9 Signs You Might Have Insulin Resistance
See the list of symptoms below. Are you experiencing any of those? If so, it could be early insulin resistance caused by eating too many simple carbohydrates. Even if you don’t have any of those symptoms, you could still have insulin resistance and not know it!
9 common signs of blood sugar imbalance
Irritability
Excessive sleepiness after a meal
Craving carbs / sugar
Headaches
Dizziness
Poor sleep
Mid-day sleepiness
Excessive hunger shortly after eating
Fatigue relieved by eating
How blood sugar and insulin work in the body
Whenever you eat food that contains carbohydrates, your blood sugar increases, and elevated blood sugar is very harmful to the body. It’s damaging to your organs, tissues, and blood vessels, so the body has to have a mechanism to bring blood sugar back down when it gets elevated. It does this through a hormone called insulin, which is developed in your pancreas and released whenever your body senses that it needs to lower its blood sugar.
The more sugar you eat, the more insulin you need. Many people have an exaggerated insulin response as a result of eating too many simple carbohydrates. When the pancreas shoots out too much insulin, you can end up with hypoglycemia, which is low blood sugar.
What are simple carbohydrates?
There are two categories of carbohydrates that convert to sugar in your body: simple carbs and complex carbs.
Complex carbohydrates are the good ones because they include nutrients such as fiber, which slows the breakdown of the carbs in your body and results in less of an effect on blood sugar. Fiber also feeds the good gut bacteria, which play an important role in balancing blood sugar levels!
Simple carbohydrates, on the other hand, have been stripped of nutrients and fiber. They have larger amounts of sugar molecules arranged in really simple structures. This means they break down easily into sugar that absorbs directly into your bloodstream.
How does insulin resistance develop?
When you’re constantly putting sugar into your body and the pancreas is pumping out insulin to manage the influx, your cell receptors become less responsive to insulin’s message. The weakened response doesn’t allow sugar to effectively get out of your bloodstream and into your cells. This process is known as insulin resistance.
When you become insulin resistant, the pancreas pumps out even more insulin to compensate for the cellular resistance. Eventually, over time, the pancreas gets exhausted. This is when your blood sugar surges to a point you can no longer control, and you can get diabetes.
How to test for insulin resistance
If you have any the above symptoms, it’s a good idea to experiment with changing your eating habits and see how you improve. However, if you want to confirm if you have insulin resistance, we can find out via a blood test. A fasting blood glucose and insulin is ordered. Then, we use this link to enter your lab values and get the results. It will estimate if you have early or significant insulin resistance. This is called the HOMA-IR ratio.
If your HOMA-IR ratio is elevated, it’s time to seriously think about how your can start changing the way you eat so you can protect your health long term and prevent chronic illness.
How to quickly balance blood sugar levels
Get started by avoiding:
Anything with high-fructose corn syrup
Anything with white flour
Artificial sugars and sweeteners
Soda and diet soda
Candy bars
Fruit juice
Energy drinks
Too much caffeine (> 2 cups)
Better Alternatives
Don’t worry—you can still satisfy cravings with simple adjustments. When you crave a candy bar, opt for a square of dark chocolate with natural sugar, like Stevia. When you eat your morning oatmeal, swap the added sugar for quality protein and fat, like nuts and coconut shavings, which will curb the insulin response. Instead of orange juice, go for herbal tea.
Whole, complex carbohydrates, are still a great option! It’s just the simple carbs that provide no real nutritional value.
Examples of complex carbohydrates you can enjoy include:
Whole fruit, like citrus, berries, and apples
Root vegetables, like sweet potatoes and squash
Legumes and whole grains (quinoa, brown rice, whole wheat)
Non-starchy vegetables, like kale, broccoli, and zucchini
It takes about two-three weeks for your tastebuds to adapt to the lower amount of sugar you’re eating. After that time, your sugar cravings will reduce significantly. (And when you do have refined sugar, you’ll notice just how overly sweet it is!)
Every person is going to be different in how they respond to certain foods. Pay attention to what you’re eating. If you notice any of the symptoms above after consuming certain foods, your body is telling you to either cut back on the carbs or add more fat and protein. Experiment with what works for you!
Also, unless your nutritional expert advises, don’t cut out any macronutrients (ie. carbs) completely. Women especially need carbohydrates for proper thyroid and adrenal functions, just like we need fat for brain health and protein to build and repair tissue.
Interested to dive deeper into investigating insulin resistance and/or diet? Book an appointment!
