Energy is greatly affected by what the heck is going on in your bloodstream. We’ve all heard of “blood sugar” and “insulin”, but often blindly associate both with diabetes. We think, “welp, if I don’t have diabetes, this is definitely not something I need to be paying attention to.”...which is completely false.
Blood sugar dysregulation is when the sugars from foods you eat in your blood are being absorbed either too fast or too slow. Blood sugar dysregulation impacts everything from your energy level and hunger, to your libido (aka S3X DRIVE) and ability to sleep through the night.
Unfortunately, added sugars - 6 to 30 g!! – might be injected into dried fruits, thrown into a simple marinara pasta sauce, or mixed in a salad dressing. The sugars are for far more than just "empty calories"…They're actually affecting your hormones. Consuming high amounts of added sugars from things like juices, protein bars, sweetened yogurts, and white breads can send your already hard-working organs into an unnecessary state of overdrive. Many common foods, like those listed below, can be loaded with added sugars (but marketed as “healthy”)! These contribute to blood sugar dysregulation by throwing insulin into your blood stream in an attempt to store it all away. The food that is NOT used for immediate energy can stored away in adipose tissue (aka fat).
- Yogurt
- Granola
- Dried fruit
- Salad Dressing
- Pasta Sauce
~ STORY TIME ~
Let’s say you start the day off with a high carb, low fat / low protein breakfast (like cereal, orange juice, and coffee with sugar) before rushing off to work! This type of meal would release a ton of glucose into the body in a short amount of time (🚨drastic peak!!), causing your lovely pancreas to immediately shuttle insulin into the blood to gobble up and store away all the glucose - like a game of whack a mole. This would then quickly LOWER your blood sugar (🚨valley!!) and overshoots the mark of balance / equilibrium! In an attempt to bring the blood sugar levels back to “normal”, the pancreas is called upon yet again to release glucagon…however, this might not be enough - so the body perceives it’s in a state of emergency, triggering the “fight-or-flight” mode. This then calls upon your adrenal glands (sit right on top of the kidneys) release adrenaline (aka epinephrine) and cortisol (stress hormone) to bring up blood sugar further!
IN SUMMARY:
it's one chaotic ocean with a story riptide up in there! high sugar / low fat / low protein meal can spike your blood sugar, set you off for the rest of the day, and strain your organs.
Want to learn more about blood sugar regulation? Check out this interactive, in-depth look at a day in the life!
