The Importance of Blood Sugar
Posted by Andrea Nakayama
Blood sugar imbalances are often thought of as being an issue for diabetics, or maybe those with non-diabetic hypoglycemia, but blood sugar is generally not highlighted as being a cornerstone of care for other health concerns.
As you know if you’ve been reading my articles lately (or if you’re a Full Body Systems student or grad!) I give blood sugar balance the attention it deserves.
Persistent and heightened blood sugar swings have several roots (the reasons that can cause them—from lifestyle factors like eating a SAD or being sedentary, to genetic factors or family ancestry), and can ultimately have many branches (the signs, symptoms and diagnosable conditions that stem from those roots.)
Ultimately, blood sugar imbalances are critically important to address in your practice, no matter what the complaint. That’s because they are one of the upstream factors that can contribute to the expression of chronic illnesses that impact every system of the body.
Download the Blood Sugar Matrix where I’ve mapped blood sugar imbalance on the Functional Nutrition Matrix
Functional Nutrition Matrix
One of the critical elements missing from most nutrition education (but not ours!) is taking nutrition out of the realm of theory and into practice.
We do this by ditching cookie-cutter solutions in favor of systems thinking. When we use systems and tools instead of formulas, we have everything we need to help us address even the toughest cases, with the diet and lifestyle recommendations that make the biggest difference.
The most important tool in Functional Nutrition is the Functional Nutrition Matrix. This is where we map client cases and develop our snapshot of the case at hand. Mapping in this way reveals the underlying interconnections between signs and symptoms, and is a key step in discovering the root causes of your clients’ issues.
A matrix, when used properly, helps you see the forest for the trees.
Mapping Blood Sugar
Sometimes, as I do in the 15-Minute Matrix podcast, I flip the use of the Functional Nutrition Matrix. In this way we can also map a nutrient or a condition or a metabolic function in order to discern the possible roots and branches which can help us determine our next steps. In this way we can also see the vast interconnections and impacts that any one thing has on the full body systems. Doing so quickly helps to get us out of the seductive X for Y thinking that rarely works.
Since we’re talking about the Non-Negotiable Trifecta, which includes blood sugar balance, I decided to step back and Map blood sugar.
Can you see how the many branches? What you think of as something that you need to address head-on, may actually have its roots in the blood sugar imbalances that everybody else is bypassing!
Download your copy and study it.
You’ll notice that every single section is filled out (and I’m sure there are components that I was not able to capture.) In the Skills section (on the right hand side of the Matrix) you can see some of the suggested diet and lifestyle modifications for blood sugar imbalances. These are the universal suggested changes, or what I like to call the Non-Negotiables for restoring blood sugar balance.
Is there more you can do to support these imbalances—testing, supplements, nutrients? You bet there is! I’ll aim to capture those for you in a separate post.
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