Our chronic sleepiness can be blamed partly to poor sleeping habits. Many Americans do not get the amount of quality sleep that they need. There are other factors at work that make us feel tired as well. One factor that can drain our energy levels so completely: malnutrition.
Could it be Malnutrition Making You Feel Tired and Fat?
We need the energy that food provides us with to function well. Picture for a moment, what a malnourished person looks like to you. Odds are you were thinking about a very thin person with a starving appearance. However, in the United States, many foods that will leave you malnourished will also make you fat.
According to Dr. Marinos Elia, professor of clinical nutrition and metabolism at Southhampton University, "You can't always tell with your eyes if a person is malnourished. Many people may be eating too much food, and they may not be eating enough vegetables and fruits."
Many American's diets consist of heavily processed foods and refined foods such as: candy, fast food meals, cookies, frozen dinners, white bread, frozen pizzas and microwave meals. This can lead to a situation where ones body is starving for nutrients, yet one is becoming more and more overweight. Increasingly, even schools and hospitals now serve only these types of heavily processed foods. Often even the meat is mixed with fillers and additives.
What's the Problem with Highly Refined Foods?
For one, a person's body processes refined foods quite differently than it would process whole foods. Imagine if you held a handful of whole grains in one hand and a handful of white flour in the other. Now, let the grains and flour pass through your fingers. You would notice that the grains shifted gently through your fingers at a gentle pace where as the flour ran quickly from your hand. This is a great analogy for what happens inside your body when it is digesting these foods.
Whole foods, such as an apple, contain nutrients, fiber, and other beneficial substances that take time to digest. Refined foods, such as a glass of apple juice, contain only carbs and sugars that get metabolized quickly.
But quickly metabolizing food is a good thing right? Wrong! Every time you eat, your blood sugar rises slightly. This signals your body's pancreas to release insulin which prevents your blood sugar levels from becoming too high. This is a good thing. However, if your blood sugar levels remain high for an extended period of time due to a steady diet of refined and processed foods, it can lead to diabetes, obesity, kidney damage, eye damage, nerve damage and blood vessel damage.
Imagine trying to fuel a fire with dried leaves. Your body (the fire) quickly consumes the processed food (the dried leaves) but does not have enough fuel to remain burning for very long. After a brief burst of energy from highly refined and processed foods, your body (much like the fire) crashes leaving you feeling worn out and tired. This diet full of refined foods leaves you feeling hungry so you consume more unhealthy foods causing you to remain undernourished yet gained unhealthy weight.
As a chiropractor in St. Louis, who specializes in nutrition and natural diabetes treatment in St. Louis Dr. Sean Branham is happy to discuss how diet can help prevent and fight diabetes. Feel free to take advantage of a free diabetes consultation. Contact us today!