Forgive me if I’m using inaccurate terms, but is it possible to have slow digestion but fast metabolism? I’m a middle aged guy, in relatively good shape. I run a bit, and do resistance training a few times a week. When I can’t run, I usually do some other form of cardio at the gym (elliptical, mainly). I’ve never been significantly overweight, and I don’t have diabetes. I am, however, fairly attuned to my bloodsugar level; I can identify when it’s tanking.
But he’s my trouble: There are frequently times when I feel full, but I can tell my BS level is getting low. So, say I eat lunch at 11:30, and I eat till I’m full. 15-30 minutes late, I’m still full, only now, I feel TOO full. A couple hours after that, I still am full feeling. But now, I can feel that slightly shaky, hard-to-concentrate feeling I start to get when my BS starts getting low.
So, is it possible that I still have plenty of food in my gut, but not enough of it is making it into my bloodstream for my metabolism?
I suspect (but can find study to document) that the rate of drop may be a contributing factor, even as the level stays within the normal range. If true then foods with low glycemic indices (sweet stuff) may trigger these episodes more often consequent to a rapid rise to the top of, and then drop to a lower portion of, the normal range.
To answer the question directly - it is very possible for an individual to have a very slow moving gut and to feel full for long after a meal, and for that food to take a while to get to where it gets absorbed. It is completely possible for exercise to cause both a reactive drop in blood sugar hours later while also triggering this slowing down of the gut. (Although more commonly the reduced gut blood flow from intense exercise triggers faster gut motility, even diarrhea.)
I have noticed that some foods make me visibly bloated, gassy, and give me an intense sensation of being ‘full’. It’s much worsened if I drink lots of liquid with meals. The physical senstation of fullness doesn’t always mean your stomach is full of food, or that it’s not digesting the food you’ve eaten in a normal time frame.
Do you drink a lot of water with your meals? Do you eat a lot of high-fiber foods?
Also what DSeid said. I have issues both with hypoglycemia (I assume… I do know that my blood sugar is always on the very low side of average, and any kind of fasting beyond skipping lunch is utter hell for me with many symptoms associated with low blood sugar, though I’ve never been hospitalized for a serious hypoglycemic episode) and I’ve been tentatively diagnosed by my GP with ‘reactive hypoglycemia’, which is a totally different thing with similar symptoms (sleepiness, light-headness/dizziness, headache, slurred speech, etc). I will get reactive hypoglycemic symptoms after excessive food intake, especially high carbohydrate intake.
I drink a lot of water during the day (and no soft drinks or caffeine), but oddly I don’t drink much while I’m actually eating.
Yesterday was a great example of what I mean: I had homemade soup and a green salad for lunch, and felt “full”. That was around noon. Then, around 2:30, I still felt full, but I started to get that feeling I associate with low BS. So, I ate about half a cup of cottage cheese and the feeling went away.
The only way to know for sure what your blood sugar is doing is to test it with an actual glucose monitoring strip. If you truly are experiencing low blood sugar while your stomach is still full, that would be a prediabetic or diabetic problem.
It’s easy to rule out, anyhow, and then you and your doctor can begin the process of figuring out what’s actually going in, because what you’re describing is technically possible, but highly unlikely without diabetes.
When were you last tested for diabetes with a fasting glucose test or A1C?
But it would also be unusual for your stomach to still contain soup and a green salad two and a half hours after eating it. Not impossible, but unusual. And if it’s a change from what’s normal for you, then your doctor should hear about it and decide what she wants to do to rule out tumors or strictures or some other issue with your GI system that may be slowing things down or contributing to the feeling of fullness you’re experiencing.