Sugar crash is a good sign. If you stop constantly pumping sugar into your body, your body will eventually starting maintaining your blood sugar on its own -- which is how it's supposed to work.
Starving writers have been known to buy horse meat at pet stores. I wonder if that's still legal? Also, I wonder if organ meats are cheap, since they're so unpopular in the U.S.? They can be very nutrient-rich.
Lentils and rice are incredibly cheap when bought in quantity. Asian grocery stores have great deals, though you might have to look a little harder there to find brown rice. I've heard textured vegetable protein can be a cheap protein source if you can overlook its aesthetic shortcomings (honestly, vegetarianism or extreme frugality are the only reasons to eat it) but the only way I've seen it sold is in a little bag at Whole Foods, which probably isn't that cheap.
Secreting insulin is the mechanism that keeps blood sugar down, which is only half the job of homeostasis. The other half is keeping blood sugar up when you haven't eaten a bunch of carbs recently, and it seems (anecdotally) that if people don't exercise that second half -- i.e., if they keep their blood sugar up by eating constantly -- that their body's ability to keep blood sugar up on its own atrophies.
When your body's blood sugar regulation is working properly, you can skip one or two meals without any dire consequences(+). You have a bunch of glycogen in your muscles and liver, for one thing, and your body just has to release that energy into your bloodstream as glucose. It's really that simple, but the impression I get from a lot of people is that their blood sugar regulation is only half-working. They take it for granted that if they miss lunch, they're going to be a wreck in the afternoon. They become tired and irritable, and they may even have headaches. That shouldn't be considered normal. A sugar crash isn't a normal reaction to a brief interruption of a healthy diet; it's a warning sign that your diet before the crash was not healthy.
(+) I won't swear this holds true if you exercise intensely, since I haven't tried it, but the paleo lifestyle guys say they have no problem exercising on their "lean" days.
I won't swear this holds true if you exercise intensely, since I haven't tried it, but the paleo lifestyle guys say they have no problem exercising on their "lean" days.
I don't have any problems having a rather intensive strenght training session after about 16 hours without food, and my performance does not seem to suffer. I didn't try anything more extreme than that (yet).
Starving writers have been known to buy horse meat at pet stores. I wonder if that's still legal? Also, I wonder if organ meats are cheap, since they're so unpopular in the U.S.? They can be very nutrient-rich.
Lentils and rice are incredibly cheap when bought in quantity. Asian grocery stores have great deals, though you might have to look a little harder there to find brown rice. I've heard textured vegetable protein can be a cheap protein source if you can overlook its aesthetic shortcomings (honestly, vegetarianism or extreme frugality are the only reasons to eat it) but the only way I've seen it sold is in a little bag at Whole Foods, which probably isn't that cheap.