RECIPE BOOK!

PREAMBLE 𖦹°‧

This is a small collection of recipes and tips for my boyfriend that focuses on meals to help with their health and cooking skills. If you are reading this, enjoy my love! Let me know if you need any help :3

here is a guide for how to cut different fruits and veggies if you need it.

NAVIGATION 𖦹°‧

TIPS AND TRICKS 𖦹°‧

These recipes are to help with managing your blood sugar! To that note, here are some general tips for that:

• Avoid refined flours and sugar foods like white bread, pasta, etc. Try swapping to whole grain bread and similar products if possible, as the refinement process reduces the ingredients in the bread that slow the absorbtion of sugars and refined products can spike blood sugar really easily.
• On a similar note, try swapping out simple carbohydrate food (like sweets, cereal, juice, and sugar) with complex carbohydrates (like oats, fruit, veggies, brown rice, and whole great breads). Don't avoid carbs altogether though, as a good amount of complex carbs actually improve blood sugar regulation!
• Eat lots of fiber!! The fact I saw the most in my research is that fiber slows the body's digestion and helps lower the chance of spiking blood sugar. High fiberous foods are vegetables, beans, nuts, fruit, leafy greens, oats, etc.
• Reduce your dietary acid load. Studies have shown that higher DAL levels point to an increased risk of insulin resistance. Try switching to veggie, whole grain, and legume focused meals and avoid sugary foods, excess meat/fish, and processed grains to lower your DAL levels.
• Weirdly opposite to the last tip... acid? Yeah idk, but multiple people have pointed out that acids like vinegar and the like combined with fiber in a meal decrease the chance that they have a blood sugar spike.
• Sleep.... I know this is out of your control for the most part, but all my research points to good sleep lowering the risk of insulin resitance and risk of type 2 diabetes. Even if you don't end up actually going to sleep, heading to bed and closing your eyes at an earlier time is a start!!
• Hydrate lots XT !! Increased water intake can help your body get rid of excess sugar faster and decrease the risk it poses to you. Make sure your water bottle i always filled and pleagse keep drinking..,.. dr,ool.....
• Excercise as best ya can. It really doesn't need to be anything crazy for this to work, but it is the proven best method for decreasing insulin resistance. Even light excercise will make your body start using up the sugar in your blood faster. Post excercise, your body will transfer the sugar from your blood to your cells faster which is really good! Also, I'm aware this is not easy, but even losing a tiny (like a pound) of weight will make your body start to process glucose a lot easier and reduce the reistance. I'll be here to help you along the way of course, so you can always rely on me for help and to vent if youre struggling with this.
• Having sugar late at night or early in the morning is the worst time for it. If you're having a nice dessert or a cheat treat, have it in the middle of the day or right after dinner for dessert. For breakfast, try to have some protein and fiber since it's the first meal of the day and can easily spike your blood sugar (an easy one would be yogurt and fruit if youre into it.)
• If you wanna have something sweet (which IS ok every once in a while or if it's small!! treat yourself thing) pair it with lots of protein and fiber to balance out the spike.
• If you're going to have high carb foods like pasta and rice, first try to substitute them with less refined versions, and then pair those things with veggies and/or protein.
• On the same note as the last point, if you are going to have carbs, especially if they are refined carbs, put them in the fridge to cool down completely and then reheat with any sauce you'd like (for pasta you may want to add oil to it before it goes in the fridge). This works well with rice, pasta, and potatoes. It converts the starches into ones that are harder for your body to break down, reducing the spike you would typically recieve.
• Use mini potatoes instead of big ones, as they have more fiber.
• Thoroughly wash stuff like rice and potatoes (after cutting) to wash of extra starch that may cause a spike.
• If you eat bananas, eat ones that aren't super ripe. The more ripe a banana is, the more the starch has converted to sugar, so less ripe bananas are slower for your body to turn to glucose.
• It's better for your blood sugar to eat fewer, larger meals (breakfast, lunch) than lots of smaller meals. If you would like a snack, I reccommend something that's small and nice and fiberous ^^
• Lean on me! I'm here for you and am always always willing to help if you need help implementing something on here.

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GOOD FOODS 𖦹°‧

Here are some foods that are also good for keeping blood sugar spikes at bay and general management of blood sugar. I tried to include these in the recipes I used:

• Broccoli
• Almonds
• Nuts in general
• Berries (blueberries, blackberries, etc.)
• Cucumbers
• Avocados
• Quinoa
• Chickpeas
• Oats
• Beans (kidney beans, black beans, etc.)
• Chia seeds
• Lentils
• Apples
• Chickpeas
• Beets
• Bell peppers
• Tomatoes
• Unsweetened Greek yogurt