Your alarm goes off at 7 a.m., and again at
7:09, and 7:18, at which point you head
straight to the kitchen, ready for that first cup
of coffee. Your cortisol levels are abnormally
low in the morning (a dysfunctional situation
created by an overly stressful life and
worsened by unhealthy eating habits), which
means you’re not feeling very bright or perky.
You grab a low-fat blueberry muffin, a
banana, and some orange juice on your way
out the door, and stop at your favorite coffee
shop for a large soy latte.
Since your breakfast is almost exclusively
fast-digesting carbohydrate (and sugar!), it
quickly raises your blood sugar and insulin,
aggressively driving energy into your liver
and muscles. The high levels of blood sugar
give you a kick-start, but by 10 a.m. lots of
insulin has pulled too much sugar out of your
bloodstream—which means you’re now
experiencing the crash that often follows a
sugar spike when you’re insulin resistant. This