Glucose Spike Monitoring (Rolled Oates)

Have you ever wondered how your body reacts or responds to what you are putting into your mouth? We come across many educational readings and videos about how sugar affects our body right, but have you ever wondered what it (sugar) actually does?

So, I did a little experiment. I know it’s a little weird and crazy, but this curiosity enabled me to have my own education. My late, lovely, kind, wise, and brilliant grandmother suffered from Type 2 diabetes but lived a full life of greatness, memorable, fulfilled, and wonders. I still remember her as if I just hugged her a moment ago (that is how fresh her memory is to me), but I lost her decades ago. She was one of the people who inspired me to follow my heart and put my mind to anything so I could achieve anything. She always says, “When you put your mind to it, you will go anywhere and can do anything your heart desires.” And she was right; I am able to do what my heart desires if only I put my mind to it. Anyway, going back to sugars and their effect on our body, according to one article I read from Health.com, “ A few things can happen in your body when you eat sugar. Consuming it in moderation will likely have little impact, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying a sweet treat when you feel like it.

But consuming too much-added sugar over a long period can have some downsides, including blood sugar crashes, faster aging, and an increased risk of obesity and other chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or cognitive decline.” So, I guess we can actually prevent chronic conditions when we want to, right?

The next posts that I will post in the future will be more about my glucose experiments and the food I will consume in a day. So, bear with me if I will be sharing some weird food (to you) that I will be consuming. I want to do this experiment without any restrictions, not counting calories and not following any recipes. I want to make this experiment as fun as it can be.

I had my initial dose of this experiment, and I am on my 3-day journey now. For my first day, my fasting blood glucose level (my blood sugar level without food, usually upon waking up) was 92mg/dl. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the normal fasting blood glucose is between 70 mg/dl (3.9 mmol/L) and 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/L) (so I guess I belong to the normal ones). On this day, I had my breakfast: a cup of black coffee, a cup of cooked rolled oats with generous cashew nuts ( at around 5 tablespoons), ½ cup of whole milk, and a medium-sized banana. It’s a go-to breakfast for me that I can prepare in 15 minutes and consume in 5-10 minutes. For the coffee, I take it while the oats are being cooked (this allows me to enjoy that flavorful scent of the coffee); by the way, I cook my oats in the old-fashioned way- in the pot (not the microwave). The figure represents my timetable when I took my blood glucose level after breakfast on the first day of the experiment.

I wish I could have taken my blood glucose level three (3) hours after my meal, but I have been running errands that needed to be done (life has to keep moving).

The data above further stimulated my curiosity about my rolled oats. Would the results be different if I exercised before and after consuming them? The following day (2nd day), I had the same meal, but this time, I opened YouTube and searched for walking exercises that I could do in the comfort of my home (sorry, I was too lazy to go out), and I chose a 30-minute walk at home (workout was low impact), and my data is as follows:

I guess my 30-minute walk before my breakfast significantly impacted my glucose level that day. I even felt a little lighter and more active that day, which made me more productive. The following day , which was the 3rd day of this rolled oats experiment, I tried the same 30-minute workout, but this time, I performed it just after my meal, and my data shows as follows:

I was shocked by the results because they also showed a significant difference from the first-day data. Putting it into a line graph (figure below), we can see that there is a significant difference from day 1 to day 3.

Interesting right? This only concludes that my body responds to sugar more aggressively when there is no activity. We respond differently to sugar, but it is always nice to be cautious and let our curiosity explore the health benefits of learning from what is best for our body.

Let me know what you think about this experiment from the comment section below. Experiments with other foods will be done, so I look forward to sharing them with you in the next posts.