Day 18 - Blood Sugar Success

Snow was gently falling outside and only the typing of the keyboard accompanied the fire crackling. The light had already began to fade outside, staging the interior of the house with long shadows and warm flickers of light coming from the wood burning stove. I had just gotten home from work a bit early and dinner was in the oven (potatoes and yams this time). I felt relaxed and at ease.

Not three feet away from me my daughter was pacing. She was walking around the couch in circles like a anvil-slammed cartoon character. Going to her easel she would write a word (fabrizzio, the name of our sociopath cat) and then wander to the other side of the room in pure boredom. She sauntered over to me.

"Mommmmm. When is dinner going to be ready?"

"I don't know. Maybe another half hour?" I replied. She frowned.

"Can we go and put that new board that Santa gave me up in my room."

"No, Camaria. I asked if you wanted to do that earlier and you said no. Now I am busy." She look purely defeated.

"Mommmmmmm!" My evil mom face dawned. It is a mixture of squinting my eyes and clenching my jaw that does the trick.

"No. Be patient and wait." I replied in a low and masculine tone. Her body slumped and took the posture of a victimized little animal. I heard her walk into the bathroom and begin to cry. I jumped up, half with concern and half with pure irritation and entered the room. "Camaria! What is the deal?"

"I don't know." She mumbled as she sobbed into the towel rack, wrapping her head to hide. "I am sad ... and hungry."

"What have you eaten today?"

"All I had was a little smoothie for breakfast and chips and popcorn at grandma's." My mouth dropped.

"That is all you had in nine hours of the day?"

"Yes." Suddenly a flash a memories came forth. The night she came home from a play date in a horrible mood and could not stop crying for no possible reason. The mornings that she would roll her eyes with attitude and drag her feet with any chore. The one-day trips to Ashland or Redding where her and her dad would eat fast food and I my brown bag lunch (which, yes, I do pack on the weekends in the event we go somewhere) and her mood would plummet off a cliff after two in the afternoon. This theme was one of pure common sense. What Camaria was experiencing were classic symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia or low blood sugar. You do not have to be diabetic to have blood sugar issues. In fact it is estimated that anywhere from one quarter to one half of Americans have difficulty processing sweets and refined carbs.

I went to my nutrition library and cracked open some books. You may not want to read through ALL of these but doing so may impact you. Here are the most common symptoms of low blood sugar:

1. Mood swings
2. Temper tantrums
3. Crying spells
4. Drowsiness
5. Overwhelming fatigue
6. Insomnia
7. Waking up exhausted
8. Sweet cravings
9. Sleeping too much
10. Headaches
11. Difficulty concentrating
12. Mental confusion
13. Restlessness
14. Anxiety
15. Depression
16. Irritability
17. Tachycardia (heart palpitations)
18. Dizziness and vertigo
19. Forgetfulness
20. Fainting
21. Light-headedness
22. Nightmares
23. Aching eye sockets
24. Ravenous hunger
25. Severe PMS
26. Unnecessary worrying
27. Feel best after 7pm
28. Digestive problems
29. Muscle pains
30. Joint pains
31. Cold hands and feet
32. Internal trembling
33. Indecisiveness
34. Nervousness
35. Sensitivity to light and noise
36. Peculiar breath/perspiration
37. Lack of coordination
38. Suicidal thoughts or tendencies
39. Anorexia or bulimia
40. Muscular twitching or cramps
41. Antisocial behavior
42. Itching or crawling sensations on the skin
43. Sighing and yawning
44. The shakes

When we eat, foods are turned into blood sugar (in the case of a carbohydrate), fatty acids (from fats) or amino acids (from protein). Blood sugar is the prime form of fuel that our body uses for energy. Although you would think that eating carbohydrates or sugar of one kind or another would give your blood stream the sugar it needs, that could not be further from the truth. Blood sugar stabilization requires a balance of varying nutrients to create a steady and slow incline in energy that does not shock or damage the system.

Think of it this way: if you, like my daughter, just ate a white flour bagel with butter your bloodstream would get an initial rush of sugar (and a little fat). Because the bagel has very little nutrients and has been refined to remove the essential fiber and vitamins and minerals within as short of a time as a half hour to an hour the body may ask for more food. If the brain and nervous system (which has to have energy every 3-4 hours) does not get what it needs it will activate or intensify the above symptoms as a coping mechanism.

Ever been sad or depressed for no reason? Felt like crying, or punching someone in the face out of frustration? Can't concentrate or sleep well? It could be that your body is screaming for steady and reliable nourishment.

With my daughter it is like dealing with any adult. She is thrown into different environments where she has to adjust. She sees uber-healthy mom who has been cycling the same foods over and over again in the past couple weeks. Boring. She stays with grandma who literally only has bananas, toast, nuts, chips, cookies and tamales as her food options and watching TV is the event of the day. Snack heaven. Working with her father, who is notorious for going a whole day without eating because he forgets, has pastries, candies and sugary drinks right next door at the local cafe. Pure treat delight. Sound familiar? Hectic and diverse scheduling impacts us all.

Here are some simple tips to keep your blood sugar stable:

1. Eat Breakfast! It is usually those with blood sugar issues that say they are just not hungry for breakfast and perpetuate the cycle of instability inside the body. Breakfast is literally breaking a fast. If you decide to wait until lunch then you have gone 16 - 20 hours without food. Talk about starvation mode! If eating right when you get up feels difficult start off with a glass of water with lemon juice and bring a hard boiled egg, a baked yam or a smoothie with you that you can have in the late morning on-the-go.
2. Eliminate Free Sugars. Do you love table sugar on your morning cereal or eating candy bars or licorice as a snack? Do you consider hard candy a health food because it has no fat grams? Eating sugary foods (like cookies, ice cream, candy, cakes, pastries, etc.) wreaks havoc on blood sugar and metabolism setting the stage for reactive hypoglycemia. Save these things are purely treats that are eaten in small amounts only after a healthy and balanced meal.
3. Eat Protein/Carb Combos. If you just eat a bagel or some chips like my daughter did you are asking for trouble. Your pancreas will produce tons of insulin to shuffle the unhealthy rush of sugar (from carbohydrate) into your cells and store excess unused portions as fat. Your blood sugar becomes stable when proteins accompany carbs while traveling through the bloodstream (fats do as well but most of us get enough at each meal naturally). Proteins naturally lower the glycemic load (rate of sugar release) of a carbohydrate stabilizing blood sugar; and prolonging energy and fullness. Good rule of thumb on this is to eat two parts carbohydrate to one part protein. This would look like about one fist size of vegetable or grain with a protein like beans/tofu/meat/fish the size of a deck of cards.
4. Eat Whole Grains. White rice, white flour, white bread that make up almost all of the snack foods we consume are used by the body in the same way as pure sugar. Because they have been refined and the healthy fats and fiber removed they enter the bloodstream immediately and send blood sugar skyrocketing only to plummet and starve you soon after. Choose 100% whole grain crackers, breads, bagels, pastas and flours. Steam brown rice instead of white.
5. Balanced Snacks. Just because you are eating a snack does not mean that it should be any less important as a planned out meal. If you have tortilla chips, pair it with hummus or some other bean dip. A piece of toast could become half of a turkey sandwich. Snacks should be thoughtful mini-meals that supply nutrients in equilibrium.
6. Eat 3 Meals a Day and 2 Snacks. I would think of this more as eating 5 balanced meals a day. Your body will be receiving the fuel it needs on a regular basis so that it does not fall into starvation, low-blood sugar mode. If you thrive on 3 regular meals a day, then roll with it but if you are experiencing some of the symptoms above you could benefit from spanning food out throughout the day.
7. Do Not Restrict! I know, I know. I am a Nutritionist so it would make sense for me to restrict calories to get a client to lose weight, right? Wrong! Calorie restriction is counter productive to healing the metabolism and boosting weight management. Instead of restriction choose the healthy food suggestions above in small meals 5-6 times in the day. This will boost fat burning and healthy energy levels.
8. Exercise! If we eat potato chips and then sit and watch TV we are developing blood sugar imbalances simply by not using the fuel properly. Eating without moving our body sends not-so-used sugar into our bloodstream that will get stored as fat and can even cause inflammation that can lead up to 150 health conditions (including heart disease and diabetes). Muscle cells are about eight times more metabolically demanding than fat cells and work to burn fat 24/7. Do weight bearing (or body weight exercises like push ups and squats) to build up this sugar busting tissue.

Blood sugar stabilization is emotional. Our body finally feels that it can trust us to give it what it needs. It turns its factories and inner cell-cities back on knowing that we can support them. Our brain and nervous system are calmed and send out the signal that times are awesome and no famine exists. Our energy improves and our metabolism burns bright and strong. I am painting a picture that is possible by changing your dietary habits and relishing in blood sugar success.

Nat