Shaky, Dizzy & Hungry… But Your Blood Sugar Is Normal? Here’s Why
Why Do I Feel Shaky When My Blood Sugar Is Normal?
Why do you feel shaky after not eating for a while despite your blood sugar being totally normal when you check it?
You might think initially this is hypoglycemia because you have all the symptoms. You feel shaky, dizzy, lightheaded, moody, irritable, on the verge of passing out, or hangry.
And despite all these symptoms, your blood sugar looks normal. It might even be high when you check it. It might be in the hundreds, 110, or it might be in the 90s, 80s, and 70s, but it’s not below 60.
And you’re like: “Wow, I have all of these symptoms, but they don’t seem to be blood sugar-related, at least on the reading.”
We find this is one of the most common questions that we see across the board.
It’s frankly surprised me at how common it is because I started as a dietitian over a decade ago, and even from my training, we associate hypoglycemia with blood sugar less than 70.
It became really interesting as I got into this because I started seeing more and more commonalities where people were reporting:
“Hey, I have blood sugar symptoms, but when I use a CGM or when I use a glucometer, it doesn’t show up like that. Is this hypoglycemia?”
You’re Doing Everything “Right,” But You’re Still Having Symptoms
For many of these clients, they are very health-conscious.
They are eating frequently, typically every 2-3 hours, to avoid these symptoms from happening.
They have cut out certain types of carbs. Maybe it’s the grains. Maybe it’s the sugars. Maybe it’s even the healthy carbs, like oatmeal, rice, or potatoes.
But they’re still experiencing symptoms.
Maybe they’ve tried certain diets: keto, carnivore, maybe even pro-metabolic.
Maybe they’ve cut out exercise or walks because they’ve noticed whenever they tax their body or put more demands on their body, they’re more at risk for these blood sugar crashes.
Maybe they’ve dabbled in supplements, vitamins, and minerals. The magnesiums of the world, the blood sugar support supplements, the stress manager supplements.
Maybe some labs and testing around hormones, blood sugar, vitamins, and minerals.
And yet despite that, it still doesn’t seem to move the needle for them.
The Mental Exhaustion of Constantly Thinking About Food
This last piece I think is super underrated.
When this is more intense and you’re experiencing these symptoms every 2-3 hours, what goes into your mind is always planning, worrying, and thinking about food.
It’s always scanning your environment, scanning whatever meals you’re being presented, and asking yourself: “Hey, is this gonna crash me? If and when this leads to a crash, will I be okay?”
Before you know it, you start living this very limited life.
It shrinks.
For many people, that can feel really terrible because life is meant to be lived. It’s meant to have that freedom, that spontaneity.
When that is lost, especially when you can’t do certain things without negative consequences happening, you are significantly less present. You don’t enjoy your life as much as you could.
You’re restricting some of your favorite outlets and connecting with people because you’re so worried and concerned about these symptoms coming up.
Because of that, too, you’re mentally exhausted.
And when you pair that with the brain fog and physical exhaustion from these lows happening time and time and time again, it can become overwhelming to handle.
When These Symptoms Start Happening at Night
What we see often happening for some of these clients is they will wake up in the middle of the night and have some of these symptoms.
They might feel hungry during the middle of the night, shaky or dizzy, or have that racing heart in the middle of the night.
And it’s like: “Wow, I can’t even make it through the middle of the night without crashing.”
And when you can’t get the rest that you need to fully recover and feel energized again, it builds over the course of days, weeks, years, or even decades.
This creates a big strain on your quality of life, both in terms of having to manage this, but also what you have to do and what you have to get rid of in your life to make this a little bit easier.
So What Do We Do About This?
Most of the time what we’ll hear from our doctors is:
“Hey, have higher protein. Eat more fiber. Eat your protein and fiber before you have your carbs. Make sure you’re cutting out grains. Make sure you’re cutting out simple carbohydrates and sugar. Make sure you’re staying active.”
And yet still, all these things are not moving the needle.
So what is causing this?
Because you feel like you’re eating healthy, living healthy, and doing all the right things.
But it’s not leading to that stable blood sugar and energy throughout the day where you don’t have to worry about eating every 2-3 hours.
Where you can go 4, 5, 6 hours, and still feel great.
Where you can exercise without triggering symptoms.
Where you can socialize, eat out, and eat the oats, the rice, the sugar, the desserts, the pizza without paying for it.
Your Blood Sugar May Not Be Low, But Your Cells Are Running Out of Energy
If you are somebody who is dealing with these hypoglycemic symptoms, yet have no ability to confirm it from a blood sugar perspective, the reason why this is happening is because the low blood sugar is not happening at the blood level.
When you check your CGM or when you check your glucometer, it appears normal or high. Where this is happening is at the cellular level.
When we don’t have enough energy at the cellular level, it becomes an energy crisis. And what is really hypoglycemia? It’s really an energy crisis because things stop working as well.
We get the dizziness, the lightheadedness, the shakiness. We get all these symptoms when our body is really just running out of energy.
So how do we get and maintain that energy level so we’re not getting these symptoms?
The thing that we’re missing is called metabolic flexibility.
If you would like to learn about metabolic flexibility and how to get rid of these symptoms for good, you can download our 3 step guide below (no email required)!
What Is Metabolic Flexibility?
Metabolic flexibility helps us process carbs more effectively, so we’re not getting that big energy crash where we’re feeling dizzy, lightheaded, anxious, irritable, or moody.
We’re not getting that because our body does a better job at processing it and using it for energy versus running out of energy like we do when we have these hypoglycemic symptoms.
When we’re able to process this food better and have that metabolic flexibility, we also have the ability for these meals to last longer than 2-3 hours.
That’s because our body has the ability to kick in more energy when the meal is no longer present.
We eat the meal, digest the meal, and absorb the meal, but what happens in between for normal individuals who do not have blood sugar challenges? Our body starts to release energy from our liver and from our fat stores if it’s been a little bit longer.
We have a back up system that kicks in to slowly drip of energy to us so we’re not running out of “gas” and therefore don’t get hypoglycemia symptoms.
What Happens When Your “Backup System” Isn’t Working
If you do not have metabolic flexibility to be able to get that backup system going again and start releasing energy in between meals where we’re not eating, then we’re going to end up with energy-deficient symptoms (shakiness, the dizziness, the lightheadedness, the feeling like you’re going to pass out).
You don’t feel like you have trust in your body to say: “Hey, I’m gonna stay stable.”
And it’s not because of your nutrition. It’s because you do not have metabolic flexibility to, one, process those carbs and, two, generate energy in between.
What Changes When You Improve Metabolic Flexibility?
When you have metabolic flexibility, you’ll have stable blood sugar and energy all across the day, no matter what you’re eating, what you’re doing or exercising, or what kind of stressful day you’ve had.
You’ll have stability.
And that’s what all of us want because that allows us to build that trust in our body that says:
“Even if I eat this potentially triggering carb, I trust my body to handle that without experiencing symptoms.”
When we can do that,
We’ll have better energy and feel more full and satisfied for a longer period of time.
We’re not waking up in the middle of the night with that racing heart, feeling sweaty and lightheaded.
We’re not waking up having to pee.
We’re not waking up needing to snack because we’re so ravenously hungry.
We’re less mentally stressed because we’re not trying to micromanage a condition that we really don’t know why it’s happening.
You Don’t Have to Micromanage Your Blood Sugar Forever
If you think about that micromanagement, it is a very stressful approach. Yet it’s the only one that we know that has at least temporarily worked to help create stability. That’s eating every couple hours. That’s constantly thinking and preparing and grabbing food to take with us to make sure that we stay stable.
When we don’t have to do that and we’re not waking up in the middle of the night, we get better rest. We feel better in the morning. And that in itself creates more metabolic flexibility. We’re processing our meals better, and those meals last longer.
Metabolic Flexibility Can Make Weight Loss Easier, Too
Lastly, many of our clients who have these symptoms are also wanting to lose weight.
If we’re not having to snack so frequently, if we’re not having to eat every two to three hours and can really rely on meals to create that stability, less calories are coming in, which creates more of a calorie deficit.
But if you also think about it, when we have metabolic flexibility, we’re able to tap into some of our fat stores and use them for energy instead of going to outside food, snacks, and meals to create that stability.
This makes it easier to lose weight, especially if you resonate with not being able to lose weight no matter what you’ve tried.
We think symptoms are totally disconnected, but in fact, many of them are very much connected. When you improve one area, it makes the other area significantly easier to get to where we want to go.
How to Start Getting Your Metabolic Flexibility Back
If you would like to learn how to get your metabolic flexibility back so that you no longer have to deal with these symptoms, can do it while eating carbs, and get back to enjoying your life instead of worrying about your blood sugar, I have a three-step guide that will help you!
This guide allows you to first understand what is contributing to this metabolic inflexibility and how you can gain metabolic flexibility to get rid of these symptoms once and for all! You can download it for free below (no email required)!
