfectly with this quote from The Glucose Goddess Method by Jessie Inchauspé:
🧠 "The best way to reduce sugar cravings is to stop riding the glucose rollercoaster in the first place."
That’s when I knew: I didn’t need to cut out sugar—I needed to stop it from controlling me.
So, I put her hacks to the test, and let me tell you—I feel so much better. More energy, fewer cravings, and no more feeling like a zombie by 3 PM.
10 Easy Blood Sugar Hacks (That Don’t Involve Giving Up Tim Tams)
1️⃣ Eat your food in this order: fibre → protein → carbs.
Turns out order matters. Eating fibre first slows down glucose absorption, meaning fewer sugar crashes later.
2️⃣ Add fibre and fat back into your diet.
We stripped them out of processed foods, but we need them! Think leafy greens, nuts, cheese, avocados.
3️⃣ Real sugar is still sugar.
Honey, brown sugar, coconut sugar—your body processes them all the same. Swap for whole fruit when you can.
4️⃣ Have dessert after dinner.
Your parents had it right—eating sweets after a full meal reduces blood sugar spikes. So yes, eat the pavlova—just don’t start with it.
5️⃣ Forget calories—focus on nutrients.
A doughnut has fewer calories than an avocado, but one fuels you, the other fuels your sugar addiction. Choose wisely.
6️⃣ Prioritise protein and fibre at breakfast.
Start your day strong—add nuts to your cereal, put an egg on your toast, throw some chia seeds into your smoothie.
7️⃣ Walk for 10-20 minutes after meals.
No gym required—a simple stroll can lower glucose levels and improve digestion.
8️⃣ Drink apple cider vinegar before meals.
Yes, it tastes like suffering, but it helps reduce glucose spikes (mix it with water to make it bearable).
9️⃣ Choose salty snacks with protein.
Snacks like nuts, cheese, or hummus with wholegrain crackers give you good protein and good carbs—instead of a sugar rush.
🔟 Give your carbs "clothes."
Pair carbs with protein, fibre, or fat so your body takes longer to digest them, avoiding a sugar spike.
Final Crack: Food Should Work FOR You, Not Against You
When it comes to food, I promote addition rather than subtraction. Instead of obsessing over what to cut out, I focus on what to add in—more fibre, more protein, more nutrients—so that the good naturally crowds out the bad. Because let's be real, life’s too short to live in fear of cake.
The best part? None of this is about restriction. You can still eat what you love—just in a way that works with your body, not against it.
Because at the end of the day, food should fuel you, not control you.
Now, who’s up for dessert? (After dinner, of course 😉)
