Last year I learned that my anxiety was directly correlated with fluctuations in my blood sugar. This discovery was surprising but liberating and helped me make much better food choices that effectively reduced my anxiety.
I combined my 10 years of experience as a chef and education in nutrition science to create easy tips that will help you control your blood sugar and anxiety without going on a boring diet or sacrificing your favorite foods.
My story about dysglycemia
When I decided to investigate my “random anxiety” last year, I bought a glucose monitor and started measuring my blood sugar every day. Interestingly, every anxiety event corresponded to low blood sugar (or “blood glucose” in scientific terms) levels way outside the normal range.
I was never overweight, with no genetic predisposition and no particular love for sweets, yet I discovered that I have dysglycemia (a broad term for persistently unstable blood glucose).
I was told I was “outside of the risk group for diabetes”. Fabulous. Unfortunately, I kept feeling dizzy and shaky every day, and my glucometer kept registering dips (and sometimes highs, too).
So I went to peruse the research, podcasts, and books. Luckily, my nutrition school also gave us excellent training on this topic just in time.
Dysglycemia turned out to be way more ubiquitous than I thought. Not limited to diabetes, insulin resistance, and other “big names.”
In fact, noticeable blood sugar fluctuations (dysglycemia or not) happen to most of us daily. Mainly influenced by diet, lifestyle factors, and genetics, they manifest themselves in familiar symptoms (to name a few):
- Cravings
- Tiredness
- Feeling anxious
- Headaches
- Irritability
- Various PMS symptoms (including all of the above)
It just so happens that we don’t talk about it much. Because “PMS is normal” and cravings are just “a lack of willpower”.
Well, no. It’s normal to feel healthy, energized, and pain-free, and stabilizing our blood sugar could be one of the best tools to get there.
5 MEAL TIPS TO HELP STABILIZE BLOOD SUGAR
I want to share with you some tips which literally became my life rules.
1. Have at least one non-starchy (and unprocessed!) vegetable with every meal.
Their fiber is needed to slow down the release of sugar into your bloodstream + feed your gut bacteria that influence blood sugar balance through various pathways.
2. For stabilizing blood sugar, try to cook starches the night before.
Cooking and cooling your favorite starchy foods such as potatoes, yams, pasta, and rice turns some digestible sugars into resistant starches. Those starches will act like fiber and help slow down the release of glucose into your bloodstream.
3. When choosing a carb-rich dish, go for complex carbs mixed with good-quality fat, such as:
Old-fashioned oats with coconut or almond milk, brown rice with extra virgin olive oil, fresh corn polenta with aged cheese, buckwheat with grass-fed butter, sweet potato puree with coconut cream, whole wheat toast with avocado.
4. Don’t eat carbs with even more carbs on top (especially low-fat, simple carb dishes). Most commonly consumed examples:
Quick oatmeal with oat or dairy milk, low-fat yogurt with granola, mashed potatoes with dairy cream, white rice milk pudding, white bread with ricotta, white flour pancakes with syrup.
5. Try to start every carb-rich meal with non-starchy vegetables.
These light and healthy recipes will help you to keep blood sugar in balance:
Some desserts:
Follow me on Instagram @olesia.guts, and let me know if you use my tips! I’m so excited for you!
