An MD’s 3 Tips To Prepare Your Body For A Blood Sugar Spike

Halloween is on the horizon, and for many, that means witchy costumes; scary movies; pumpkin and/or gore decor; and, of course, the goodie bags brimming with candy—and (here comes a party foul) the subsequent blood sugar spikes with each empty wrapper. 

While we generally encourage hopping off the blood sugar rollercoaster if you can, we’d never, ever, tell you to deprive yourself of holiday joy—with Halloween, that may mean you indulge in more candy than usual. And that’s fine! Just take it from Stanford-trained physician Casey Means, M.D., co-founder of Levels: “No one should ever freak out about a single glucose spike,” she asserts on the mindbodygreen podcast. “One-time exposures like that are not going to cause lasting damage. It’s the trends, the adaptations over time, that can cause problems.”

However, if you are blood sugar conscious, there are ways to mitigate the spike on days you know you’re going to indulge (like this upcoming holiday). “There are many options for people to actually minimize their glycemic variability from [sweets],” Means says. Here are her three tips to prepare your body for that inevitable surge.