I see so many saying that stress can cause you glucose numbers to not go down, I feel like I’m stressing so much over this and that is sabotaging my numbers. I’ve cut carbs and sugars. I do 30 mins of cardio 5 days a week and I’m starting to do strength training as well but my numbers still seem to stay 101-104 fasting and 114-124 2 hours post meal. And I can’t lose any weight. What am I doing wrong? I’m so new to this but I’m going on 3 weeks and thought I would see some kind of improvement. Feeling overwhelmed.
First off, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re just having a hard time, and I’m sorry you’re going through that. Second is that 3 weeks is not that much time, it certainly wasn’t within a timeframe of weeks that the trouble you find yourself in came to be either. Patience is the way.
And then we need to talk about Wellness, which is really what all your Health goals boil down to (as shown in the picture on top of this blog). Wellness is…the intersection of multiple factors, and so are the individual components that comprise it. You’re on the right track with acknowledging your stress. Elevated blood glucose, whether it be spikes in response to certain food, or chronic elevation that doesn’t ever seem to move as you attempt to do all the right things– may seem like events that happen in isolation, but it’s not that simple. However, this doesn’t mean you’re stuck or that the problem is intractable.
The first purpose of the intersecting model shown above is to stimulate in you some relief via a deeper understanding. Relief from your feeling of overwhelm, because that feeling can be a *big* obstacle towards you making a change. Paralyzing in fact. As much as your blood sugar levels may feel like your sole responsibility, I want to emphasize that it’s not all on you. That’s the second thing the model highlights, if you’re open to seeing it. And, somewhat paradoxically, it will be in this shift into a more shared ownership of your apparent individual struggle that will come new opportunities for your own individual growth. It’s okay if this doesn’t happen too, especially not right away, but the path you take will be much easier if you can put down some of your sense of personal responsibility, and corresponding self-blame.
So what else can you do? An intersecting model can itself be overwhelming to tackle, because implicit in it is the idea that everything is happening all at once. Marvelous and confounding. We can see the big puzzle and still be effective by focusing our energy on a single puzzle piece. Anytime I hear a client list off multiple things they’re doing and still feeling frustrated, my first thought is that they’re trying to do too many things at once, so it’s time to re-focus on Fundamentals. One thing at a time, one month at a time. The big 5 are Sleep, Stress Management, Exercise, Nutrition, and Support. Yes, Support, or how much outside help (professional or friends/family) you’re getting related to your Wellness, is included too.
The goal for this planning exercise is to pick one to focus on for a month while only maintaining the others, track a metric at the start and end (e.g. fasted blood glucose measurement), then proceed to the next. If it’s helpful for you to make a decision on the first month, right them down in list form (i.e. rows) in your notes app or on paper, and give them two column rankings on a 1-5 scale (1=worst, 5 = best):
- The first rank is based on the quality of each you think you’re getting right now. If you’re sleeping on average 4 or fewer hours per night, that’s a 1. If you’re getting 8-9 hours per night and are feeling rested, that’s a 5. Spend no more than 1 minute thinking about this, go with your instinct.
- Then, on the same sheet, assign another ranking to each category based on how difficult you think it will be to make a change (1=easy, 5 = hard). At first we will want to give preference to “low-hanging fruit”: the thing that is easier for you to change right now.
Add up the 2 numbers for each of the 5 categories, the one with the lowest total is the first area of your Wellness to work on, and the most likely one to give you a win in the first month, building some important momentum.
Now that you’ve arrived at a basic ordering of your health priorities for the next ~5 months (remember, one at a time), it’s time to get to work on a simple action plan. How can you improve your quantity or quality sleep for example? Well, we’ve written extensively about each of these topics, so you can start by just searching our blog for the topic you’re focused on. For example, search for Sleep. Otherwise we recommend you follow our protocol for filtering other info and experts: look for systems and experts that are based in scientific principles, and display humility in their leadership style.
If you’re new to all of this, the great news is that modest behavior changes will likely improve your numbers in a matter of time. Once it starts working even a little bit, stay with it. On the other hand, if you’ve been at this a while as I had been in my Prediabetes Journey, Support may be the key piece you’ve been missing, in which case look more into behavior changes that rely less on you taking on more work, and instead focuses on making your health a team effort.
Coach Mauricio