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Studies show that some exercise about 1hr after a meal can reduce a strong insulin response.
Exercise is always your main strategy for glucose control. The total GI of a meal is also reduced with the presence of fiber / vegetables and certain other foods. Chromium, as someone mentioned.
A little exercise after the meal, like a 10 min walk.
There are studies that show vinegar can help mitigate a larger glucose spike. It’s ideally taken before the meal or as part of the meal (like in a salad dressing), but if forgotten, after is fine.
If you are able to put forethought into it, eating some fiber/veggies before the refined carbs will help a lot. Also eat some protein before the refined carbs.
There is a book called the Glucose Revolution that talks about many diet strategies to help mitigate these large spikes and I found it very helpful. My husband is type 1 diabetic so obvs he has to manage his blood glucose manually via insulin therapy and diet strategies (diet strategies are what the book focuses on). These strategies do make a difference, even for people without diabetes. But we can see with my husband’s CGM that things like fiber, protein, fat, walks, vinegar, timing of carbs, etc all make a difference.
I think the last stat I read said somewhere in the ballpark of 30% of adults over 18 are pre diabetic and most don’t even know it. So it’s definitely good to learn some ways to eat refined carbs that don’t result in mismanaged blood sugar.
ETA some links since vinegar tends to get people annoyed. Please don’t take this as “vinegar is the end all be all.” It’s not. It’s just a helpful tool and has been shown to slow gastric emptying which can reduce post meal blood sugars by 20% or so. That’s not enough to fix a bad diet. But it is the kind of thing the OP asked for.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31221273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4438142/
https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2014289
I think I heard chromium once, from Delauer, but that is going to be such a tiny factor… basically I would say there is no way, besides the obvious things - take in protein and fat and fiber to slow it or spread it out (some advise against the fat/carb combo - and generally you may need to displace some carbs to benefit). But mostly this is okay; it’s what the system is there for. It’s just a few hours. Note the error, enjoy yourself; see about not doing it so much in the future.
You can use HIIT or its cousins to create a continuous “draft” on your blood sugar. This effect is centered on the day after exercise. But this behavior would be more useful in the medium-term; you just have to take it on the chin, I think.
You could consume low GI foods soon after the refined carbs to slow their release into the bloodstream, for example, non-starchy vegetables, chickpeas, lentils. You would need to do this quickly because refined foods are absorbed quickly into the bloodstream