What to Eat for Insulin Resistance: A UK Food Guide

Nobody needs another recipe list. What I needed four years ago was somebody to tell me plainly which foods were quietly keeping me ill, what to eat instead, and how to do it in a normal British week with a normal supermarket shop. So that's what this is.

If you're not sure whether insulin resistance is your problem, start with insulin resistance explained and the self-check on that page.

The one principle worth remembering

It isn't only what you eat. It's how sharply it raises your blood sugar, and how often. A jacket potato eaten with chicken, butter and a pile of greens behaves very differently to the same potato eaten as chips on its own. Same food, different response.

So: protein and fibre at every meal, real food most of the time, and gaps between meals where nothing happens at all.

Eat freely

• Eggs, chicken, beef, lamb, pork, oily fish, white fish, tinned sardines and mackerel
• Greek yoghurt, cheese, butter, olive oil
• Any vegetable that grows above ground — broccoli, cabbage, spinach, courgette, peppers, salad
• Beans, lentils and chickpeas
• Nuts and seeds
• Berries
• Water, tea, coffee, and the yerba mate I drink in the morning

Eat with care, and never alone

• Potatoes, rice, pasta, bread and oats — smaller portions, always alongside protein and vegetables
• Other whole fruit — good, but not by the bowlful
• Wine and beer — occasional, and not on an empty stomach

Drop, honestly

• Sugary drinks, fruit juice and smoothies
• Breakfast cereal, including the "healthy" ones
• Biscuits, cakes, pastries, crisps and confectionery
• Anything you eat standing up between meals
• Low-fat products where the fat has been swapped for sugar

That last one on the snack list matters more than people expect. Grazing is the habit that keeps insulin permanently switched on, even when the snacks themselves look innocent.

Real swaps for a British week

• Cereal and juice → eggs, or Greek yoghurt with berries and nuts
• Meal-deal sandwich and crisps → chicken or salmon salad with olive oil
• Pasta bowl → half the pasta, double the sauce, add mince and a side of greens
• Sunday roast → keep it. Meat, veg and gravy is a good meal. Go easier on the roast potatoes.
• Curry night → curry and dhal, less rice, add a side of spinach
• Evening biscuits → a cup of tea and going to bed. This is the hardest habit and the highest-value one.

The pattern beats the plate

Three meals. No picking between them. Most days I eat inside a sensible window — nothing extreme, just enough of a gap that my body has time to use what's already there. If you want the reasoning, I've written it up in intermittent fasting explained, and the fibre side in why fibre is the missing piece.

Where the drink comes in

I won't pretend I did this on willpower. What made it possible was taking a fibre-rich drink before my main meals, which steadied the blood sugar and took the edge off the hunger so I wasn't negotiating with myself every afternoon. That's the honest mechanism — see what Unicity Balance actually is.

Seven medications gone, seven stone off, four years of maintaining it. I can't promise anyone else the same, and I'm not a doctor — if you're on diabetes or blood pressure medication, changing how you eat can change what you need, so keep your GP in the loop.