Lacking in energy? Do you feel tired in the afternoons?
Are you experiencing tiredness and hunger throughout the day despite eating breakfast lunch and dinner?
“You deserve to experience more energy so you can win each and every day. So you can get to work on time, focus longer, and have enough energy left over to hang out with friends after work — and I’m here to help you.”
You may be insulin resistant.
I come from a family with a history of diabetes. Usually not until much later in life and type 2 diabetes. But I know I need to watch my blood sugar levels and how I eat and move. I have also learnt more recently that even my sleep and thoughts can influence my blood sugar and insulin levels!
Insulin is a hormone that has many roles in the body. But the primary role of insulin is to ensure that the sugars in your bloodstream are taken to the right places in your body to be stored as energy for later.
When you have chronically high blood sugar levels your pancreas has to make more insulin. More insulin to store all the excess sugar. But unfortunately, our bodies are not designed for excess sugar, (we are far better designed to survive through famine, but we are not designed well for excess).
So when we have excess sugar for prolonged periods our cells become deaf to the insulin. This means the sugar cannot move into the storage areas. This means we still have excess sugar in our bloodstream. This signals to the brain that the pancreas needs to make more insulin. So now we have chronically high blood sugar and chronically high levels of insulin which only causes the cells to become deafer and deafer to insulin. And the loop gets stuck on repeat.
Imagine if you lived with a railway line at the bottom of your backyard. When you first move in you hear the trains, but after a period of time, you become deaf to the trains. Do the trains actually stop passing your house? No, you just no longer hear them. The same thing happens to your cells when there is so much insulin in the system.
This is insulin resistance.
But why should you care about insulin resistance?
- Insulin resistance and unstable blood sugar are some of the biggest precursors to heart disease, PCOS, and weight resistance, as well as diabetes
- More than 35% of Australian adults already have metabolic syndrome due to insulin resistance and many more may have early signs of insulin resistance.
- A majority of stubborn weight in women over 40 isn’t caused by eating too much sugar—it’s because of insulin resistance and blood sugar instability
What are the symptoms of insulin resistance?
- Hungry even after you have eaten your meal
- Tiredness and fatigue especially around 2-3 pm
- Increased urination frequency
- Frequent infections (more colds, flus, or other infections)
- Tingles in your feet or hands
- Foggy headed
- Weight gain
What can you do about it?
- You can help yourself by reducing the amount of sugar your body has to deal with. If you didn’t know…. your body breaks virtually all food down into storable sugars. So eventually all food becomes sugar. It may start as carbohydrates, fats or protein. But the only way to store it for later use is to convert it to sugar. This means that it is the speed of the breaking down of sugar that is the problem. If you eat straight sugar it nearly immediately hits the bloodstream and causes a lot of insulin to be required all at once.
- Eat fibre first at every meal, this slows the time it takes to break the food down to sugar
- Reduce (or eliminate) your processed carbohydrates, eat protein and healthy fats with each meal. Feeding your body with nutrients and slowing the sugar spike.
You can read more about how to look after your energy levels here and what to eat to get through the 3pm munchies here
This is exactly what I help women work through every day. Please feel free to reach out and speak to me should you want help to eat well for your hormones. I am here to help
Yours in Health,
Dr. Anthea Holder (chiropractor and nutritionist)
P.S. If you would like to book a call to speak to me about your energy levels and potential dietary choices, please book a FREE Thrive After 35 call here.
Yours in Health,
Dr. Anthea Holder
(Chiropractor and Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner)
Preventative Spinal Care.