Health

The 6 Eating Habits "Glucose Goddess" Swears by for Better Blood Sugar

Written by Claire Hannum
Medically Reviewed by Felicia Newell, M.S., RDN

July 18, 2023

If you struggle to keep your blood sugar in check, you’re not alone. 1 in 10 Americans struggle with diabetes and other blood sugar related issues daily, such as insulin resistance (1). But according to “Glucose Goddess”, Jessie Inchauspé, you don’t have to live with the spiraling fog of fatigue, mood swings, or the ravenous hunger that strikes (even if you just ate) that tends to accompany blood sugar spikes and dips.

In this blog, we dive into how blood sugar works, and then share Jessie’s six tips for managing it with ease.

Table Of Contents

Understanding Blood Sugar With the Glucose Goddess

Jessie Inchauspé, a French biochemist living in New York City, started her Instagram account in 2019—going by the name “Glucose Goddess”. She quickly gained popularity—2.4 million followers, to be exact—by sharing graphs that broke down her own glucose monitoring.

So when I saw that science journalist, Max Lugavere, had Jessie on his podcast, The Genius Life, I knew I had to listen. In it, she shares her top tips for balancing blood sugar to maintain your best possible health, mood, and energy levels.

First, Jessie offered a quick refresher on how blood sugar spikes happen. Most of the food we eat is broken down into glucose, or blood sugar. Our body uses this blood sugar for energy, but when there’s too much of it in the bloodstream, it can raise blood sugar levels as much as 40-50 mg/dL. For reference, a healthy spike in blood sugar is considered to be under 20-30 mg/dL.

In people with diabetes, these spikes are caused by the body’s inability to use insulin, the hormone that helps properly process blood sugar. But even if you don't have diabetes, you’re likely aware of feeling the effects of sudden increases and decreases in your blood sugar levels after meals with high amounts of carbs and sugar. (2).

When your blood sugar is in flux all day, you’ll swing from feeling energized and satiated to exhausted and famished in the blink of an eye (3). Blood sugar dips can cause sadness, anxiety, stress, irritability, sleepiness, and brain fog (4).

Frequent blood sugar spikes can be dangerous to your long-term health: they can put you at risk for cancer or for insulin resistance, which can eventually lead to prediabetes. Type 2 diabetes can double your risk of heart disease and stroke (5, 6, 7).

In short: frequent blood sugar spikes are no fun. If you’ve ever felt all the life and energy drain out of you when the clock hits 2pm, you know exactly what we’re talking about. But it doesn’t have to be this way—if you eat intentionally, you can keep your blood sugar balanced for steady energy and mental clarity all day long.

6 Tips From Jessie to Manage Your Blood Sugar

Here are some of Jessie’s top home remedies to lower blood sugar that she shared on The Genius Life podcast…

1. Ditch Sugary Breakfast Foods

Thanks partially to an old myth about the importance of sugar to start the morning energized, America’s favorite breakfast foods are loaded with sugar and carbs that can tank your day. Set aside the sugary cereals, granola, fruit juice, sweetened oats, and pastries, because all they’ll do is start you off with a brief energy spike that ultimately tumbles into an epic, exhausting energy crash.

Jessie explains in the interview that instead of energy, what you’re really getting from a sugary breakfast is a spike in dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with addiction. Starting each day with a dose of the sweet stuff may be harming your cells’ ability to effectively use energy in the long term. If you have a glucose spike at breakfast, you’ll likely be hungrier later in the day and eat more food at lunch and dinner (8).

You can change the entire course of your day by opting for a breakfast centered around protein and fiber. On the podcast, Jessie suggests soft boiled eggs, rye toasts, or leftovers from the night before with cracked eggs and grated parmesan cheese. If you’re craving something sweet add a side of fruit like berries, which yes contain natural sugars, however they’re low calorie, loaded with nutrients, and contain fiber. When fiber is paired with protein, this slows down the absorption of glucose into the blood, leading to increased satiety and longer lasting energy levels (9).

2. The Glucose Goddess’ Famous Vinegar Trick

Jessie has made this trick viral—and it’s super easy to do yourself! About 20 minutes before you eat, dilute a tablespoon of vinegar in a big glass of water (this is important, otherwise you may cause irritation to your esophagus). After you drink it, go ahead and enjoy your meal. 

On the podcast, she explains that this trick can reduce the blood sugar spike of a meal by up to 30%, and the insulin spike by up to 20%! This is because vinegar contains acetic acid, which can slow down the pace of your body making sugar molecules from food and helps your muscles absorb excess blood sugar (10).

3. Add a Veggie Starter

One way to strategically alter your blood sugar response is to eat a serving of vegetables before digging into your meal. Leafy green vegetables are a good choice for helping to lower blood sugar (11), but the addition of any vegetables is going to provide fiber and other nutrients that can help to improve glycemic response. Dining on kale or broccoli just before eating the rest of your meal (or even with your meal if we’re being honest) can help you avoid a major blood sugar roller coaster.

4. Move for 10 Minutes After Every Meal

Taking a walk around the block after dinner has a lot of real health perks behind it. After each meal, try spending just 10 minutes moving your body. 

If you do this within 90 minutes of eating, you’re putting some of the sugar from your meal to work in the form of energy, rather than letting it linger in your bloodstream to create a sugar spike. That means way lower odds of a sugar rush and post-meal food coma.

5. Don’t Judge by Calories Alone

Calories aren’t always a reliable indicator as to whether or not a food is good for you (or your blood sugar level). On the podcast, Jessie uses the example of a donut and an avocado: they may be worth the same amount of calories, but one is loaded with carbs and sugar and is highly refined (meaning we digest it quickly) while the other can offer steady, long-lasting energy with many additional benefits due to the multitude of beneficial nutrients. Look beyond calorie counts to other numbers and ingredients on the nutritional label.

6. Put Balance First

Jessie’s method is all about finding balanced ways of eating so that you can avoid those brutal blood sugar spikes. Her Instagram is a helpful resource when it comes to finding simple ways to tame your blood sugar so that you feel full and satisfied for longer and have longer-lasting energy levels—while still enjoying your favorite foods…

The one guiding principle that she won’t ever sway on, however, is that everyone should fully cut out breakfasts that have high amounts of added sugars or refined carbs— she feels the impact is that major!

The Bottom Line

Blood sugar spikes and dips can ruin your whole day, but as the Glucose Goddess has shared, preventing them is surprisingly easy. Just a few simple switches to your eating habits can make a world of difference.

And if you’re looking to maximize these simple habits ever more, you can add a supplement like Native Berberine to your routine. This plant-based blood sugar balancing formula can help you steer clear of the ups and downs of unbalanced blood sugar and get your energy and mood under control. With just a few breezy habit shifts, you can go from exhausted to energized.

Claire Hannum
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Claire Hannum

Claire Hannum is a New York City-based writer, editor, wellness seeker, and reiki practitioner. Her writing has appeared in Self, Health, Prevention, and over a dozen other publications.

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    Medical Disclaimer

    This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of such advice or treatment from a personal physician. All readers/viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Chad Walding nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement, or lifestyle program.

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