After eating, I always seem to slip into what I call a food coma. How can I avoid this?

Some people get a little sleepy after meals; for others, staying conscious becomes a major feat. While the "food coma" phenomenon can be caused by a variety of problems, the No. 1 culprit is: SUGAR. Your body likes to gear down to digest food after a big meal (hmm, so maybe we shouldn't eat big meals), but it should not shut down altogether!

Remember the old Dr. Pepper ads that said "Drink Dr. Pepper at ten, two, and four"? For most people, ten o'clock is two hours after breakfast, two o'clock is two hours after lunch, and four is two hours before dinner -- the times when your blood sugar is lowest. Instead of becoming a sugar junkie who depends on the stuff just to keep awake, try these suggestions:

• Avoid sugar.
• Snack on high-protein foods. Fresh nuts, seeds, little strips of cheese (raw-milk cheese is best), a hard-boiled egg, etc., make wonderful appetite-suppressing snacks that don't cause big spikes in blood sugar (which cause an increase in insulin, which in turn ultimately LOWERS your blood sugar).
• Don't worry about fat content. In fact, most low-fat fad foods are LOADED with sugar. Check the labels...many candies now say 'low fat'!

Try these for those between-meal blahs, and see if it helps!

Good Health,
A.N. Spreen, M.D.