Food & fatigue
If you’re at this section of the course, you should have 10 days worth of blood sugar tracking complete.
- 5 days that tracked your blood sugar after not eating for 12 hours (fasting)
- 5 days that tracked your blood sugar after eating (postprandial).
Well done.
Now, I’d like you to look back on your 10 days:
Identify the times when your fatigue was the highest. Use the chart I sent in your companion guide to list your blood sugar readings from worst to best. You’ll find this on pg.25.
Was your fatigue worsened when your blood sugar was out of range?
- Don’t worry if it’s not. Altered blood sugar readings will cause fatigue even if they’re immediately out of range following a meal.
Was your blood sugar out of range before or after eating? Or both?
- If it’s out of range after eating, it’s likely something in that meal is affecting your blood sugar.
- If it’s out of range before eating, recall the last meal you had. It’s likely something from that meal is affecting your blood sugar.
Did your blood sugar come back into a healthy range two hours after eating?
- If not, something in your meal is affecting your blood sugar.
What if your blood sugar never goes out of range?
If your blood sugar always seems to be perfect, no matter what foods you eat, one of two things is happening:
- You’re incredibly blessed with blood sugar balancing genetics.
- You have very high levels of insulin which don’t allow your blood sugar to elevate.
I have yet to meet someone in the first category.
When I was developing this course, I had a patient who tested her blood sugar after eating a large bag of Skittles… Her blood sugar before eating the Skittles was 4.3mmol/L. Her blood sugar readings 1 and 2 hours after eating the entire bag of Skittles were 4.8 and 4.6 mmol/L.
At first blush, you would think that this person had perfect blood sugar. But after further investigation, we identified very high levels of insulin to be the cause of her perfect blood sugar levels. Remember, insulin is the hormone used to lower blood sugar levels.
If your blood sugar levels look perfect, no matter what you eat, you are likely dealing with high levels of insulin.
You do not want to have high insulin levels. In this stage, you are closer to developing diabetes than if you have imbalanced blood sugar. So, if all your readings look too good to be true, be sure to read the next step.
How to identify if you have too much insulin
If your blood sugar looks perfect all the time, regardless of what you eat, your warning bells should be triggered. Now, if you are following a healthy, whole food diet, it’s perfectly normal to have balanced blood sugar levels regularly. But since you’re taking this course, I suspect you’re curious which foods work for you and which cause fatigue.
So, a sure-fire way to know if you’re dealing with too much insulin is to test your blood sugar after something very sugary. Have a large serving of ice-cream, candy, pop, etc. If your blood sugar doesn’t shoot for the moon (it should), you’re likely dealing with insulin levels that are too high.
Another way to see what your insulin is up to is through fasting. Fasting helps to lower insulin. Try fasting (consuming only tea, black coffee, or bone broth) for 18-24 hours. Before breaking your fast with food, check your blood sugar. A lot of times, you’ll find that your blood sugar reading is quite high – even though you haven’t eaten anything. This is also indicative of high insulin levels.
What to do if you suspect your insulin levels are high
If your consumption of sugary delights resulted in normal blood sugar readings. Or, if fasting resulted in high blood sugar readings, you’re going to operate under the assumption that you have too much insulin.
Before continuing on with this course, you’re going to want to lower insulin levels. Otherwise, all the foods you test are going to look like they’re fine – don’t be fooled, they’re not! It’s your high levels of insulin that are artificially making it look like you have perfect blood sugar balance.
To lower your insulin, we’re going to get you to practice intermittent fasting.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting is defined as alternating periods of eating and fasting. There are a number of different ways to practice intermittent fasting, including alternating one full day eating and one full day not eating, or simply decreasing the feeding window on any of number of days per week (i.e., restricting eating to a 6 to 10-hour window per day).
Who is a good candidate for intermittent fasting?
- Patients with some acute or chronic infections
- Patients with a weak immune system
- Patients trying to lose weight
- Patients with type 2 diabetes or other metabolic dysfunction
- Patients with neurologic issues (i.e., Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, dementia, etc.)
- Patients trying to maximize longevity
Who is not a good candidate for intermittent fasting?
- Pregnant women
- Patients with HPA axis dysregulation
- Patients with hypothyroidism
- Patients with eating disorders
- Children and teenagers
How to do intermittent fasting
- Consume only water, tea, black coffee, or bone broth during fasting periods. If desired, a small amount of ghee, butter, or coconut oil in a hot beverage is permitted during the fasting periods.
- Start with a 12- to 16-hour fast three to four times a week. This means all food is consumed within an 8 to 10-hour window, i.e., 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. or 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. each day. (Women tend to do better with slightly shorter fasts when compared with men.)
- Progress to a 16-hour fast each day of the week. All food is consumed within an eight-hour window each day.
- It’s important to listen to your body and only fast on days when you feel up to it. You must take other life stressors into account and recognize that intermittent fasting, while often beneficial, is another stress on the body. When background levels of stress are low to moderate, this can be beneficial, but when they are high, intermittent fasting can cause problems.
- It’s also important to monitor sleep, energy levels, and cognitive function. If any of these start to decline, it may be time to reconsider how often to fast.
How to get started
Think of fasting like a muscle. To make a muscle stronger, you slowly increase the weight. The same goes for fasting – you don’t start with a 3 day fast. Start small. Fasting for 12-16 hours is a perfect starting point. Consume all the coffee, tea, or bone broth you wish during fasting hours.
Try this a few times each week. After a 12-16 hour fast becomes easy, progress to 18-24hr fasts. Just remember to stay within your capacity. If you’re feeling weak or tired, it’s time to eat.
You should find that after a couple of weeks of fasting that your insulin levels start to decrease. This will be reflected as changes in your blood sugar readings – you’ll likely start to see high readings when you check your blood sugar. When this occurs, you know it is time to jump back into the course!
What causes alterations in your blood sugar?
Common knowledge would have you assume that sugary or refined foods are going to have a greater effect on your blood sugar than healthy, whole foods.
It is not this simple.
The foods that negatively impact my blood sugar will be very different than the foods that impact your blood sugar. This is why your friend might lose 25lbs on a paleo diet but you don’t lose any. Sweet potatoes and beets may help to balance her blood sugar. But for you, sweet potatoes and beets may cause extreme swings in your blood sugar.
The same can be said for “junk” foods. Oreos may be less dangerous to your blood sugar than sprouted brown rice. There are no rules to abide by. Instead, you must do some detective work to determine which foods are causing your blood sugar abnormalities.
I’ll help you do that in lesson 3-3!
See you over there 🙂