One More Question ...

Question: My daughter is 16 & has been sick for about 2 years. She passed out twice at school. She has just now been diagnosed with Hypoglycemia. We don’t see a dietician for another 2 weeks so I’m confused on what to feed her. Can you help me? She’s a teenager so I don’t want to say no to chocolate chip cookies, or should I? Her doctor said protein every 2 hours. That’s no way to live! I’m wondering if this is just a quick fix until she sees the dietician. Please help!

Here is my answer: Thanks for your email. I know how worrying it can be when you first experience hypoglycemia .... and how confusing it can be with all thedifferent advice you get about diet. Most doctors don't really know a lot about hypoglycemia, which makes it more worrying.

The most important thing to control hypoglycemia is to cut out sugar from your daughter's diet as much as possible. (Actually, everyone should really cut out sugar as much as possible). This is very difficultfor teenagers becaue they usually eat a lot of sweet things. This is what causes the hypoglycemia in the first place. This means all thingslike ice cream, cookies soft drinks, jam (I think you call it jelly inthe US) - everything with sugar in it.

This may sound pretty hard to do. But I can assure you from personal experience it will totally tranform your daughter's health if she can doit. Because we all need to have soemthing sweet now and again, you'll bepleased to know that sugar is least harmful for people with hypogyclemia if you eat it at the end of a meal. So your daughter can have a small dessert after dinner - but only a small one and not too sweet.

Ice cream is particularly bad for hypoglycemia, for some reason. I always get a migraine if I eat too much ice cream. As for eating protein every 2 hours - I wouldn't advice that. This is an old-fashioned theory that I have tried myself and I always felt worse for doing it. Your daugher just needs to eat three balanced meals a day,with one or two snacks if she is hungry in between. I usually have a piece of toast and butter, with a cup of tea as a snack (we drink tea here in New Zealand). Coffee can also make hypoglycemia worse if you drink too much - don't drink more than two or three cups of coffee a day.

A cheese or peanut butter sandwich is a good snack if your daughter likes it. I hope you don't get too confused with all the advice! Just try to get your daughter to eat three balanced meals a day of good plain food. As little added sugar as possible. It's when teenagers start eating lots of sweet "junk" foods and soft drinks between meals that they tend to get hypoglycemia. I hope this helps and let me know how you get on.

Regards

Chris

Another Question About Hypoglycemia

Here's another question about hypoglycemia from a visitor to my website.

Question: I was just diagnosed about 3 months ago, although I KNOW I've had it for years. I took the 5 hour GTT and after 2 hours my blood sugar level went down to 46. Needless to say, I have been trying to figure out what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat, etc.... I need help and some suggestions other than what these idiot doctors say; "stay away from sugar". I know there's more to it than that.

Today all of a sudden the room started spinning. I thought I was going to fall down. I had no idea this was a sign of low blood sugar. I had a low carb yogurt and cheerios for breakfast but still felt really dizzy. What am I doing wrong? Should I purchase a glucometer and test my blood sugar levels every day? Some say yes, and some say it's not nessecary. I don't want to be an alarmest, but I need some good advice.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Here is my answer:

Thank you for your email. I'm sorry to hear about your symptoms of hypoglycemia. I know how alarming it can be.

It's certainly correct that you should cut out sugar from your diet as much as possible. But that doesn't necessarily mean a low carb diet. This seems to be the current trend. About 20 years ago it was the Pritikin diet - very low fat. I've tried low carb and low fat diets. Neither of them work in the long run. At least not for me.

Let me try to explain. The secret to preventing low blood sugar is to have your food digest as slowly as possible. Sugar and refined carbohydrate digest very quickly. They give you a rush of sugar and then a downer. Protein and fat digests slower, as does more complex carbohydrate such as whole grain bread etc.

So, if you eat something like yoghurt and cheerios (I live in New Zealand, I don't know what cheerios are ... but I assume it's a cereal?) this will give you hypoglycemia because it digests relatively quickly. There's no fat in this meal to slow down the absorption of the carbohydrate. That's why people have traditionally eaten butter on bread for thousands of years. The butter slows down the absorption of the carbohydrates in the bread so you don't get low blood sugar. If you just eat bread on its own, without butter, you'll get low blood sugar. For some reason most so-called experts today can't see the value of eating butter and other natural fats. They talk about lowfat spreads etc. Forget all this. People have been eating butter since the beginning of time - and olive oil etc in other parts of the world. It's absolutely essential for good health that you have these fats in your diet to keep your blood sugar stable.

For breakfast I usually have a cereal called WeetBix (it doesn't have any sugar in it - basically just wheat) with milk (full fat milk - yes, it's better to have whole milk because there's more fat to slow down the carbohydrate). I also have a couple of pieces of whole grain toast with plenty of butter, and a cup of tea (not coffee because that can affect your blood sugar). I do have coffee occasionally but only after meal - never on an empty stomach. The same applies to alcohol. It's really bad for your blood sugar on an empty stomach but you can probably have one glass of wine or beer with a meal ( if you want to).

A balanced meal of any protein plus carbohydrate plus some fat (butter on potatoes etc) is fine to keep your blood sugar stable. You can try a small dessert but not too sweet. I emphasise small because I know Americans tend to eat big desserts such as ice cream. Ice cream, by the way, is one of the worst things you can eat for hypoglycemia - at least from my experience. It's pretty loaded with sugar.

I hope this makes some sense. Just please don't follow a low fat diet. Eat some butter or olive oil - just like the French do and they have one of the healthiest diets in the world - becuase they eat a lot less sugar than Americans.

So ... cutting out sugar is important. But so is making sure you have some protein and fat with each meal to slow down the release of sugar. It's simple once get get the idea.

Try eating different meals and see how you feel. I used to eat a low fat lunch and feel awful. (This was in the days when low fat was all the rage). Then one day I had a cheese sandwich with loads of butter and a thick slice of cheese and a glass of whole milk. I couldn't believe how great I flet during the afternoon. So next lunch time I had a piece of quiche. Again I felt great. Soon I realised my "healthy" low fat lunches were making me feel drowsy and headachy in the afternoons!

I hope this is helpful. You'll find more info in the free report you got off my website and also on my blog ... if I ever find time to make some posts on it!

All the best.

God Bless

Chris

Some Questions And Answers

My last post was an article by Sam Biser. But Sam's lawyers emailed me and asked me to take it down as it infringed his copyright. So, my apologies to Sam, who I still think is an excellent health writer!

Here is a question some one recently emailed me about hypoglycemia. I'd like to share the question and my answer. The person's name, of course, is omitted.

Question: "Hello. I have just been diagnosed as hypoglycemic and am looking for a diet that REALLY works. Do you by chance have one in print you can share? Thanks….."

Here is my answer: "Thank you for your email. I don't have a specific diet in print I can give you. But I can share with you some guidelines, which should be enough to get you started along the right lines.

The most important thing is to cut out refined sugar as much as possible. Also, eat balanced meals with some protein, fat and carbohydrate in each meal. The biggest cause of hypoglycemia is snacking on high carbohydrate foods like candy bars, cookies, soft drinks etc.

You need to base your diet around the foods you like to eat, so it's difficult to tell you exactly what to eat.

But as a guideline:

Breakfast: Have some cereal and milk (make sure the cereal has no sugar and it's better to have whole milk rather than low-fat milk). Plus one or two pieces of toast with butter. Or you can have an egg or two instead of cereal if you like. Plus a cup of tea or coffee. But don't drink too much strong coffee.

Lunch: Pretty much any protein food like cheese, meat, fish etc plus some carbohydrate (sandwiches etc). Also don't cut down on butter and oils as these help keep your blood sugar stable for longer. Forget the idea that butter is bad for you. It's not. People have eaten it for hundreds of years. They still eat lots of it in France and other countries and they're in great shape. I find butter is useful on bread to keep my blood sugar stable. A low fat sandwich leaves me with hypoglycemia in the afternoon.

Afternoon snack: pretty much anything you enjoy as long as it doesn't have sugar in it. I have a very boring diet and usually have a piece of toast and butter plus a cup of tea about 4pm.

Dinner: meat, fish, eggs etc. plus some potatoes, pasta, rice or whatever, plus vegetables. A good balanced meal, in other words. For dessert some fruit or perhaps a homemade cookie if it doesn't have too much sugar in it. But stay away from sweet desserts - ice cream is bad for hypoglycemia, for some reason. A cup of coffee or tea. Be careful with alcohol. The occasional wine or beer with a meal is okay but don't drink on an empty stomach or you'll get low blood sugar an hour or so afterwards.

I hope this helps. You will need to experiment and find out what makes you feel good after eating it. Then stick to that!

All the best,

God Bless

Chris

More questions and answers coming!