You take a bite of chicken and rice. As your stomach begins digestion, signals are sent to your pancreas telling it to produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone necessary to allow cells to use glucose—the simple sugar that makes up carbohydrates—for energy. Insulin ensures that blood glucose / sugar levels don’t rise too rapidly. As food digests and blood sugar levels rise, so does insulin. Eventually, insulin causes blood sugar to fall.

Have you ever just had orange juice for breakfast? You were probably hungry in 10 minutes. Orange juice is full of easily-digestible simple sugars. These spike blood sugar levels, making the pancreas work hard to rapidly produce insulin (blood sugar this high isn’t safe for your body). Insulin is produced and blood sugar, quite dramatically, crashes. You begin to feel hunger—food will surely raise your low blood sugar back up again. You grab a snack, like a bagel. And so the roller coaster continues, keeping your body in this never-ending, stressful cycle.

Is it any wonder why Type II Diabetes is at epidemic levels in America? Our breakfast staples are pancakes with syrup and cereal with milk—food containing massive levels of simple sugars. The insulin roller coaster of the Standard American Diet (which tells you carbohydrates are good and fats are bad) is devastating Americans every day.

Here’s three surefire ways to make your pancreas happy and avoid the insulin rollercoaster:

1. Eat less often – Suppose you eat 3 meals a day and have only 2 snacks. This means your blood sugar and insulin will only spike 5 times.
2. Eat balanced meals – Instead of only eating a bagel, maybe you eat a more balanced meal, like avocado last with an egg. Fat and protein eaten with carbohydrates slow down blood sugar levels, so eating healthy fats with carbs is a simple way to regulate blood sugar and produce less insulin.
3. Try intermittent fasting – Take the concept from number 1, but this time skip breakfast and the snacks. If you finish dinner at 8pm, don’t eat until the next day until 12pm or 2pm. Your body has loads of energy stores it’s just waiting to use. It’s easier than you think.

In the end, the goal is for you to become cognizant of your food choices. Maybe only eating an apple for breakfast may sound “healthy” but isn’t metabolically appropriate. That coffee full of sugar might be a bad first choice of the day.

Start to experiment. See which meals provide you lasting energy. Notice which meals make you feel like crap in an hour. Become your own scientific study. It will help you out in the long run.