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I don’t know about you, but I struggle with imbalanced blood sugar. Thanks to my younger self for that… Then, I had no idea the effect that binge-eating candy and junk food would have on my health. Every time I was hungry, I craved sugar and carbs and never felt satisfied with anything I ate. I would experience crazy headaches if I hadn’t eaten in awhile or shortly after I did eat. I always felt bloated, exhausted, and insecure about the way my body looked.
Looking back, I realize that I lacked adequate fiber, adequate sleep, and daily exercise to name a few. Once I made a connection between blood sugar and how I was functioning, I knew I had to make a change. I’ve implemented the following 9 simple ways to keep my blood sugar balanced, increase my insulin sensitivity, and feel better.
Now I know that keeping blood sugar levels balanced is essential for overall health and well-being. It may even be considered one of the foundations of health. Fluctuations in blood sugar can lead to energy crashes, cravings, and can have long-term effects on your metabolism and risk for chronic diseases. Fortunately, with mindful food choices and meal planning, you can maintain stable blood sugar levels throughout the day. Below, I share my top tips on how you can begin balancing your blood sugar and added some meal ideas for you to try!
Signs of Imbalanced Blood Sugar
Have you experienced any of these signs of imbalanced blood sugar? I know I definitely have! Here are signs and symptoms of high and low blood sugar:
Hyperglycemia or High Blood Sugar:
- Frequent urination: High blood sugar levels can lead to increased thirst and more frequent urination as the body tries to eliminate excess glucose through urine.
- Excessive thirst: Persistent thirst is a common symptom of high blood sugar as the body attempts to replace fluids lost through increased urination.
- Extreme hunger: Despite eating, you may feel constantly hungry, as your body’s cells are not getting the energy they need due to insufficient insulin action.
- Fatigue: High blood sugar levels can lead to feelings of fatigue and low energy because glucose is not efficiently entering your cells for energy production.
- Blurred vision: Elevated blood sugar levels can affect the shape of the lens in your eye, leading to temporary changes in vision.
- Slow wound healing: High blood sugar can impair the body’s ability to heal wounds and recover from injuries.
- Frequent infections: An imbalance in blood sugar can weaken the immune system, making you more susceptible to infections, especially skin and urinary tract infections.
- Nausea and vomiting: In severe cases, hyperglycemia can lead to nausea and even vomiting.
Hypoglycemia or low blood sugar:
- Shakiness or trembling: Low blood sugar can cause tremors, shakiness, and an overall feeling of uneasiness.
- Sweating: Excessive sweating, especially when not due to physical activity or hot weather, can be a sign of low blood sugar.
- Rapid heartbeat: Hypoglycemia can lead to an increased heart rate or palpitations.
- Hunger: Feeling very hungry, even shortly after a meal, can be a sign of low blood sugar.
- Irritability or mood changes: Hypoglycemia can affect your mood, leading to irritability, anxiety, or even confusion.
- Weakness or fatigue: Low blood sugar can result in feelings of weakness, tiredness, and lethargy.
- Difficulty concentrating: Difficulty concentrating or confusion may occur with hypoglycemia.
- Dizziness or lightheadedness: Low blood sugar can cause a sensation of dizziness or lightheadedness.
Tips for Blood Sugar Balance:
1. Choose Complex Carbs
Complex carbohydrates are KEY! They are rich in fiber and have a lower glycemic index (GI). The glycemic index in foods is an assigned number that relates to how a certain food affects your blood sugar spike compared to a pure glucose food or a white piece of bread. The lower the number, the less the glucose spike is after a meal.
Here’s how the glycemic index works:
- High GI foods (70 or above): These foods cause a rapid and substantial increase in blood sugar levels. They are typically composed of simple sugars and carbohydrates that are quickly digested and absorbed. Examples include white bread, white rice, sugary cereals, and most sweets.
- Medium GI foods (56-69): Foods in this category have a moderate impact on blood sugar and include items like whole wheat products, brown rice, and some fruits.
- Low GI foods (55 or below): These foods have a minimal effect on blood sugar levels, as they are slower to be digested and absorbed. Low GI foods often include complex carbohydrates, fiber, and healthy fats. Examples include most vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and many fruits like berries and apples.
Complex carbohydrates are digested and absorbed more slowly, providing a steady release of sugar or glucose into the bloodstream.This steady release of glucose equates to a steady energy level, sounds good right? Complex carbs are also more energy dense and can contribute to increased satiety. Say goodbye to overeating! Other complex carb foods include whole grains like quinoa, brown rice, and whole wheat bread, legumes, sweet potatoes, and vegetables.
Note that you should never eat naked carbs, or carbs without a fat, protein, or both! Carbs alone will spike your blood sugar more than if it is paired with something else.
2. Prioritize Protein
It is recommended to get around 30g of protein per meal or 0.8g/kg as an adult! Including protein in a meal can help slow the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates, reducing the post-meal blood sugar spike that can occur when consuming carbohydrates alone. Protein also provides sustained energy and increased satiety! Some yummy protein ideas to add to your meals include greek yogurt, chicken thighs, fish, ground turkey, eggs, and nuts and seeds.
3. Include Healthy Fats
When you consume fats with carbohydrates, the fats form a barrier around the carbohydrates, preventing them from being rapidly broken down and absorbed in the digestive tract. This leads to a more gradual release of glucose into the bloodstream, which helps you avoid sudden blood sugar spikes. Pretty cool right? Including a healthy fat in your meals can also increase those feelings of satiety! Incorporate sources of monounsaturated (MUFAs) and polyunsaturated (PUFAs) fats in your daily diet! These include foods such as avocados, nuts and seeds, olive oil, and fatty fish! Avocado toast anyone?
4. Eat Balanced Meals and Snacks
Create balanced meals that include a combination of carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats. Fiber is also a good component to keep in mind! This combination helps slow down digestion, stabilizes blood sugar levels, and keeps you feeling satisfied for longer periods of time! Aim to fill half of your plate with non-starchy vegetables, one-quarter with protein, and one-quarter with whole grains or starchy vegetables. I like to think of snacks as mini meals! I try to keep them as balanced as possible with at least a carb and protein.
5. Avoid Refined Sugars and Processed Foods:
The sad truth is that refined sugars and processed foods can cause rapid spikes in blood sugar levels. This includes foods such as sugary snacks, sodas, pastries, and desserts. Think back to the glycemic index on this one. Highly refined sugars or processed foods are not designed to keep your blood sugars balanced. They lie in the high glycemic index category due to their rapid glucose spike and typically a rapid fall. I’m not a big fan of low blood sugar… If I do want something sweet, I opt for real foods like fruits or natural sweeteners such as honey or maple syrup. My favorite sweet treat is dates with peanut butter and dark chocolate!
6. Fiber Rich Foods
My motto is “Eat More Fiber!”. Fiber plays a crucial role in blood sugar regulation. It can slow down the absorption of glucose, increase insulin sensitivity, and enhance satiety. Did you know there are two different types of fiber?
There is soluble fiber that includes oats, barley, beans, lentils, apples, citrus fruits, carrots, and psyllium husk and there is insoluble fiber such as whole grains like wheat bran and brown rice, nuts, seeds, vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and dark leafy greens, and the skins of fruits.
Soluble fiber dissolves in the water in your GI tract and creates a gel-like substance. It can slow down the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates, leading to a gradual release of glucose into the bloodstream. Soluble fiber is also a prebiotic that can feed your good gut bacteria and keep your gut bugs happy!
On the other hand, insoluble fiber doesn’t dissolve in water and instead adds bulk to your stool. This can help keep bowel movements regular, which we all want. Soluble fiber is also great at increasing satiety with a meal!
The RDA, or recommended daily amount, of fiber is 25-36g. On average, Americans are getting 12g or less! Not reaching adequate fiber can lead to constipation, IBS, diverticulitis, and other health conditions. I can tell when I haven’t consumed enough fiber!
7. Get Adequate Sleep
Ahhh, sleep, another foundation of health! It is recommended for an adult to get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Emphasize on night. I have done a couple presentations on the circadian rhythm and there is a lot of interesting research. There will be another post on that soon, stay tuned! For now, we’ll focus on the relationship between good sleep and your blood sugar levels.
If we’re not getting enough sleep and optimizing our circadian rhythm, our hormones, specifically insulin (the one that affects blood sugar), can become imbalanced. Allow me to lay out this sequence of events.
Say you’re not sleeping well, experiencing disrupted sleep, or just stay up too late/waking up too early. Inadequate quality or quantity of sleep can result in a change of hormone secretion which means insulin is not efficient. This puts the body at risk for insulin resistance, where the cells aren’t responding to insulin as they should and may result in elevated blood sugar levels. When your blood sugar is elevated consistently, you’re put at a higher risk of Type 2 Diabetes, a disease that affects over 20 million Americans…
It’s worth mentioning that our bodies like routines by nature. The circadian rhythm, our body’s 24-hour clock, is basically its natural routine. Our bodies thrive by sleeping when it’s dark and being awake when the sun is out. It also thrives when it gets adequate sleep combined with other healthy habits. Take some time to reflect on your sleep!
8. Balance the Gut Microbiome
The health of your gut microbiome is not a new topic. I present to you another foundation of health! Let’s start with the basics. What exactly is the gut microbiome? The gut microbiome is essentially a trillion microorganisms living in your digestive tract. They play a key role in digesting and absorbing your food as well as synthesizing nutrients such as B vitamins and vitamin K!
Gut bugs are involved in many other important processes including your metabolism, body weight, immune regulation, and blood sugar regulation.
Have you heard the phrase “all diseases begin in the gut” by Hippocrates? Well, more scientific evidence is pointing to it being true. When the gut is imbalanced with more bad bacteria than good bacteria, then it can cause low grade inflammation. Inflammation is closely related to insulin resistance which we now know can cause Type 2 Diabetes if left untreated.
Another great thing about a healthy gut is that it can ferment the healthful fibers from our food. Particularly soluble fiber is fermented into short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) which have been shown to improve insulin sensitivity and improve blood sugar balance!
Metabolizing nutrients is another key role of the gut microbiome. Remember those complex carbs we talked about earlier? In addition to the absorption of nutrients, our gut bugs can help with the breakdown of complex carbs, influencing that glucose response.
Some easy, actionable steps you can take for gut health are consuming fiber rich foods, regular exercise, stress management, and consumption of probiotics and prebiotics! We just scratched the surface on this one, so stay tuned for a more in depth post on gut health and the microbiome!
9. Exercise
As a sedentary lifestyle is increasing in the United States, the importance of exercise is becoming more prevalent. According to the CDC, diabetes affects 11.6% of the US population with an additional 22.8% being undiagnosed. They also state that 38% of the US population has prediabetes. The CDC estimates that 6 in 10 individuals struggle with a chronic disease including heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. I hope we can all see how serious of an issue this is and do what we can to improve our own health and hopefully lower those percentages.
In the name of diabetes and blood sugar balancing, getting in daily movement can have a great impact on your symptoms. By being active you can increase your insulin sensitivity. While insulin, the blood sugar hormone, enables the cells in your body to use sugar efficiently, insulin sensivity is how much insulin is required for your body to keep blood sugar levels stable. When you have high insulin sensitivity, your body is able to control blood sugar with lower amounts of insulin. This is great and achievable with daily movement!
It is recommended to exercise 30-60 minutes a day and you could even break them down into mini walks after a meal. Walking after a meal can decrease your glucose spike from the meal as well as increase digestion, improve blood circulation, and decrease risk of heart disease! It’s also great to incorporate a variety of exercises such as cardio, weight-lifting, running, stretching, pilates, swimming, or biking! Find what works for you and what types of exercise YOU enjoy and begin incorporating them into your daily routine!
Meal Ideas for Blood Sugar Balance
Breakfast:
- Veggie omelet with spinach, bell peppers, and feta cheese
- Overnight oats made with rolled oats, almond milk, chia seeds, and topped with berries and a sprinkle of nuts
Lunch:
- Grilled chicken salad with mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado
- Quinoa and roasted vegetable buddha bowl with chickpeas
Snacks:
- Apple slices with almond butter
- Greek yogurt with berries and a sprinkle of granola
Dinner:
- Baked salmon with steamed broccoli and quinoa
- Stir-fried chicken with mixed vegetables served over brown rice
Dessert:
- Dark chocolate with a handful of almonds or walnuts
- Baked apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon on top of greek yogurt
In Summary
The journey to balanced blood sugar is not a quick turnaround. It takes times and consistent habits to continue improving insulin sensitivity and thus blood sugar. As I reflect on my own struggles with imbalanced blood sugar, I recognize the profound impact that simple changes in lifestyle can have on overall health and well-being. The signs of imbalanced blood sugar, whether hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia, should not be ignored. They serve as crucial indicators that our bodies require attention and care. By tweaking our diet, ensuring adequate sleep, and nurturing a healthy gut microbiome, we are on our way towards optimal well-being.
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Stay nourished!
Nourished Dietitians
