What's happening is that you're experiencing rapid changes in your blood sugar levels. As your blood sugar rises, you feel really good, and when it falls, you feel irritable and tired. These rapid changes in your blood sugar levels occur because you, like many people including myself, are carbohydrate sensitive. When you eat a carbohydrate, you get a rapid increase in your blood sugar, which causes your body to overreact and produce too much insulin. This in turn causes your blood sugar levels to drop quickly. It is these rapid changes in both insulin and blood sugars that dramatically affect how you feel both physically and mentally.

What you eat makes all the difference in how severe these blood sugar and insulin spikes are. Carbohydrates that are rapidly absorbed into your bloodstream have the greatest effect on your blood sugars and insulin levels. Fiber, protein and fat have been shown to slow the rate of release of sugars into the bloodstream and can greatly reduce these spikes in blood sugar and insulin. Carbohydrates with a low glycemic index (whole-grain foods or yams) take longer to digest, and they enter the bloodstream much more slowly than those with a high glycemic index like sugars, sweets and doughnuts.

The best way, therefore, for you to avoid these big changes in your energy levels and moods is to eat six small meals each day, making sure that you always combine a portion of low-glycemic carbohydrates with a portion of high-quality protein. This potent combo will not only help keep your blood sugars and insulin levels stable, which will give you plenty of physical and psychological energy to get the most out of each day, it will also eliminate cravings a major cause of failed nutrition programs!