Today we are talking about the link between blood sugar and brain power — and why the time you eat is the key to success! In this episode, I’ll share the connection between your mood and low blood sugar. You’ll learn your body's low fuel signals, and which foods to eat together to reduce hunger and overeating. I truly believe you deserve to feel the best you ever have! 

First, I share an experience where I wound up with a half-eaten jar of peanut butter. Turns out I wasn’t aware of my hunger — or my low blood sugar! I detail the signs of low blood sugar and why it’s important to eat before you’re hungry. I also share how low blood sugar triggers stress-related hormones and which foods stabilize blood sugar levels. 

If you are struggling with hunger, food cravings, or mood swings and want to stabilize your blood sugar levels. This episode is for you.

Want FREE access to my brand new four-week strength training plan, Strength Without Stress? Head over to hollyperkins.com/review where you can upload a screenshot of your review and gain immediate access. This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197, so be sure to grab it now!

If you resonated with anything shared in today’s episode, I hope you’ll rate and leave a *glowing* review of the show on Apple Podcasts. Be sure to follow and subscribe to keep up-to-date when new episodes drop on Tuesdays! 

Topics Covered:

• Me + peanut butter-eating behaviors + low blood sugar 
• Three reasons to eat before you’re hungry
• Stable blood sugar benefits + common misconceptions
• Which foods stabilize blood sugar 
• The link between low blood sugar and hormones
• How to gain FREE access to Strength Without Stress

Resources Mentioned:

• See the research on the dietary carbohydrate-to-protein ratio HERE
• See the research on low blood sugar and weight HERE
• Read about the regulation of glucose HERE
• Learn the benefits of a moderate-protein diet HERE
• Read my 5 Protein Mistakes You Might Be Making Blog Article
• Listen to Episode 3 of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast HERE
• Get FREE access to my 14-page nutrition guide HERE 

Follow Me:

Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins

Learn more on my website: hollyperkins.com

Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/HollyPerkinsFitness/

Disclaimer: Content and information as part of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast is for general interest, education, and entertainment purposes only. The use of information on this podcast or materials or products linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.

When your vehicle is low on gas, an alert or signal of sorts will pop up on your dash, right? When that happens, do you ignore it and keep driving until you run out of gas? No, the low fuel alert is a signal that your vehicle must have fuel in order to continue operating. And without it, your car will completely shut down. Guess what your body is exactly the same. In this case, blood sugar, also known as blood glucose, is the fuel.

And when it gets low, you'll get an alert just like your car. The key is to know your alert signals. Hello, and welcome to episode four of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast. I am deeply and truly honored that you're here. Your time is valuable, and the fact that you're spending some of it with me means the world. So thank you. Thank you. Before I jump into the episode, I just want to give you a little bit of a disclaimer. So if you're new to my community, I spend part of my time in California and part of my time in Pennsylvania.

Something that I love about my life is that I converted an old barn on my family farm in Pennsylvania, into a studio in a gym. It's one of my favorite places in the world. And that is where I am right now, recording this episode. So the disclaimer is for some reason at this time of year, there are flies in my studio. I've never had it happen before. But I arrived here from California and we have been inundated with flies and I've been doing my best to get rid of them. But you might hear a little buzzing in the background.

My apologies. I do keep a clean and sanitary household. It's just part of the reality of operating out of a barn. I suppose it'll add a little bit of color to today's episode. So let's jump in. This is going to be such a good episode. If you like it, please be sure to rate and review wherever you're listening so that you can get free access to my brand new program strength without stress. It is a four week strength training plan with minimum recovery so that you get maximum strength without the stress of confusing elaborate or overly intense workouts.

All you have to do is rate and review this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, or wherever you like to listen, then grab a screenshot of your review and come over to Holly perkins.com forward slash review and send it to me, you'll get immediate free access to this brand new program. Since I'm on the receiving end of many calls from women who are struggling, I know there is a very good chance that you might be confused by all of the nutrition advice that's out there today. One headline tells you to eat tons of protein and then another headline tells you that Americans eat way too much of it.

You may hear that cholesterol contributes to heart disease. While another expert endorses a diet that is high in red meat, butter and other saturated fats. Some people say that the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest diet in the world. But you probably have someone in your life urging you to become vegan. So what is a girl to do? Getting your diet right is confusing. If it were easy, you probably wouldn't be listening to me right now.

So I say let's remove some of the eat this not that mentality and instead, focus on the one thing that matters most regardless of the exact foods that you're eating. If you are confused by how to eat for your goals, this episode is so for you. In today's episode, you're going to learn one of the most important considerations that impacts how you feel your brain power, your mood and how well you burn fat. And beyond that this concept influences every aspect of your biology, your hormones and your overall health and wellness. If you're struggling with hunger, food cravings or erratic energy, mood swings, or you feel like you never have the energy needed for workouts, this one's for you.

In this episode, you'll learn your body's low fuel signals to look for how anxiety and depression are linked with low blood sugar. An easy way to reduce hunger and overeating, two foods to eat together to regulate blood glucose, and why eating before you're hungry will improve mood and energy. It is absolutely possible for you to feel good and have enough energy at the end of the day to actually enjoy your evening. I also know from personal experience that the symptoms of low blood sugar can make you feel like you are crazy. I've watched my clients add more food to their meals and begin burning fat and losing weight better.

So let's talk about why eating when you're hungry is backwards and what you can do to improve your overall health. In the 90s, it was all about ultra low carb, high protein eating, I was infinitely interested in exploring all of the science and eating strategies and popular diet plans that were out there. I was just the personality that I wanted to experience all of it. And so at the time, I was skipping breakfast, working out fasted and eating too few carbs in general. One night I skipped dinner because I didn't feel hungry, and I had heard that you should eat when you feel hungry and wait to eat until you feel hungry.

So that night around probably seven o'clock at night, I was in the mood for a snack. So I strolled into the kitchen and stood in front of an open refrigerator for entirely too long, staring blankly looking for something to eat. Nothing was appealing. So I moved on to the cupboard and found a brand new jar of crunchy peanut butter. It was like the heavens opened and the angels sang just for me that jar of peanut butter looked so darn good.

So I took a spoonful and went to the couch, sat down and started reading. And that peanut butter tasted so good. So a few minutes later, I got up and I returned to the kitchen for another spoonful, no big deal, right. I sat back down to read and a few minutes later could not stop thinking about the peanut butter. So off I went for another spoonful of peanut butter and the cycle continued.

After a while I promised myself that I would make only one more trip to the jar of peanut butter, only to find out that I had eaten half of the jar of peanut butter, half of it. That is a lot of peanut butter. It was as if I had entered a trance. And I didn't even realize that I had gone back and forth so many times and that I had eaten so much peanut butter. It just tasted so good. And it was like, as soon as I started eating it, I felt hungry but I didn't feel hungry before that. I remember feeling, “is this disordered eating?” because I knew that it was strange behavior, if you will. And I remember thinking, duh. Of course, this

is some degree of disordered eating. I don't think anyone would agree that a half a jar of peanut butter for dinner is wise or healthy or normal. And please know that I know, I was lucky enough to escape the true heartbreaking challenge of a real or diagnosed eating disorder. What I'm talking about here is not related to the complex circumstance of eating issues.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please seek care. What I'm talking about here are those more manageable episodes where we kind of have these eating behaviors that don't make a lot of sense and really to an outside I don't look normal. For me, my symptoms were simply due to eating the wrong way. I was hungry, even though I wasn't aware of it, and my macronutrients were imbalanced and therefore I was feeling the symptoms of low blood sugar. In the end, I learned that I was dealing with reactive hypoglycemia, which simply just means your blood sugar gets low after a period of time from eating.

And I did learn this after getting diagnosed by my doctor at the time, long story longer. The moral of the story is that hunger isn't really a good barometer for your need for fuel, and low blood sugar can show up in a lot of different ways. So here is why eating when you're hungry is backwards. Going back to the car analogy. Your body is equipped with a low fuel signal and alert system that tells you when it's time to refuel, so that you can keep your engine humming along. The problem is many women either don't know what the signals look like, or they ignore them altogether. Instead of a little red symbol that lights up on the dashboard of your car.

Your body's low fuel signals are hunger, fatigue, feeling nervous or anxious, cravings, moodiness and emotionality, even things like crying when it doesn't really seem appropriate confusion feeling shaky or dizzy. When women come to me for coaching, they're often unaware that these symptoms are the very intelligent orchestration of your body's need for fuel. In this case, it's in the form of blood sugar, otherwise known as blood glucose. I use those two terms interchangeably, as do many other experts out there in the field.

When your blood sugar or blood glucose drops to around 70 milligrams per deciliter of blood, your body will start to alert you through these symptoms and maybe others so that you know to stop at the gas station, otherwise known as your kitchen and refuel to bring your blood glucose level back up. Now, this process even happens in those of us that are healthy, who are not type one or type two diabetics. If you want to avoid the symptoms associated with low blood sugar, it's important to eat before you're hungry. And here are three reasons why.

Number one, eating before you're hungry keeps blood sugar stable. If you wait until you're hungry to eat, your body is already telling you that your blood sugar is too low. Hunger is one of the low fuel signals indicating low blood sugar. Rather than waiting until you're hungry to eat. You'll avoid the annoying or uncomfortable symptoms that impact how you feel and who you are during the day. When you eat before you're hungry, you have a much better chance of keeping blood sugar levels more stable.

The benefits of stable blood glucose are better fat burning, and this is a big one, you will burn more fat 24/7 Even while you're sleeping. If you create a pattern of stable blood glucose, you'll also experience more stable energy, reduced hunger, which really helps you to stay on your intended diet plan. It helps to reduce inflammation, it helps improve brain function and acuity. It stabilizes your mood and improves insulin sensitivity.

A 2016 review in The Journal of Nutrition and healthy aging states, “lack of adequate glucoregulatory control remains a recurrent theme accompanying aging and chronic disease” this means that unstable glucose regulation is linked to aging in numerous chronic diseases. We know that stable blood sugar is where it's at when it comes to optimal health, and it improves so many markers of your health.

The fastest and most direct way to stabilize your blood sugar and feel better now is through what you eat and when. And while exercise is an absolute must. And part of the equation. Your nutrition influences your internal ecology, it really is true you are what you eat, you can improve your body's glucoregulatory control by eating before your blood sugar drops below that 70 milligrams per deciliter of blood, approximately, I'm not saying that you need a continuous glucose monitor because your body's dashboard will alert you if you know what symptoms to look for, which I just covered a moment ago, the first thing that you can do is eat before you're hungry, since hunger is one of those alert signals, but also start paying attention to how your body alerts you of dropping blood sugar.

For me, I get hungry and my energy just plummets. I feel like I need to take a nap. There have been times when I would get confused and unable to think straight or make decisions. There were times when my blood sugar would drop too low. I would go into the kitchen and I would wrestle with myself for a half an hour trying to make a decision about what to eat. And it was simply because my decision making skills were impaired because my blood glucose was too low. For some of my clients.

They report feeling hangry where hunger actually makes you angry. Think about that. It's hunger, playing with your emotions and other clients report high emotionality where they have an M emotional response to something that when they look back on it, it wasn't really that big of a deal. The second reason to eat before you're hungry is that it reduces hunger and overeating. A misconception that you may have is that certain foods are good, like protein or healthy fats, or green vegetables.

And while I would argue that these are healthy food choices, it doesn't really stop and start there. Similarly, you may think that some foods are bad like donuts, although I'm going to argue that doughnuts are actually a food of the gods, or maybe potatoes or fruit juice, I also see a tendency for people to believe that popular diet plan is the best as if there is any one way to eat. The truth is there's not with the exception of obviously unhealthy foods, let's say trans fats, or fried foods or overly processed and engineered products.

I actually believe that any food created by nature is neither good or bad. Rather than in eat this not that type of approach. I espouse something more along the lines of a first principles thinking, nearly every doctor would agree that eating to regulate blood sugar is one of the best things that you can do for your overall health and biology. So if that's the goal, our first objective, our first principle, if you will, is to eat in a way that supports that. It's really pretty simple. In a moment, I'll share the first step in eating to regulate blood sugar.

This one thing can set you off on a new and better path. And it's really quite simple. But beyond that, while you may not be aware of it, the absolute biggest cause of overeating or indulging in certain foods because of food cravings, is a quiet brewing hunger. Hunger is one of the first signs of low blood sugar. Again, you might not know or feel that you're hungry. But think of it this way. When you're full, because you've had a nice big appropriate meal, you're much more likely to walk past the treats, right?

For me, it's donuts. If I am hungry, and I see a donut, forget about it, it's done. And if I'm well fed and not hungry, I feel stable, cool, calm and collected, and I'm able to consciously choose to eat the donut or not. And more often than not, I'll pass it up if I'm not hungry. If you eat before you're hungry, you'll make better choices. You'll avoid overeating, and you eliminate the internal wrestling match over which foods that you should eat or not.

Your favorite foods won't have as much power over you if you eat before you're hungry. The third reason to eat before you're hungry is that unstable blood sugar contributes to a rising cortisol, which causes increased inflammation. If you agree with this idea that waiting until you're hungry to eat is backwards and that it's more helpful to eat before you're hungry. The question becomes Okay, so how do I eat to stabilize blood sugar.

And while this could get way more complicated, the simplest way to move in the right direction is to pair protein with carbohydrates every time you eat. This includes meals and snacks. A very common mistake I see people make is eating protein or carbs in isolation. For example, an egg is protein and fat. There's no carbs, and fruit is all carbs with no protein or fat. Anytime you eat protein or carbohydrates in isolation, you'll get a blood sugar response.

You may be surprised to know that protein causes an increase in blood sugar, sometimes as much as carbs do. It's just through a different mechanism. If you want to read more on this, check out my blog on my website called Five protein mistakes you might be making where I talk about this a little bit more in depth. I've also included some research below linked here on how protein and carbohydrates counterbalance each other through the hormones glucagon and insulin.

It's not that carbohydrates are the only bad guy when it comes to elevated blood sugar. Protein can be problematic as well. It's the combination and the inter Section of the two of them. That helps to stabilize your blood glucose. It's important to eat protein with carbs as the first step to improve blood sugar regulation. Because we know that unstable blood glucose levels contribute to inflammation. And inflammation is a big problem because it's linked with nearly every disease, or even issues like allergies, skin problems, and depression and anxiety.

Be sure to listen to episode three of this podcast on inflammation so that you can hear more about this low blood glucose triggers the release of epinephrine, which is also known as adrenaline, which is the fight or flight hormone. Epinephrine can cause symptoms like a thumping heart sweating, tingling, and anxiety. This is how low blood sugar could be related to anxiety if you're someone who suffers with it. Low blood glucose also causes the release of cortisol, the stress hormone, chronically elevated cortisol is linked with diabetes, weight gain, digestive problems, and heart disease. It also eats away at muscle, the very thing that we need the most, there's a good chance that you've heard these words, cortisol and inflammation get thrown around.

And I really believe that these are on the forefront of the conversation going forward when it comes to health. That's why I talk about these two things so much, because we know that inflammation is a big part of disease states and health issues in general. And we also know that as you age and your estrogen declines, inflammation rises, in addition to the aging process alone. So for women, it's a double whammy as we approach our mid 40s to early 50s. Because not only does that aging process increase inflammation, but our slowly declining levels of estrogen add to it as well.

One of the easiest best things that you can do is be conscientious about how you're eating so that you can stabilize your blood sugar so that you're at least not adding insult to injury. And the fastest best way to do that to get started is to make sure at your next meal, make sure that there is some protein alongside of your carbohydrates, that alone might make a big difference for you.

And if it doesn't, that is where we get more in depth around. Well how much protein paired with how much carbohydrate. I do believe that it becomes where you can accelerate your biohacking if you will, and you can really improve all of your body's function and improve your ability to burn fat. Stabilizing blood sugar is where it's at. So this is why I believe that waiting until you're hungry to eat is backwards, and that you should eat a combination of protein with carbohydrates at regular intervals throughout the day to avoid the low fuel alerts on your body's dashboard.

And listen, if you relate to my story of the peanut butter, and sometimes worry about your lack of control with certain foods, please know you're not alone. If your symptoms are mild and don't impact your life too much. Consider working to eat in a way that stabilizes your blood glucose levels. This alone has really proven to be powerful for myself and for my clients.

I hope for you it's an easy solution of just learning to eat differently, and eating your familiar foods in a different way. It's not so much that you have to radically change what you're eating. It's that you want to look at the foods that you're eating differently and combine them so that you can get all of the benefits of stable blood sugar levels. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to check out the first 10 episodes of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast as they reflect the core tenants of my philosophies.

After listening to these 10 episodes, you'll have tons of resources to create the body that you need to keep up with this life that you love. I realize there are a million experts out there sharing their views on your health. After 30 years of practice, a degree in exercise physiology and nutrition and numerous high level certifications.

These are the 10 most powerful approaches that I have found to be wildly Effective for myself and for my clients. I hope you'll take the time to listen to all 10 episodes and stay tuned for something new from me next week until then stay strong my friend.