Are you a night-time carb loader?

Seeing as I’ve been talking about sleep remedies I thought I’d talk about how carbs can impact sleep. ⠀
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Eating sugary or even a meal high in carbohydrates in the evening is one of the worst things you can do if you suffer with low blood sugar or are sensitive to carbs anyway. Your blood sugar will spike then come crashing down in the night long before your next meal is due. Then your adrenals will probably kick into action, creating restless sleep. ⠀
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For the same reason think about what a carb/no protein breakfast will do. Or possibly even no breakfast at all? If you have low blood sugar your adrenals could go crazy mid morning as it sees this as a threat to survival. This could make you feel wired or jittery. I can often see the effects of a carb breakfast when I’m looking at The Dutch Adrenal test. The morning cortisol shows a spike as the adrenals are called into action. Even if the client has low waking cortisol and reports fatigue they will often tell me that mid morning they then feel wired.
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What can you do? ⠀
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1. Try eating protein at each meal. If you feel shaky and suffer with low blood sugar in the morning then it’s not the time to do a fast. Have a protein rich breakfast instead – eggs, fish or protein shake for example. Don’t grab a banana for lunch! ⠀
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2. Find your carb tolerance – if you feel sleepy after a meal then perhaps you’ve eaten too many or perhaps just the wrong type of carbs. ⠀
If you still feel sleepy after a meal with no carbs then you may have insulin resistance so work with a practitioner to reverse this. I will get onto the subject of insulin resistance soon! ⠀
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3. If you find just having 3 meals a day too tough and feel hungry and shaky in between meals even after doing the above, then try a small protein snack mid morning/afternoon- slice of chicken, boiled egg, nuts etc.⠀