And Another Day of a Reactive Hypoglycemia Diet

Filed under: Diet | 4 Comments »

I’ve received a couple of emails asking me to post more of what I eat to combat my hypoglycemia. A brief piece of background info if you’ve just found the site: I haven’t had a reactive hypoglycemic spell in months, and I feel great! Before I switched my diet to vegetarian, my life was often miserable for many hours a week.

My Reactive Hypoglycemic Diet Plan

Anyone who has had the misery of low blood sugar and the accompanying shakes, sweats, mood swings, blurred vision and nausea knows how truly debilitating a disorder it is. But it is treatable in the most cases by dietary change, and that’s what I decided to do. At first i started on a very restrictive vegan diet but gradually added foods. I feel so great on this diet that I actually forgot to buy glucose tabs and ran out two weeks ago. To my surprise, I haven’t needed the tablets lately.

Food for Reactive Hypoglycemia

Here’s what I ate and drank today (my blood sugar stayed at normal levels, around 80-120 all day):

8 a.m. cup of 1/2 caffeinated coffee with 3T Silk (soy) vanilla creamer
8:30 a.m. 1 slice Ezekiel 4:9 toast, 1T Earth Balance buttery spread, 2T all fruit blackberry preserve (no sugar, just fruit).
10:30 a.m. 1 banana, 1/4 cup cashews, 10 oz water mixed with 2 oz cranberry juice.
12:30 p.m. Chickpea curry with cauliflower and broccoli (Indian curry with cumin, garam masala, chili pepper, cilantro, green chili), 1/6 cup brown rice, 1/6 cup wild rice

chickpea curry by rashmi1979@flickr.com

2:40 p.m. About 14 baked, blue corn tortilla chips and 1/4 cup salsa.
4:40 p.m. 10 oz water mixed with 2 oz cranberry juice.
5:00 p.m. mixed herb salad, carrots, onion, clover sprouts, tomato. Topped with 1/4 cup Quorn stir fried in 2T peanut oil and a peanut/ginger sauce (pre-made in a jar from the grocery store–no added sugars), handful of cashews and 1/6 cup grated soy cheese.
6:30 p.m. (before a 20 min swim): 5 oz water mixed with 1 oz cranberry juice and 1/2 a chocolate peppermint Luna bar.
7:30 p.m. (after swim): 5 oz water mixed with 1 oz cranberry juice and 1/2 a chocolate peppermint Luna bar.
8:30 p.m. cup of herbal lemon tea
9:30 p.m. 2 oz white wine mixed with 2 oz soda water. About 6 baby carrots and 3T hummus. 4 Triscuits.

In addition I drunk about 16 oz of water

I do not count calories for many reasons, including the fact that I have better things to worry about than calories (like not having a hypoglycemic episode!). I can tell how much I should be eating and if weight creeps on I just make an effort to exercise more or eat slightly less. I don’t typically count anything, when it comes down to it. I’m a fairly good cook and I seem to intuitively know how to cook a balanced meal. For example, the curry and Quorn both have splashes of fat, adequate protein and lots of vegetables (fiber, vitamins etc.). I think it’s important with reactive hypoglycemia to eat both fat and carbs–although I do get the majority of carbs from veggies!

I’ll post more of these kinds of menus again soon.

The Reactive Hypoglycemia Cookbook Cover

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4 Comments on “And Another Day of a Reactive Hypoglycemia Diet”

1 Daniel said at 2:59 am on July 7th, 2009:
Steph, what’s the physiological biochemical reason for the positive effect of a vegetarian diet on hypoglycemia? Vegetarianism is about the exclusion of meat hence protein while hypoglycemia is about carbohydrates. I can’t see the link. Thanks
2 Steph Kenrose said at 8:45 am on July 14th, 2009:
Daniel,
I’m currently researching an article (keep an eye out for it this week) that will answer your question in full. But the short answer is, it isn’t about cutting meat out but rather replacing meat with vegetable-based proteins (like lentils and beans).
Stephanie

Update: I just posted the article. You can see it here: why a vegan diet works for reactive hypoglycemia.
3 Lorna said at 8:07 am on October 8th, 2010:
I too am vegan and hypoglycemic and am really struggling to get my health on track. I’m not having as many “reactive” symptoms anymore, but my everyday symptoms have not gotten any better (I’m exploring the possibility that there is really more going on than just hypoglycemia).
I’ve read several books and been to see a dietician and was surprised by your claims that being vegan actually helps you control your symptoms. I’ve been led to believe that it is my vegan diet that has contributed to the problem- in other words, because a vegan diet is naturally high in carbs, it causes more crashes in blood sugar, even if those carbs are complex. Don’t get me wrong, I was hypoglycemic long before being vegan, but being vegan makes it much more challenging to control. I’m going to keep trying though.
The thing that everyone touts as a “cure” for hypoglycemic symptoms is protein, but more specifically the ratio of protein to carbs. It is true that a vegan diet contains more than adequate protein, however, if you look at the nutritional breakdown of those protein foods, most are higher in carbs than protein. The dietician said you want to be looking for as close to 1:1 as possible. Beans have at least a 2:1 (carb to protein) ratio. Nuts are usually pretty close to equal. Veggies and grains are mostly carbs, while tofu is mostly protein. From this, you can see that if you are eating a meal that contains beans, rice and vegetables, even though you may have plenty of protein there, it’s still way too high on the carbs. In order to try to balance things out, sprinkling seeds/nuts on the meal or nibbling a few after a meal can help. I have no intention of becoming a different person and giving up being vegan because of this condition, but I have personally found that it seems to be what is suggested over and over. I will continue my challenging battle and hopefully find a healthy vegan balance that works.

On another note, I personally found your article about why a vegan diet works for reactive hypoglycemia and found it to be most irrelevant. Diabetes and hypoglycemia can be related, but are 2 different disorders that occur from very different causes in the body. Both are related to insulin, but very different mechanical processes at the cellular level. The article talked about preventing diabetes and other health concerns- info most vegans already know. It didn’t mention at all why or how being vegan would actually help you control hypoglycemia (that is not diabetes related).
4 Ashley said at 9:22 am on June 10th, 2011:
This is very interesting. I struggled with my symptoms weekly as well and for other reasons decided to go vegetarian a couple of months ago and haven’t had ONE single crash/attack since. It’s really amazing. I was never the most diligent person when it comes to researching/treating my issue, so I wasn’t aware that it might help and couldn’t explain why it did; I am just so grateful to not have to worry about it. I used to think that protein helped when I was crashing. I would literally crave meat and treat a crash with some protein…so much so that I was really worried about how my body would react when I cut it out. I am still shocked.