I Tracked My Blood Sugar Levels & Here’s What I Learned About My Health

Some of my family’s fast dinner favorites don’t perform well with my body from a blood sugar perspective. 

My family loves bean and cheese quesadillas, but they scored in the red zone at a 5. Even when I added in healthy fats to this dinner staple, it didn’t really move the needle, scoring a 6—still in the red zone. My go-to gluten-free tortillas with hummus similarly scored in the red zone.

Surprisingly, my morning smoothies were scoring a 6, even when I tried to downplay the fruits. This tells me there’s still room to optimize them from a blood sugar standpoint.

I discovered my blood sugar response to bread products is highly variable, depending on the type of bread. The combination of wild salmon, tomato, and cream cheese is a 6 when the bread is a bagel—but when I switch it out for Base Culture keto bread, this meal scored a 10. 

Key Insights: 

Even my favorite gluten-free tortillas led to a blood sugar spike. According to Means, this might be because a main ingredient is cassava, which is a starchy vegetable. As for the hummus, Means says a lot of people don’t respond well to garbanzo beans (the core ingredient), so my response was actually typical.

Some of her favorite tortilla substitutions, that I could try to incorporate, include: “flax tortillas (flax, water, spices), collard green or butter lettuce for wraps, large Nori sheets, or jicama tortillas (Trader Joe’s).”