Nutrition · 4 min read ·
The 2pm slump usually comes from your blood sugar curve, more than from a 'heavy' lunch. You smooth it with the order you eat in, what you pair with what, and a ten-minute walk.
If you have 30 seconds
- 1Sleepy after lunch, hungry too soon and craving something sweet: often the drop that follows a blood sugar spike.
- 2Vegetables and protein first, carbs last and always in company, and your blood sugar rises more slowly.
- 3Walk for ten to fifteen minutes straight after eating and your muscles take up the sugar.
It's 2pm, second meeting, and your eyelids are heavy. It's often a blood sugar spike on its way down. Ninety minutes ago you had a sandwich and crisps at your desk, your blood sugar shot up and now it's falling.
By four you're hungry, and the vending machine is calling. I see it often in the people I work with, and they put it down to age. Some rise after eating is normal. Here's how to spot the one that costs you the afternoon and soften it, bread included.
Blood sugar spike symptoms you can feel
- Sleepy after lunch. Heavy eyelids and a foggy head an hour to ninety minutes after a meal of bread, pasta or rice.
- Hunger that's back too soon. You ate enough, yet within two hours you're looking for something again.
- Wanting sugar and coffee, and a shorter fuse. Your brain tends to want something quick to climb back up.
Why do I feel sleepy after lunch?
Often because of the drop that follows the spike. Your blood sugar rises fast, insulin brings it down, and that's when sleepiness and hunger arrive.
The bucket and the dropper. Bread, pasta and sweet things eaten on their own reach your blood all at once, like a bucket tipped over. Your body answers with a lot of insulin, which stays around a little longer than needed, so your blood sugar can keep falling, sometimes below where it started.
The curve changes with age. Your pancreas tends to respond later and your cells respond less well to insulin, so the same bowl of pasta can send it higher, for longer.
Short nights and tense days push it up. After a five-hour night your body handles carbs less well. And the stress hormone can raise your blood sugar.
The same plate, eaten in a different order, gives you a different afternoon.
How to flatten a blood sugar spike, at the table and after
Vegetables, then protein, carbs last. The fibre gets there first and slows whatever follows. Protein and good fats make your stomach empty more slowly. The sugar then arrives drop by drop.
Dress your carbs. Bread with eggs, fruit with a few almonds, porridge with Greek yoghurt. The mistake I see nearly every time is the 'healthy' snack of fruit alone. Keep the fruit, in company. Portion matters too: even wholemeal pasta, piled high, brings a lot of sugar.
Walk for ten to fifteen minutes as soon as you leave the table. Muscle is the tissue that clears the most sugar from your blood after a meal. If it's working at that moment, it takes it straight away. Over time, two strength sessions a week help, because a trained muscle absorbs more.
A savoury breakfast. Eggs, Greek yoghurt, nuts. On an empty stomach, sugar and flour tend to reach your blood quickly, and a high spike at breakfast can raise the ones at lunch and dinner too. Sugar in your coffee and fruit juice are liquid sugar, the fastest kind.
Try this
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Test yourself
Lunch at your desk: a bowl of tomato pasta arrives. How do you soften it?
Start with tomorrow's lunch. People respond differently to the same food, so at 3pm check how you feel.
