Welcome to intelligent eating — a smarter way to fuel your body.
This article builds on “Upgrade your nutrition with L-Power”, and dives deeper into the science of intelligent eating, including a low insulin lifestyle and why glucose is not the best early warning measure. It concludes with 5 practical steps you can take.
With intelligent eating, the body can burn another 300 plus calories per day.
1. The hidden intelligence of your metabolism
Food doesn’t just provide energy — it instructs your body how to use that energy. Protein, carbohydrates, and fats each have very different metabolic messages. Understanding those differences — and aligning eating patterns with your body’s circadian rhythm (natural body clock) — is how you turn food into a metabolic “wellness card”.
One example: my co-founder, who is very health conscious, had become pre-diabetic. Following a few questions, I learned that for breakfast his fruit was blended into a smoothie. This could be the answer, as blending a “whole food” alters its structure and how our body processes it – so whilst much of the goodness is there, instead of a slow release of sugars, the body absorbs the sugars quickly, producing a sharper glucose spike (see 3 below).
2. Protein: your calorie-burning ally
Protein is the heavyweight champion of intelligent eating and that is why I prioritised it in my previous blog. Not only is protein the essential building block for muscle, it helps to manage calorie intake and to increase metabolism. Calories from protein sets you up to succeed for the day.
3. Carbohydrates: the double-edged sword
Carbs are the body’s quickest source of energy but have the strongest impact on glucose. In particular, refined carbs — white bread, sugary snacks and cereals — cause your blood glucose to rapidly spike and crash, driving hunger cravings, irritability and energy swings. Unlike calories from protein, calories from refined carbs drive you to eat and repeat. Ultra processed carbs also cause food addiction. Not all carbs are bad, the best sources are whole foods grown above ground such as vegetables, legumes, and whole grains.
4. Fats: the misunderstood fuel
Fats are essential for every cell in your body. They carry vitamins, build hormones, reduce inflammation, and serve as your long-term, clean-burning energy source. When blood glucose and therefore insulin is low, your metabolism shifts toward burning stored energy.
5. Type 2 diabetes, glucose and insulin: knowing the difference is key
The full medical term is Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, from the Greek, where “type 2” refers to the form, “diabetes” means excessive urination and “mellitus” is honey-sweet. So, it is the measure of excessive urination with a high glucose content. Testing the sweetness of urine goes back to ancient times – using ants and flies. Today we measure HbA1c, which shows your average blood sugar level over the past 8 to 12 weeks.
Testing for elevated glucose is simple and cheap. Unfortunately, it’s a lagging indicator, which means it can take 5-to-10-years to identify the real problem, insulin resistance.
Insulin is the master regulator of cell energy. When insulin is high your body says, “burn sugar, store fat” and any excess glucose is turned into fat. When insulin is low your body says, “start using stored energy” and it burns fat.
Insulin resistance is when your body stops responding effectively to insulin and, to compensate, your pancreas makes even more insulin. Over time the pancreas burns out, insulin levels fall and then blood glucose rises sharply. Insulin resistance disrupts nearly every energy system, causing inflammation and long-term disease.
Insulin resistance is reversible with lifestyle change, sometimes called a low insulin lifestyle. Specifically, this requires a significant reduction in refined carbs and sugars, increased physical activity, improved sleep and stress management and weight loss.
Lowering insulin can increase calorie burn, by up to 300 calories per day. In addition, low insulin and fat burning creates ketones, which are an alternative fuel when glucose is scarce. Ketones have unique benefits (except for those with no insulin where they are dangerous), as they provide an efficient energy for the brain and heart, they improve the heart’s output and reduce inflammation. Ketones also have a positive effect for those with neurological conditions, such as cognitive decline and even migraine. A small fraction of these ketones is also excreted in urine and sweat, which helps the body release up to 300 additional calories per day.
6. The timing trick: when you eat matters as much as what you eat
Your metabolism runs on a circadian rhythm — an internal clock tuned for daylight activity and nighttime rest. Eating late throws that rhythm off. The same meal that fuels you efficiently at 6 p.m. is stored as fat at 9 p.m. Studies show early dinners, 3 to 4 hours before bed, improve sleep and energy balance. A 6pm dinner with no subsequent snacks means the body can fast for 12 to 14 hours before breakfast, which allows it to switch gears to burn fat.
7. Sleep: the forgotten fat-burning habit
Even a single night of poor sleep distorts hunger hormones. Leptin (fullness) drops while ghrelin (hunger) rises, leading to sugar cravings and reduced willpower. Deep, regular sleep restores hormonal balance, keeps insulin sensitivity high, and ensures you burn calories efficiently — even at rest.
8. Intelligent eating in five daily moves
In summary, the 5 practical steps to intelligent eating are: –
1. Front-load your day with protein. Start breakfast with eggs, yogurt, or plant-based protein. This sets you up to succeed for the day.
2. Ditch ultra-processed carbs and sugars for fibre-rich vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole foods. Avoid snacking between meals.
3. Eat your last meal 3 to 4 hours before bed and fast overnight. The early dinner aids calorie burn and fasting for 12 to 14 hours switches your body to burn fat and start to produce ketones with many beneficial effects.
4. Protect your sleep routine — aim for 7–8 hours quality sleep nightly with a consistent bedtime, no screens and a darkened room.
5. Take a walk after your meal – a 10 minutes’ walk after a meal is a very good way to reduce glucose and insulin spikes.
The takeaway
Calorie counting alone can’t explain why two people with the same calorie intake have different outcomes. Intelligent eating recognises the valuable information in food. When you choose nutrient-rich foods, eat in sync with your body clock, and protect your sleep, you unlock the body’s built-in intelligence to naturally burn more calories and crave less — and stay healthier for life.
