This article is a short explanation of why our bodies go thru sugar highs and sugar lows when we eat sweet foods. It is the principal reason many of us end up craving sugar and often overeating. What I mean by a sugar high (or rush) is that sense of euphoria and excessive energy that occurs after you’ve eaten anything sweet. A sugar low (or crash), on the other hand, reduces your energy level to the point that you will be sleepy, irritable, and often intensely hungry. These sugar highs and lows may possibly not be anything you distinctly notice, but once you think about it, it may possibly be a part of your lifestyle. An example would be picking up a candy bar at a convenience store on the way home from work because you’re tired and need some energy.

I don’t try to eat candy bars very frequently. I’ve other sources of sugar that I have trouble staying away from! When I do consume a candy bar, though, in most cases I’m literally shaking with hunger in about 2 hours. If we consume too many sugary foods, we may possibly suffer from a series of these highs and lows – first the high and then the low around 2 hours later. Regrettably the low causes us to seek out some glucose again and the cycle repeats. To be able to stop sugar cravings for good, we will need to understand this cycle.

Let’s first go over how our bodies consume glucose (or carbohydrates). Soon after it is digested, sugar enters the bloodstream as glucose (often called blood sugar) and from there, it’s absorbed and removed from the bloodstream, either to be burned by the cells within the body to deliver energy or stored as fat, which could be later used to deliver energy. The pancreas regulates the rate at which blood sugar (glucose) is absorbed and consequently the quantity of blood sugar within the bloodstream. To do this, the pancreas injects a hormone called insulin into the bloodstream. The insulin acts as a trigger mechanism for the cells in the body. Higher levels of it in the blood stream cause more blood sugar to be absorbed - lower levels cause less blood sugar absorption. In between meals, the pancreas injects a nominal amount of insulin to give you the energy you need through the day. As you consume food, it will detect additional blood sugar within the bloodstream and inject additional insulin to either burn it or store it as fat to keep the blood sugar at a consistent level. This is a crucial mechanism actually, since the existence of abnormally high or reduced blood sugar levels is quite dangerous.

To understand why we have sugar highs and lows, we need to go backward in our history a few thousand years and examine what human beings were chowing down on in those days. Well, let’s face it – it was very boring, chewy, raw stuff. Whatever we ate took a long time to digest, so the sugary stuff that we run across each and every day now just wasn’t readily available. Our whole process of consuming blood sugar now is based on those times in the past and truly hasn’t changed much. So, the speed with which the pancreas adjusts the insulin to either boost or decrease blood sugar was matched to the quite slow speed at which food was digested in those days. For our day and age, when we consume anything really sugary, this just isn’t fast enough as explained from the following example.

1) I consume an entire Snickers candy bar. Darn it – I deserved it!
2) My pancreas, taking its time, doesn’t realize till too late, that my blood sugar level is high. It reacts though and releases a substantial amount of insulin to get that blood sugar level back down.
3) The insulin does its thing and triggers my entire body to absorb the blood sugar, either as energy or fat. So I’m in a Sugar High. I’m genuinely feeling good – but I’m also a bit fatter!
4) The insulin is nonetheless triggering the absorption of blood sugar and, regrettably removes practically all of it. This level is now way too low. Usually, the pancreas adjusts the insulin level to maintain a moderate level of blood sugar within the blood stream, along with a moderate level of insulin, to steadily absorb the blood sugar for energy.
5) Now I’m in a sugar low. I’m trembling, hungry, and tired. I’m craving sugar and truly need anything to eat.
6) The pancreas, nonetheless taking its time, realizes there’s no blood sugar within the blood stream and finally, but way too late, ceases pumping out insulin.
7) In most cases, I locate something to eat. If it is sugary I start off back at step 1) again.

So, that’s it in a nutshell - the vicious little cycle which will keep you moving from one sweet treat to another until you find a solution to get out of the rut - to stop craving sugar forever.

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Tags: craving sugar, cravings, stop craving sugar, sugar

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 9th, 2010 at 1:52 am and is filed under Massage Therapy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.