What you call “The swamp” is one half well known to me
I cannot attest to any weight gain, as it’s near impossible for me to “just gain weight”.
The key I believe is that a definite craving for high-fat high-sugar food appears when the blood sugars are high, in quite a paradoxical fashion.
If I eat too much carbs and forget to take enough insulin for it, my BG can go from by preferred 4-5 to around 10 or above. High blood sugars cause tiredness , confusion and exhaustion, clogged sinuses, dehydration, lack of joy, plus junk food cravings. Having “sweet piss” levels of blood glucose (>10 mmol) is comparable to a heavy food coma to me. I can also compare it to being stoned from marijuana, minus all the good parts. Tired, lazy, confused, sleepy, frustrated, craving sweets. >15 sucks as much as having a cold. The evil thing is, people get acclimated to it (I did once too) and without experiencing it, the healthy reference loses it’s importance.
I only know the layman explanation, but it’s like any extra sugar “chokes” the metabolism, tissues are drowning in fuel while also starve, as insufficient nutrients reach them which leads to the cravings.
I feel this explanation is wrong, as I get mostly the same cravings regardless of insulin present in the blood.
I must stress the importance of those cravings, as it really is a bizarre upside-down reaction. It can make me stuff myself literally sick, “I must not move around one bit or it’ll leak out” retarded full, waiting for a little more. I never been anywhere close near obese my entire life, but I completely get the struggles of those people who must live like that, always tired and always hungry with no tool to solve it. It’s really not just lazyness, it’s one devious fucking trap.
Another interesting tidbit is that I also require -much- less sleep (5-6h total) with borderline low blood sugars (3.5-4 mmol). Messing up dinner and having >10 sugars for the whole night makes me wake up as tired as I went to bed, even after 10 hours.
But the difference between all night 7 or 4 is enormous.
Also composing this reply fell apart a bit because I got distracted into it and forgot my dinner insulin, lol.
I must stress the importance of those cravings, as it really is a bizarre upside-down reaction. It can make me stuff myself literally sick, “I must not move around one bit or it’ll leak out” retarded full, waiting for a little more.
. . . Huh.
I’m not a diabetic [ that I know of ], but I have this too. [ And I’ve never actually read anyone else describe something similar. ] It happens under conditions of prolonged mental stress. [ Usually but not always ] first my circadian rhythm goes, and get some amount of insomnia; at worst I stop being able to sleep more than 3-4 hours at a time. Then I start eating ridiculous amounts of calories, like 3,500/day when my RMR is 2,000 [ I end up having to or my brain basically won’t let me sleep or move around and do stuff ]. During these periods, I experience some of the same mental effects you’re describing, but as far as I know it’s not directly blood sugar. I’d been hypothesizing it was something to do with the orexinergic system, since that has to do with both feeding and wakefulness, but I don’t know.
Also, it’s not exactly the same as yours, since at healthy baseline when I’m able to sleep more [ and thus my body is less “screaming for sleep” ], I also am less hungry. And when the sleepiness/insomnia/ridiculous-hunger-level thing is happening, I do gain weight.
I feel this explanation is wrong, as I get mostly the same cravings regardless of insulin present in the blood.
I’m a bit confused. You only get the bad cravings when your blood sugar should be spiking, right?
T1 diabetic here
What you call “The swamp” is one half well known to me
I cannot attest to any weight gain, as it’s near impossible for me to “just gain weight”.
The key I believe is that a definite craving for high-fat high-sugar food appears when the blood sugars are high, in quite a paradoxical fashion.
If I eat too much carbs and forget to take enough insulin for it, my BG can go from by preferred 4-5 to around 10 or above.
High blood sugars cause tiredness , confusion and exhaustion, clogged sinuses, dehydration, lack of joy, plus junk food cravings. Having “sweet piss” levels of blood glucose (>10 mmol) is comparable to a heavy food coma to me.
I can also compare it to being stoned from marijuana, minus all the good parts. Tired, lazy, confused, sleepy, frustrated, craving sweets.
>15 sucks as much as having a cold.
The evil thing is, people get acclimated to it (I did once too) and without experiencing it, the healthy reference loses it’s importance.
I only know the layman explanation, but it’s like any extra sugar “chokes” the metabolism, tissues are drowning in fuel while also starve, as insufficient nutrients reach them which leads to the cravings.
I feel this explanation is wrong, as I get mostly the same cravings regardless of insulin present in the blood.
I must stress the importance of those cravings, as it really is a bizarre upside-down reaction. It can make me stuff myself literally sick, “I must not move around one bit or it’ll leak out” retarded full, waiting for a little more.
I never been anywhere close near obese my entire life, but I completely get the struggles of those people who must live like that, always tired and always hungry with no tool to solve it.
It’s really not just lazyness, it’s one devious fucking trap.
Another interesting tidbit is that I also require -much- less sleep (5-6h total) with borderline low blood sugars (3.5-4 mmol). Messing up dinner and having >10 sugars for the whole night makes me wake up as tired as I went to bed, even after 10 hours.
But the difference between all night 7 or 4 is enormous.
Also composing this reply fell apart a bit because I got distracted into it and forgot my dinner insulin, lol.
. . . Huh.
I’m not a diabetic [ that I know of ], but I have this too. [ And I’ve never actually read anyone else describe something similar. ] It happens under conditions of prolonged mental stress. [ Usually but not always ] first my circadian rhythm goes, and get some amount of insomnia; at worst I stop being able to sleep more than 3-4 hours at a time. Then I start eating ridiculous amounts of calories, like 3,500/day when my RMR is 2,000 [ I end up having to or my brain basically won’t let me sleep or move around and do stuff ]. During these periods, I experience some of the same mental effects you’re describing, but as far as I know it’s not directly blood sugar. I’d been hypothesizing it was something to do with the orexinergic system, since that has to do with both feeding and wakefulness, but I don’t know.
Also, it’s not exactly the same as yours, since at healthy baseline when I’m able to sleep more [ and thus my body is less “screaming for sleep” ], I also am less hungry. And when the sleepiness/insomnia/ridiculous-hunger-level thing is happening, I do gain weight.
I’m a bit confused. You only get the bad cravings when your blood sugar should be spiking, right?