A behavior of binge-eating throughout low blood sugars can wreak havoc in your blood sugar ranges, your vitality, your weight, and your day by day life.
The blood sugar curler coaster that always accompanies over-eating throughout hypoglycemia is exhausting.
On this article, we’ll talk about easy methods to cease the cycle and behavior of binge-eating throughout low blood sugars.
What’s hypoglycemia?
Within the human physique, a blood sugar degree beneath 70 mg/dL will intrude along with your mind and your complete physique’s capacity to perform correctly. Even probably the most primary duties, like strolling or talking, can turn out to be extraordinarily tough the decrease your blood sugar drops beneath 70 mg/dL.
Your mind depends on a second-by-second supply of glucose out of your bloodstream so as to perform. With out sufficient glucose (sugar) in your bloodstream, your mind and whole physique will wrestle to perform.
The extraordinary meals cravings throughout a low blood sugar are actually coming out of your mind, pleading, “Feed me! Feed me!”
Left untreated, low blood sugars can result in seizures and dying.
Listed below are 5 steps to stopping the behavior of binge-eating throughout low blood sugars.
- Determine the signs of your low blood sugar
- Acknowledge your present behavior (and its penalties) round lows and meals
- Select 3 particular fast-acting carbohydrates as your main remedy for lows
- Distract your self with one thing else…
- Reinforce this mantra: “I do have management over what I eat after I’m low.”
Let’s take a better look.
Determine the signs of that particular low blood sugar
Starvation is likely one of the many telltale indicators that your blood sugar has dropped beneath a secure degree, but it surely’s necessary to establish different signs of low blood sugar to assist reinforce good habits round the way you deal with low blood sugars typically.
By figuring out the signs that you just personally expertise throughout a low blood sugar, you’re reminding your self that these intense cravings for meals aren’t random or regular starvation, they’re straight tied to your blood sugar, and so they aren’t rational.
The American Diabetes Affiliation (ADA) lists the next as signs of low blood sugar:
- Starvation
- Feeling shaky
- Being nervous or anxious
- Sweating, chills, and clamminess
- Irritability or impatience
- Confusion
- Quick heartbeat
- Feeling lightheaded or dizzy
Once you do discover your blood sugar is low, take simply 20 seconds to establish your signs — together with these extreme cravings — and remind your self they’re an irrational facet of hypoglycemia.
Sure, you want some meals, however you don’t want all the meals.
Acknowledge your present behavior (and its penalties) round low blood sugars and meals
Routinely binge consuming throughout low blood sugars comes with some not-so-subtle penalties. And an enormous a part of breaking that binge-eating behavior comes down to totally acknowledging it.
You could possibly write it down, make a YouTube video, or report a voice-memo about that you just ship to your mother — no matter works for you! The purpose is to easily have a look at the behavior and the vicious cycle it creates from a distance.
Issues to think about…
- What number of additional energy do you eat daily or week due to binge consuming throughout lows?
- How a lot is it contributing to gradual weight achieve?
- How typically does it ship your blood sugar skyrocketing as much as 300 mg/dL, adopted by a “rage bolus,” which ends up in one other exhausting low blood sugar?
- How a lot does it impression your work, faculty, and relationships?
- How a lot does it impression your shallowness?
- How a lot disgrace or remorse do you’re feeling after binge consuming?
- How does it have an effect on your relationship with meals at different occasions of the day?
Right here’s a easy have a look at the binge-eating cycle round low blood sugars in my guide, Emotional Consuming with Diabetes:
Select 3 particular fast-acting carbohydrates as your main remedy for lows
When you aren’t ready to deal with low blood sugars with one thing particular, it’s straightforward to seize something and all the pieces and thus, haven’t any limits round it.
By selecting 3 particular fast-acting carbohydrates to fill up on and use for treating lows, you’ll guarantee:
- that you just’re at all times ready (Gummy Lifesavers, for instance, survive in cold and hot temperatures, solely require 3 or 4 to deal with the common low, and one bag can deal with dozens of lows).
- that you could management precisely what number of grams of carbohydrates you eat. Delicate lows might solely want 6 to eight grams of carbohydrates, whereas extreme lows may have 15 to twenty grams.
- that you just’re consuming one thing that digests simply and shortly. Utilizing high-fat or high-protein meals to deal with lows will solely make your signs and cravings last more.
- that you just’re consuming “drugs meals.” Whichever 3 meals you select (for instance jelly beans, juice field, fruit snacks), you’ll be able to consider these issues as “drugs meals.”
- you received’t use lows as an excuse to binge-eat yummy treats like brownies or ice cream. As an alternative, give your self permission to eat these treats in a extra managed setting when your blood sugar and your urge for food are rational and secure.
Once you select fast-acting carbohydrates like fruit snacks, jelly beans, gummy Lifesavers, Smarties, glucose tabs, and so forth. to deal with lows, you’ll be able to put together by storing them in your purse, desk, backpack, nightstand, health club bag, jacket pocket, and glove compartment in your automobile.
The extra you are ready for treating lows correctly, the extra simply you’ll be capable of handle them correctly, too!
Distract your self with one thing else…
In fact, everyone knows the signs of low blood sugar can persist lengthy after your blood sugar has risen to a secure degree. And naturally, excessive starvation is likely one of the most persistent signs (adopted by the determined want for a comfortable nap!)
Which means that after you deal with the low, it is advisable distract your self with one thing till these intense cravings for extra meals settle down and disappear.
Chances are you’ll discover that merely noshing on one thing like gum or carrots can present that satisfying feeling to your mind since you’re chewing with out consuming starchy carbohydrates.
Listed below are a number of distraction strategies:
- Chug some ice-cold water
- Chew on carrots or celery
- Pop some gum or TicTacs
- Report a voice memo to your self about your capacity to regulate what you eat
- Clear your kitchen
- Squeeze a stress ball
- Lie down in mattress and shut your eyes
The purpose is to both distract your mouth or your arms or each!
Reinforce this mantra: “I do have management over what I eat after I’m low.”
Really, the most important contributor to your behavior of binge consuming throughout low blood sugars is the assumption that you haven’t any management over what you’re doing. That you’re helplessly placing extra meals in your mouth as a result of your mind is desperately begging for extra
However you do have management. You do have rational thought and logic and cause at your disposal, you simply need to make the selection to make use of these issues.
Positive, I’d wish to eat 3 bowls of Honeycombs blended with Peanut Butter Captain Crunch each time my blood sugar dips beneath 50 mg/dL, however I do know what that can do to the remainder of my day, to my blood sugar, to my vitality, and the way responsible and regretful I’ll really feel due to these issues.
When you proceed to inform your self you haven’t any management over how a lot you eat throughout lows or that you just deserve to eat as a lot as you need throughout lows, you then’ll proceed to feed that perception and that vicious behavior.
When you take a second to remind your self, “I do have management over what I eat after I’m low,” you can be taking accountability for a way you deal with lows and to your actions typically.
It’s truly fairly darn empowering. And fairly rewarding, as a result of treating a low with an affordable quantity of fast-acting carbohydrates means bringing your blood sugar as much as an affordable blood sugar degree.
This implies you don’t need to cope with a blood sugar curler coaster and the guilt of overeating. As an alternative, you get to proceed along with your day, pleased with your capacity to exert management over your personal conduct.
Self-discipline produces…satisfaction. Low blood sugars may turn out to be a supply of satisfaction and integrity in the way you handle your well being. And that might simply begin to spill over into different areas of your well being, too.
