Education

Skin tags are a sign of insulin resistance.

Insulin Grows “Funny Things”

“First you grow up, then you grow out, then you grow funny things!” That’s what my sister said to me when I observed an odd bump on her skin below her chin. She pretended to be a toad, and we all laughed. Now, I am haunted. If only we had recognized the weight gain and the skin tags as signs of insulin resistance.

I wish we had known that what heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases have in common is insulin resistance. What hope it would have given us to understand that insulin resistance can be reversed. My sister might have taken a second look at her diet. She might have made changes before the doctor found leukemia. She might have lived past 65.

It’s easy to think that diet choices don’t make a big difference in our health. One Pepsi, or one more cookie don’t matter that much. So, one pop becomes a pattern and one cookie becomes a chronic splurge. The frog is swimming in the proverbial pot and the water is hot. He is getting cooked, but he doesn’t even know it.

You cannot eat modern foods and avoid modern disease!

The first step back to better health is awareness. Please wake up to the fact that insulin resistance is the most common disorder worldwide. Roughly half of the adults in the United States are insulin resistant! You are most likely insulin resistant if you have two or more of these symptoms:

  • a waist that bulges over your belt a little
  • difficulty losing weight
  • rising triglyceride levels
  • a high blood pressure reading
  • inability to free yourself from sugar cravings
  • chronic tiredness, especially after meals
  • facial hair or gestational diabetes (female) or low testosterone (male)

Why do these symptoms matter?

According to Dr. Ronald Rosedale, a forerunner in insulin research, insulin initiates the aging process. The higher your insulin, the more susceptible you are to diseases of aging. Your quality of life is at stake. You become a candidate for migraines, early Alzheimer’s, stroke, dementia, fatty liver disease, and even osteo arthritis. The symptoms of fatigue and weight gain are only markers for serious health issues.

How can you reverse insulin resistance?

To prevent or to reverse insulin resistance, you must avoid repeated spikes of insulin throughout the day. What triggers a rush of insulin? Rising blood sugars.

So, ask yourself what increases your blood sugars. If you answered food and stress, you’re right, but let’s qualify which foods cause blood sugars to rise.

Carbs get a bad rap, but not all carbohydrates are villains. If a carbohydrate converts to glucose more slowly, it will have less impact on blood glucose levels. Therefore, eat fibrous, nutrient dense options moderated with fat or protein – such as asparagus with butter. Avoid “quick” carbs, such as white flour and white sugar products. Certainly, don’t drink your calories. Beverages are one of the top causes of high insulin. Eat whole foods, as close to nature as possible. Real food rarely comes with a bar code.

Be proactive about managing your stress, too. Did you know that just one anxiety-causing incident can raise blood sugars 200-300 mg/dl? Gary Scheiner, author of Think Like a Pancreas, details how this happened to him not only with a flat tire on his way to work, but also with a thriller movie. So, take the time to decompress. I detail 50 ways you can do this in just a minute or two in my Stress Hacks course.

Be conscientious about sufficient sleep and regular exercise as well.  Weight training and interval training are both effective ways to improve insulin sensitivity.

in Education / Lifestyle
5-Star Breakfast with protein, fat, fiber, and antioxidants.

Do You Eat a 5-Star Breakfast?

You stay in luxury hotels, pick dentists and restaurants according to their reviews, and buy name-brand clothing. Your coffee is imported and your boots are made in America. But is your first meal of the day on par? Take this true/false quiz to find out if you eat a 5-star breakfast.

What I eat is as important as when I eat.

Breakfast isn’t just about preventing the embarrassing growls and gurgles during your team meeting. Breakfast sets your metabolism for the day and provides nutrients to keep your thinking sharp through every stressful encounter. If you grab only a muffin, cereal, or coffee, you will tank before 10 a.m. The rest of the day, you’ll be on a roller coaster. You’ll stuff quick carbs into your mouth to retrieve some energy, then hit a wall as those carbs burn out like tinder. It would almost be better to skip breakfast than to have sugar-spiking waffles and syrup. It is vital to break your fast with whole, unprocessed food.

My breakfast includes ample fiber, natural fat, amino acids and antioxidants.

You know the importance of real, nutrient-dense foods when you’re fixing a family dinner. Why should breakfast be any different? In fact, start your day with the nutrients you need for your active life, rather than fueling just before bed. Include vegetables and fruits, meat, nuts and seeds, and whole grain in your 5-star breakfast. At a loss for what to eat besides donuts? Try leftovers, or check out traditional recipes from other cultures.

I avoid anything artificial at all costs.

If you put premium gasoline in your vehicle, why do you put artificial foods, trans-fats, colors and preservatives into your menu? You cannot eat modern foods and avoid modern diseases. If you want pristine health, you must consume pristine foods. A bowl of neon-colored ground corn and partially hydrogenated oil floating in cocoa-flavored milk product with high fructose corn syrup just does not compare to blueberries, coconut, almonds, and buckwheat with an egg sunny side up.

Smoothies and oatmeal are dessert.

Yes, you put fruit and leafy greens in your smoothies. Certainly, you grab oats because they are high fiber. But have you considered that these constitute an all-carbohydrate meal, not moderated with a balance of fats and proteins? Therefore, they cause a blood sugar surge. Further, smoothies often contain several fruits, not just one, contributing to a greater blood sugar burden. When you blend them, you absorb them even more quickly. To top it off, you may sweeten your oats with various forms of sugar and fruit. While I don’t think you need to forego carbs, they don’t constitute a balanced meal!

I am free of cravings, hunger, brain fog, energy slumps, and irritability for four hours after eating.

When you feel “hangry,” experience mood swings, or run out of steam, your body is telling you it needs more nutrients. Use these cues to evaluate your meal. Did you eat a 5-star breakfast or was it only 2 stars? You can make gradual improvements by listening to your body’s signals.

How did you score?

Give yourself a star for each one of the statements you marked true. If there’s room for improvement, remember you are on a meal continuum, not a meal plan. Know that you are worth that 5-star breakfast!

Do you need some ideas on how to implement changes to your morning meal? Contact me for mentoring.

 

 

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Did You Want to Be Sick, Tired, Fat, and Depressed?

There is a deadly epidemic in America, and odds are that either you or your buddy has it. It is making you fat and sick, but there’s a 90% likelihood that you don’t have any idea it’s there.

I’m talking about insulin resistance, a totally reversible condition that is the single most important phenomenon leading to premature aging, heart disease, stroke, dementia, and cancer. In its early stages, it triggers weight gain, inflammation and oxidative stress, high blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids, anxiety, and depression.

How Do You Know You Have It?

Key indicators of insulin resistance are:

  • difficulty losing weight
  • belly fat
  • fatigue
  • hunger
  • carb cravings
  • hormone issues
  • irritability when you don’t eat
  • difficulty with memory or concentration
  • water retention
  • facial hair if you are female, erectile dysfunction if you are male

If too many of these symptoms are familiar, you will want to ask your doctor for a fasting insulin blood test. If your results are double digits, you are on the path to diabesity – those metabolic issues that create diabetes and obesity, along with other chronic diseases mentioned.

In Case You Don’t Want to Be Sick, Tired, Fat and Depressed

The good news is that insulin resistance is reversible! But you need to be dedicated to all five pillars of diet and lifestyle:

  1. Choose good food. There are no if’s, but’s, or and’s about it. Sugar is out if you’re serious about getting your body’s metabolism back to healthy. Refined foods and products made with flour get the boot, too. Fill your plate half full with vegetables. The other half of your plate should be divided between good quality, lean protein and slow-burning, high fiber carbohydrates, such as berries, black or red rice, quinoa, green plantains, or cassava root. Use natural, unprocessed fats for cooking and dressing your meals. Foods that don’t require labels are best!
  2. Get plenty of sleep. Even one night of poor sleep can increase insulin resistance. You are much more prone to overeat and to have sugar cravings when you are tired, so getting 8 hours of shut-eye per night has to be a priority.
  3. Take appropriate supplements. As much as I support properly-prepared, nutrient-dense, whole food, your body may be so out of balance that it cannot heal itself without the assistance of some high-grade nutrients. It is common for individuals with insulin resistance to be deficient in vitamin D, Omega 3’s, chromium, B vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants. But taking supplements is only part of the story; absorbing them is the rest. For that reason, it is critical to work with a practitioner to make sure you are getting what your body needs.
  4. Get moving. Aside from diet, exercise is probably the single best medication for insulin resistance. Start with walking for 30 minutes a day. Add in 10 minutes of HIIT (high intensity interval training) and resistance training with weights or bands as you are able. Spending hours is not important. What matters is that you work vigorously, getting your heart rate up to 70-80% of its maximum.
  5. Take time to relax! In the face of chronic stress, insulin output increases, driving insulin resistance even higher and creating even greater inflammation in your body. Passive downtime watching movies or surfing the internet is not enough. You must actively connect your body and brain to each other and to the present, through sensory stimulation, through breathing, and through mindfulness and gratitude activities. If you need some help, check out my stress hacks that can be performed in two minutes or less, anywhere, anytime!

Together, we can upset the odds. Let’s take your 50% chance of having insulin resistance down to zero!

in Education / Lifestyle

How Much Sugar Is Too Much?

A little indulgence now and then isn’t a bad thing, is it? After all, moderation is a virtue. What’s the harm in having a treat occasionally? Well, that depends on your definition of moderation.

What is Moderation?

To one person, having only 32 ounces of pop per day might sound reasonable, if they’re cutting back from consuming a 6-pack. To another person, having a dessert after dinner might seem excessive if they rarely finish any meal with a treat.

Historically, our use of sugar has climbed almost exponentially from around a few pounds per person annually 200 years ago to nearly 200 pounds per person per year today! So is moderation eating only 100 pounds in a year – a quarter of a pound per day – instead of the  half a pound we’re consuming daily? It seemed excessive  to the rest of the world when the lords and ladies of upper society were putting sugar in their tea at a rate of less than 10 pounds per year during the height of the British Empire.

No, moderation is not the answer to knowing how much sugar to eat because it is such a relative term. Perhaps it would be better to determine your use of sweeteners by whether they are damaging to your health.

Is Sugar Causing Symptoms?

There are times, I’m sure, when you know you’ve had too much sugar, because you feel wired and can’t sleep, or you have a stomach ache, or your acne flares up. But what about those symptoms you can’t see? What if the damage to your body goes undetected for 20 or 30 years? Over-consumption of sweets contributes to the following conditions that take years – sometimes decades – to manifest:

  • Food cravings, addictions, and then, sadly, intolerances.
  • Advanced Glycation End Products, often called AGE’s, which are sticky, cross-linked proteins that create brittle tissues when they are used in the formation of skin, eyes, arteries, and other body parts.
  • Insulin Resistance, an insidious disease that has been implicated in the development of obesity, heart disease, cancer, mineral deficiencies, autoimmunities, hypothyroidism, and other chronic illnesses. You can read more about Insulin Resistance here.

But if you’re eating so much now that it might be causing disease to manifest down the road, you can’t really know in the present.  Therefore, symptoms are not a good gauge of sugar consumption, either!

What If You Just Cut Back a Little?

If you suspect that your sweet tooth has grown too large, you could curtail it a bit. That’s no guarantee that the damage to your body will stop, though. Sugar acts like a drug. How much of an addictive substance can you use without affecting your physiology? There’s also the insulin resistance problem: If a mother has insulin resistance during her pregnancy, she can pass it on to her child, and if that child is female, her eggs are predisposed to insulin resistance, too! So does your cutting back a little reverse the impact of generations?

If you simply didn’t ever eat refined sugar or artificial sweeteners, you obviously wouldn’t need to ask whether you were getting too much. But would you miss it? Well, if a person never takes up gambling, smoking, or drinking, does he feel deprived of addictive behaviors? Of course not! So it is with sweets. Living life without them can be fully satisfying. But you can’t know what it’s actually like unless you do it.

The Real Question

Instead of asking, “How much sugar is too much?” isn’t it better to ask, “How little can I eat?” I challenge you to find out how good life can feel without added sugar.

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Free Yourself from Fatigue with a Glucose Meter

Glucose meters aren’t just for diabetics. If your youthful energy has evaporated, and you want to feel free and easy again, you may want to monitor your blood sugars throughout the day to find out if you are suffering from insulin resistance.

How Does Insulin Resistance Cause Fatigue?

Insulin is a carrier. It transports glucose from the bloodstream to the cells to be used for energy. When insulin levels have been chronically high for extended periods of time, cells in the body “stop listening” to this messenger. There can literally be a flood of glucose in your blood, but not enough in your cells to meet all your energy demands. You feel tired, especially after meals. This causes you to want something sweet for quick energy following a meal. You feel you need dessert.

How Can a Glucose Meter Help You Identify Insulin Resistance?

When you start eating, blood sugar levels begin to rise. They peak, on average, about 60 minutes after the start of a meal. A healthy reading one hour “post-prandial” (post-meal) would ideally be no higher than 140. Diabetics are encouraged to keep this number under 180 because that’s where organ damage begins. If your post-meal reading is high, you likely have either:
  • eaten a meal that is too high in quick-absorbing carbohydrates, or
  • have insulin resistance that is keeping the glucose from leaving he bloodstream.
By two hours after a meal, blood sugar levels should be dropping, and glucose levels should should not exceed 120 at this point. The slower your readings are to drop below 100, the greater your likelihood of insulin resistance. In fact, if they don’t drop below 100 ever, then insulin resistance will most assuredly affect your health.
On the other hand, your reading can be too low. Blood sugars are generally their lowest four hours after the start of the last meal, right before the next meal. You don’t want to see anything lower than 70, as this would indicate a hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) response.
You might think of hypoglycemia as a result of eating a low-carbohydrate meal. On the contrary, it is often a reaction to eating too many carbs, triggering a surge of insulin. When you eat a high-carb meal and blood sugars rise above 140, the pancreas over-compensates with a burst of insulin,  which subsequently drops the blood sugars below healthy ranges. Some individuals may experience hypoglycemia for years before insulin resistance sets in.

Use a Glucose Meter to Reverse Insulin Resistance

To avoid the damaging insulin rush, you will need to change the “glycemic load” of your meals. Basically, you have to eat foods that do not readily and rapidly convert to glucose. You can do this by adding more fiber, fat, and protein to your meal, and by switching carbs to ones with a lower glycemic load. For example, you could swap sweet potatoes for white potatoes, quinoa or brown rice for white rice, beans for pasta, fruit for soda, and oats for crackers. You can also reduce the serving size of your carbs. Fill your plate with vegetables instead of foods made from flour and processed ingredients.
You will know you have succeeded in preventing an insulin burst when your post-meal readings are within normal ranges, as noted above.
in Education

Do You Have Cellular Fatigue?

Everybody’s tired these days. It seems our memories and our nights are getting shorter and shorter. Meanwhile, our stress and our irritability are growing. As a nation, we purchase energy drinks and take adrenal supplements. We can’t get out of bed in the morning, and we hit a wall before the work day is finished.

Do we sprint so much that we out distance our reserves, or is there an energy crisis at the cellular level?

Energy is Produced in the Mitochondria

You’ll recall from your high school physics class that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells. One particularly unique feature about them is their double membrane.

Image result for mitochondria

This twin layer makes them doubly vulnerable to damage. See, all cell membranes are made of phospholipids, a special class of fats that allow a two-way exchange of materials in and out of the cell. That way nutrients can enter and wastes can exit. But because they are lipids, they are subject to oxidation – a type of damage that occurs in fats. And because these membranes also contain proteins, they are subject to glycation – literally, sugar-coating that makes them sticky and cross-linked so that they cannot send or receive signals properly.

The bottom line is that diets high in processed fats and sugars dam the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes and stop the creation and dissemination of energy.

Interrupt The “Kryptonite”

The first step to overcoming fatigue is to halt the acceleration of glycation and oxidation. That means:

  • Eat only natural, unrefined fats, not processed and refined fats. Stay away from the Big Five: cottonseed, corn, canola, soy, and sunflower. Instead, use olive, avocado, coconut, and grass-fed butter.
  • Stop eating refined flours and sugars. Eat nutrient-dense whole foods, mostly from plants (vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, and grains in limited amounts) with high-quality animal products for protein requirements.

Power Up Your Powerhouses

  • Eat anti-oxidant foods. That means lots of colors! Make half your plate vegetables. Eat your fruit, don’t drink it. Swap white carbs like rice, potatoes and pasta for colored ones like wild rice, yams, and squashes.
  • Work with a health practitioner to supplement your diet with the necessary vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that may be missing in your diet.

Diet is the biggest factor you have control over to regain your energy. If your thinking is foggy, your memory is impaired, or you suffer from mood disorders, focus on cellular nutrition to feel happy, healthy, focused, and sharp once again.

in Education / Lifestyle

Why Does Stress Make Me Crave?

Stress. Even the word itself sounds, er, uh…stressful! You immediately conjure images of family quarrels, financial problems, road emergencies, sleep deprivation, a difficult boss, or life-sucking disease. But no matter the source, stress is a voracious monster that has a lust for only one victim: Energy. To mobilize…to escape… to ward off danger…to survive.

And whose job is it to supply the sacrificial lamb to this beast? The adrenals, those tiny glands atop the kidneys, best known for their production of adrenaline and cortisol. Instantly, they send out their fleet-footed messengers to recruit fuel for the energy factories in the body – those tiny mitochondria inside each cell. They sound the alarm for oxygen and food to be delivered promptly.

The bronchioles in the lungs dilate, the pulse quickens, all the better to ferry the goods to their destination. Digestion, reproduction, and other “non-essential” functions grind to a halt. All attention must be focused on responding to the demon’s demand.

The couriers dash to the liver to scrape up all the glycogen stores that can be converted to glucose – the quickest food that can be lapped up in such an emergency. They race to the muscle tissue to coax fatty acid and amino acid conversion into glucose. But inevitably, they sprint to the brain, where the commander-in-chief demands that rations be confiscated from outside the camp.  You receive an unquestionable order: Eat! Eat now! Eat quick!

No long-burning logs will stoke the fire soon enough. You need kindling! Intuitively, you seek carbohydrates that can be transformed into glucose rapidly. A fiber-ful bundle of buttered asparagus doesn’t quite pass muster. But ice cream – now, that sounds fine!

Two Keys to Kill Your Cravings

Outwitting your cravings will require clever strategy. Implement these assertive tactics:

  • Fight the stress itself! Instead of letting urgent bids take your attention, re-focus on the moment. Ascertain that you are actually okay – you are alive and functioning – then reprogram your breathing, your mindset, and your sensory input through deliberate, mindful exercises. (Check out our Stress Hacks class.) You can choose to respond from a place of peace.
  • Fuel up before the energy crisis. Having adequate amino acids from healthy protein, and plentiful fatty acids from natural, unrefined fats will guard against energy deficits. Make sure, especially, that your first meal of the day will meet your metabolic needs. It has been suggested that no less than 20 grams of protein are needed in the morning to establish your metabolism for the day. So if you want waffles or cereal, save them for dinner. Instead, try some Fisherman’s Eggs for breakfast! Rich in Omega 3’s, this dish is protective of those energy factories, your mitochondria.

Fisherman’s Eggs

2 Tb. coconut oil or unrefined red palm oil

1/2 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 package of frozen vegetables, optional (or any fresh ones, such as bell peppers, artichoke hearts, or asparagus)

1 can wild-caught sardines packed in olive oil

2 pastured eggs

Preheat oven to 350°. Using an oven-proof skillet, saute the onion, garlic and optional vegetables over medium heat in oil until soft. Add sardines to the pan. Gently crack the eggs over the mixture. Transfer skillet to the oven and cook until the eggs are soft-set, approximately 10 minutes.

in Education / Food & Cooking

Can’t Sleep? Check Blood Sugars

The more erratic your blood sugars, the less you sleep, and the less you sleep, the higher your blood glucose goes. So being healthy depends on establishing both level blood sugars and restorative sleep.

How Poor Sleep Raises Blood Sugars

Sleep deprivation is a form of stress. Stress is another way of saying “energy demand.” There has to be fuel to supply that demand. So certain hormones, including cortisol, signal the body to release glucose from stores.  Naturally, the higher the stress, the greater the release of glucose.

But there’s another problem. The less you sleep, the less able you are to metabolize, or use, the glucose that is being released. So of course blood sugars escalate!

How Erratic Blood Sugars Disrupt Sleep

It doesn’t matter which comes first: the sleep loss or the blood sugar changes. Just like chicken and egg, one begets the other continuously.

Remember that cortisol is released when the body is stressed? Not only does cortisol raise blood sugars to fuel the energy need, it wakes you up! Cortisol is a mobilization hormone. It competes with melatonin, your sleep hormone. In teeter-totter fashion, when one rises, the other falls.

To aggravate the situation, when your blood sugars are too high, your kidneys will try to remove some of the glucose via urine. So, you wake up to use the bathroom. You may also wake up because you feel hot, thirsty or irritable – other side effects of high blood sugar.

You know that high blood sugars directly correlate with high insulin. But did you know that insulin is a trigger for the “fight or flight” response? So having a meal during the day that precipitates an insulin surge will keep you from sleeping tonight. When that happens repeatedly, you become insulin resistant. Insulin resistance can affect the liver, rocketing blood sugars even more. Normally, your liver supplies your with just the right amount of glucose to keep you functioning in your sleep. If your liver has become insulin resistant, it makes too much glucose, provoking even greater blood sugar imbalance.

On the other hand, you also lose zzzzz’s if your blood sugars drop too low. Why? Hormones again. Cortisol, as well as adrenaline and glucagon, tell the body to eat, not sleep, because energy stores are waning. Adrenaline quickens your pulse and breathing. It takes you from “rest and repose” to “rally and run.”

How to Assure a Healthy Balance

So what are you to do about this vicious spiral? Love your hormones! Honor melatonin by following circadian rhythms. Reduce adrenaline and cortisol with nightly relaxation practices. And by all means, eat balanced ratios of carbs, fats, and proteins to avoid glucose and insulin surges! Here are some specific suggestions:

  • Wake up with the sun. Minimize artificial light, especially in the evening. Special blue-light blocking glasses can be helpful if you have to function after dark.
  • Try aromatherapy, music therapy, pet therapy, or any other calming practice to shift out of sympathetic state at the end of the day.
  • Eat whole food meals and avoid snacking. Stay away from refined and processed foods, limit starches and flours, increase vegetable portions, and until sleep normalizes, boost your protein consumption.

If you need further help with your sleep, contact me about supplements and strategies for your individual physiology.

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Reverse Insulin Resistance to Control Cravings

Trying to control sugar cravings without addressing insulin resistance is like learning to swim without getting in the water: you’re only going through the motions, not developing any lasting change.

Because insulin resistance instigates carb and sugar cravings, it is pointless to try to curb these cravings until you correct the insulin resistance – which develops after years of poor eating habits. Signs and symptoms of insulin resistance include:

  • fatigue
  • hunger
  • hormone imbalances that contribute to
    • PMS, PCOS, and facial hair in women
    • thinning hair, “man boobs,” and erectile dysfunction in men
    • low thyroid
    • infertility
  • inability to lose weight
  • abdominal fat
  • migrating aches and pains
  • desire for sweets after a meal
  • rising cholesterol and triglycerides

Five Steps To Reverse Insulin Resistance

You need both diet and lifestyle changes that bring your physiology into desirable condition, just as dressing meat or dressing a mannequin makes it suitable or fit. You can remember the acronym DRESS for these needed changes: Diet, Relaxation, Exercise, Supplementation, and Sleep.

Diet: Eat whole foods that are high in fiber and low in sugars and flours. Get plenty of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and detoxifying foods. That means eating lots of colorful fruits and vegetables; plenty of high-quality protein, especially fish; a variety of legumes, nuts, and seeds; and an abundance of omega-3 oils from seafood, flax, chia, grass-fed meats, dairy, and eggs.

Relaxation: Your stress hormones raise blood sugars and therefore trigger insulin resistance, so it is essential to practice relaxation daily, even hourly, using breathing exercises, acupressure, meditation, guided imagery, exercise, recreation, journaling, gratitude, and other techniques.

Exercise: More movement of all kinds will benefit you. Even a walk after dinner each evening is helpful. Interval training has the added benefit of increasing the efficiency of your calorie burning so that you burn more when you are not exercising. But recent studies show that resistance training with weights is most desirable for reducing insulin resistance.

Supplementation: The following nutrients have been clinically shown to be helpful in controlling blood sugars and moderating insulin resistance.

  • B Vitamin Complex, especially B-6, B-12, and biotin to protect against diabetic neuropathy and enhance insulin sensitivity
  • Magnesium because most individuals with blood sugar dysregulation show magnesium deficiency
  • Alpha-Lipoic Acid, a powerful anti-oxidant that helps with glucose conversion
  • Omega 3’s to help nutrients get into the cell that otherwise would be blocked by insulin resistance
  • Berberine to lower blood sugars
  • Chromium to lower insulin levels
  • Cinnamon to imitate the action of insulin
  • Vitamins C and E to serve as anti-oxidants

Sleep: Even one night of sleep deprivation may increase insulin resistance by as much as several months of a poor diet. As few as four days of sleep deprivation in a row causes significant metabolic disturbances that reduce total body insulin sensitivity. So while diet and exercise are certainly critical in optimal health, sleep is just as critical.

in Education / Lifestyle

The Fatigue Spiral

No get-up-and-go? Wake up exhausted? Feel tired but can’t fall asleep? Lie awake for hours in the middle of the night? Pump stimulants during the day to keep going?

You could be experiencing a blood sugar dysregulation which is causing disrupted nights. Unfortunately, the worse your sleep patterns, the more blood sugars tend to spin out of control.

What causes blood sugar imbalances?

Here are some common contributors:

  • An excessive amount of refined carbohydrates in the diet (breads, crackers, pasta,  pastries, baked goods, etc.).
  • Chronic low-grade emotional stress or frequent high intensity emotional stress.
  • Unidentified physiological stresses, such as food sensitivities, inflammation, or infection.
  • Insulin resistance.

How do disrupted blood sugars make you fatigued?

Let’s try an analogy. Your nose is designed to be evenly moist. When you have a cold, the excess mucous congests it to the point that you can hardly breathe. At the other extreme, it sometimes becomes so dry that it bleeds.

Now, let’s imagine the the individual cells of your body to be something like a nose. An excess of insulin will eventually prohibit the passage of nutrients into them, just as mucous prevents the smooth flow of air. When cells don’t get fuel (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, and glucose), they can’t create energy, perform their work, repair, and reproduce. Then you feel chronically fatigued – almost like a nose without enough air.

On the other hand, stresses – both emotional and physiological – take energy away from the cells, like hot, dry wind pulling moisture from a nose. A constant stream of stress will eventually leave a body exhausted and empty like a parched nose. The irony is that any stress triggers cortisol production, and rest is almost impossible when cortisol levels escalate. So no matter how weary you feel, you can’t seem to restore yourself.

Cortisol is a mobilization hormone. When it is high, melatonin drops like the heavy side of a teeter-totter. Melatonin influences your ability to sleep. The less you sleep, the more you want to use sugar and other stimulants to make it through your day. These, in turn, trigger more insulin resistance and more cortisol production. So, instead of having smoothly-regulated blood sugars, the highs get higher and the lows get lower, like a nose that alternately plugs and bleeds repeatedly. Having enough energy becomes a mirage in a desert of fatigue.

How can you stop the spiral?

Of course, you will want to work with a practitioner to find the root cause of your insulin and cortisol spikes. But there are also things you can do at home. These include:

  • Eating a diet that is balanced between natural fats, appropriate proteins, and slow-burning carbohydrates from unprocessed whole foods.
  • Syncing your body with circadian rhythms of light and dark by being in sunshine during daylight hours and limiting your exposure to artificial light at night.
  • De-stressing throughout the day, but especially taking time to wind down in the evening with regular relaxation practices, such as meditation, gratitude, journaling, aromatherapy, breathing exercises or yoga.

To learn more about intercepting the Tiredness Spin, you can register for a local, live class on Taming Fatigue.

 

in Education / Lifestyle