Encouraging Health

Summertime can be good for your blood sugar. Just make sure you pack your picnic basket with whole-wheat buns, brown-rice salad, and an oat-berry crumble.

With whole-grain foods like these, it will be smooth sailing. Studies show that nutrient- and fiber-dense whole grains help keep blood sugar levels quite steady.

Insulin Action
Whole grains are chock-full of fiber, antioxidants, vitamins (especially B and E), and minerals (magnesium, potassium, selenium, zinc, and — whew! — iron). All are great for your body in so many ways. But the real key here is fiber. It slows down digestion, keeping blood sugar on an even keel and insulin levels more stable. Vitamin E and magnesium might boost insulin sensitivity as well.

Good-for-Your-Blood-Sugar Plan
Along with aiming for six servings of whole grains daily, try these other tricks for keeping your blood sugar in a healthy range:

Be choosy about your carbs.

Invest in some comfy walking shoes.

Whittle your waist. First step: 6 Things You Didn’t Know About Belly Fat — And How to Make it Scram

1. All fat is not alike. Eat more calories than you burn and the extras get packed away in one of two places — long-term storage depots beneath the skin (subcutaneous fat) or short-term bins deep in the abdomen (visceral fat).

2. The fat you don’t see is the most dangerous. soft, superficial stuff that ripples your thighs and tummy may be a bikini spoiler, but if you can pinch it, it probably won’t kill you. However, if you have a solid “beer belly” . . . well, you’re likely headed for more trouble than a politician hooked up to a polygraph.

3. Stress makes you fat. Not only does stress lead you to eat Haagen-Dazs straight from the carton, but it also triggers the release of cortisol, a stress hormone.

4. The fat you eat affects the fat you get. When monkeys munched on trans-fat laced diets for 6 years, they developed more deep-belly fat than those who went trans-fat-free, even though both ate the same number of calories.

5. Blasting belly fat isn’t hard. If you’re not overweight but still have an oversized waist, the fastest way to shrink your omentum is by walking. Taking a brisk 30-minute walk each day will keep those fat cells from expanding.

6. Whole grains scare away belly fat. If you and a friend go on a diet but you eat whole grains (meaning brown rice, steel-cut oats, and whole-wheat pasta, not whole-grain Pop Tarts) and your friend eats processed grains (anything made with white/enriched grains and flours, cupcakes to noodles), you both might lose the same amount of weight, but you’ll shed more belly fat and lower your levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of damaging inflammation. And your food will taste better, and you’ll feel full longer. AND you’ll have a flat stomach!

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