How are states of high or low blood sugar related to gaining weight? How can waiting too long to eat a meal lead to decreased testosterone level? How can eating just a lonesome banana as a snack mess up your hormones later down the line? I'm telling you:
It's 👏🏽 always 👏🏽 all 👏🏽 connected
What does "High Blood Sugar" mean?
Imagine your blood is a river, and sugar is floating in it.
Normally, your body is a good river keeper. It keeps the sugar level just right, not too high, not too low.
When you have high blood sugar, it's like the sugar level is too high. There's too much sugar floating around in your blood. This can cause problems over time, like damaging your nerves and blood vessels.
Think of it like this: If you put too much sugar in your tea, it becomes too sweet, right? Similarly, too much sugar in your blood can lead to health issues.
Insulin & Blood Sugar
High Blood Sugar (Hyperglycemia): When your blood sugar is consistently high, your pancreas gets exhausted from working overtime to produce more insulin. Over time, your body can become resistant to insulin, meaning it's less effective at controlling blood sugar levels. This imbalance can disrupt other hormones, especially those related to reproduction. In women, this can contribute to conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Low Blood Sugar (Hypoglycemia): When your blood sugar drops too low, your body releases stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to quickly raise it back up. Frequent drops in blood sugar can stress your adrenal glands, leading to symptoms like fatigue, irritability, anxiety, and further hormonal imbalances.
Chronic blood sugar fluctuations can put stress on the adrenal glands, potentially leading to symptoms like belly fat, fatigue, irritability, and anxiety.
Cortisol & Blood Sugar
Cortisol, your body’s main stress hormone, plays a critical role in regulating blood sugar. It increases the availability of glucose during stressful times or when blood sugar is low. However, long-term blood sugar imbalances can result in consistently high cortisol levels.
- Chronic High Cortisol: Prolonged elevation of cortisol disrupts other hormone systems, leading to issues such as weight gain [especially around the abdomen] disrupted sleep, mood fluctuations, and menstrual irregularities in women.
- Adrenal Fatigue: Over time, your adrenal glands get super fed up with and annoyed at the fact that your body is constantly begging for cortisol. This annoyance is a condition often referred to as “adrenal fatigue.” This can leave you feeling chronically tired, less able to handle stress, and can create imbalances in other hormones, such as thyroid and sex hormones.
Thyroid Function & Blood Sugar
Both insulin resistance and high cortisol interfere with the conversion of thyroid hormones and reduce the availability of the active thyroid hormone (T3), leading to hypothyroid symptoms, including weight gain, low energy, depression, and sensitivity to cold.
