Marching Into the Peace Corps, Pt 38: Lowering Your Blood Sugar Levels Naturally

I’ve got absolutely no hang ups when it comes to adding help to a good diet and exercise plan. There is no reason a person should avoid vitamins and other nutritional supplements when their diets are clean because that adds a strong boost to your efforts. If you try and add vitamins to a poor diet and in the absence of exercise, you are then wasting your money and time. You can’t expect consume 95% junk, add vitamins, and look like a supermodel – the “garbage in, garbage out” rule will always win.

Another graphic way to describe this scenario:

• A swimming pool holds 10 people (garbage in)
• 9 people urinate in it (garbage out).
• Do you want to be number 10 in the pool? Most reasonable people will opt to sit on a lawn chair despite how much chlorine (vitamins) circulates in the water

Vitamins and supplement additions to a bad diet will never improve your health, but adding them to a clean diet will do wonders. I can recall reading on a question and answer section of a health/fitness website a woman who wanted only to drink the minimum amount of water, took vitamins, was very overweight, and wondered why she couldn’t lose weight. She admitted she didn’t diet or exercise, but beyond those two glaring reasons, she most likely has a blood sugar imbalance that is telling her body not to release weight. Some call it insulin resistance or syndrome X, but names don’t matter – it’s about exercising some level of common sense in order to define and fix the problem.

The typical American diet is loaded with salt, sugar, flour, dairy, and fat. We got fatter as a nation beginning in the 1980’s when we fell for the “fat free” craze, which ushered in the high sugar era. Unfortunately, unused sugar in the body gets stored as fat, but no one seemed to want to tell us that. Diet foods are loaded with salt and sugar, and they actually hurt our bodies with their gross imbalances. Convenience foods are notoriously loaded with everything we shouldn’t eat, but we’re not willing to make changes or sacrifice things to make the time to eat right, so we can’t actually blame others for what amounts to our laziness.

First we need to clean up our kitchens and throw out all the junk – including the comfort foods. I know it’s a hard thing to do, and I went through the process back in November – it’s not easy giving away all the food you’ve got when you realize it’s bad for you. Some people say give it away to a homeless shelter, and others say throw it away because you don’t want to poison others with food you wouldn’t eat. It’s up to you, but I gave my food away.

Second, start learning to read the labels on grocery store shelves. Leave all the unhealthy junk on their shelves and use your money to buy fresh produce that’s in line with your diet plan.

Third: learn how to move. It doesn’t matter if you make up your own fitness plan, purchase one that seems like fun from the Internet, a store, or from the TV, or hire a personal trainer – just do something! You will feel stiff and sore to begin with, but that will go away in a few days. Give your body time to adjust to using muscles it didn’t know it had, and you will be rewarded in the future.

Fourth: figure out what vitamins and supplements you might consider adding to help the process along. I’ve talked about omega-3 in part 9 and part 16 of this series, but you should know that if you’ve been diagnosed with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, print this out and take it to your health care provider and ask him/her if it’s safe for you to consume. Diabetics have unique concerns that should not be dismissed or ignored, and not all supplements or vitamins can be safely consumed because of that fact.

Your goal should be to turn your body from insulin resistant to functioning normally. Do not dismiss diet and exercise changes, as these are major components to helping change your body’s delicate chemistry that is obviously out of balance if you’re overweight. If you want to break the insulin resistance cycle that helps to keep you fat, you must follow ALL aspects, not pick and choose the things you want to do! Insulin is a special chemical and it didn’t go haywire overnight, so be patient as you begin the process of repairing your system.

Chromium is shown to have an effect on the processing of glucose in pre-diabetic patients by making them more insulin sensitive. Results have been reported with doses as low as 200 mcg and as high as 1,000 mcg, but check with your doctor as every body reacts differently.

Niacin has also been tag teamed with chromium in effectively dropping insulin levels, but many people do not tolerate the hot “flush” feeling when taking this B vitamin, so check with your doctor!

Vanadium, or vanadyl sulfate, is known to act like insulin and helps to regulate proper glucose levels. It is so powerful, it can help lower the need for insulin in Type 1 (insulin dependent) diabetics, and in Type 2 it increases the insulin sensitivity levels.

Biotin is necessary to process glucose, and in Type 1 fasting cases, it has been shown to drop glucose by 50% in one week with a 16 mg per day dose, or 9 mg for two months for Type 2 patients. That’s a hefty plunge in the numbers, which should be help non-diabetics immensely, but ask your practitioner about an appropriate dose for your own needs.

Zinc is also an interesting compound that helps regulate the proper amount of insulin to be released. Zinc can be depleted in foods by the process of heating, or in the body due to stress, alcoholic intake, and through the use of diuretics. We normally think of zinc in terms of wound care or in lozenges when we contract cold or flu germs, but it does much more.

There are other good possible candidates that are worth investigating in this area:

• Vitamin E
• Vitamin C
• Manganese
• Magnesium
• Vitamin B6
• Vitamin B12
• Co-Q 10
• Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA)
• Acetyl-L Carnitine

Again, I cannot caution the reader enough to discuss these possibilities with their physician. Allergic reactions, or dropping your blood sugar levels while on insulin could have dangerous consequences. Your physician knows your body and blood chemistry and can safely advice what would work best for your unique situation.

Some people also desire to get rid of the white table sugar they consume on a daily basis. They stop drinking full sugar Coke and opt to put away the sugar bowl instead of loading up their cereal, and that’s a good first step, but don’t replace it with artificial sugars, which are often chemically dangerous. If you have to choose, eat the table sugar! Better alternatives for your sweet tooth would be honey, brown sugar (small amounts), and stevia, which can be found in most health food stores in larger quantities as well as individual packets. Stevia goes a long way and is quite sweet, so add just a fraction and then give your food the taste test. It’s always easier to add more than to try and remove excessive sweetness!

Never forget the value of spices in helping to lower or stabilize blood sugar levels. Research has shown that by consuming as little as ¼ of a teaspoon of cinnamon, it stabilizes the blood sugar levels for hours, making it a powerful weapon in fighting those extra pounds. When insulin levels spike and then drop, it creates the sensation of cravings in the body; if you stabilize the blood sugar, you will not experience the chemical cravings, thereby avoiding eating unnecessarily. So make sure you add cinnamon in your morning cereal, your afternoon tea, and for your evening dessert, microwave an apple and give it a liberal dash of cinnamon to keep you from experiencing the midnight munchie runs.

If you don’t like trying to find all the segments of this series, you can locate the links to them here and they will return you the exact spot on the appropriate site.