Thank God for Hypoglycemia!?

Hi All! :)
I'm starting this blog because it really helps me to write out my feelings and my daily struggles with dieting. Plus, I think i'm talking my boyfriend's ear off too much about it. I think it's therapeutic to talk about things you struggle with, plus I feel like someone's holding me responsible for sticking to a healthy lifestyle if I'm making my goal public. I'm a 27 year old woman (still find it hard to call myself a woman!) and I work part time and go to school full time for holistic medicine. While sitting in my nutrition class last semester, my professor passed out an "Are you Hypoglycemic?" questionnaire. As I started slowly checking off each question, and seemed to be checking "yes" to almost all of them, I started getting more and more amazed/shocked/excited/relieved. All these years I just thought I must be the fattest girl in the world because all I could think about when I was hungry was food and it was my first thought every morning. The questions started as: Do you suffer from extreme hunger? When you are hungry, do you get shaky, irritable, anxious, nervous, sweaty, headache, dizziness, faintness? Yes, yes, YES! Do you lie awake at night not able to get your mind to stop racing? YES! Restlessness, fatigue, unable to concentrate? YES! The list goes on and on. FINALLY I had an explanation of why I'd feel so terrible and so OBSESSED with eating once I felt the slightest pang of hunger. I also came to learn that more people than you'd realize ARE hypoglycemic, or at least borderline. Being it's a holistic school the professor said, "And why don't doctors frequently test for hypoglycemia if it's so common? Well, because there's no pill to cure it. So they wait until your pancreas is burned out, you develop diabetes, THEN they can prescribe you something for it." The truth is, if you controlled your blood sugar throughout your life, most diabetics wouldn't be diabetic. If you're not sure what hypoglycemia is, I'll explain it briefly: Basically, the foods we eat in this nation are SO processed and spiked with sugar it floods our blood with sugar (glucose), the pancreas of a hypoglycemic person overreacts and releases insulin which brings your blood sugar level back down...but in our case, it brings it TOO low so that your adrenal glands now kick in and release adrenaline and glucose-which causes the sweating, heart palpitations, nervousness, etc. etc. etc. Please, do yourself a favor and google the signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia and if you think you may have it, insist your doctor test you for it.
With that said, I'm hoping I've finally found the solution to my forever struggle with losing weight. I need to eat 6 SMALL meals, of protein and complex carbs, a day. The idea is that I'll be eating foods that SLOWLY release glucose into my blood stream (unlike sugary snacks and white breads that FLOOD your blood stream with it, causing the pancreas to overreact thus making your blood sugar level crash) and I won't get the ravenous hunger I so often feel. The problem? I don't know enough about nutrition to know what's good and bad for me, so I'm left starving, irritable and craving all the wrong foods. But, I'm reading books and internet articles and trying to learn. :)
I started yesterday, having cereal that probably wasn't the best choice but I had no better options available. Then carrots with sea salt for a snack and a Greek salad for dinner. I found myself STARVING around 9pm and drank a naturally sweetened drink which helped subside the hunger pangs. But I caved around 1am and made a grilled cheese and drank Pepsi :(. However, I did feel good for most of the day and this morning I was down 1lb! My problem is that I want to eat NATURALLY so most of the diet recommendations I find aren't helpful because they suggest jello sweetened with splenda and diet cokes. If you're not into natural health at all, I HIGHLY suggest you buy yourself Kevin Trudeau's "Natural Cures THEY Don't Want You To Know About" book. It honestly CHANGED MY LIFE....but that's a story for another day.
Another battle I'm having is trying to make my social life a HEALTHY one. It seems the only activities my friends and I do are going out to eat and DRINKING! Anyone else have the same problem? Thankfully, an old friend contacted me trying to get together a women's soccer team. I'm so excited for it! I'm far too out of shape, as I haven't played soccer since High School and I'm a good 70lbs heavier!! :( I'm thinking I could play defense though and being that the season starts in March I'm hoping to drop at least 20lbs before then. It's highly motivating as it's something I really want to do AND I don't want to completely embarrass myself on the field with being so out of shape. So, I'm going to start a running regimen that I had done a few months ago but gave up on it for no good reason. It's called podrunner, and it trains you to run a 5k but starting out running in intervals. It's free to download on iTunes so I suggest it to you guys out there who think you're too out of shape to run! It's called the "Couch to 5k Running Program" and here's a link to an explanation of it http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml
I'm assuming you all (if anyone is even reading this) are having the same struggle with dieting as I am so I hope you all do well today and treat yourself and your body as best you can. :)
What are YOU going to do today to make yourself one step closer to YOUR goal? For me, I'm going to The Vitamin Shoppe to buy some Spirulina. I read an easy recipe for a Spirulina Salad: a bed of greens (romaine lettuce, baby spinach, etc), some vegetables like celery or carrots, enough Olive Oil to just coat all the vegetables but not too much so that it accumulates on the bottom of the bowl, some sea salt and top it off with some Spirulina. I'll keep you all posted on how it tastes!
Oh, and if anyone is keeping score, my short tearm goal is to lose 64lbs. 1 day down, 1lb. down.
Take care, and be healthy!

-Ava