MS fatigue feels like a dark cloud that is forever following us around. It's like no matter how much sleep we get, we're constantly running on low battery. So of course, we're always on the hunt for anything that will help to reduce the fatigue. What supplement can we take? Food can we eat? Exercise should we do or not do? What will take away this fatigue?

Today, I'm breaking down one of the most overlooked strategies to boost energy so that you can feel more productive throughout your day and still have some energy to enjoy life. There are 1 million people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the US. So that makes you one in a million. And you have a special purpose in this world that no diagnosis can take away from you.

Hi, my friends. How are you feeling today? Are you in a season of dealing with a lot of fatigue? Do you feel like your life is a never-ending season of fatigue? I've definitely felt that way at times. And I don't know about you, but it can be emotionally triggering for me. I mean, look, I can deal with pain. I can deal with the frequent trips to the bathroom, whatever, but take away my energy and strength and I get mad. I like to get things done.

When I realized that my energy just didn't bounce back anymore. And the other part of it is that like fatigue would just come in from out of the blue. I would be burned out without having the satisfaction of having gotten a lot of things done. So I couldn't even like rest admiring all of the things that I had accomplished. I was just tired without anything accomplished. And the fatigue of multiple sclerosis, as we know, can be very unpredictable, which makes it really hard to plan your day, your week, your life. It felt so far out of my control. So my plans, any plans I had, always had a big TBD on them. Here's my master plan, provided that MS fatigue doesn't roll in. And if you know me.

You know, I loved having a sense of control. I don't love using the term control freak, but I'm sure that's just another form of control. I like to be in control of things, especially my health. So this concept of not being in control of fatigue or the level of energy that I had in a day didn't sit well. If I have stuff that I want to get done, I want to get it done now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not ambiguous later. I want to get it done now. I want to cross it off the list and be done with it. Like, can you relate?

So there are two things that I have learned from this experience that I want to share with you today. The first I'm just going to touch on, the second one we're going to dive much deeper into. So first, the lifestyle that I had prior to my diagnosis, I had to recognize that pushing myself to a point of burnout wasn't sustainable MS or not. I kind of was wearing as a badge of honor of look at me, look at how far I can push

a much bigger topic for another episode. Actually, if that is something that you want me to do an episode about, send me an email or a DM over on Instagram. So many of the topics that we do here are listener requested. And that's what I want to do. I want to make sure that these topics are always relevant and valuable to you. So if there's a specific topic that you want to hear about, send me a message. I will add it to the list. And the ones that are most requested are the ones that get highest on that list recorded.

But they're constantly tired and they can't figure out like, what are they doing wrong? Or actually more often than that, they start to think like, maybe this diet doesn't work for me. Like maybe I'm the exception. Maybe this isn't gonna work for me. It's a whole lot of work and I'm not getting the benefit. But the missing link isn't what they're eating, it's how they're eating. And I'm not talking about mindful eating, that's beneficial 100%, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about eating in a way that helps you to stabilize blood sugar levels. So I wanna take a minute to explain what that means to help you see if this is something that may be holding you back from getting the results that you want.

Basically, I wanna help you have more energy so that you can be productive and have energy left over to enjoy life. What a concept, right? So let's start with a little refresher on what blood sugar levels are. I'm talking about like stabilizing blood sugar levels, but what are they? And to share this with you, I have to reflect back when I was in college studying nutrition more than 20 years ago. That's humbling. But we were learning about blood sugar levels and I immediately put this information into a box that was only relevant for people with diabetes. And I didn't see that as a population that I was going to focus on.

It much afterwards. Then I got diagnosed with MS in 2016 and I became laser focused on learning how to reduce inflammation and alleviate this MS fatigue that felt all consuming. And guess what popped up again? Blood sugar levels. I looked at it and I was like, whoa, wait a minute. I have MS, not diabetes. What if blood sugar levels have anything to do with me or multiple sclerosis? It turns out it has a lot to do with me and MS. So here's what I've learned over the years in my own personal experience, as well as a nutrition coach specializing in multiple sclerosis and autoimmune disease. And of course, I have to say, please keep in mind that this is general information. Everyone has unique needs, so this will not apply to every single person in the world. But I think it's really relevant and important for us to understand. So again, what am I referring to when I'm talking about blood sugar levels? Blood sugar levels, you may also have heard them referred to as glucose levels, is basically the amount of sugar that is in your bloodstream at any given time.

Pure sugar. But hold up. I know it's tempting to hear this and think like, oh, excellent. A line is telling me to eat a high sugar diet to have more energy. This is fabulous. I knew I tuned into this podcast for a good reason. Sorry, my friends, that is not where I'm going with this. Here's where I can run into problems with high carbs and high sugar foods. When we eat too much of them, our body goes into overdrive trying to manage that glucose.

That's when it's referred to as like high blood sugar levels, when there's too much sugar in your blood, mainly because your body can't keep up with getting it into the cells. It's either not efficient enough with getting it into the cells or it's overloaded. It's on like overdrive because there's so much sugar in your body from either just sugary foods or high carb foods. Now let's bring this back to MS. What do high blood sugar levels have anything to do with MS, inflammation, and fatigue? Again, as I said before, a lot. But here's the bottom line. When our blood sugar levels spike, it can fuel inflammation in the body. It can create inflammation in the body when there's too much sugar in your blood, which is like throwing gasoline on the fire of MS symptoms. I mean, inflammation is the very thing that we are trying to control as we are living with a chronic inflammatory disease. We are trying to reduce inflammation in the body. So the last thing we want to do is create more inflammation in our body. So that's the first thing. I mean, we definitely want to pay attention to these.

That crash can make you feel tired and cranky and even hungrier than before, which just starts the whole cycle over again. So you're tempted to eat more sweets to get another sugar boost, but again, they just keep going in this cycle of a burst and then a crash, a burst and then a crash. So keeping your blood sugar levels steady is key to keeping inflammation and fatigue in check. So then our next question,

it's important to create more balanced meals and snacks. And this means adding healthy fats and protein to each meal and snack. So fat and protein can help to slow down the spike of blood sugar levels. Fat and protein take longer for your body to digest compared to carbohydrates, which means that they can help keep those blood sugar levels more stable.

and flour butter have both healthy fats and protein. So they can help to slow down that blood sugar spike that you might have from eating something like a banana alone, or same would apply with an apple. It's fruit. It's great. It's healthy, but it's high in sugar. But if you put a little almond butter or some type of nut or seed butter on it, it's going to help stabilize the blood sugar level. So you can still eat it without having the quote unquote like negative effects. Or if you're eating like a bowl of fruit,

that was gritty and gross. Gluten-free pasta, I like just as well as regular pasta, and I feel a heck of a lot better after eating it. So that's just an easy swap. But the bottom line is it's still a bowl of carbs, so it can spike blood sugar levels. But if you pair it with something like a meat sauce, which adds protein and likely some fat, that can help to reduce that blood sugar spike. Or adding some avocado onto gluten-free toast is another

option. This will actually help to keep you feeling satiated longer. Because again, if you're just focusing on vegetables, you're going to burn them off pretty quickly and feel hungry like an hour later or so. And that's not fun constantly being hungry, especially when you're trying to follow a specific protocol, because then it feels like you're constantly in that position of like, what can I eat? What should I eat? What should I not eat? That's stressful.

Smoothies are another area where people get this all wrong. If you're making a smoothie and within like an hour and feeling tired, hungry or bloated, that's a good sign that you don't have the right combination in that blender. So if you're just using like water, a banana, mango, like a lot of those high sugar fruits, you may even be adding in some spinach in there, which is great,

dot com backslash smoothies. It's a five-day challenge. There's five smoothie videos and demos and recipes, a shopping list. There's so much packed in there. So that can really give you some good ideas about how you create more balanced smoothies. So, check that out at Alenebrennan. com/smoothies. But is all of this starting to make sense? Basically, if you're dealing with a lot of fatigue and inflammation in the body,

life focusing on like every detail of health, I want to pay attention to like how I feel. So maybe a good benchmark for you is noticing if you have any like classic symptoms of imbalanced blood sugar levels. And they can include anything from like energy fluctuations, again, where we talked about like you have this burst of energy and then a crash, or maybe you deal with a lot of cravings for sweets and carbs. Many people just label it as like a sweet tooth.

Even just moody for no reason. Another one, how about feeling hangry? Anyone experienced that beautiful combination of hunger and anger? That's a fun one. I used to experience that a lot. And it's not as intense anymore. I can't say that I never experienced that. But just like the sugar cravings, it's definitely not as frequent or as prominent or as intense. And I'm aware of what's triggering it now. So I'm like, oh, I had too much carbs recently,

That can definitely throw your blood sugar levels for a loop. Another classic sign are headaches or difficulty concentrating. Like, hello, there's another symptom that is so closely connected with MS of brain fog. And it's so easy to just think of it as like, this is just MS and it's something out of your control. But that's not necessarily true.

And I see it in my practice all the time, especially when it's relatively easy to correct, like just add some more healthy fats and protein into your meals and snacks. You're likely going to stay full longer. You're going to have more stable, stable energy throughout your day and experience better concentration and maybe even a better mood. I don’t know about you, but I’m like, yes, yes, and yes to all of them. Now I’m curious, what do you think of this idea? Is this resonating with you? Is this something that you’re going to try out? Send me an email or a DM on Instagram. I love hearing your takeaways. And of course, let me know if you have any questions in getting started. But my invitation to you here is really just to consider this. Is this something that you’re already doing? And if not, how could you improve it? It doesn’t need to be complicated.

So can you put some nut butter on there? If you can’t do nuts, can you put some seed butter on there like the sunflower butter? Or, you know, next time you're making your smoothie, think about if you're having those different components in there. They can be really helpful. And again, don't forget about that smoothie challenge. Alenebrennan. com/ backslash smoothies. Well, my friend, we've reached the end of this episode. Pick one lesson from today's discussion and put it into action now. It's time to reclaim your body, mind, and life from multiple sclerosis. And for more resources, events, and programs, head over to Alenebrennan. com. See you on the next episode of my MS podcast.