You ate breakfast. Maybe it was yogurt with berries. Maybe it was a smoothie. But an hour later, you are hungry again, craving something sweet or suddenly very aware of the snacks nearby.
Professor Tore Bengtsson, Founder of Sigrid and inventor of patented SiPore technology, tells us that the way you feel after eating can have a lot to do with how your body responds to food He has spent more than 25 years researching metabolic health, physiology, and pharmacology, and his work focuses on how the body handles energy.
“Every meal creates a metabolic response,” Professor Bengtsson says. “Those responses influence energy levels, hunger, cravings, fullness, and overall wellbeing.”
The real story starts after you eat when your blood sugar rises as food is broken down and energy enters the bloodstream. Then your body works to bring those levels back into balance. When that rise and fall is steady, you are more likely to feel satisfied, focused, and good to go. When the fluctuation is more dramatic, the day can start asking for backup: another snack, something sweet, a second matcha, or a minute to remember why you opened your laptop in the first place.
What may come as a surprise, is that our blood sugar response can actually play a major role in our motivation and even our personality. “Our metabolic state absolutely influences how we feel, think, and behave,” Professor Bengtsson says. “What we often describe as lacking willpower can sometimes be a biological response to fluctuating energy levels.”
If you feel hungry again soon after eating, your body may be reacting to the drop, not the meal itself. The problem is often not that you didn’t eat enough. It’s that the energy from the meal arrived quickly and disappeared quickly. A quick rise and fall in blood sugar can leave your system searching for another energy source. That can look like an afternoon crash, a sudden snack hunt, or the 3 p.m. sweet tooth that arrives right on schedule.
Where cortisol comes in
Cortisol has a reputation. Most of us hear the word and think stress: the hard week, the bad sleep, the overbooked calendar, the text thread you should probably stop rereading. But cortisol is not only there for emotional stress. It also helps your body access energy when it needs it.
“Cortisol is often referred to as the stress hormone, but one of its primary functions is helping ensure that the brain and body have access to energy when needed,” Professor Bengtsson explains. “When blood sugar levels fluctuate significantly, cortisol can become part of the body’s response to restore balance.”
So when blood sugar swings sharply after a meal, your body may treat that dip like something it needs to solve. Cortisol can become part of that correction process, helping bring energy back toward steadier ground. The more often those fluctuations happen, the more often your body has to keep adjusting.
What blood sugar fluctuations can feel like
Blood sugar instability tends to show up in ways that are easy to write off as just a bad day. “Energy crashes are the obvious one, but there are several others,” Professor Bengtsson says. “Constantly thinking about food, feeling hungry shortly after eating, afternoon sugar cravings, irritability when meals are delayed, difficulty concentrating, and feeling sleepy after lunch can all be signs that your body is experiencing significant post-meal fluctuations.”
Most people chalk these up to stress, poor sleep, or just the pace of non-stop modern life. “Many symptoms people associate with stress can also be linked to how their body responds to food,” he notes. “That doesn’t mean blood sugar is always the cause, but it is often an overlooked factor.”
The goal is balanced blood sugar, not perfect
Blood sugar is typically framed as a concern only for people managing diabetes or prediabetes, which means most people never think about it until there is a clinical reason. Professor Bengtsson explains why it is part of a much bigger wellbeing picture. “Blood sugar is about much more than diabetes,” he says. “Every meal creates a metabolic response.
The goal is not perfect glucose numbers. “Most people are not trying to achieve perfect glucose levels,” he says. “They simply want more stable energy, fewer cravings, and a healthier relationship with food.”
According to Professor Bengtsson, this has become one of the defining challenges of modern nutrition. “Modern food systems are optimized for convenience, taste, and speed, not necessarily for biological stability,” he says. “Many of today’s meals deliver a large amount of energy very quickly. Our bodies were not designed around that environment.”
The result can be a familiar cycle: eat, spike, crash, crave, repeat. Over time, those repeated swings may make it harder to maintain stable energy, appetite control, and healthy eating habits.
Professor Bengtsson’s approach is less about restriction and more about consistency. “I encourage people to focus on protein, fiber, healthy fats, and minimally processed foods whenever possible,” he says. A typical meal day might look like Greek yogurt with berries and nuts for breakfast, a protein-rich lunch with vegetables and healthy fats, and a balanced dinner built around whole-food carbohydrates and protein.
“I don’t believe metabolic health should require perfection,” he adds. “Small habits repeated every day matter far more than extreme diets that are difficult to maintain.”
Three habits worth building
1 Prioritize protein and fiber at meals. They naturally help slow digestion and support fullness, which blunts the post-meal spike before it starts.
2 Move after eating. Even a short walk after a meal can support a healthier glucose response. You do not need a full workout, just movement.
3 Think consistency over perfection. One balanced meal will not fix everything and one imperfect meal will not derail anything. The pattern over time is what matters.
For the meals that aren’t perfect
Sometimes the habits are in place and you still want a little extra support. Because let’s be honest: most people aren’t eating grilled salmon and broccoli at every meal. Real life includes pasta nights, restaurant dinners, birthdays, vacations, and the occasional dessert.
That is exactly the reality Professor Bengtsson had in mind when his research led to the development of patented SiPore® technology, the innovation behind Carb Fence. SiPore® works locally in the gut during digestion and does not enter the bloodstream. Its precisely engineered pores entrap a portion of the digestive enzymes responsible for breaking down carbohydrates and fats, slowing their breakdown during digestion.
“As a result, energy from food enters the system more gradually,” he explains. “Many people experience a steadier post-meal response, greater fullness after meals, less urge to snack, and fewer of the energy dips that often drive cravings later in the day.”
The routine is simple: squeeze one Carb Fence sachet directly into your mouth at the start of a meal, then follow with a glass of water, up to three times a day. Less crashing. Less food noise. Less searching for something sweet at 3 p.m. More feeling like your energy is working with you instead of against you.
Finding little hacks that allow balance is a part of the Poosh DNA. In real life, it looks like finishing lunch and not needing a rescue snack before your next meeting. It looks like enjoying the pizza and still feeling like yourself after. It looks like making food choices based on want, not because a craving is making the decision for you.
This is the kind of after-meal energy we support.
