What is the most important thing we need to do to improve our health? Keep our blood sugar balanced.
If you can imagine:
- Being satisfied by good foods without craving sweets?
- Sleeping throughout the night and waking refreshed?
- Having so much energy that you accomplish everything to want to do in a day?
- Feeling relaxed and happy even through the tough times?
- Being able to focus without distraction or fatigue?
- Touting a full head of soft shiny hair and beautiful nails?
- A healthy sex life?
- A strong well-toned body?
- Rarely getting sick?
Then you can see how important blood sugar control can be. It’s simple. Our body requires glucose for one thing, to make energy. Without stable blood sugar, energy is limited for all those things.
What are symptoms of chronic low blood sugar?
- Need to eat frequently
- Fatigue between meals
- Energy crash around 3–4 pm
- Sugar cravings during the day especially in the afternoon and after dinner
- Decreased energy between meals
- Irritability, shakiness, anxiety between meals
- Feel lightheaded if meals are missed
- Agitation, easily upset, nervous
- Poor memory and bouts of mental fatigue
- Mood swings
- Difficulty staying asleep
- Feel unrested after waking
- Blurred vision
What are symptoms of chronic high blood sugar?
- Fatigue after meals
- Sweet cravings after meals
- Difficulty losing weight
- Impaired brain function after meals
- Chronic inflammation and pain
- Frequent urination
- Difficulty with exercise, but significant improvements in energy if you do
- Slow healing
- Blood pressure issues
- Hormone issues
So, what should we do to control blood sugar– diet and exercise?
That may help, but if you constantly eat foods your body doesn’t like OR you eat at the wrong time OR if your meals aren’t balanced OR don’t contain enough fiber OR you don’t eat enough– you can throw sugar levels off. As can too much exercise.
So how do you know if you have an issue with your diet is affecting your blood sugar? Just ask yourself these questions…
- Do I have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?
- Do I wake unrefreshed?
- Does eating a meal make me feel better in any way?
- Am I tired 1-2 hours after a meal?
- Do I crave sweets an hour or more after a meal?
Yes? Your diet could probably use some help. But diet isn’t everything. If you have lots of stress or some underlying condition— like an infection, an unhealthy gut, adrenal/thyroid issues, unhealthy cells, or even autoimmunity against the adrenals, brain, pancreas or insulin itself, etc—your best efforts at controlling blood sugar may go unrewarded.
Blood sugar problems may not be the same for everyone. To learn more about how to best support low blood sugar, please refer to our page Low Blood Sugar. For issues with high blood sugar, checkout our page High Blood Sugar.
