Is Your Blood Sugar Making It Harder For You To Lose Weight?
When someone mentions the words "blood sugar" does it conjure up visions of restrictive eating, diabetes medications, or insulin injections?
Blood sugar is the measure of the amount of sugar in your blood. You need the right balance of sugar in your blood to keep you healthy and feeling good and to make sure your body is functioning properly.
The thing is, it can fluctuate. A lot.
This fluctuation may be due to many things. What you eat, sleep, stress, activity can all affect your blood sugar levels.
When you eat food with sugars or starches ("carbs"), they are digested and broken down into simple sugars, that sugar is then released into your bloodstream. Your body keeps blood sugar levels stable by secreting insulin. Insulin helps excess sugar to get out of your bloodstream and into your muscle cells and other tissues to be used for energy.
Why do I need to keep my blood sugar stable?
Your body needs your blood sugar to be at an optimal level. It should be high enough, so you're not light-headed, fatigued, and irritable. It should be low enough that your body isn't scrambling to remove excess from the blood. Keeping that right balance is crucial.
When blood sugar is too low, this is referred to as "hypoglycemia."
When blood sugar is too high, it is referred to as hyperglycemia. Prolonged periods of elevated blood sugar levels (chronic hyperglycemia) can lead to "insulin resistance."
Insulin resistance is when your cells are just so bored of the excess insulin incessantly knocking on the door to let glucose in that they start ignoring (resisting) it. That results in your blood sugar levels too high, too often.
Insulin resistance and chronic hyperglycemia can eventually lead to diabetes.
So let’s look at how you can optimize your food and lifestyle to keep your blood sugar stable.
Food for stable blood sugar
The simplest thing to do to balance your blood sugar is to reduce the number of refined sugars and starches that you eat. But even things that are generally considered “healthy” like grains and fruits can impact blood sugar too. One easy way to do this, is to start by ditching fruits juices, sodas and sugary drinks.
Make protein the star of your meals. Protein takes longer to digest which helps you to stay fuller longer. Adding some good healthy fat to this can also help with satiety – and adds some extra yumminess!
Eating fiber can sometimes be helpful too. Fiber may help to slow down the amount of sugar absorbed from your meal; it reduces the "spike" in your blood sugar level. Fiber is found in plant-based foods (as long as they are eaten in their natural state, processing foods often removes the fiber). Eating nuts, seeds, and whole fruits and veggies (not juiced) is a great way to increase your fiber intake. But its important to remember that not all fiber is created equally and some fibers can affect your blood sugar and excess fiber can cause digestive issues for some.
Your lifestyle and blood sugar
Exercise also helps to improve your insulin sensitivity; this means that your cells don't ignore insulin's call to get excess sugar out of the blood. Not to mention, when you exercise, your muscles are using up that sugar they absorbed from your blood. But you already knew that exercise is healthy, didn't you?
Would you believe that stress affects your blood sugar levels? Yup! Stress hormones increase your blood sugar levels. If you think about the "fight or flight" stress response, what fuel do your brain and muscles need to "fight" or "flee"? Sugar! When you are stressed signals are sent to release stored sugar back into the bloodstream, increasing blood sugar levels. Its not always easy to completely get rid of stress – heck for most of us its darn near impossible but you can do somethings that can reduce the impact that stress has on your body like: meditation, deep breathing, or gentle movement.
Sleep goes hand-in-hand with stress. When you don't get enough quality sleep, you tend to release stress hormones, feel hungrier and have more carb/sugar cravings. Sleep is crucial, but is often an overlooked, factor when it comes to keeping your blood sugar stable. Just one night of poor sleep can make you more insulin resistant. Make sleep more of a priority - it will do your blood sugar (and the rest of your physical and mental health) good.
In short…
Your body is on a constant 24-hour quest to keep your blood sugar stable. The body has mechanisms in place to do this, but those mechanisms can get tired (resistant). Long-term blood sugar issues can spell trouble.
There are many nutrition and lifestyle approaches you can take to help keep your blood sugar stable. Minimizing excessive carbs, and focusing on protein and fats instead, exercising, reducing stress, and improving sleep are all key to having stable blood sugar (and overall good health).