Your Worst Email of the Day Was Written on an Empty Stomach.

It’s 2:40pm. You have not eaten since a coffee and half a granola bar. A buyer’s agent sends a counter that is, frankly, a little rude, and you fire back a reply with the warmth of a parking ticket.

You hit send. You feel righteous for about ninety seconds. Then the deal gets weird, and you spend the next two days doing repair work on something that never needed repairing.

Come sit down. I need to tell you what I wish someone had told me years ago.

That wasn’t your personality. That was your blood sugar, wearing your name tag.

I ran my business for a long time on adrenaline and whatever I could eat in the car, and I called it hustle. I’d show up to a 4pm listing appointment shaky, snippy, and sure the seller was being difficult. (The seller was fine. I was a hangry raccoon in a blazer.) Once I started treating my glucose like part of the operating system, the conversations got easier. Same skills, same market, different driver.

Here’s what’s happening in there. When your blood sugar spikes and then crashes, your body reads the crash as a threat. Stress hormones show up to rescue you, and they bring the full package: a tight chest, a short fuse, a sudden need to win an argument with a stranger on the internet. Your nervous system can’t tell the difference between “I skipped lunch” and “something is chasing me.” It reacts. And a reacting brain is a terrible negotiator.

So here’s what I’d have you do, the same thing I’d tell you across the table.

First, stop eating a naked carb. The coffee-and-bagel breakfast, the granola bar in the car. Carbs alone hit fast and drop hard. Put protein, fat, or fiber next to them and the whole curve flattens.

Second, change the order. Veggies and protein first, the bread and rice last. Same meal, same calories, and there’s research behind it (see the Toolkit below). It costs you nothing and takes a fork.

Third, protect the 11am to 2pm window like it’s a closing. This is where most of us get sloppy. A real lunch that is not eaten over a steering wheel is a business decision. You’d never schedule a closing in the middle of a stress crash. Why would you schedule a hard conversation there?

And since I know you: no, you don’t have to become a person who counts things. You’re not building a diet. You’re lowering the odds that a granola bar writes your next email.

One thing to try this week: tomorrow, eat your protein or vegetables first at lunch and carbs last. Then notice what your 3pm feels like. Is it different? Write down one sentence about it. If you want to get nerdy, a little fingertip meter or a continuous glucose monitor will show you your own curve, but your mood and your patience are already a decent readout.

THE UNCOMMON TOOLKIT

A small 2015 study in Diabetes Care had 11 adults with type 2 diabetes eat the exact same meal twice, one week apart: carbs first once, protein and vegetables first once. With carbs last, blood sugar was 28.6% lower at 30 minutes, 36.7% lower at 60 minutes, and 16.8% lower at two hours, and insulin was lower too. It was a small study in people with diabetes, so treat it as a smart experiment to run on yourself, not a promise. (Source: Shukla et al., Diabetes Care 2015;38(7):e98-e99)

QUICK QUESTIONS

Can low blood sugar make you irritable?

It can. When blood sugar drops, your body releases stress hormones to bring it back up, and that can show up as a short fuse and poor focus.

Does the order you eat food in matter?

Early research says it can. A small 2015 Diabetes Care study found that eating vegetables and protein before carbs lowered post-meal blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. Treat it as an experiment on yourself.

Go forth and do good things!

Kristin, The Uncommon Alchemist