top 5 reasons yoga is great for hypoglycemics

I'm back! It has been a long time since my last post, but I have a good excuse. I have been taking an intensive yoga teacher training course, getting a 200-hour certification in Hatha/Kundalini yoga at Karuna Yoga, which is a wonderful studio if you are in the LA area. Between all the lectures and yoga classes and homework (!), (oh, and my regular day job), I haven't had time for much blogging, cooking, or even going to the farmer's market. But, I have lots of new ideas for posts.

I will get cooking again soon and post some new fall recipes, but I thought it would be appropriate if my first post back was about hypoglycemia and yoga. I believe that anyone and everyone can benefit from yoga - not just the fit and flexible. Practicing yoga can be as simple as closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths. Sequences and practices can always be modified, and should always be done with an awareness of what you need right now. In my personal experience, yoga has really helped me to manage my blood sugar better, and to feel healthier overall.

So, here are my Top 5 Reasons Yoga is Great for Hypoglycemics:

1. Yoga helps improve your energy while other forms of exercise may exhaust you. This is not to say that running, cycling, etc. are bad - in fact, they are great, but sometimes they are not what you need if you are having blood sugar problems.

2. Yoga enhances the functioning of the glandular and nervous systems, especially by decreasing stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline) and increasing relaxation hormones. Being in the "fight or flight" mode triggered by an excess of stress hormones will interfere with the body's ability to use blood sugar efficiently. Here's a short article about yoga and diabetes that touches on this.

3. Yoga fosters greater body-mind awareness. If we can tune into our bodies, we are better able to sense when symptoms of low blood sugar are appearing so that we can do something about it. This awareness also helps us to realize which foods are making us feel good and which foods are making things worse.

4. Yoga postures help increase the circulation of blood, oxygen, fluids, and nutrients to organs throughout the body. When all of our systems are working well, the blood sugar stays balanced.

5. Yoga develops the focus and clear thinking that we need in order to stick to a sugar-free, white bread, white rice, white flour - free diet. It's hard! Some self control and mental discernment helps.

I'm sure I could come up with more to add to this list, but I don't want to be pedantic about it. Yoga is great - enough said! I am working on a practice sequence tailored to the goal of keeping blood sugar stable, and I will post that in the near future. Namaste ;)

Dang! I missed the grilled cheese invitational.

I recently stumbled upon the hilarious website for the LA-based Grilled Cheese Invitational cooking competition. I went back to the site today, only to realize that the contest was yesterday! It looked like fun. Maybe next year I will come up with an awesome whole-wheat grilled cheese "sammich" - nothing too healthy, but I would probably have to enter in what they call the "Kama Sutra" category, which is for cooks who want to go beyond basic bread, butter, and cheese (they call that "Missionary Position").

Go check out the website, it's quite giggle-worthy. And please help me think of something cool to do with the grilled cheese idea!

guest blogger Cybele talks diabetes and dessert recipes

Today's post is courtesy of a special guest blogger, my friend Cybele Garcia Kohel. After I started Filthy Sucre, we discovered that we had something in common: avoiding sugar and refined white stuff. Though I'm hypoglycemic, and she is diabetic, we've found that we keep to a similar diet. In fact, a few months ago, we were both at a Saturday morning workshop that ended with lunch. Unfortunately, the lunch consisted of nothing but sandwiches on huge slices of white bread, and Cybele and I were both reduced to peeling the condiment-laden slices of lunch meat off and tossing the bread aside...without the help of a fork. It was not an elegant meal, nor was it filling, so I was glad I had brought a cheese stick and two clementines in my purse. I believe Cybele supplemented with nuts.

I hope you'll enjoy hearing about her experiences going sugar free. Take it away, Cybele!

So sugar got you down? Tell me about it! I'm diabetic. Before you get the impression that I'm a 300 pound sedentary chronic over eater, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm 38 years old. I'm a little over 5 feet tall and I weigh 115 pounds. I go to yoga weekly, run local errands on my bike several times a week and walk my dog twice daily. Truly, I am borderline diabetic. The diagnosis came last year, and it was devastating to me. I believe that in my case, the diabetes was stress-induced. At the time I was commuting (to my fairly stressful place of employment) on my bicycle, usually about 16 miles round trip, at least once a week. Since then I've discovered that my grandmother's sister apparently had diabetes, but other than that no one else in my family has it. So, needless to say, the diagnosis came as a shock to me, and most of my friends and family. It started a wave of dieting and gym membership among my coworkers.

Luckily I was diagnosed early, so I am able to manage the diabetes with a good diet and exercise. That means I don't have to take insulin - and I want to keep it that way. When Addie started the Filthy Sucre Blog, I was very excited to read that other people out there are avoiding simple sugars as well. While being a diabetic is really more about avoiding large quantities of simple carbs, eating balanced meals and exercising to achieve a normal blood sugar, I find that avoiding outright or hidden sugar is extremely helpful. So, like most concerned consumers, I read nutrition labels if I eat processed foods. Whenever possible, I avoid sugar, corn syrup, even honey which is basically a naturally-processed sugar (my condolences to the bees of the world). But I don't think I will ever give up eating or wanting dessert. It is a comfort that is too engrained in my lifestyle, my family culture. Not a person who enjoys chemically-produced sugar subsitutes either, I searched for a decent substitute. So far, agave nectar is my favorite. Agave is relatively cheap, and Trader Joe's carries it. Yes, it is still a sweetener of course, but much lower on the glycemic index, which is very important for anyone who is watching blood sugar levels. Use agave nectar, coupled with non-refined flours, and you've got yourself a more than just decent, low carb dessert. Take a look at all the alternative flours available at Bob's Red Mill. It really blows my mind the alternitives we have out there. Now if we could just get the rest of America to use them on occasion...

As a creative type, I'm always experimenting - this means in the kitchen I'm tweaking the sugar and refined flours out of the recipes in my books. So here are two of my no-sugar desserts for you to try at home. Enjoy!

BANANA DELIGHT

2 bananas, ripe
1/2 cup coconut shavings (unsweetened!)
1/3 cup lime or lemon juice
agave nectar for drizzling

1. Slice the bananas thickly.
2. Squeeze juice into a bowl.
3. Spread the coconut shavings on a plate.
4. Dip each banana slice first into the juice, then into the coconut, covering them well. Set them on a plate.
5. Serve first, then drip agave to taste on them.

I initially ignored this recipe, because neither my husband or I like coconut. But I realized that what I didn't like about the coconut was the added sugar. The unsweetened coconut has a good flavor, without the sugar headache afterward. Sometime I'd like to make it with toasted coconut. It might be even better that way. Or with a peanut sauce...the experimentation continues!


APPLE CRISP

8 medium apples, or 5 large (use Gala or Fuji)
1/2 cup of agave nectar
3/4 cup of uncooked rolled oats (not instant)
1/3 cup of rice flour
1/3 cup of butter, very soft
3 Tablespoons of lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon of dried ginger
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of walnuts (optional)

1. You may remove the apple peels if you like. Clean, core and slice the apples. Lay them in a lightly greased 9x13 pan.

2. Mix oats, flour, walnuts, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon well, in a large bowl.
3. Add agave, lemon juice and butter. Mix everything well.
4. Pour mixture over the apples.
5. Bake at 350 F for 45 minutes, or until a poked toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool before cutting or serving.

I omitted fruit juice from this recipe, because the nectar is a liquid instead of a powdered sugar. If you need to, add a few tablespoons of water when mixing, but not too much as it will make for a mushy result.

Some articles of interest:

"America's Diet: Too Sweet By the Spoonful" The New York Times
"Is America Too Sweet on Sugar" CBS News

- Cybele Garcia Kohel

another reason not to click on those male enhancement drug offers in your spam box

I couldn't resist posting this. Apparently, some counterfeit Cialis and other male (ahem) enhancement drugs have been circulating in Singapore - but that's the only funny part of this story. You see, these fake remedies were tainted with a diabetes drug that caused a hospital trip for over 150 people due to severe low blood sugar. Four died, seven are still in a coma. Death from hypoglycemia is rare, but it is possible.

One thing that helped the doctors figure out what was causing this: of the 150 people in the hospital, all but one were male. Remember, guys - low blood sugar isn't very macho, so maybe we shouldn't be taking drugs we don't need.

a nutcase tip for hypoglycemic types

We hypoglycemics always have to carry snacks. Cheese sticks can only be kept in your purse for so long before they lose their allure, which is why nuts are the go-to protein source in a pinch. My personal innovation: save the case from your Altoids gum (sugar free, of course), and keep almonds in it. They are more protected from the other contents of your bag when kept in a little metal case than they would be in a ziploc, and you get to make jokes about carrying around a "nutcase." Win win.

If you get tired of almonds (I do), maybe try some of the more exotic nuts from this link, which has nuts I've never heard of, and some very entertaining synonyms for common nuts. Quiz: which nut is also known as a monkey nut or a goober? Try that one at your next party. Seriously, with this information, you could contend with Harlan Pepper from Best in Show in an epic naming-nuts-face-off.

hypoglycemia is not just being hungry

It's true - I cannot go for long periods of time without eating. I once ended up with low blood sugar because I did not have a snack before seeing The Lord of the Rings in the theater. No joke. I can't wait until 10:00 to have dinner, I can't skip meals, and if I sleep in until 11:00 (lazy, I know), I'll still have a small breakfast even though I'm planning lunch in an hour-and-a-half.

But, aside from the fact that the body needs fuel at regular intervals, hypoglycemia is not just about being hungry. It also kicks in when the body gets too excited about producing insulin, like if blood sugar levels get too high too fast. That's what would happen if I decided it would be a good idea to have a plate of pancakes and syrup for breakfast: first my blood sugar would rocket up to the stratosphere thanks to all the sugar and refined carbs, and I would feel kind of buzzy (not in a good way) and might have a rapid, fluttery-feeling heartbeat and a feeling like I'm having to work extra hard to focus my eyes. Then - that's right, we're not done yet - the pancreas freaks out and produces an overabundance of insulin, which pushes the blood sugar waaaay down...and I get a migraine, sometimes nausea (which makes it hard to eat anything that might help), I get shaky and I tend to mumble when I'm trying to talk. Not fun. This is called "reactive hypoglycemia," and it truly is a rollercoaster (and I don't even like the real kind of rollercoasters, much less this metaphorical one). I'll have the eggs, thank you.

Of course, diabetics also have problems with hypoglycemia, especially if they accidentally take too much insulin. I think it's easiest to think of hypoglycemia as basically an oversensitivity to the fluctuations of blood sugar. So, like a diabetic, I am trying to keep my blood sugar from going too low or too high by keeping digestion of sugars (carbs) nice and slow. In fact, at Johns Hopkins, they have a theory that treats hypoglycemia more based on the speed of the blood sugar change rather than the (somewhat arbitrary) ultimate level of glucose measured in the blood - that's what I'm talking about.

I also have to point out this amusing list of hypoglycemia symptoms in Wikipedia, especially with all its technical terms like "borborygmus" and "abnormal mentation." Hmm...that does sound familiar. It also says that a hypoglycemic episode can resemble drug intoxication, which is what Nicole Richie was getting at when her PR handlers released that statement saying she's hypoglycemic. Most people laughed it off, but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt (as a potential blog reader).

One more link in this longer-than-intended-and-hopefully-not-too-technical post: This article, recently printed in an Arizona newspaper, offers a good description of the blood sugar-insulin relationship, but it's also an example of how hypoglycemia is usually considered only as an afterthought - a subset of diabetes. This is not to take away from how serious a condition diabetes is (my Grandpa had it), but it's just worth noting that there's comparatively little research or awareness of hypoglycemia as its own problem. That's how we routinely end up getting such bad advice ("eat some candy, you'll feel better") like at the end of the article I just linked to. So, my rule for the Filthy Sucre blog is that I will only post recipes that I have eaten, or could eat, without anything happening like in the hypothetical pancake story.

More recipes and more random-ness later!

Heirloom Carrots

Most of us have heard of heirloom tomatoes, but in the winter, you can find heirloom carrots at the farmer's market. They come in orange, white and red.

Thanks to Mike for taking the picture on his camera phone at the Long Beach Farmer's Market today!

More on the carrots later...

Do you know what 'borborygmus' is?

No? Then click here. Sometimes you just have to hand it to Wikipedia for teaching you stuff you weren't even trying to learn.