Reading a book called “The Four Hour Body”. It pointed out that even in really high GI things like Orange Juice, it might take 30 minutes for the full blood sugar thing to take effect. And pasta, 1.5 hours. This was based on a normie wearing a CGM and measuring.
Then, separately? not in the book? doing the math: 100 mg/dL vs 5 L of blood (at best) = 5g of “sugar stored in the blood” buffer. That’s way less than a meal.
So, I used to think that my blood was like this bucket that sugar got dumped into, and it hung out there till insulin took it somewhere else. Well, that is kinda what happens, but “bucket” is incorrect.
Its more like a temporary sponge, a small buffer, that happily holds about 5g. Its a transport. It can overflow. at 7.5g, bad things start to happen. at 15g (300 mg/dL) really bad things happen.
The things that deposit into it:
Liver during glucogenisis (body saying holy shift too low need more glucose), and digestion.
Things that consume it:
Ah, so here’s the happy little insulin thing. Insulin definitely acts as the door-knocker that knocks on doors and tells them to open up and let the sugar in. Which doors, one might ask?
Apparently there’s the doors on the Fat cells. Yay Fat Cells! Helping me survive the next famine, when all the little hamburgers are migrating off on the west coast at the In and Out watering hole.
But there’s also another door – the doors in active muscle tissue.
So if you do 40 air squats (i can do 10, need to build up), that activates something in your muscles, specifically your big thigh quadriceps, that says “HOO BOY does ANYBODY have any GLUCOSE please?” .. and the insulin happily helps deliver it. Drains the buffer, clears the sponge, ready for more digestion. Follow that up with some nice pushups – or pullups, dude, if you can do them .. targeting the nice big muscles. Nice big sponges. Or go walk up 12 flights of stairs. Oh yeah.
I’m not sure how long after the exercise that receptor (he mentions it in his book, but not at the tips of my fingers) stays on. I don’t have a CGM to help tell me, and I’m not spending the $, as I’m not type I, its not covered.
I’m also not sure if the action of delivering sugar to the blood is entirely osmosis or not. Ie, there could be a large store of sugar in your digestive tract at some concentration, and when your blood drops below that concentration, then it migrates over. Which lends itself to, what gut bacteria exist, and do they consume any of that sugar, and what’s the effects of that. I don’t know the answers to that.
The point is, 1-2 hours after a meal which might have too much carb, one can use exercise to help “soak up” the sugar. One does not have to burn that many calories, just activate it enough so that the muscles soak the sugar up. Note that muscles can only hold a certain amount, though, i think its up to 100g? your whole body can do about 400g total storage?
The key numbers I’ve heard is that you want to get down below 140 mg/dL, to prevent certain kinds of cell death; and then below about 100 mg/dL the body (for normals) stops putting out chunks of insulin; and once the insulin is gone, then your body can get back to finding other sources of glucose, like burning Fat.
What brought this up:
We went to see Marvel Age of Ultron on Wednesday night. We had Noodles & Co for dinner, and then shared a large popcorn and M&M’s and a coke. LOTS of sugar.
After the movie, got home, took my sugar. If it was over 140, i was going for a walk. It was 235. I went for the walk. Got back 40 minutes and 2 miles later, 171. Waited 30 minutes.. check again, is my body still dumping it into my system? No, 146. So its getting soaked up. Good. I don’t feel so helpless.
Note: my perspectives only. Not a scientist, no research, just reading. Could be wrong.
