Creating Energy - Low Blood Sugar

  • By Chris Hardwicke
  • 01 Jul, 2018

How does low blood sugar affect your energy?

In 1981 the Food Pyramid became front page news. Finally someone is telling us how we should eat. Quickly, and based totally on trust, Americans ran with this information. Doctors and nutritionists preached it as gospel and coaches and trainers passed it along as well.

This pyramid called for 7 to 11 servings of carbohydrates per day, specifically mentioning bread, pasta, rice and potatoes as healthy choices. It also spawned the previously unheard of phenomenon known as “low fat foods.” Suddenly the food giants had a whole new food category. Sell food loaded up with sugar and white flour and put “lowfat” on the label and ‘viola’—dieters and those watching their weight will eat it with a guilt free conscience! Many products, such as white bread, that never had fat in them anyway, put the magic words “low fat” on their label.

Aside from an epidemic of obesity, we got a nation of sick people with a disease so new, that the medical profession did not have a name for it until the year 2000. The name they chose is “metabolic syndrome.” I prefer the name coined by researcher Jennie Brand-Miller who refers to the condition as “reactive hypoglycemia” because the condition is a reaction to “bad” carbohydrates.

This is a pre-diabetic condition brought on mainly by an exhausted pancreas that cannot produce enough insulin to keep the blood sugar in check. It is associated with an increase in bad cholesterol and a rise in triglyceride levels, which alerts doctors of potential arterial and heart problems. The vast majority of those with reactive hypoglycemia experience big dips in their blood glucose levels one to three hours after eating "bad" carbs. As I have said, this is an epidemic in America today, with some estimates having 60 % of the population affected.

The physical symptoms we are concerned with here are the big dips in energy, brain fog, and lethargy associated with low blood sugar. These usually occur between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., and can vary according to meal times. Notice that these are common break times for most jobs due to the epidemic level of the population who are affected. Productivity falls off sharply during these hours without medicating the blood sugar. This is why your break rooms have sweets and salty and sugary carbohydrates available. Along with caffeine, one is now able to go a few more hours before crashing again.

If you, like me, have this problem, you will need to focus not only on what you eat, but when. If you have been around this website, you know that I believe that everyone should get processed white flour, soft drinks, candy, and most other sugar out of their life.

Those of you with blood sugar problems have a very high risk of diabetes if you don’t remove these products form your diet. You will exacerbate your blood sugar issues by eating them. You should have complex protein and fat at every meal to slow the gastric emptying of your stomach and thereby eliminate the spikes in blood sugar that come before the fall in blood sugar.

Protein and fat take up to four times as long in the stomach as simple carbohydrates and at least double that of low-glycemic carbohydrates. This gives us longer satiety (full feeling) and a more gradual rise in blood sugar. Bottom line: Eat three meals and have low-glycemic carbs, protein, and fat at all three. This is also called a “balanced” meal.

In addition to this you may need to snack twice a day to keep blood glucose levels steady. You must pay close attention to your low blood sugar times of day. If you “crash” at 10:00 a.m. you should have a protein and/or fat snack by 9:00 a.m. This could also include a low glycemic carbohydrate, but these should not be eaten alone at this time. You could have a low glycemic carbohydrate snack as late as 9:30.

The problem with eating carbs alone for those who have reactive hypoglycemia, is that you may need to have yet another snack an hour later to get you through to lunch.


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By Chris Hardwicke July 1, 2018

We are fight or flight, hunting and gathering animals. In our DNA are all the tools for energy creation. Through the Kreb’s cycle, we can convert ALL food to energy. We can live in excess of 40 days on water alone. We can walk 300 miles without anything other than water. Though it is occasionally not evident, we are the most highly evolved animals on Earth.

To better understand how we create more energy, we would do well to visualize a spiral. If we follow the line of the spiral we see that it moves up and then levels out, reaching an ever-increasing height. The same is true when we create energy. Our energy levels cannot simply rise straight up. We must also level out to create energy (rest).

If you have been sedentary for a long time and one day you decide to go jogging for a couple of miles, you will be tired for several days after. You will need to rest. Tiredness is the downside of the spiral. From just that one run, you have created more energy that is yours to use AFTER recovery. This increased energy is the upswing of the spiral. If you continue to run and rest, the spiral will go up and level out with the net result being a gain in energy. Our heart becomes bigger and our lungs more toned, the relevant jogging muscles are stronger and more efficient.

To return to our car analogy, our engine has become bigger and stronger. When running a couple of miles no longer challenges us we have ADAPTED to our running regimen. At this point, if we do not run faster, farther or longer we will not continue to increase our energy. Our current level of running will MAINTAIN our current level of ADAPTATION (energy level). If we stop running we will gradually go back down the spiral. If we do not allow for full recovery through proper sleep we will also see a drop in performance. Sleep is an important part of the leveling out of the spiral.

In a nutshell, we must work hard enough to go higher “up” the spiral, and then rest, through which we will adapt to higher and higher levels of energy.

By Chris Hardwicke July 1, 2018

You can feed all the fuel you want to a weak engine and it will still not go faster. You can cleanse the fuel lines all you want and you will not increase YOUR performance if your engine is small and weak.

We have total control of our energy level. We are responsible for creating our own energy. If you do not have any, you have created the weak engine I am talking about. It is very easy to look to cleanses and supplements, but a strong engine can run very well for a long time on junk food, much as putting cheap gas in your car often takes 100,000 miles to have a negative effect.

In our car analogy, we fixed everything but the engine and still we had no better performance. A big difference between human engines and car engines is that if you park your car in the garage for a few years, the engine remains just as powerful. The human engine, however, will actually shrink. Your entire system can get clogged by parking it on the couch too long and not taking it out for a good drive once in a while. If you only drive it to work and back it won’t continue to run well for long. You will see what I mean when you finally “floor it” and black smoke pours out of the exhaust! It may even stall! Quick, before it’s too late, let’s make this thing run right, faster, and longer.

By Chris Hardwicke July 1, 2018

Why don’t you have some coffee, sugar, or fruit? That ought to pick you up! How about an energy drink with some wild sounding jungle herbs? Most of us regularly look for energy in a particular food or drink and we are eventually forced to acknowledge that it does not work.

We have an epidemic of blood sugar problems (hypoglycemia) that affect an estimated 60% of this country. In fact, most companies give workers a break at 10 a.m. and often this is not because they are generous, but productivity has markedly slowed. At this point you have only been at work for two, at most three, hours! Certainly you are not already out of energy. Notice that your break room is filled with caffeine, candy, and salty and sweet carbohydrates in hopes of kicking you back into productivity.

Further notice that the great ‘medication stations”—convenience stores— that are filled from one end to the other with these items! I can fix your “Blood Sugar” problem such that you can fully access energy you already have, but that will NOT create more!

Many alternative modalities promise to remove “blocks” to your energy or increase the flow of energy. Often “cleansing” of some type is recommended. Notice that removing blocks and increasing FLOW are NOT the same as creating MORE energy. For a better understanding of energy, I shall use a car for my analogy.

Let’s say that the tube that carries gasoline to the engine (the fuel line) is clogged. The car runs poorly. When you clear the “blockage” you “increase the flow” of fuel to the engine. While this is important and I often recommend energy-flow work, you will NOT have MORE energy, but full access to the energy you already had.

How about if the carburetor is not mixing the air and gasoline correctly? Again the car runs poorly. Many vitamin and supplements companies make “increased-energy” claims based on improving your fuel mix. While supplements and diet can sometimes correct nutritional deficiencies, you will only have better fuel, not more fuel. This is very important as better fuel is necessary for high performance. Many people in third world countries suffer from malnutrition and cannot perform well. However, you and I are likely getting everything we need for our day-to-day performance and even our “weekend warrior” athletics. Body builders, high school, college and professional athletes may well need supplements if their diet is less than perfect but I’m willing to bet that quality fuel is not your problem.

For now, let’s assume that your fuel system is clean enough and you eat a good enough diet. If this is the case, and most often it is, the cause of your lack of energy is that your motor is small and inefficient and that nothing you put in the gas tank can change that!


By Chris Hardwicke July 1, 2018

It is both true and logical that the ‘mixed’ body type will blend both the apple and pear diets. The mixed type stores fat relatively evenly throughout the body. I would like to differentiate the “genetic” mixed type from the “acquired” mixed type.

If you have always stored excess weight fairly evenly both above and below the waist you are the genetic mixed type. The acquired mixed type originally stored excess weight in the thighs. Over time, a diet high in processed carbohydrates had the same effect on these mixed types as it did on the apples, that is, a tummy began to appear as the pancreatic function was compromised. In my experience the acquired mixed type will do well by exchanging all high and medium glycemic carbs for low glycemic carbs much the same as the apple.

Following the last-in-first-out principle, you will lose the upper body weight first including the upper arms and face. This corrects the acquired aspect of your weight gain. You will then begin to gradually eat less as you should have been able to eat your fill prior. “Eating less” means following the protocol for pears. Let weight loss be slow and permanent. No radical food reduction or meal skipping.

The genetic mixed types who have always stored excess weight fairly evenly throughout the body do well with a blend of the pear and apple diets. The results will be a more even top to bottom weight loss than the acquired type.

Everybody should start with a good housecleaning. Consciously remove the “worst offenders” first. These are the foods that not only cause weight gain due to their lack of satiety, but they are making you sick as well. Candy, sugar and white flour desserts and soft drinks are toxic yet many refer to these as “treats!” Treat yourself to premature aging, diabetes, cancer, ovarian cysts, and a good yeast infection!

Eliminate processed white flour that is used to make crackers, chips, breads, bagels, etc. and switch to whole wheat. You must resist the rare occasions where you eat till you hurt such as Thanksgiving and Christmas and contrary to the popular saying, there is NOT always room for dessert! If you are full; stop eating.

These rare occasions of gluttony can be the root of the problem for the add-one-pound-every-year weight gainer. Our client weigh-ins have shown this to be true and there has been one good clinical trial supporting a weight gain of 1 ½ pounds on the average American during the holiday (gluttony) season.

As I have previously said gluttony is not the cause of the obesity problem, in fact healthy people go on to lose this small gain every spring. But those of us not paying attention to this occasional gluttony can very gradually get into trouble.

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