What To Eat On A Diet When Hypoglycemic

If your blood sugar is too low, you can consider yourself hypoglycemic. This condition needs to be treated promptly; if you take no action, you risk fainting or a coma. Certain foods can quickly bring your blood glucose up to a safe level without sacrificing many calories, if you are watching what you eat. The key to dieting and hypoglycemia, though, is prevention.

Symptoms

To know if you are hypoglycemic, you must first understand the signs and symptoms, because it is important to act quickly when they occur. Hypoglycemia is characterized by hunger; mood changes including nervousness, anxiety and confusion; fatigue; shakiness; trouble speaking; lightheadedness; and sweating. If you are diabetic, the best way to tell if you are hypoglycemic is by checking your blood glucose. If your glucose levels are below 70 mg/dL, then you are hypoglycemic.

Foods For Treatment

Some foods are useful in treating acute bouts of hypoglycemia. These include sugar, honey, juice, soda or milk. If you suspect you are hypoglycemic, test your blood glucose. If it is in the hypoglycemic range, take action by consuming 1 tbsp. of sugar or honey, 4 oz. of soda or juice or 8 oz. of milk. Wait 15 minutes, then re-test your glucose levels. If it is still not above the hypoglycemic level, have another carbohydrate snack and retest again in 15 minutes. Repeat this until your glucose returns to a safe level.

Meals

Include soluble fiber in each of your meals. Soluble fiber dissolves when it enters your body, turning into a jellylike substance. Once inside your digestive system, soluble fiber delays the digestion and absorption of your entire meal by slowing the rate of movement through the gastrointestinal tract. This leads to a prolonged excretion of glucose into the blood over a longer period of time, which is effective at preventing hypoglycemia. High soluble fiber foods include oats, legumes and whole fruit. For breakfast, try a bowl of oatmeal with berries on top and some orange juice. For lunch, eat a turkey burger on a whole-wheat bun, served with carrots, a tossed salad and a small piece of fruit. For dinner, eat some grilled chicken served with chickpeas and green beans. Finish up with a dessert of some fresh berries.

Snacks

Snacking is important because it increases the frequency of glucose into your bloodstream. Adding in a mid-morning snack and late afternoon snack can help prevent hypoglycemia between meals. The best snacks are not high in fat or sugar. Choose foods like a piece of fruit, dried fruit, graham crackers or peanut butter and crackers. These foods contain healthy carbohydrates, a small amount of fat, won't ruin your diet and are easy enough to carry around with you for snacking on the go.

Snack Bars

You can also eat snack bars to keep you from becoming hypoglycemic between meals or at night. According to a review published in "Clinical Diabetes" in January 2001, these snack bars are effective. This report explains the bars are formulated with uncooked cornstarch. Uncooked cornstarch is made up of linear-chain dextrose polymer amylose and branched-chain dextrose polymer amylopectin. During digestion, these carbohydrates result in a slow and sustained rise in blood glucose which can last for six to seven hours. Extend Bar, Nite Wise and Gluc-O-Bar, are three examples of diabetes snack bars proven to contain uncooked cornstarch, which is effective at preventing hypoglycemia.