Controlling Your Blood Sugar Levels

Controlling your blood sugar levels is important because if what you eat and drink causes your blood glucose levels to rise quickly this stimulates a surge of insulin which  brings your glucose level crashing down quickly and makes you hungry.

What Affects Your Blood Sugar Level?

The human body is designed to run on the carbohydrates found in fruit and vegetables. These provide the energy we need to live, and In nature these are present as complex carbohydrates together with fibre and the vitamins and minerals necessary for health. A natural diet of raw fruit and vegetables is the healthiest way to eat these and is what the human body is designed for. This natural diet is digested slowly in the gut

However, man is the only species of animal that has learned to cook food and alter its composition, and cooking breaks down some of the complex carbohydrates into simpler carbohydrates which are easier to digest. Cooking has been a wonderful invention for releasing carbohydrates from foods that were otherwise hard to digest, especially while man was having to work physically hard to make a living, as it provided the energy to fuel this hard work. Now that few people have to work that hard the energy provided from cooked food isn't needed in such large amounts, and yet we are eating more calories than we need and these calories are being stored as fat and causing us to be overweight and in need to lose weight.

Food processing has also changed what we eat, and now many foods are automatically processed to make them store for longer without going off and to be quicker to cook and be more desirable to the western palate. This processing takes away many of the natural nutrients and fibre associated with things like wheat, flour and rice and means that they are more quickly and easily digested. The problem with this is that the carbohydrates are broken down to glucose much quicker during digestion, and this gives rise to surges of glucose in the blood rather than the slow and steady release that the body is designed for.

Man's natural liking for sweet things has also been catered for as more complex carbohydrates are processed to form simpler carbohydrates to sweeten our food and drinks with sugar and other sweet things such as homey.

Sugary canned and bottled drinks are a big culprit in causing surges in your blood glucose levels, and their widespread popularity is not a healthy sign and should be discouraged. The surges of glucose they produce cause a problem that is typical of a common type of sugar consumption. The large surge in glucose produces a corresponding large surge in insulin to counteract it, and this causes the glucose level to fall quickly as it is taken up by other cells in the body. However the high level of insulin falls more slowly than the glucose level and so the glucose level comes crashing down below the normal resting level. This makes you feel very hungry very quickly and you also feel very low in energy and can't concentrate. You crave for something sweet to restore the glucose level, and so you reach for another sugary drink or a jam doughnut to feed your hunger. This can lead to what is for all intents and purposes a sugar addiction.

How To Control Your Blood Sugar Level

All calories aren't created equal! Calorie counting for carbohydrates doesn't explain why quick digesting carbohydrates have a much greater effect on your weight than slowly digested ones when there are the same number of calories in both. This is one reason why calorie counting isn't a good way of controlling your weight. This idea has been explored further by measuring the Glycemic Index of foods, which is a measure of how eating the same number of calories affects your blood sugar level.However this can be quite difficult to put these ideas into practice and the Glycemic Load is a much more practical way to use this idea because it looks at how your blood glucose level is affected by eating one portion of a particular food.

Eating regularly through the day helps keep your blood glucose levels under control, and typically having three larger meals with smaller snacks in between is the best sort of pattern.

Stimulants such as coffee, tea, tobacco and chocolate also raise blood glucose levels because they release the stress hormone cortisol, and your body's response to this stress indicator is to prepare for the sudden burst of energy you need for the 'fight or flight' reaction, which is your body's natural caveman reaction to the stress signal. The stress that causes you to release adrenaline has the same effect. The problem is that this glucose won't be used up by a sudden burst of energy in our modern society, and so the blood sugar will often be taken out of the blood and stored as fat, especially around your middle, which is the most unhealthy way to store fat.

Skipping breakfast is the worst start you can have to the day, because a healthy breakfast will give you the slow-release energy you need to carry you through the morning until you have a healthy snack mid-morning. Starting the day with a cigarette, a coffee or a can of sugary drink will certainly raise your blood glucose level so you don't feel hungry, but you will crash mid morning and need another unhealthy quick fix. This is sending all the wrong signals to your body that you are under stress, and will cause you to put on fat around your middle as well as causing other long-term health problems.

Proteins and fats don't contribute to your blood glucose level and so eating the same number of calories of these as you would of carbohydrate won't cause you problems with your blood glucose levels. This is one reason why the Atkins Diet works so well, however, it isn't working in harmony with the healthy way the body should work and can't be regarded as a healthy option. However eating a portion of protein with every carbohydrate will slow down the absorption of the carbohydrate and reduce the blood sugar fluctuations it causes.

Why Is Controlling Your Blood Glucose Level So Important?

Keeping your blood sugar levels balanced is probably the most important thing you can do to control your energy level and your weight because the level of glucose in your blood largely controls your appetite. Low blood glucose levels can cause a tiredness and fatigue, lack of concentration, irritability, nervousness, depression , sweating, headaches and digestive problems .

Your body isn't designed to cope with large amounts of glucose on a regular basis. Unfortunately the modern western diet provides unhealthy large doses of glucose to the blood on a very regular basis from quickly digested carbohydrates in processed and junk foods and from glucose added to sweeten drinks. The surges of glucose in the blood produce surges of insulin, and over time the cells which are sensitive to insulin become less sensitive and don't respond so well to removing glucose from the blood. This is called insulin resistance and leads to a higher level of glucose in the blood, which then causes the pancreas to produce even more insulin, and so the vicious circle begins. Insulin resistance causes the way the body works to change, and other health problems can soon occur such as high blood pressure and cholesterol problems , which can lead to metabolic syndrome . Metabolic syndrome can easily lead to diabetes if the level of glucose in the blood gets high enough and the insulin producing cells in the pancreas become exhausted and can no longer produce the high levels of insulin required.