Why Do People Eat Sugar When They Crash

No one should be doing this that has it, but your brain is smart, it knows that even though it may cause another crash later, it can keep itself relatively well more quickly on simple sugar, so you'll crave things like candy and such. You should be eating protein, yes. Cheese and nuts are best for this, but avoid peanuts and cashews.

Hi,
Just found this forum and was reading through some messages... what is the reason for avoiding peanuts and cashews? My boyfriend (the hypoglycemic) was told to introduce more fats into his vegetarian diet so he now includes peanuts and cashews with his soynuts as his between meal snack (he needs to eat every 1.5 hours).

The reason is that peanuts and cashews are actually beans, NOT nuts. Therefore, they are assimilated and function in the body differently than normal nuts. This is easy to tell by their strangely high carbohydrate content, which most 'nuts' do not possess. If he's fine eating them, go ahead, but I recommend to new users to avoid them at first. Walnuts are best, raw and unsalted. But you can eat whatever you like so long as it doesn't make you sick and it doesn't contain anything you shouldn't be eating. I'll tell you this much, being a vegetarian is almost impossible for a hypoglycemic, they have the toughest time of all, mainly because they start to eat more soy, which is actually bad for your body in larger quantities because of the high phytic acid content. If he absolutely must eat like this, see if he'll add in eggs. Hopefully he's still eating cheese and such.

Yes. We eat cheese, eggs and dairy. He's been fine for years as a veggie. He'e been setback recently because a food he was eating changed their recipe and we didn't catch it.

Thanks for all the information!

Okay, great! If you could, it would be nice to know what he's eating, I rarely come across vegetarian hypoglycemics on here and have a hard time making suggestions based on what I've studied. A diet list would be great!

hello !! Im hypoglycemic and i was a vegeterian for 10 years!! no meat, no fish..but I did eat eggs and cheese. I stopped being one cause I wanted to change. I do that a lot!! I only eat chicken and fish now since I changed back. During those 10 years I didnt get sick, except minor seasonal colds here and there. Always been very active and ate well !!!

I didn't know that about peanuts and cashews. Interesting.

People make their hypoglycemia extremely worse by using too much carbs to bring their sugar back. They feel hypo or test hypo with their glucometer and run to the kitchen to eat half a jar of jam, a packet of biscuits, a whole loaf of bread, 3 mashed bananas, a tablet of chocolate and whatnot. They make the infamous sugar roller coaster way worse.

The idea in itself is not even that wrong, your sugar are low and you can raise them by eating sugar. The problem is that all they need to bring their sugar up is 2 grams of glucose. This can be found in 5 smarties chocolate candies.

Compare 5 smarties chocolate candies to what people compulsively eat as soons as their sugar goes low. A small amount of protein will be converted by glucagon into 36% glucose so you can get those 2 grams of glucose from proteins too but it will be slow and you will bad in the meanwhile so this is what prompts people to eat sugar instead. I have to say that if an hypo episode is really bad (like bg below 40) I would to opt for sugar rather than proteins as such dangerous low blood sugar levels need to be brought up as soon as possible.

I'm learning day by day that reactive hypoglycemia is just diabetes in disguise and will post later about findings that support this.

I know a vegan who is having lot of success with her hypoglycemia and adrenal fatigue consuming a very low carb diet.

This is what she eats:

vegetables, carrots, almond milk, tofu, tempeh, nuts, cantaloupe, strawberries, avocado.

She have regular blood test to check for deficiencies and other problems. There are soy foods in her diet as you can see but they're all devoid of phytic acid and phytoestrogens because they're either refined or fermented. The real problem with soy is soy milk in the amount of certain people drink it. If you have question about vegetarianism and hypoglycemia I can send it directly to her.

it depends how low is your low
if you eat cheese or meat it may take up to 5 hours for the proteins to raise your blood sugar. If you're having an hypo witha reading of 50-60 it's a bad idea to wait for proteins to kick in.

On the other hand if you eat lot of sugar you get a rebound. The solution is to eat the right amount of fast acting glucose to bring your blood sugar up without a rebound. The best way to do this is using glucose tablets or maltodextrin powder.

I have tried the glucose tablets and while they bring my sugar up generally it's not the same effect... is that because my body isn't used to it yet?

it's a matter of amount
eating proteins when you crash is pointless
proteints take up to 6 hours to be digested and turned into glucose, so there's no way someone with a real crash can eat protein and feel better.

only fast acting sugars can raise the blood sugar quickly enough. Glucose can raise blood sugar in jut 15 minutes but it depends how low you are.

If you're no lower than 60 you might need to raise your blood sugar no more than 10 points. This requires 3 grams of glucose if you weigh 140-150 but more if you weigh more.

If your blood sugar is 40 or 50 you need to raise the blood sugar 20 to 30 point and this requires up to 10 grams of glucose.

Many glucose tablet contain 5 grams of glucose which could be too much for a small crash and a person who doesn't weigh much and not enough for someone who weigh more or/and has a lower crash.