IMVHO, the best thing you might do is to experiment and buy a blood glucose monitor (they're extremely cheap these days -- although make sure you know how to use it properly as the cheaper ones can be pretty fickle especially in the amount of blood the test strip is supposed to receive). A lot of what passes for "wisdom" about blood glucose is really just warmed over Atkin's klaptrap. There's a lot of variables too besides food. Exercise, physical activity, water intake, natural metabolism, the health of your GI tract in general (it can get pretty bad and take months to recover if you eat really poorly -- like a college student diet -- I'm still thinking about starting a class action lawsuit against Sodexho USA for the crap they fed us (apple minestrone soup anyone?)... but I strongly digress.), the state of balance of your intestinal bacteria, your general stress levels, how you sleep, etc.
My point is although you specifically asked about food, you sound like you already know in general not to eat lots of junk food, and I can't recommend removing any one category of food (except maybe wheat/gluten for a few weeks to see if you notice any difference) from your diet but instead to start keeping a log of what you eat vs. what you're registering on your blood glucose meter. Not to poo-poo the other advice you'll receive, of course, it's just that most of the people on this forum seem to be pretty healthy already to the point that they're engineering their food intake more for aesthetic purposes (like body building). Plus, ruling out categories of food, might in the long run be counterproductive in that you could miss some interesting causal links and also because policing one's food intake too strictly can be a miserable experience after a few months.
I've had blood glucose problems myself and I found recovery in: lots of dark (72% cocoa mass) chocolate and beans (not black beans though... the high iron content would make me nauseous). Both are pretty carbohydrate heavy foods, but fiber seems to be an overriding factor at least for me, in that if I eat 40-50 gm of fiber a day, it doesn't matter what else I eat, my blood sugar levels remain pretty constant. But my situation is a little different in that I was also having the opposite problem (hypoglycemia) in addition to (hyperglycemia), my blood sugar would try to rest at 60 and shoot up past 150 if I ate too much of anything (lots protein and certain kinds of fat included). Depending on your mindset 60 mg/dL might sound like it would be a good thing (who could ever gain weight at 60, right?) but it _really_ sucked, constant fatigue, mind fog, memory problems... it's better to be fat, believe me.
Ugh, sorry... just trying to give you an idea where I'm coming from, not write my autobiography. Anyways, you mentioned not being able to tolerate dairy, that would suggest to me that you might benefit from an attack dose supplementation of acidopholus with concomitant administration of pro-biotics (fiber being chief). An attack dose might be up to 40-60 billion active cells (spread out over the course of a day of course both with and without food). Depending on the state of your health, you might need to ramp up to that dosage. (Although if you do need to ramp up, that's a pretty good sign that your digestive system is damaged / needs healing.) Drinking a little milk here and there might be helpful too, but not so much that you make yourself sick (perhaps 1/4 cup a day?)
Anyways... I wish you lots of luck. Hopefully you learn a lot about yourself...
Edited by lumnar, 26 August 2007 - 06:22 PM.
