Why this happens is a topic of robust debate in nutritional circles. It’s likely a combination of factors: a genetic predisposition combined with a sedentary, stressful, and sleep-deprived lifestyle; decades of processed foods and medications that have altered the microbiome; or even (unfortunately) overconsuming the healthy-seeming multigrain breads, bananas, and beans, which all turn to sugar in the blood. All this can lower your personal “set point” for tolerating carbohydrates so that your blood sugars don’t fall back to normal within two hours of eating as they should. Instead, they stay elevated, going beyond what the cells can handle, and eventually this triggers a chain of effects that lead to insulin resistance, the precursor to high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, possibly Alzheimer’s disease, and even some cancers. The 2017 National Diabetes Statistics report found that an estimated 50 percent of Americans have either diabetes or pre-diabetes and that many are unaware of this fact. Taking your blood sugar seriously is nothing to sneeze at. When carb intolerance is at play, your body is telling you to get stricter with your intake. To follow a low-carb diet, nix all sugars and reduce complex carbs dramatically, replacing them with plenty of nonstarchy vegetables and generous amounts of fat. In addition, take sleep seriously, work on repairing the gut, and increase the amount of movement you do. The low-carb diet, along with these other fundamental improvements, can often help restore order where there was previously metabolic chaos. To catalyze real metabolic change in cases of significant weight gain or diabetes, it may be warranted to take the low-carb approach to its ultimate extreme: the ketogenic protocol. There is another, more accurate way to learn your personal carb set point. Use a glucose monitor to measure the impact of a range of carbohydrate-rich foods on your blood sugar. Twice after eating, at the one-hour and two-hour marks, you can get snapshots of how your body metabolizes starches like grains, beans, and potatoes. If this level of detective work speaks to you, try the protocol outlined in Robb Wolf’s book Wired to Eat. His program of dietary change, basic blood work, and a seven-day carb test can help you zero in on your set point and your level of insulin resistance. Follow all the advice in this section—then tweak your diet slightly using the suggestions that follow: Learn more from Dr. Lipman by hearing what he had to say on the mbg podcast! After his initial medical training in his native South Africa, Lipman spent 18 months working at clinics in the bush. He became familiar with the local traditional healers, called sangomas, which kindled his interest in non-Western healing modalities In 1984, Lipman immigrated to the United States, where he became the chief medical resident at Lincoln Hospital in Bronx, NY. While there, he became fascinated by the hospital’s addiction clinic, which used acupuncture and Chinese medicine making him even more aware of the potential of implementing non-Western medicine to promote holistic wellbeing. He began studying nutrition, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, functional medicine, biofeedback, meditation, and yoga. Lipman founded the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in 1992, where he combines the best of Western medicine and cutting edge nutritional science with age-old healing techniques from the East. As his patient, chef Seamus Mullen, told The New York Times, “If antibiotics are right, he’ll try it. If it’s an anti-inflammatory diet, he’ll do that. He’s looking at the body as a system rather than looking at isolated things.” In addition to his practice, he is also an instructor in mbg’s Functional Nutrition Program. A cutting-edge nutrition deep dive taught by 20+ top health & wellness experts
