How do you avoid those nasty feelings?
Potentially, there could be many reasons why you are experiencing these nasty feelings, and you need to have them investigated by your health care practitioner. However, if you are experiencing blood sugar levels that fluctuate from low to high, all through your day, this may be responsible for those nasty feelings.
This article is dedicated to explaining why it is critical, if you want to avoid chronic disease, weight gain, and feeling lousy, to have the goal of having lower, more stable blood sugar levels.
How do I ensure my blood sugar levels are lower and more stable?
Like many things, the answer is multifactorial. However, the three most important contributors to increase fluctuating blood sugar levels are, lack of sleep, poor diet, and stress.
In this article we’re going to take a deep dive into the importance of diet.
What are the right type of foods you should be eating, to maintain lower, more stable blood sugar levels? Let’s investigate!
There are three important dietary principles to keep in mind, to ensure you have lower, more stable blood sugar levels, which will help you to feel more calm, experience improved energy and less likely to be storing fat.
- Eat a low carbohydrate diet and when you do eat carbohydrates, ensure they are healthy, natural, low glycemic index (GI) carbs, that don’t increase your blood sugar levels too high or too quickly.
- Ensure you eat every two to three hours to keep your blood sugar stable.
- It’s really important that you include a healthy source of protein and some healthy anti-inflammatory fat, with each meal.
Let’s examine each one with a little more depth.
What does it mean to eat a low carbohydrate diet and when you do eat carbohydrates, ensure they are low glycemic index (GI) that don’t increase your blood sugar levels too high or too quickly?
Eating a low carbohydrate diet, means reducing the amount of breads, cereals, grains, pasta, snacks, cakes, biscuits, muesli bars, muesli, and fruit. Although fruit is a good source of fibre and vitamins, fruit is high in carbohydrate and is treated by the body like any other carbohydrate, which is, it is broken down during the digestive process into simple sugars. Our ancestors used fruit to fatten up on at after a period where they may not have had access to a lot of food! Enjoy your fruit, and chose carefully, as some fruits have a lot less carbohydrate content than others, for example, blueberries! But don’t over do it.
If you are suffering with blood sugar fluctuations, it’s important to try and aim for lower, more stable blood sugar levels, so you feel more calm, and don’t experience the nasty symptoms of low blood sugar levels. If you are going to eat carbohydrates, then ensure they are what’s called low glycemic index carbohydrates (GI). They are a much better choice, and I’ll explain why now.
Let’s look at the glycemic index, it sounds scary, but it really is such a useful tool to understand the impact that different carbohydrates have on your blood sugar levels. Once you understand this, it will empower you to be able to choose carbohydrate foods that don’t raise your blood sugar levels too high or too quickly. Let’s dive in.
The glycemic index tells you how much and how quickly, your blood sugar rises after eating a carbohydrate food. The glycemic index is a scale, that goes from 0 to 100. Scientists examined all the carbohydrate foods, to see how much and how quickly they raise someone’s blood sugar levels after eating each food. Based on this, we now have this awesome tool called the glycemic index.
According to the Glycemic Index Foundation, “carbohydrates with a low GI (55 or less) will make your blood glucose rise slowly and fall gently over a longer time. Carbohydrates with a high GI (70 or more) are digested and absorbed quickly, causing your blood glucose levels to spike and then crash. The slow release of glucose into the bloodstream is proven to be much more beneficial for your body—from improving energy levels to managing weight, and diabetes.”
Let’s look at what happens when you eat high GI (70 or more) foods: first you experience a fast increase in your blood sugar, as these types of food increase your blood sugar level quickly and to a high level, then your pancreas has to produce higher amounts of insulin to move the high amount of glucose from your blood and send it to your cells. Then you experience a rapid decrease (crash) in your blood sugar, where you may feel hungry again, potentially drained, sometimes shaky, and experience brain fog. This is not a pleasant feeling. It’s hard to think properly, make good decisions, and function if your blood sugar is low.
If your diet contains a lot of high GI foods, they will increase your blood sugar quickly and to a high level, which then requires your body to produce higher amounts of insulin. Consistently producing higher amounts of insulin when your blood sugars are high is not good, as insulin is known as a fat storage hormone, so you are more likely to be storing fat. The take away is to reduce the amount of carbohydrate foods you are currently eating and when you do chose to eat a carbohydrate food, ensure that is a healthy, low GI one.
Let’s look at why it’s important to eat regularly through the day.
If you are experiencing fluctuating blood sugar levels and also have the nasty symptoms of brain fog, shakiness, lethargy and nausea, then eating small amounts of food regularly through the day, that are low GI, and have a combination of protein and good quality fats, will help to ensure you have lower more stable blood sugar levels.
Let’s look at the importance of ensuring you include protein and good quality fats with each meal.
Many people don’t understand the importance of including protein and good quality fats with each meal. And it is often surprising to me, when I see people just eat pasta, or rice, and think that’s a balanced meal. When you add protein, and some good quality fat to a meal, you will feel fuller for longer, and your blood sugar will not rise as quickly or as high, as these foods help you to have lower more stable blood sugar levels. You will feel more calm and avoid the nasty low blood sugar feelings. When you eat protein – you only need a serve the size of the palm of your hand. Choosing the right type of fat is important, you need to select fats that are anti-inflammatory, like coconut oil, avocados, olives, and organic olive oil.
My big take away is that eating a healthy, low (GI) and low carbohydrate diet, will help you to experience lower, more stable blood sugars. However, and this is important, if you are stressed and not sleeping well, this will increase your blood sugar levels and potentially create higher, fluctuating blood sugar levels. So managing your stress, and getting a good nights sleep, needs to be the top priority for you!
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