Rejoice, caffeine lovers, because we love coffee on the Defeat Diabetes Program!
There are a few things to be mindful of when consuming your cup of joe, Dr Peter Brukner and Dr Paul Mason takes you through what to look out for, as well as the downsides of consuming caffeine late in the afternoon.
Dr Peter Brukner: Paul, I love my coffee. What about coffee on the Defeat Diabetes Program?
Dr Paul Mason: Well, you'll be happy to know Peter, I'm not going to take that away from you.
Dr Peter Brukner: Thank goodness.
Dr Paul Mason: But there are a couple of things you need to consider. First of all, sugar that you're consuming with your coffee. So if you're going to be adding three or four sugars to it or having a lot of sweet syrups to it, then obviously that's going to be a problematic. The other thing to consider is the impact of caffeine on your sleep. And that can be a huge problem.
You see, caffeine actually has a half life of six hours. So what that means is that if you have a coffee at 4pm in the afternoon, then half of the caffeine from that coffee will still be active at 10pm that night. So if you wouldn't have half the coffee at 10 o'clock at night before going to bed, then you shouldn't have a whole coffee at 4pm in the afternoon.
In actual fact, as a general rule, I recommend that people shouldn't have any coffee after 12 noon.
Dr Peter Brukner: But Paul, what about bulletproof coffee? You hear a lot about bulletproof coffee these days, a mixture of coffee and MCT oil and butter. What do you think of that?
Dr Paul Mason: Well, in terms of blood sugar control, not a problem at all, because they don't contain glucose. They don't contain a lot of sugar. So you can consume that and your blood sugars will be absolutely fine. The problem is that they're calorically dense. So if you're trying to lose weight, basically, the extra energy you're consuming will displace fat that your body can burn.
So as a rule, if you... all you want is stable blood sugars and a bulletproof coffee is not a problem you'll feel for for quite a long period of time. But if you're trying to lose weight, remember, the calories in the bulletproof coffee will just mean that your body can burn less calories, so you'll lose weight slower.
Dr Peter Brukner: Okay, so I have a couple of coffees every morning that probably forget about the bulletproof.
Dr Paul Mason: Exactly, and none after lunch.
