Blood sugar or glucose is fuel for your body. It is just below air on the survival importance scale. In fact, if you do not have enough sugar in your blood stream your body will steal something from itself to make glucose at any cost because your brain must have sugar to function. You can convert all sugars, proteins (AKA muscle) and fats into glucose. You always keep some sugar stored in your liver to keep your blood sugar level stable. If you have a sugar low, your liver will pump out some glucose to keep it stable. If you have a sugar high, your liver will suck some up to keep it level.
Yes there are many people that can not control blood sugar levels with diet, but they are the minority. Most of us can just stop putting stupid things in our mouths. Hyperglycemia or diabetes is when you can not keep a stable blood sugar level and the glucose in your blood stream usually goes too high. Hypoglycemia is the same except that your levels tend to go too low. Since all animal cells depends on glucose to function properly these disorders effect every cell your body. Remember, just because a condition is common does not make it less menacing! Take abnormal sugar levels seriously. Hypoglycemia usually turns into diabetes if not controlled and diabetes causes a long list of health problems including blindness, kidney failure and your toes to fall off. This is nasty business here. I am amazed when a patient tells me they have been diagnosed with diabetes and would rather take insulin then control what they eat. Sorry, but that is insane!
The relationship to blood sugar handling and diet was made very clear a few years ago when it was found that certain types of diabetes did not occur in breastfeed individuals. Every baby should be breastfeed, which is why God gave women breasts! If not being breastfeed isn't bad enough, then we start feeding our children processed over sweetened nutritionally depleted foods that completely screw up the pancreas and liver. With the pancreas and liver not functioning properly, the blood sugar levels go wacko. Usually the person can function OK until they get older. How long depends on how bad your diet has been, how generally healthy you are and what your genetic makeup consists of. Relax, the blood sugars can be recalibrated but you have to stop eating stupid things.
Step one: start squeezing an entire fresh lime in water first thing out of bed and drink it EVERYDAY. I have no idea why this works, but it does. Do it.
Step two: is to do the blood sugar control plan for a minimum of two weeks. This is a great way to determine if you can control your sugar with just diet. Get your sugar tested (we can order this for you) and do the diet. After following this diet for two weeks, get your sugar tested again. If eating this way did not control your sugar levels, you probably need insulin. If it did control your glucose, eat this way all the time. You can add one thing at a time and see what it does to your sugar, but be very careful. You will be amazed at how much better you feel and how much weight will drop off. Win win!
Besides from blood sugar problems, if you have way too much sugar in your blood stream (due to eating) your body will store the excess as fat. In nature this is a good thing because the amount of food in nature is cyclic. In the past, man would eat more in the summer months when plants are plentiful and less in the winter when the cold slows or stops plant growth. This way, we tend to bulk up in the summer and fall and thin down in the winter and spring. Yes, Thanksgiving and Christmas add to this, but really this is a natural process for all animals even those without holidays.
The problem comes in when we no longer eat what nature provides when it provides it. Yes man has always stored foods for the winter, but never on the scale that we commonly do now. You are eating fresh foods from other parts of the world out of the typical season or frozen foods year round. This is not what the body was designed for. Because we can feast all year round, we tend to not go through the normal bulk and thin cycle that other animals go through. Mostly, we just seem to bulk.
If you think about how your ancestors ate you would be eating fruits and veggies when they came due. For example, the spring would bring fresh salads, peaches and berries. The summer would bring other veggies, grapes and seeds. The fall brings in apples, squash and root foods. The winter would be mostly dried foods like rice and beans. This is how people ate for centuries. Those that thrived on this type of diet are the ones that survived. You are a product of this; therefore, your genes are from those that thrived on this type of diet. This is how you should also be eating, but honestly, it is not as much fun as how we eat today. But fun and health seem to have problems on a regular basis!
Let's be politically incorrect and look at our ancestors. Yes we are all pink in the middle, but genetically, we are not the same. If your ancestors came from a cold climate like Norway, you are a meat eater because your kin did not have a very long growing season. They ate elk. If your family hailed from the south of Spain you are a veggie eater because they had a long growing season like we Floridians. You can determine a great deal about what you personally should eat based on where your family came from. Eat like them. The confusion comes when you are a mutt like me, or a hybrid as I prefer to be called! My ancestors came from all over. Also keep in mind that after Columbus discovered America and the amazing variety of foods that grow here, the food in Europe change considerably. Ireland did not have potatoes and Italy did not have tomatoes and eggplant!
If you are a fellow hybrid you really need to watch what you eat. I suggest going on an elimination diet. Stop eating all the following foods for two weeks then begin adding them one at a time to determine what ones are OK and what ones are not. All gluten-containing foods like wheat, rye, oats and barley which are commonly found in breads, pasta and other products from refined flour. Alcohol, caffeine (coffee, black teas, and soymilk), soda and fruit drinks that are high in refined sugars. Pork, cold cuts, bacon, hot dogs, canned meat, sausage or shellfish. Corn and tomatoes. Eggs and all dairy (milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, etc.) citrus fruits and juices, strawberries and pineapples. Foods high in fats and oils, including peanuts, refined oils, margarine and shortening. Any other foods not listed that you know you are allergic to. If you eat something and it does not make you feel good, it is not your food. I can't eat many foods that I love like dairy, cashews, mangoes, corn or watermelon. I moment of tasty pleasure just is not worth feeling bad. Be choosy about what you put in your mouth and be healthy.
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