Sugar Handling and Keto
The best way to deal with hypoglycemia or stress eating is the Ultimate Exercise™ and addressing the unconscious or subconscious buried feelings. Breaking the cycle with blood sugar issues, using:
- Water Fasting
- Breathing techniques
- Exercise
- Journaling
Water-only fasting has profound and lasting effects on hypoglycemia with very little to no downside, if combined with the Ultimate Exercise. Breathing techniques, exercise, and journaling play a major role in stabilizing and improving glucose metabolism by reducing stress, improving insulin sensitivity, and supporting nervous system balance.
Breathing Techniques – Calms the Nervous System and Lowers Blood Sugar
Chronic stress raises cortisol, which raises blood sugar, even without food. When you’re in fight-or-flight, your body releases glucose for emergency energy. Breathwork helps by:
- Activating the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest)
- Reducing cortisol and adrenaline
- Improving insulin sensitivity
- Supporting liver and pancreatic function indirectly
Exercise – Moves Glucose Into Cells Without Insulin
Exercise is one of the most effective natural tools for blood sugar regulation, with many benefits:
- Muscles absorb glucose without insulin during movement
- Increases insulin sensitivity for hours after
- Helps burn excess glucose already in the bloodstream
- Reduces belly fat, which is linked to insulin resistance
Best types of exercise for blood sugar: post-meal walks (15–30 minutes after eating), resistance training (builds muscle, increases glucose storage capacity), and low-intensity steady-state cardio (e.g., cycling, swimming). Even just short movement breaks throughout the day can flatten glucose spikes.
Journaling – Reveal Emotional Triggers and Patterns
Emotions like shame, guilt, fear, and anxiety can drive stress eating, emotional cravings, or erratic blood sugar. The Ultimate Exercise takes it one more step. Journaling helps by:
- Bringing subconscious patterns to light
- Releasing suppressed emotional charge
- Creating a pause between the trigger and the reaction
- Identifying food-emotion connections and unhealthy habits
Journaling builds self-awareness, which leads to conscious regulation, not unconscious reaction. These practices don’t just support metabolic health, they awaken your body’s natural intelligence to regulate and heal itself.
Why Keto and Carnivore Often Backfire
Many people try and eat their way out of hypoglycemia with Keto diets. Keto and carnivore diets can be used to normalize blood sugar. However they often fail or backfire after 3 to 6 months. Initially most see success, followed by a plateau then crash.
At first, most people experience rapid weight loss, improved energy, and mental clarity, along with reduced inflammation. This is due to stabilized blood sugar, lower insulin and water weight, and elimination of processed foods and sugar. But after 3–6 months, many hit a wall because of metabolic adaptation and hormonal pushback. After a prolonged time on keto or carnivore:
- Thyroid hormones (T3) can drop, lowering metabolism
- Cortisol levels can rise due to constant gluconeogenesis (turning protein into glucose)
- Leptin and ghrelin (hunger/satiety hormones) can dysregulate
- Women may experience hormonal imbalances, loss of periods, or increased anxiety
This happens because the body wasn’t designed for long-term fuel deprivation, and it starts adapting defensively.
Other Negative Factors to Keto: Neurotransmitter Imbalances and Mood Shifts
Diets low in healthy carbs for too long can and often lower serotonin and dopamine (mood, motivation, pleasure) and reduce tryptophan availability (serotonin precursor). They may affect GABA levels (calm, sleep, emotional regulation). This may lead to:
- Anxiety or depression
- Brain fog or emotional flatness
- Loss of motivation
- Cravings or binge cycles
Restriction Fatigue and Psychological Rebound
Many people burn out on social limitations (eating out, family meals), constant food rules or fear of carbs, and feeling “deprived” even when physically full. Eventually, this often triggers cravings for carbs, fruit, or variety, rebound binge eating, and guilt, self-judgment, and yo-yo dieting cycles.
Gut Microbiome and Nutrient Deficiencies
Especially in long-term carnivore diets: lack of fiber can damage microbiome diversity, low polyphenols (from fruits and vegetables) reduce gut and brain protection, and possible deficiencies in magnesium, potassium, vitamin C, folate, and phytonutrients. Over time, this can lead to fatigue, poor digestion, inflammation, and immunity or skin issues.
Emotional or Spiritual Disconnect from the Body
Some people report that after 3–6 months, they feel emotionally dull or disconnected, rigid around food or self-worth tied to “perfect eating,” and spiritually numb or off-purpose. This isn’t about food alone — it’s about how restriction affects mind-body integration. When food becomes just fuel, emotional wisdom and pleasure can become suppressed. Considering that nature, God or the universe gives a wide variety of healthy and tasteful foods, restriction is depriving.
Diets always fail if the Emotion Link is not addressed.
When Keto Can Work
Not always. A small percentage of people thrive long-term when they cycle in carbs periodically (seasonal or targeted keto), listen to biofeedback not ideology, add diversity, minerals, organ meats, or strategic reintroduction of whole foods, and use the diet as a tool, not an identity. The key is metabolic flexibility, emotional attunement, and long-term sustainability.
Keto and carnivore diets often show great short-term results, but after 3–6 months, may trigger hormonal imbalances, neurochemical and emotional shifts, gut or nutrient issues, and restriction fatigue or binge cycles. The best diet is one that evolves with your healing, purpose, and the Ultimate Exercise.
How Buried Feelings Cause Physiological Issues
- Stress causes frequent blood sugar drops.
- Blood sugar crashes intensify anxiety, panic, or shame.
- The nervous system stays in a hyper-reactive loop.
- This can lead to emotional eating, addiction patterns, burnout, or health crashes.
In these cases, the nervous system, blood sugar, and emotional body are all entangled — and must be healed together. Breaking the cycle requires integration:
- 1. Stabilize blood sugar with consistent, balanced meals, water fasting, or short-term keto.
- 2. Regulate stress through breathwork, exercise, and journaling.
- 3. Listen to emotional cues — don’t ignore hunger, fatigue, feelings, or mood swings.
- 4. The Ultimate Exercise to clear subconscious stressors that keep your system in fight-or-flight.
Mark Colafranceschi, D.C. • Licensed Chiropractic Physician – Arizona License #009154 • Scottsdale, Arizona