I hear a lot of people say they need to eat regularly because their blood sugar drops. I believed this for years. I thought feeling shaky or hungry meant that my body needed food straight away. What I didn’t understand at the time is that blood sugar only drops because it has risen in the first place. The drop is not the problem. The rise is.
Every time we eat, especially foods that contain carbohydrates and sugar, blood glucose goes up. That is normal to a point. But in modern life, it often goes much higher than it should. When that happens, the body has to work very hard to bring it back down. The liver and the pancreas step in to clean up the excess glucose because high blood sugar is damaging to tissues, blood vessels and organs. This clean up process happens again and again, day after day.
Then something confusing happens. After the blood sugar comes down, we feel hungry again. We crave more food, often quick food, often sugary food. We eat again, blood sugar rises again and the clean up starts again. The pancreas releases more insulin. The liver works harder. Over time, this constant cycle wears the system down. Eventually the body stops responding properly to insulin. Blood sugar stays higher for longer. This is how insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes quietly develop.
I lived in this cycle for most of my life. My mum is a serious sugar addict. I spent my entire childhood eating chocolates. Even in my adulthood when I was overweight and struggling to lose weight, she would casually suggest that we eat a couple of biscuits for lunch and skip eating a big meal (to lose weight). My biggest treat was my dad bringing me chocolates every evening, which I would eat before dinner.
I am addicted to sugar, self-confessed. Looking back, it’s no surprise that I became addicted to sugar. I see this addiction as no different to alcoholism or drug addiction. The difference is that there is almost no stigma around sugar, and it is far harder to escape. Sugar is everywhere. It is pushed through clever marketing, normalised by supermarkets and quietly enabled by regulations that allow it to dominate our food system. When something addictive is wrapped in bright packaging and sold as comfort, reward or even health, it becomes incredibly difficult to recognise the problem, let alone step away from it.
From childhood into adulthood, I was almost always hungry. I thought this was normal. I thought it meant I needed snacks. I thought my metabolism was broken. What was really happening was that my blood sugar was being pushed up and pulled down all day long. By the time my levels became seriously high, I was facing a choice. Start medication, or change what I was eating.
Lowering blood glucose is not about eating small amounts regularly throughout the day, which is the advice that we’re sometimes given. It is about keeping blood sugar as stable and as low as possible for most of the day. The only way to do that is to reduce foods that cause big spikes. That mainly means cutting out processed carbohydrates and sugary foods. These foods give very little nutrition and create huge glucose swings. They strain the liver and pancreas, damage blood vessels and leave you feeling out of control around food.
This does not mean avoiding all carbohydrates. Many vegetables, fruits, pulses and legumes contain carbohydrates, but they are complex. They raise blood sugar slowly and come with fibre, vitamins and minerals. The body can handle these very differently. What we are removing is the refined, factory-made versions that did not exist for most of human history.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m nowhere near perfect with this. I allow myself the occasional sweet food but I try to make them at home where possible, so this way it’s clean and made with wholesome ingredients, and also, I can see how much sugar actually goes in them! I choose better ingredients and I understand the trade off I am making. Most importantly, I no longer live in a constant state of hunger and craving.
Lowering blood glucose changed how I feel in my body and how I think about food. It brought calm where there used to be chaos.