Okay, I need some input please.
I do my cardio on an empty stomach, but the last 2 weeks I've started getting REALLY hypoglycemic while in the middle of my routine - had to hit quick stop this am. why would this start now?? I've been doing cardio like this for months now.
Have you been taking any different supplement? Or had a change in diet? I have experienced more pronounced blood sugar fluctuations when I am dieting for a show.
Taking a BCAA supplement beforehand helped me somewhat. But sometimes nothing would help and I’d feel like crap the rest of the morning.
With me it seems that it correlated with certain times in my monthly cycle when I got down into single digit body fat levels. I hypothosize it has something to do with the female body’s response to glucagons. And Leptin levels may even play a part in it as well. The reason for thinking this is glucagon is secreted by the pancreas in much the same way as insulin, except in the opposite direction. If blood glucose is high, then no glucagon is secreted. When blood glucose gets low, such as in the fasted state, more and more glucagon is secreted. The effect of glucagon is to make the liver release the glucose it has stored in its cells into the blood stream. Causing the breakdown of glycogen (glycogenolysis) and amino acids (gluconeogenesis), with the net effect of increasing blood glucose. Women have less of a response to the secretion of glucagons compared to men due to higher estrogen levels. So I wonder if when a woman’s estrogen levels are at their higher levels during her cycle it becomes even harder for her body to counter hypoglycemia than at other times. Here is a study I read on how estrogen blunts neuroendocrine and metabolic responses to hypoglycemia.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12829642&query_hl=4
Now I just do my cardio after lifting and don’t have that problem anymore. And it still seems effective for fat loss. Hope this helps.
