Blood Sugar...Why is this so important?
Blood sugar truly is the key to maintaining healthy weight loss and a balanced lifestyle! Most inflammatory conditions circle back to improper blood sugar management. When we get this right things work well in the body systematically.
I’ve always wanted to create a cartoon about “inside your body” similar to the magic school bus but the organs would talk and have personalities. I wish I could make the body come alive for you to understand it better. So I’ll do my best with this topic!
Let’s DIVE INTO your blood sugar!
The story goes like this…
Your blood sugar is going to rise every time you eat something, it doesn’t matter what you eat your blood sugar is going to go up, this is a normal behavior.
2. It only matters what you eat where Insulin is concerned. For example, if you eat protein your blood sugar will rise marginally, but if you eat a piece of pizza or a doughnut your blood sugar will rise much higher. The higher it rises the harder it is to manage. The higher the blood sugar the more insulin that must be released to take sugar where it needs to go.
3. Let me explain Insulin: Insulin is found and made in the pancreas. It acts like a taxi cab in the body. When sugar is released in the blood from the meal you had insulin’s job is to drive around and pick up sugar and put it in the cells to be used as energy. THIS IS GOOD! We want energy. The only way we get energy is if the sugar gets into the cell and the only way that happens is if it gets a ride on insulin.
4. So back to blood sugar balance. When your blood sugar is too high we call this insulin resistance which is basically diabetes or borderline diabetes. What does that mean? It means insulin has picked up sugar (glucose) and is driving around looking for somewhere to dock it or trying to find a cell to put it in but there are no cells available. So sugar is just floating around on insulin with nowhere to go. We call this a fuel delivery problem!
5. When your blood sugar is to low we call this hypoglycemia. A few examples of each:
· Insulin resistance: a lot of fatigue after meals, need something sweet after meals, eating sugar doesn’t relieve the craving, frequent urination, difficulty losing weight etc.
· Hypoglycemia: irritable if you’re hungry, need sugar/caffeine/carbs/salty food to perk you up, get shaky or lightheaded if you miss a meal, eating relieves fatigue, agitated easily, poor memory or forgetful, blurred vision, dizzy when you stand up quickly.
6. How to know when your blood sugar is high or low? When you go get your fasting glucose test with all your other blood-work (you should always be fasting for this test) it’s checking to see how much glucose is in your blood and not your cells. You want most of your sugar (glucose) in your cells but if there’s sugar floating around in the blood you have insulin resistance.
7. So insulin resistance or hypoglycemia? Both are bad because your body is running on empty and there’s no sugar in the cells regardless which means both are detrimental to your health long term without treatment. We call this Dysglycemia or Reactive hypoglycemia, meaning you can have insulin resistance and low blood sugar at the same time. YIKES!
8. What happens when you have both? As your body continues to run around with too much sugar in the blood your body is going to start stressing out and the hormone that gets released when your body is stressing out is called cortisol. THIS IS NOT GOOD! We will talk about cortisol in another post but the short of it is that cortisol causes you to gain weight and slow down. It creates an inflammatory reaction in the body that you don’t want.
9. So how do I treat this in my patients? First I figure out what they have or if they are suffering with both. Then I customize a diet plan and add target supplements to balance the blood sugar. If hypo: you need to eat protein every 2-3 hours daily until symptoms are managed. Intermittent fasting is not for you. You must start your day with a protein breakfast within the first hour of waking up. If insulin resistance is the issue we focus on portion control and treating you as if you have diabetes following a diabetic type diet. Again the food is specific to your needs and focused on getting the sugar out of the blood. I use target supplements here also that are focused on insulin support to help move the excess sugar into the cells or out of the body. I also focus on the hormones to further assist in body function and detox. Blood sugar mismanagement affects all ages, from kids to adults.
Whooo! Ok we made it through….I hope you learned something and understand how VITALLY important blood sugar management is to your body. If this is off even slightly you will not feel your best…