Changing levels of hormones during perimenopause affect almost every part of your body. They can also adversely affect your blood glucose (aka blood sugar) and insulin balance and this in turn could have an impact on the severity of your symptoms.
Managing blood sugar balance and insulin levels could therefore be one of the key foundations to managing symptoms such as:
Hot flushes and night sweats
Brain fog
Fatigue and low energy
Low mood and depression
Anxiety
Food cravings
Irritability
Acne
Elevated cholesterol
Elevated blood pressure
Weight gain and obesity, especially weight around the middle, and difficulty losing weight
Consistently elevated blood sugar and insulin levels could also increase your risk of chronic diseases including; type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s.
How do blood glucose and insulin become dysregulated?
The food you eat is converted into glucose (sugar) and released into your blood stream to be used as energy. Any excess is stored in your liver or as fat.
Certain foods and drinks contain more sugar or increase blood glucose levels more quickly. These include cakes, sweets, chocolate bars, alcohol and fizzy drinks or high carbohydrate foods such as potatoes, breads, pasta, and rice.
The amount of sugar in your blood needs to be strictly controlled. This is the role of the hormone insulin. When the cells in your pancreas sense an increase of blood sugar, they regulate the levels by releasing insulin. Insulin transports the glucose out of your bloodstream and takes it to wherever it is needed in the body for energy, such as your muscles or your brain cells. If your blood sugar, and therefore your insulin levels, are consistently high, over time you could become less sensitive to the effects of insulin and need more of it to do its job. This can lead to increased fat storage, weight gain and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.
As your hormones fluctuate and eventually decline during perimenopause and menopause, your body’s ability to make effective use of glucose and manage insulin can become altered due to declining levels of oestrogen.
Stress can also impact you blood sugar levels due to increases in the hormone cortisol. This response is meant to keep you safe by increasing the fuel to give you the energy to run from your stressor (lion chasing you). In this day and age, the stress is more likely caused by traffic jams or work rather than a wild animal and no running is involved!
5 Top Tips for Managing you Blood Sugar and Insulin Levels
For most women, I recommend eating 3 meals a day of real food. Allowing 4-5 hours between meals and a 12-14 between your last meal of the day and the first meal of the next day.
Avoid snacking and grazing on foods throughout the day. This allows insulin time to reset and can help to avoid imbalances in blood sugar.
Make sure you include adequate protein (meat, fish, eggs, poultry, nuts/seeds, beans/pulses) with every meal and avoid foods that are highly processed, high in sugar or quickly turned into sugar such as biscuits, cakes and sweets. I recommend aiming for 20g of protein at each meal. It can help to use a smart phone app such as MyFitnessPal to calculate this.
Starting the day with a breakfast containing protein, healthy fats (olive oil, avocado/avocado oil, coconut oil, sesame oil, small amounts of butter) and fibre mainly from vegetables, can not only help to manage blood sugar it can also help to increase energy levels, avoid food cravings and manage hot flushes, night sweats, night waking, fatigue, and concentration levels.
Recognising and addressing stress can therefore be an important part of the blood sugar and insulin management.
For further information on personalised nutrition and courses, contact gail@gailbradynutrition.com.