March 9, 2026 • 57 mins
We’ve been told that blood sugar only matters if you have diabetes — but that’s not true.
Biochemist and bestselling author Jessie Inchauspé (known as the “Glucose Goddess”) joins Kate to explain why blood sugar spikes affect energy, cravings, hormones, fertility, aging, and long-term health — even if you’re otherwise healthy.
Jessie breaks down the simple science behind glucose and shares practical hacks that can help stabilize blood sugar, reduce cravings, and improve energy throughout the day.
They also talk about how blood sugar impacts pregnancy, PCOS, exercise performance, and why many foods marketed as “healthy” may actually be causing glucose spikes.
If you’ve ever felt tired after eating, struggled with sugar cravings, or wondered why nutrition advice keeps changing — this conversation explains what’s really happening inside your body.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• The biggest myth about blood sugar and metabolism
• The 5 simple hacks that can reduce glucose spikes
• Why food order can dramatically change your energy levels
• The surprising truth about oat milk, fruit juice, and “healthy” foods
• How blood sugar impacts cravings, fatigue, and weight gain
• The connection between glucose, PCOS, fertility, and pregnancy
• Why walking after meals can improve metabolic health
• How muscle, stress, and sleep affect blood sugar levels
About Jessie:
Jessie Inchauspé is a French biochemist and the author of the bestselling books Glucose Revolution and The Glucose Goddess Method. Through her research and content, she translates complex metabolic science into simple habits that millions of people use to improve their health.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've been told that glucose only matters if we have diabetes,
which is not true. That impacts our energy, our mood,
our hunger, our cravings. With every glucospike, we accelerate this
process called glycation, and glycation is the aging of our body.
Jesse Incha Spee, The Glucose Goddess, is a biochemist and
New York Times best selling author on a mission to
make blood sugar science useful for everyday life.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Learn her proven, science backed tips to boost energy, feeding cravings,
and preventing disease. Is there a correlation between Alzheimer's and
metabolic health?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Having high glucose levels in your midlife, in your thirties
and your forties is associated with the higher risk of
Alzheimer's disease as you age. In order for your body
to burn fat, you need to have avoid eating your carbs.
In the studies, if you just change the order, you
can reduce the glucose spike by seventy five percent. Females,
we have pcos you want to have a baby. They're like,
I'm not overdating anymore. What am I supposed to do?
(00:52):
So they're about to start IVF and then boom they
get their period back. If you have higher glucose levels,
your baby also has high glucose in the womb.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I've hacks to managing our glucose levels, things that we
can implement immediately.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Number one, have it.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's conversation with Jesse.
We've got a great episode coming up for you today.
Your support helps us continue bringing you inspiring conversations, So
please hit that follow button wherever you're listening and we
will be right back with our conversation after this shortbreak.
(01:36):
Glucose Goddess, Hi, glucose goddess. You have turned blood sugar
science into something that millions of people actually understand. So
let's start here. What is glucose.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So, glucose is another term for blood sugar. They're the
same thing. And glucose or blood sugar is your body's
favorite source of energy. So every single part of your body,
every cell in your body, is every second of every
day burning glucose for energy. Your brain cells, your heart cells,
your muscle cells, they all use glucose for energy. And
(02:09):
so you might think, Okay, well my body needs glucose.
How do I give my body this glucose? We give
our body glucose by eating carbs. So carbs fall into
two categories. Starches that's things like bread, rice, pasta, potatoes,
or sugars that's anything that tastes sweet, from like an
apple pie to a banana. And so carbs are the
(02:31):
way we give our body glucose and a little bit
of glucose is great, but too much glucose causes issues
short term and long term.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So before we get too far into glucose, for people
that aren't as familiar with you, can you explain to
me what you do for a living and how you
would describe your job to somebody who's meeting you for
the first time.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
For sure. So I'm a scientist and my job that
I've made up is to go through scientific studies that
are published by scientists across the world and to sort
of translate them into easy tips people could actually use.
So I spend most of my time reading scientific studies
and then thinking, Okay, how can I communicate this to
my readers and my audience so that they get a
(03:16):
benefit from it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And there was an injury you suffered several years back
that inspired this focus on glucose.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, so I broke my back when I was nineteen
jumping off a waterfall, kind of a freak accident. And
after this accident, I had a really hard time mentally,
like my mental health kind of went down the drain,
and I had to figure out how to rebuild myself.
And nothing helped me for a long time. And the
(03:44):
first thing that helped me was putting on a glucose monitor.
And I didn't expect it to help me, it just
kind of did. And I saw on this glucose monitor,
which is a device that sends twenty four to seven
my blood sugar devils to my phone, I saw that
the days where my blood was more stable, my mental
health was better. And that was the first time I
(04:05):
found a clue between something I was doing and my
mental health state. And so that opened my passion for
the topic. And first I did this research in this
work to help myself, and then I realized it was
very important, so I started to try to help others also.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So I'm curious, when you had that back injury, were
you unable to move your body in the way that
you wanted to, which is why you were looking to
alterior things to kind of help you feel good.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Great question, So for two weeks after the surgery, I
was just in so much pain because I had all
this new metal in my spine. I couldn't move. So
I stayed in the hospital bed for two weeks unable
to move. But then actually, apart from losing a little
bit of flexibility in my spine, which only shows up
if I do like a you know, cat cow yoga
pose where I feel like I can't bend my back
(04:53):
as much as the other people, other than that, I'm fine.
And it actually taught me how important it is to
have a strong core. So after my accident, I became
much more into working out than before. So it didn't
It actually helped I think my health overall, my physical health.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So it was kind of combining this work that you
were doing on yourself with your glucose monitor with physical movement.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, the physical movement came first, and the glucos monitor.
Actually I found myself wearing one almost ten years after
my surgery. So I struggled for ten years to figure
out how to improve my mental health. And the glucos
monitor was the first, the first gate, the first clue,
but it took me a long time to find something.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, and it's probably only through being a biochemist that
you even were able to think to yourself, oh, maybe
I'll try a glucose monitor.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Totally, it's because I was curious. I didn't think anything
would come of it, but I thought, oh cool, I'm
going to see the inside of my body and what's
happening in real time. Like I thought it was cool,
but I never thought it would help me so much.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So before doing what you were doing. Now you you
know went to school, studied science, you're a biochemist. What
were you focused on professionally before doing all of this?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So I broke my bag. I was actually studying mathematics
in my undergrad in London, and I had no idea
what I wanted to do. I was like, I guess
i'll work in finance. I had no passions, I had
no career plan, and after my accident in my third
year of undergrad, that's when I realized I want to
learn about health. I want to figure out what's going
on with my body, and as a result, I want
(06:21):
my career to be in health. I think, well, that's
what I thought, and my main job I only had
one job before the glucos world was I was working
in a company called twenty three and meters in Silicon
Valley Genetics company. So I was there for five years
and I was on the product team, so helping to
make sense for people of their health data in our app.
(06:41):
So that was my only job before Glucos.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And it is interesting because it's clear that what you
do right now, your mission with helping other people understand
blood sugar and their glucose lovers levels and glucose spikes,
is directly correlated to something that happened to you physically
and emotionally and mentally and helped you in your own life.
And I think that's powerful.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, But like also I wouldn't Sometimes people are like, oh, well,
it was a good thing you broke your back because
now we're doing this, and I'm like, well, I kind
of wish I had not broken my back, Like if
I had to rewrite the history, I don't think. Yeah,
it was still awful and all the mental health issues
that I had afterwards were absolutely awful. So were I
to be able to choose, I think I would choose
(07:22):
not to have the accidents.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
But then you wouldn't have the platform that you have done.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I know, but still it was just so much suffering
for so many years. I'm happy that I turned it
into something useful and good, but man, it sucked, like
I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I mean, I had two life changing injuries as well,
which has led me directly to what I'm doing now.
I've tore my ACL twice as a young girl. Kind
of interesting. I had Mindy Pelts on the other week,
who specialized in specializes in women's health, and we talked
a lot about training like a girl, And had I
been working out in tune with my cycle, I probably
wouldn't have sustained that injury or that wouldn't have happened.
(07:56):
But I mean, looking back, I really wouldn't have changed
anything because it gave me the voice that I have today.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, but still I'm sure it sucked.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It sucked. Yeah, And I think, you know, people talk
a lot about the physical impact of big injuries, but
the mental impact is so real. And it's so cool
knowing that learning about your glucose levels and glucose spikes
helped you so much mentally.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, it did. It was amazing. It really was the
first step in my recovery, but it took a long
time to get there.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, So what have we been lied to about glucose.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
We've been told that glucos only matters if we have diabetes,
which is not true. Glucose matters for everybody because it
impacts us on a daily basis. It impacts our energy,
our mood, our hunger, our cravings, and then long term,
it impacts our hormones, It impacts our inflammation levels, it
impacts our fertility as women, and it impacts our risk
of getting diabetes one day. So that's the main lie.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Why does talking about glucose matter.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Because for many of us, we are experiencing symptoms on
a daily basis that we think are normal. So we
think it's normal to crape sugar all the time. We
think it's normal to have irregular cycles. We think it's
normal to have egzema, acnesoriasis. We think it's normal to
feel tired, we think it's normal to feel addicted to sugar.
(09:18):
All of those symptoms and more are actually our body
speaking to us and telling us, hey, you probably have
gluco spikes and you should fix them. So everybody needs
to know about this very easy science and the easy tips,
easy hacks we can put in place to feel better.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I read a stat that says eighty percent of the
population has glucose spikes every day, and you just walk
us through a few. But what does a spike actually
do to us?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So there's two things. There's a short term impact in
your body and the long term impact. So short term,
when you have a glucose spike after you eat a
lot of carbs in one go, like, for example, if
you have a meal consisting of an orange juice, a
big bowl of pasta, and chocolate cake, that's a lot
of carbs and sugar, and that's going to create a
big glucose spike. That's going to lead to three main things.
(10:03):
The first one is inflammation in your body, and we
won't lower inflammation for better health. The second one is
faster aging. So with every glucose spike, we accelerate this
process called glycation, and glycation is the aging of our body,
and we don't want to accelerate aging, we want to
slow it down. And the third thing that happens is
that our body generally will put on fat to protect
(10:24):
us from the big glucose spike. So your body will
take some of the glucose and turn it into fat
to get your glucose levels down. So inflammation, aging, and
fat gain are the short term effects of the spike.
Then you have after the spike, you have the drop,
and this drop can lead to cravings, hunger, and fatigue.
So it's not a very good combo. And then long term,
(10:45):
if you have lots of spikes for a long time,
then you are a higher risk of developing type two diabetes,
of developing pcos, of developing Alzheimer's, of developing heart disease.
Steady glucose levels are true the foundation of a healthy
body and mind, short term and long term.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
And so once we start tracking our glucose and we
talked about a glucose monitor, which is literally something you
can put on your body. Is it like a needle
that goes into your hand?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
No, it's not. So I wear Stello, which is the
one I recommend. It's amazing. So Stello is a little device.
It's like a little sticker that goes onto your arm
and there's a very thin fiber. I'm going to send
you one so you can try. Have you tried one before? Now, okay,
I'll send you one. You'll love it. So it has
a kind of little flexible fiber it's like almost like
a little human hair. They're with human hair, maybe a
bit thicker, and it's about maybe a third of an
(11:33):
inch long, and it stays under your skin for two weeks.
So when you apply it, there's a little needle that
goes into place the fiber, but the needle comes out
and you don't feel anything. It's like extremely extremely quick
like that. You have a little applicator and it goes
and so this stays in place for two weeks, and
it sends twenty four to seven your glucose levels to
your phone, so you see on your phone what's happening
(11:56):
inside your body. It's really really cool. So you can
eat something and then you see a big spike or
a small spike, and you can correlate correlate that to
how you feel, and you're like, oh my god, the
oats and banana I have every morning are actually causing
a big spike and then two hours later I feel
tired when I'm crashing. So you can start to connect
the dots and you become a detective and you see
which are the foods in my life that are impacting
(12:18):
how I feel.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And having glucose spikes also will does it lead to
gaining weight.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So it can. The main thing is if you're trying
to lose weight, you need to balance your glucose levels,
because in order for your body to burn fat, you
need to have steady glucose levels. If you keep spiking
your glucose all the time, you're preventing your body from
burning fat. And also if you keep spiking your glucose
levels all the time, you're going to exacerbate cravings. So
(12:48):
it's going to be hard to lose fat on your
body if you're craving sugar all the time and your
body can burn fat. And for me, the stuff I teach,
it's not a diet. The purpose is not weight loss,
but it's often a consequence. Like usually when your glucose
levels come back into balance, you have less addiction to
sugar and your body can burn more fat, which is healthy,
and so one of the consequences is fat loss.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Jesse predominantly lives in Paris and we're currently sitting here
in Los Angeles in the US. Have you noticed that
Americans have a harder time managing their glucose than say Europeans.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So the stats are pretty clear. For example, if you
look at diabetes it's more prevalent in the US and
in Europe. And I think one of the main things
is that in the US there's more reliance and processed
foods and just less cooking. Cooking is less cultural. There's
more takeout, people eat on the go at work in
their cars, whereas, for example, in France, there's much more
of a culture of actually cooking and sitting down for
(13:46):
meals with fresh foods. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
How come when I travel to Europe I feel so
much better eating the food than I do when I
eat the food here in the US.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Because it's higher quality. So the flower is higher quality,
the proteins of higher quality, the milk is high quality.
But also probably because you're walking more, so we walk
a lot in Europe. And probably also because you're spending
more time eating your meal. You're not so rushed like
you actually sit down, for example, at the restaurant, and
a typical French lunch is at least an hour. You're
not eating at your desk under neon lights, super stressed.
(14:20):
You take more time. So it's a healthier relationship with food.
The food itself is better quality. And I think also
the movement is a big one. I just walk so
much more when I'm in France than when I'm in
the US. Like in La Here, i haven't walked in
like a month. I'm just it's awful.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It's so true. I walk more in New York than
I do in Ally by far, although I've been trying
to get in hikes every morning just to add those
extra steps in. Yeah, we touched on diabetes, and I
feel like, for the longest time, when I've historically heard
about blood sugar spikes and glucose, it is in the
context of a diabetes patient. Do you feel like that
is a misconception about glucose and something that you're actively
(14:57):
trying to change.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, totally, Because by the time you have diabetes, you've
had glucose spikes for decades. So that's the thing. Right,
So managing your glucose spikes can help you prevent diabetes,
but it also can help you feel better on a
daily basis. So saying that glucose only matters if you
have diabetes is like saying brushing your teeth only matters
if you have cavities. It doesn't make any sense. We
(15:19):
all brush our teeth to prevent cavities, right, same thing
with glucose. We should all learn about our glucose levels
to prevent diabetes and also to feel better on a
daily basis.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So five hacks. Yeah, I would love for you to
give us five hacks to managing our glucose levels, things
that we can implement immediately.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Okay, five hacks to manage your glucose levels. Number one,
have a savory breakfast built around protein. This is super
super key to having steady glucose levels all day. So
omelet greek yogurt, leftover meat, fish from last night. Whatever,
protein is key. Second one, when it's easy, starts your
meal with vegetables. So I don't usually do this at
(15:58):
breakfast because I don't really want veggies at breakfast, but
you can if you want. This is super powerful because
veggies contain fiber, and fiber at the beginning of a
meal creates a protective mesh in your intestine that reduces
the glucose spike of the rest of your meal. Number three,
move it number three three. That was two to three.
Move after eating, after you eat something high in carbs,
(16:20):
If you move your body, if you go for a
walk for a run, if you even just tidy your
kitchen or do your laundry movement is going to soak
up some of the glucose from that meal into your
muscles and reduce the spike. Number four H vinegar, so
vinegar is super interesting. If you have a tablespoon of
vinegar and a tall glass of water, it can be
(16:42):
any type of vinegar, apple, cide of vinegar, red vinegar,
white vinegar, whatever you want. If you have it before eating,
like five minutes before you eat, this can reduce the
glucose spike of your meal by up to thirty percent
just by adding the vinegar because it slows down the
digestion of carbs. And then last hack, put clothing on
your car so avoid eating your carbs naked, meaning if
(17:05):
you're gonna have pasta or donut or cookie, don't eat
them on their own. Always put clothing on them, clothing
being protein, fat, or fiber. Example, pasta on its own
that's naked, that's not good. Pasta with chicken, spinach and
parmesan that's good. It has clothing on it. Other example,
cookie on its own naked not good. Cookie with ten
(17:28):
almonds better because that's clothing on the.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Cookie like a banana. But add add in some peanut butter.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Exactly when sweetened peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Unsweetened peanut butter. What peanut butter brand do you gravitate
towards our kitchen?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That's a good question. I like crunchy. Whatever is the
crunchy peanut butter?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I do too. So if somebody changed nothing about what
they eat, but only the order that they're eating in,
what's the difference that this could make.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
A huge difference. So in the studies, if you just
change the order, you can reduce the glucose seventy five percent.
So if the only thing you do but the remaining
of your life is have your veggies first, and then
your proteins, and then your fats and then your carbs,
this can have a massive impact on erglucose cevels. So
it can reduce your hunger, it can reduce your cravings,
(18:15):
it will reduce inflammation, it will slow down aging. It's
a very good idea, and only do it when it's easy.
We don't want to be obsessive with this, right.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
So I would imagine most of our listeners are coffee drinkers.
There's a lot of chatter and health noise around how
we should be ordering our coffee. Yeah, So how would
you suggest ordering your coffee and when do you know
that that coffee is causing a glucose spike based on
the reactions that you're having.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So a regular black coffee does not cause a spike
in most people. The only way to know if black
coffee is causing a spike is to wear stello so
you can see what's happening in real time. But for
most people it doesn't cause a spike. It only tends
to cause a spike in people for whom coffee makes
them very anxious and jittery because of this potential stress response,
(19:03):
The real thing to think about with coffee is what
milk you're putting in, and if you're putting any sweeteners
or sugar in so milk oats milk is going to
be really bad for your glucose levels because it's basically starch.
Oat milk is like pasta juice or rice juice. It's
just the starch that's been blended, broken down, chemically altered
(19:28):
to extract the starch from it. So better options are
things like unsweetened almond milk. There's this new thing pistachio milk.
Have you seen this now? So unsweetened pistachia milk. Maybe
I just have a whole whole dairy like whole cow's milk,
because it's high in protein, high and fat. It's great.
And then obviously if you add sugar to your coffee,
that's going to create a glucos mic.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Do you get frustrated walking into an American grocery store
and seeing all the marketing that goes on because there
are a lot of oat milks out there on the market.
When I'm walking through the you know, the milk ale,
the dairy aisle, I see so much marketing around certain milks,
kind of tempting you to purchase them, making you think
that they're healthier than they are.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, for sure, I think I think I'm angry at
the food industry for all of the all of the
tricks they try to play on us, because most people
want to feel good. Most people are buying oat milk
because they think it's better for them. They're like, oh,
this is plant based, it's better for me, yadi, YadA,
But they don't actually know the truth, which is what
molecules are inside. So yes, I've been endlessly frustrated and
(20:32):
angry at marketing tricks that food companies use for sure,
but it's not just in America, like this happens in
any supermarket in the world. What are you the angriest
at the label that says no added sugars? Because if
you look, for example, at fruit juice, fruit juice is
extremely high in sugar. One glass of orange juice has
(20:52):
the same amount of sugar as to can of coke,
and for your body, they're exactly the same. The amount
of the sugar in the orange juice is the same
as the sugar in the can of coke. But on
a bottle of fruit juice, you can say no added
sugar because you haven't added any like white powdered sugar
to the recipe. The sugar is naturally present. But when
(21:15):
somebody sees no added sugars, they think it means low
and sugar, but it does not. So that's the one
that I hate the most.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
When you're at a supermarket, checking out or picking up
groceries at local markets in Paris, what can you most
often see in your cart? Like what are you gravitating
towards it? In the aisles?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Greek yogurt, hummus, avocados, lots of salads, salmon, chicken, lots
of eggs, lots of parmesan. I'm like addicted to parmesan,
dark chocolate, rice, spaghetti. I love spaghetti, some anchovies, some bananas, berries,
(21:59):
peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So when you started tracking your glucose and began to
reverse this cycle of spiking your glucose through the order
of foods that you were eating it and what you
were eating, how quickly did you notice for yourself that
you were able to reverse it? And then for our listeners,
how quickly can they reverse it?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I felt better pretty much immediately because I switched from
a sweet breakfast to savoryone, and you just feel fuller,
you have better energy levels, and you feel more in
control on your own brain. So that was really fast.
Your glucose levels respond in real time to what you're eating,
which is why wearing glucose monitor is so interesting because
(22:50):
you see immediate change. You see exactly what's going on
now in terms of ridding quote unquote my body of
glucose spikes and creating a stronger foundation, stronger baseline. I
think it took me probably a month a month of
the hacks to really feel like things were profoundly shifting
in my biology. And for anybody who's interested in managing
(23:11):
their glucose levels, you will feel a difference within a
day when you apply the hacks, especially if you have
been on a cycle or glucospikes your whole life and
you didn't know it.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Are there any studies that show that?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
So the studies that we have are often association studies
showing different diets and how they impact things like depression symptoms,
anxiety symptoms, overall fasting glucose levels numbers. I would love
for us to design a specific study, which is you
just take two groups of people. One group puts on
(23:42):
a glucose monitor, the other group doesn't, and then we
give them lots of test about how they're feeling, their
inflammation levels, et cetera. But those are not yet very prevalent, no.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So what I'm learning is that a lot of glucose
spikes and glucose management, blucture management comes down to how
we're fueling our bodies. But what we haven't talked about
is stress on the body, whether it be physical or emotional.
So how is stress impacting our glucose levels?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
So interestingly, stress from a biological standpoint often has a purpose.
So when you back in the day when you were
all together and you felt stress, it was mostly because
you were in danger, right, so maybe something was chasing
you and you had to run really fast. And so
your body's response to stress is often to release a
(24:36):
lot of glucose into your blood stream to make sure
your muscles have access to energy to contract and run fast.
And so sometimes when you feel stressed, you'll see a
very big glucospike on your stello because that's your liver
releasing glucose into your blood stream to fuel your working muscles.
For example, one of the biggest glucose spikes that I
ever saw was after one of the first conferences I gave,
(24:58):
and it was like under three hundred people and I
was super scared. And after the conference, I looked at
my glucose monitor and I saw a massive glucos spike,
even though I hadn't eaten anything. It was just my
liver thinking I was in danger and releasing glucose into
my blood to make sure I had energy to run away.
So stress can impact us, and then chronic stress, which
(25:20):
is also a big issue. So chronic stress can also
make your body less good at managing your glucose levels.
So you can be getting bigger spikes for the same
foods in a period where you're stressed.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, it's almost like when you're giving a presentation in
front of a big group of people, it's your body
going into fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
No, yeah, totally absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Which is similar to the feeling that you mentioned previously
when we were hunter and gatherers and an animals chasing you.
You get this big rush of adrenaline. So how do
you balance that, Like, how do you manage that? Well?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
This and sometimes you're going to be stressed. You know,
maybe you can't do much about it. I mean, if
I speak just for myself, what's helped me be less
stressed is just to do the stressful thing over and
over again. So now you can put me in front
of ten thousand people and then I'm not stressed. But
you know, several years ago I was stressed about smaller presentations.
I don't know. I don't have very good tips. I
(26:13):
know there's things that you can do. Breath work, you
can do the physiological side when you go, you can
do that.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You can pop a beta blocker.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I mean, if that's your vibe, working out is helpful. Also,
you know, moving your body. Going to the gym can
really help with your stress levels. But I don't have
any magical solutions. Sometimes you're going to get a glucospike
and that's okay. And sometimes you wake up and you
want to eat five croissants and that's also okay. You know,
we have to use the hacks when they're easy, and
understand that gluco spikes are also fine, and one glucospike
(26:46):
is not going to harm you. It's about helping your
overall baseline be a bit steadier and healthier.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And it's also about learning certain lifestyle habits that you
can implement on a day to day basis, and understanding
that we're human. We're gonna cheat. Sometimes we're gonna mess up.
That's okay. Sometimes you don't have access to vinegar before
having gelato when you're out with your partner, right.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, But I want people to think about these hacks
like they would think about brushing your teeth. So if
you forget to brush your teeth one day because you're
tired and you we're going to bed, you're not gonna
wake up the next day and be like, oh man,
I forgot to brush my teeth. I'm such an idiots.
Oh my god, you don't care. You're like, I'm just
gonna brush my teeth. Now, that's the same thing for
the hacks. This is not a diet. These are principles
(27:28):
that are important biologically, but they're not something you can
fail at. They're just tips to keep in mind. Brush
your teeth, drink water, wear a sunscreen, have a savory breakfast.
They're all in the same bucket for me.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, they have to become what's the term in marketing
where it's like you gravitate towards picking up dove deodoring
because you've always gotten it. There's a certain habit. It's
it's a habit, but it's like, yeah, it's creech, you're uh,
it's you want things to become like you're creatures of
habits assurants. So it's making a habit something that's sustainable
(28:06):
and doable, but just inherently so. I think that's a
really interesting thing when it comes to glucose spike spikes,
and that's why you're instagram and the graphs that you
do breaking it down for people like me that aren't
sciencey and don't know all of this stuff, like you
just make it so tangible and easy to digest. Okay,
stress on the body. We haven't talked about it in
the terms of working out, but there's a lot of
(28:27):
people on the show that are long distance runners, athletes
love to exercise. So let's talk about how we can
manage our glucose levels while we're working out.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Okay, so there's two main categories here. If you're doing
a light workouts, so we're talking fifty percent of your
max heart rate, so you're doing a light job, you're
doing a long walk, you're doing a hike, you're doing
a light weight session, some easy cycling. When you're doing
fifty percent max heart rate exercise, your body's mainly burning
(28:58):
fat for fuel, mainly burning fat, not glucose for fuel.
So before these exercises, you don't need to be stocking
up on carbs. You don't actually have to eat before
these workouts. Generally, if you want, you can, But this
is not where glucose really comes into play. Glucose is
more important when you're doing exercises at about eighty five
(29:19):
percent of your max heart rates. So we're talking like
sprinting a long distance running, a proper weight session at
the gym, a hit class, et cetera. Here, at eighty
five percent of your max heart rate, your body and
your muscles are burning glucose for fuel majoritarily, So you
need to make sure if you want optimal performance, that
there's glucose available to your body. So what do you
(29:40):
do two hours before the day before you eat carbs.
You eat carbs, but you eat carbs without giving your
body a glucose spike because you need the carbs, you
need the glucose, but you don't need the spike. So
what you do is you pair the carbs with something else.
You put clothing on them. So you do banana with
peanut butter. You do rice and eggs, you do pasta
and chick can, you do toast and avocado, you do
(30:04):
what's your favorite combination of carbs and something else?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And my favorite combination is a banana with peanut butter.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, So that's a perfect example. The banana has
lots of glucose in it, but with the peanut butter,
you're also giving your body protein and also lowering the
spike of that banana. And when you're doing long distance activities,
having some glucose also on the go is helpful, so
you can do gels, et cetera. That's a trick that
works because your body is looking for glucose for energy.
(30:30):
And there's another interesting one that I have recently found
in the science, which is that if during an intense
exercise you or swish in your mouth something sweet, you
don't even have to swallow it or to drink it.
So for example, orange juice, so you just swish into
your mouth. This can increase your performance because your brain thinks, oh,
I have sugar arriving, so I can push harder. That's
(30:51):
a fun one to try out.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
And why would people do that versus drinking it?
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, you can totally drink it. But the science is
interesting because that shows that you don't actually have to
drink it. It's not the act of the drinking it.
It's the feeling of sweetness in your mouth that triggers
your brain to perform better in terms of the exercise.
But you can totally drink it. It's just a little
science fact.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I think as athletes and
as people that exercise, it's like you constantly hear food
is fuel. It is, and it's interesting to really know
how to best fuel your body for optimal performance. So
the biggest thing that I like to focus on, especially
as a woman and even for our male listeners, is
that women and men should work out differently. Specifically, women
(31:36):
need to focus on the cycle right in their time
of month that it is. Can you talk to us
about that in terms of managing your glucose spikes while
going through different stages of your period.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Absolutely, so the week before your period, because of your
hormonal shifts, you will get bigger spikes from the same foods.
So that cookie that you like eating, if you're in
PMS zone, you'll have a bigger spike from it than
if you're at the beginning of recycle. What does this mean.
It means that the foods that you're used to eating
are going to create more inflammation and bigger glucose crashes,
(32:09):
therefore potentially more cravings. So that's one of the reasons
that we may crave more sugar just before our period,
because our glucose is more unsteadih before a period. And
so in that case, what do we do. We use
the hacks even more in the week coming up to
our period to try to reduce the spike and crash
(32:30):
induced cravings.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
So do you think it is important for women to
understand where they're at in their cycle when it comes
to tracking glucose.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I think it is, But I think it's you don't
have to do that. I would say, if you apply
the hacks all the time, it's going to be super,
super helpful. I don't think you should just apply the
hacks in the full color or the detail phase. I
don't think that makes sense. I think these should become
a baseline for everybody all the time.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Okay, so it truly is for men. In men, the
hacks say universally.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
About absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So what then would you tell women to do differently anything?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No, Honestly, when it comes to blood sugar management and
our glucose levels, men and women both use glucose for energy.
I think it's it's why the hacks are universal and
work better for everybody. I think, for example, if you
look at menopause or if you look at pregnancy, then yeah,
(33:31):
females have much different considerations. But apart from those parts
of life.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
The hacks work the same for everybody.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
We talked about cardio, but how does muscle specifically help
when it comes to managing glucose spikes?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
So muscles are your best friends when it comes to
who goes, because your muscles are going to soak up
glucose from your bloodstream after a glucose spike. So the
more muscle mass you have, the smaller glucose spikes you
will have. That's why we see that having higher muscle
mass leads to a lower probability of developing gestational diabetes,
(34:20):
which is the diabetes of pregnancy. Glucos spikes will be
smaller if you have more muscle to soak up the
glucos you just ate.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, and I'm I'm really excited to talk about your
book that you recently wrote. So guys, I have it
right here. It's called Nine Months That Count Forever. How
your pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future. You recently wrote
this book. It's very helpful for women that are pregnant,
including myself. So I want you to break down this
(34:49):
book for us and the core principles that you wrote about.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
So one thing to know is that in pregnancy there's
a huge gap between what science knows and what parents
are actually told. And I experienced this firsthand. I was like,
why is this not being discussed? So this book has
four simple pillars that if you apply them during pregnancy,
you're going to help your baby develop in a more
(35:13):
optimal way because when you're pregnant, your diet is actively
influencing your baby as he or she is developing in
your uterus, and you have so much more power than
you've been told. So Number one is glucose. So during
pregnancy it's important to use the glucose hacks and to
manage your glucose levels because your baby is connected to
(35:34):
your bloodstream, so if you have higher glucose levels, your
baby also has higher glucose levels in the womb, and
your baby also registers glucose spikes, so you want to
make sure to be using all the hacks we just
spoke about so that you can eat the carbs that
you like during pregnancy with smaller spikes, because with bigger spikes,
your baby is also feeling the inflammation and the faster
(35:55):
aging and the fat mass, so that's really important. Second
one is coling. Okay, Colin is amazing. Colin forms your
baby's brain and your baby's brain cells, and most of
us don't eat enough colin during pregnancy. Colin is found
in eggs, in animal foods like chicken, salmon meat, and
also in some plant foods, but really the animal foods
(36:16):
are the best sauce. And ninety percent of pregnant moms
today are eating a diet that is not giving them
enough coalin ninety percent of moms during pregnancy, So what
do you want to do? The easiest way to get
enough colin is to eat four eggs a day that
gives you all the colin that your baby needs for
optimal brain development. You can also take colin supplements if
(36:38):
you don't have eggs, and then if you make sure
to have a good animal protein source at every meal,
you're probably going to reach that. But honestly, eggs are
super food during pregnancy. So I had so many freakin eggs.
I probably had like a thousand eggs over the nine
months of pregnancy because I really want to get enough colin.
So colin is really key and important. For example, there's
(36:59):
some scientific studies that have been done where moms are
given a coalin supplement during pregnancy and some moms are
given double the coaling supplement, and they find that in
the moms that had the most coaling, the baby in
the first year of age had a faster reaction time
when he was put in front of a test on
a computer, a standardized test that measures reaction time because
(37:22):
that's linked to adult IQ. So they saw that in
the moms that had the most colin supplementation, the babies
had a ten percent faster reaction time to this test
after birth in their first year of life. So the
amount of coaling you eat will directly impact your baby's
brain development, and we want to make sure we give
our baby as much coaling as possible in the womb.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
So even if it's something that you're not eating, could
you can take a supplement like like a pill, kind
of like you take an iron supplement or your prenatal
every day.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, absolutely so in the book, I explained exactly what
supplements to look for, But you can take a colin
supplement for sure. Now colling from food and that's the
same as everything will be better absorbed by your body
than colin from supplements. So I really recommend the four
eggs or just making sure you're having animal protein at
every meal to make sure that you're giving your baby
(38:12):
the colin that he needs. Because again, ninety percent of
moms without this being their fault, just as a result
of the food environment we live in. Ninety percent of
moms have a diet that is not giving them enough
colin during pregnancy. And this is something that for example,
the American Association of Pediatrics has called, you know, an emergency,
but nobody talks about it. So we really really have
(38:32):
to make this information more widely known. So that's the
first two ones. So glucose hacks colin. Then we have protein.
So when your baby's born, if you exclude water, your
baby is fifty percent protein. Protein is not just muscles.
Protein is skin, immune system, organs, all sorts of tissues,
not just muscle. And so you as the mom, when
(38:54):
you're pregnant, you are giving the protein to your baby
so that he or she grows. I say he because
I had a son, so excuse me, but I'll say
you are giving your baby the protein that he needs
to your food. And so naturally the amounts of protein
that you eat needs to increase. So you need to
have about one point six grams of protein per kilo
of bodyweight per day in the second and third trimesters.
(39:17):
For me, that worked out to about one hundred grams
of protein per day. And so I made sure to
track it because I wanted to make sure my baby
had all the protein that he needed, because some animal
studies show that when moms don't eat enough protein during pregnancy,
their baby comes out smaller and has this programming in
them that says, keep your muscles small, don't become too
(39:38):
big and too muscular, and this setting in the animal
studies stayed with the baby for life. So when I
look at some of my friends who have a really
hard time building muscle, I kind of wonder, and I'm
kind of in this case, I wonder like, maybe this
has to do with the mom's protein levels during pregnancy,
because during pregnancy, your baby is calibrating his body and
(39:59):
is taking signal and is laying the foundation of metabolism
and organs. So we want to make sure our baby
has all the protein that he needs so that he
feels like he can make as much muscle mass as
he needs throughout his life. And the last one is
omega three's. Omega threes are a super important fat. They
come from algae and fish in the ocean, and they
also build our baby's brain. And in one study, when
(40:22):
moms were supplementing with omega three's during pregnancy, their kids
had a four point increase in IQ at four years old.
So I had fish two three times a week, and
I supplemented every day with two grams of omega threes.
And this is most important in the third trimester of pregnancy,
which is when most of the brain formation happens. But
you want to try to get your omega three levels
(40:43):
up as early as possible because they get stored in
your body. So to recap glucose hacks for glucose levels
because also pregnancy you can increase sugar cravings, so the
hacks are even more helpful then glucose hacks for exit
day or animal foods or coline supplement for colin enough protein,
and then omega threes through fish three times a week
(41:05):
or a supplement. And in the book, I have all
the details about how you can find the right supplement.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
It's amazing how how we're fueling our body and managing
our glucose levels and the supplements that we're intaking while
the babies in utero really does have the long term
effect on that child's life.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, and it's a moment of outsized impact. It's a
little bit like when you plant a seed in soil.
The soil that you choose is going to co create
that trees plan. Right, the seed has a plan. I
want to be a majestic apple tree, but depending on
the soil that the seed is in, well, the tree
(41:52):
is going to adapt and grow bigger or a bit smaller.
And it's the same thing as the mom. We are,
in essence are baby's soil and so more information we
have on what we can do because the food system
is failing us. The more information we have on how
we can navigate the food system to give our body
the very important nutrients, the more chances our baby will
(42:15):
have to be able to develop as optimality as he wants.
How are you feeling in your pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
What's your diet like my diet has I mean, I
feel like I'm training harder than I ever had in
this pregnancy. And when I say training, I don't mean physically,
but I mean literally what I'm eating and the fuel
that I'm putting in my body. Like I would say
typically pre pregnancy. I've always been healthy, but I've never
been so health conscious, and now I am so health
conscious because of exactly what you're saying. It's I want
(42:42):
to make sure I'm giving this baby everything it needs,
you know, I want to make sure I'm giving it
enough iron and just everything that you aren't typically as
focused on pre pregnancy. It's just becomes so much more important.
So I've heard a lot of women say, you know,
being pregnant it's the hardest into ten months of their life.
And that's because you really have to be so so
(43:05):
focused on what you're putting in your body and how
you're treating your body. You know, it's like, physically I'm
doing a lot less.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah. And then the first trimester, I don't know if
you were nauseous. I was extremely nauseous, so I couldn't
do any of these things for the first four months.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Oh, you couldn't follow the guy.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I couldn't follow anything that I was doning in the science.
The first four months were basically just past trees. It
was awful. That's the only thing I could stomach. So
the first trimester can be hard, but if you don't
feel nauseous, it's a great idea to start these things
as early as possible.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah, And I feel like also, I have a friend
who's pregnant at the same time as me, one of
my best friends, and she was super nauseous actually throughout
her entire pregnancy. She's nearing the end and she's still
really nauseous. She's sick almost every day, which can happen
to I think a lot of people say, like, you're
just nauseous during your first trimester, which think of that
as a blessing, because some people really are nauseous all
(43:55):
the way through. And what she constantly says is, you know,
I'm putting the right fuel in my body to an extent,
because she has to eat a little bit more bland
due to the nausea. But what she gets so upset
about is feeling like she's not fueling her body enough
for the baby. And I think it's also important to
remember that babies are like parasitic and they take from
(44:15):
you what they need, but smith you really.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, your baby will not take what he needs. Your
baby will take what he can. So if there's not
enough colling your OMEGA three's, your baby will not be
able to get all the amount that he needs. And
that's one of the biggest myths. So your baby will
take some stuff, you know, but with a certain limit.
So your nature will always prioritize the mom at the
end of the day, so your baby will not be
(44:40):
able to take all of your cooling reserves, all of
your OMGA three reserves, or all of your protein reserves.
Babies are extremely resilient and your baby will be fine,
but that last little bit of optimization will not happen
if you're not able to give and to have in
your diet all the stuff that you need. And this
is not the mom's fault. It's just a consequence of
the fact that we're eating food that is very poor nutrition.
(45:02):
We don't eat organ meats anymore, we eat processed foods,
we eat sugar, et cetera. And in some cases you're
nauseous the whole the way through, and in that case
you just have to do the best you can. You know,
babies are resilient. I was born to mom who basically
only eats sugar in her whole pregnancy. And I'm fine.
But when we have information and when we can act
on it, why not.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah, It's like, why not give you that child the
best possible nutrients you can, knowing what we know now.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yeah, but it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot
of pressure, for sure, and I hope this can help
people navigate the pressure easily.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
And for our men listening, listen up, because you need
to make sure your wife, if your partner is pregnant,
is fueling her body. Right.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah, read this book and be in charge of all
the cooking and the grocery shopping. This is not the
female's fault. If you're a man, read the book and
do all the shopping, do all the cooking so that
your partner has all the food that she needs. Because
you know, babies develop in the bodies of women. But
it's our entire society that needs to be in charge
(46:02):
of making sure women have access to their right foods well.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Isn't it also true that mourning sickness or is this myth?
Mourning sickness and nauseen pregnancy can also often come as
a byproduct of the male sperm and what they're putting
in their body.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I have not found conclusive evidence about this. It seems
that morning sickness is more related to hormones that the
pluscenta itself is producing and the embryo itself is producing.
I haven't seen any evidence that says it's the guy's fault. No,
but if you have any studies about this, please send
them my way.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
I would love to see, But regardless, it's important for
men and women making sure you're feeling your body right
and you know, coming off of pregnancy. Like I think
one of the things that has fundamentally shifted for me
in this pregnancy. While I really have been eating super healthy,
training my body physically the right way gently, and just
kind of doing everything as right as I possibly can,
(46:59):
I've been doing so much research and for me, it's
now going to extend, Like what I'm doing now isn't
going to change post pregnancy, you know, because I want
to have more babies, you know, obviously, like we want
to grow our family, and I've just found it to
be so important to kind of be training for life
and using this pregnancy as a really good way to
(47:20):
introduce these habits because I do have PCOS, and PCOS
is a common commonly coincides with some infertility issues. So
I'm curious, like, you know, what are your thoughts on
pcos at infertility and how they relate to glucose spikes
and glucose management.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
So PCOS is one of the leading causes of infertility
and females and PCOS. I mean, I'm sure you know
this by hard, but it's a it's an umbrella term
that relates to many different symptoms, and so the symptoms
that fall into the PCOS umbrella are missed periods, lack
of ovulation, acne, losing hair on your head, having high distoster.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I have every single one of those, by the way, guys,
there you.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Go, so post your child. But these are the symptoms
of something else going on within and in seventy percent
of PCOS cases, you also see high insulin levels. Do
you know if you have high insulin level? I think
I do, okay. So that means that the high insulin
levels are then impacting downstream hormones and likely leading to
(48:24):
those symptoms. So it's the high insulin that we have
to take care of. So why does want to have
high insulin levels. Insulin is a hormone in charge of
reducing glucospikes, So when you have a lot of glucospikes,
you have a lot of insulin present. If you reduce
your glucose spikes, your insulin levels will reduce, which means
your testosterone will lower, which means normally the symptoms will
(48:47):
then disappear. So PCOS is something that you can completely clear,
like once you have no longer the high testosterone and
those symptoms, you don't have PCOS anymore because it's a
symptom driven condition, So it could be interesting. I'm not
sure what you've done so far, but like if you
were a stello, when you look at your glucose levels,
you might be able to see that some of the
(49:09):
foods that you're eating are actually causing lots and lots
of spikes, which could be one of the reasons you
have high insulin, which could then be leading to the
downstream PCOS. And that's why I've seen a lot of
readers of mine females who have pcos you want to
have a baby, They're like, I'm not overdating anymore. What
am I supposed to do? So they're about to start
IVF and then they reduce their glucose spikes which reduces insulin,
(49:30):
and boom they get their period back. So it's very
important if you have pcos to look at insulin and glucose.
You can ask a doctor to do a fasting insulin
test and a fasting glucose test, and I talk about
this in the book, like how to then take that
to figure out where you're at and this will give
your information on whether the PCOS is being driven by
high insulin, in which case, lower your glucose spikes as
(49:51):
the first step.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
And about one in ten women of child's bearing age
are thought to have PCOS, So this is a really
common issue.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It is a common issue, but it's more common now
than it used to be because it's often driven by
these glucose and insulin problems that come from the food
that we eat and the lifestyles that we eat.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah, so these are you know, and I do see
a lot on that, Like when I was going through
my conception journey and we were thinking about, you know,
trying to get pregnant, and luckily we got pregnant very quickly.
So I think that's also a misconception. Is a lot
of people think, you know, if they have PCOS, they
you know, it's going to be hard for them to
get pregnant. I didn't have that experience. I don't know
(50:33):
about future babies. I'm sure there will be times where
it's going to be harder for me. But it is
nice knowing that there are ways you can fuel your
body to reverse PCOS. And it's so rarely talked about
because I feel like doctors constantly put us on different
medications for.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
It, and this just masks the symptoms. So why do
people get on the pill when they have pcos Because
the pill is female hormones. So if you have pcos,
you have high testosterone in your body. So by adding
female hormones, you're bringing back the balance a little bit.
So the testosterone to female hormones balance is a little
bit better. But then if you stop the pill because
you want to have a baby, bam, testosterone is again
(51:13):
on overdrive and therefore you have those symptoms and you
can't get pregnant.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yeah, and I like that it's still so simple. We
just go back to our five basic hacks that we
talked through in the beginning of this episode, and you
start implementing those immediately.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah. And my first book called Glucose Revolution goes through
all of these hacks, talks about pcos also, and it
can be a really good guide if you want to
get onto the steady glucose journey.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
So ozempic ozempic is a medication that treats basically diabet
these patients, right, So I'm curious what is your viewpoint
on ozempic as somebody that does sort of operate in
this space of managing levels that are similar to what
(51:57):
a GLP one helps with.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yeah, I mean two things, like they DELP one medication
has been very helpful for a lot of people. But ultimately,
what is really going on if we zoom out, we're
talking about a drug that reduces appetite, and this is
helping people because the food around them is so toxic
(52:20):
that by eating less they get healthier. It's a little
bit like if the tap water was toxic and instead
of fixing the tapwater, we gave people a drug them
make them less thirsty. That's kind of what's going on here.
So the problem is the food system that we live in.
This is helping people navigate the food industry, but it's
(52:45):
not solving the underlying issue. And in fact, people don't
have a GLP one deficiency. That's not what we're fixing here.
So what's going on is that when people stop the
GLP one drugs, they often gain all the way back,
and when they're all on the drug, if they're not
eating enough protein, they're going to be losing a lot
of muscle mass. So if you're on nozembic or any
(53:06):
all of the other ones, it's really important to eat
enough protein to maintain your muscle mass so that you
don't end up in a situation with lower muscle mass
at the end.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, it's really important, and I feel like you see
in all the ads for these medications, but the most
important thing really is to if you're taking one of
these medications, compliment it with healthy lifestyle changes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
Absolutely, and a high protein one hundred grams a day
is a good goal and weightlifting if you can.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yeah. Is there a correlation between Alzheimer's and metabolic health.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Yes, so having high glucose levels in your midlife, in
your thirties and your forties is associated with the higher
risk of Alzheimer's disease as you age, and Alzheimer's sometimes
is called type three diabetes because what we see in
the brains of people with Alzheimer's is high and sulin levels,
insulin resistance, and inflammation and glycation, which are things that
(53:58):
are consequences of high glucose levels. So it's I mean,
it's a complicated disease for sure, but we're starting to
understand there are real roots in our duclose levels, our
insulin levels, and our metabolic health. So if we want
to put all the odds in our favor for healthy
brain as we age. Managing ducose levels early in life
is a really really good place to.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Start, and that prevention just looks like again following the hacks.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
This is the cool thing about the hacks is that
you may come to them for like fertility or exema,
or fatigue or cravings, but they have so many benefits
on all aspects of your physical and mental health.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
It's very interesting that it's, you know, like our glucose
levels affect all of these other systems in our body connected.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Everything is connected. Yeah, Glucose is used by every single
one of your cells. It's your body's energy source. Like
we're talking about something that underlies your entire life force.
When you make sure your cocost levels are in a
healthy face, your entire system benefits.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
What's the biggest misconception that you've heard about glucose.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
That it only matters if you have diabetes. That's the
biggest one. That's the biggest, biggest one, which is not
true at all. It matters for all of us at
all stages in life, and even kids should have better
gree coost levels. You know, if we eat sugar every
single morning, as a kid, it's not going to help
our brain development. Like, we need to have steady glucose
(55:32):
levels even as children to be able to have the
healthiest possible brain.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
I feel like we need Glucose Goddess snacks at the supermarket,
like little pairings, like a little shot of vinegar with
a side of love it, you know, just like an
easy grab and go.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
Situation love it. That's a good idea.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
So if you could change one thing about how people
think about glucose energy and health overall, what would it be.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
I would make sure people understand that fruit juice is
not a health food. That's a big one. Smoothie if
they contain protein and fat are fine, but just fruit
smoothies that's a big glucos spike. You don't want that.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
Everybody listening, You need to go follow Jesse Glucose Goddess
on Instagram if you want to learn more about managing
your glucose spikes. Also, if you're pregnant, pick up this book.
It is going to be your bible.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Nine months that count forever.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Nine months that count forever. Thank you so much for
staying down with you. Thank you guys so much for
tuning into today's episode with Glucose Goddess Jesse. If you
learn something today, please make sure you hit that follow
button on whatever podcast platform you are listening to us
(56:48):
on so you never miss an episode and share this
conversation with a friend somebody who could maybe learn a
little something from it. I appreciate you guys so much,
really appreciate you listening today and making it this far
in the episode. And I will see you next week. MHM.
We've been told that glucose only matters if we have diabetes,
which is not true. That impacts our energy, our mood,
our hunger, our cravings. With every glucospike, we accelerate this
process called glycation, and glycation is the aging of our body.
Jesse Incha Spee, The Glucose Goddess, is a biochemist and
New York Times best selling author on a mission to
make blood sugar science useful for everyday life.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Learn her proven, science backed tips to boost energy, feeding cravings,
and preventing disease. Is there a correlation between Alzheimer's and
metabolic health?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Having high glucose levels in your midlife, in your thirties
and your forties is associated with the higher risk of
Alzheimer's disease as you age. In order for your body
to burn fat, you need to have avoid eating your carbs.
In the studies, if you just change the order, you
can reduce the glucose spike by seventy five percent. Females,
we have pcos you want to have a baby. They're like,
I'm not overdating anymore. What am I supposed to do?
(00:52):
So they're about to start IVF and then boom they
get their period back. If you have higher glucose levels,
your baby also has high glucose in the womb.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I've hacks to managing our glucose levels, things that we
can implement immediately.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Number one, have it.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you so much for tuning into today's conversation with Jesse.
We've got a great episode coming up for you today.
Your support helps us continue bringing you inspiring conversations, So
please hit that follow button wherever you're listening and we
will be right back with our conversation after this shortbreak.
(01:36):
Glucose Goddess, Hi, glucose goddess. You have turned blood sugar
science into something that millions of people actually understand. So
let's start here. What is glucose.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So, glucose is another term for blood sugar. They're the
same thing. And glucose or blood sugar is your body's
favorite source of energy. So every single part of your body,
every cell in your body, is every second of every
day burning glucose for energy. Your brain cells, your heart cells,
your muscle cells, they all use glucose for energy. And
(02:09):
so you might think, Okay, well my body needs glucose.
How do I give my body this glucose? We give
our body glucose by eating carbs. So carbs fall into
two categories. Starches that's things like bread, rice, pasta, potatoes,
or sugars that's anything that tastes sweet, from like an
apple pie to a banana. And so carbs are the
(02:31):
way we give our body glucose and a little bit
of glucose is great, but too much glucose causes issues
short term and long term.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So before we get too far into glucose, for people
that aren't as familiar with you, can you explain to
me what you do for a living and how you
would describe your job to somebody who's meeting you for
the first time.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
For sure. So I'm a scientist and my job that
I've made up is to go through scientific studies that
are published by scientists across the world and to sort
of translate them into easy tips people could actually use.
So I spend most of my time reading scientific studies
and then thinking, Okay, how can I communicate this to
my readers and my audience so that they get a
(03:16):
benefit from it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And there was an injury you suffered several years back
that inspired this focus on glucose.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, so I broke my back when I was nineteen
jumping off a waterfall, kind of a freak accident. And
after this accident, I had a really hard time mentally,
like my mental health kind of went down the drain,
and I had to figure out how to rebuild myself.
And nothing helped me for a long time. And the
(03:44):
first thing that helped me was putting on a glucose monitor.
And I didn't expect it to help me, it just
kind of did. And I saw on this glucose monitor,
which is a device that sends twenty four to seven
my blood sugar devils to my phone, I saw that
the days where my blood was more stable, my mental
health was better. And that was the first time I
(04:05):
found a clue between something I was doing and my
mental health state. And so that opened my passion for
the topic. And first I did this research in this
work to help myself, and then I realized it was
very important, so I started to try to help others also.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
So I'm curious, when you had that back injury, were
you unable to move your body in the way that
you wanted to, which is why you were looking to
alterior things to kind of help you feel good.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Great question, So for two weeks after the surgery, I
was just in so much pain because I had all
this new metal in my spine. I couldn't move. So
I stayed in the hospital bed for two weeks unable
to move. But then actually, apart from losing a little
bit of flexibility in my spine, which only shows up
if I do like a you know, cat cow yoga
pose where I feel like I can't bend my back
(04:53):
as much as the other people, other than that, I'm fine.
And it actually taught me how important it is to
have a strong core. So after my accident, I became
much more into working out than before. So it didn't
It actually helped I think my health overall, my physical health.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So it was kind of combining this work that you
were doing on yourself with your glucose monitor with physical movement.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, the physical movement came first, and the glucos monitor.
Actually I found myself wearing one almost ten years after
my surgery. So I struggled for ten years to figure
out how to improve my mental health. And the glucos
monitor was the first, the first gate, the first clue,
but it took me a long time to find something.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, and it's probably only through being a biochemist that
you even were able to think to yourself, oh, maybe
I'll try a glucose monitor.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Totally, it's because I was curious. I didn't think anything
would come of it, but I thought, oh cool, I'm
going to see the inside of my body and what's
happening in real time. Like I thought it was cool,
but I never thought it would help me so much.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So before doing what you were doing. Now you you
know went to school, studied science, you're a biochemist. What
were you focused on professionally before doing all of this?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So I broke my bag. I was actually studying mathematics
in my undergrad in London, and I had no idea
what I wanted to do. I was like, I guess
i'll work in finance. I had no passions, I had
no career plan, and after my accident in my third
year of undergrad, that's when I realized I want to
learn about health. I want to figure out what's going
on with my body, and as a result, I want
(06:21):
my career to be in health. I think, well, that's
what I thought, and my main job I only had
one job before the glucos world was I was working
in a company called twenty three and meters in Silicon
Valley Genetics company. So I was there for five years
and I was on the product team, so helping to
make sense for people of their health data in our app.
(06:41):
So that was my only job before Glucos.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And it is interesting because it's clear that what you
do right now, your mission with helping other people understand
blood sugar and their glucose lovers levels and glucose spikes,
is directly correlated to something that happened to you physically
and emotionally and mentally and helped you in your own life.
And I think that's powerful.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, But like also I wouldn't Sometimes people are like, oh, well,
it was a good thing you broke your back because
now we're doing this, and I'm like, well, I kind
of wish I had not broken my back, Like if
I had to rewrite the history, I don't think. Yeah,
it was still awful and all the mental health issues
that I had afterwards were absolutely awful. So were I
to be able to choose, I think I would choose
(07:22):
not to have the accidents.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
But then you wouldn't have the platform that you have done.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I know, but still it was just so much suffering
for so many years. I'm happy that I turned it
into something useful and good, but man, it sucked, like
I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I mean, I had two life changing injuries as well,
which has led me directly to what I'm doing now.
I've tore my ACL twice as a young girl. Kind
of interesting. I had Mindy Pelts on the other week,
who specialized in specializes in women's health, and we talked
a lot about training like a girl, And had I
been working out in tune with my cycle, I probably
wouldn't have sustained that injury or that wouldn't have happened.
(07:56):
But I mean, looking back, I really wouldn't have changed
anything because it gave me the voice that I have today.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, but still I'm sure it sucked.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
It sucked. Yeah, And I think, you know, people talk
a lot about the physical impact of big injuries, but
the mental impact is so real. And it's so cool
knowing that learning about your glucose levels and glucose spikes
helped you so much mentally.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, it did. It was amazing. It really was the
first step in my recovery, but it took a long
time to get there.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, So what have we been lied to about glucose.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
We've been told that glucos only matters if we have diabetes,
which is not true. Glucose matters for everybody because it
impacts us on a daily basis. It impacts our energy,
our mood, our hunger, our cravings, and then long term,
it impacts our hormones, It impacts our inflammation levels, it
impacts our fertility as women, and it impacts our risk
of getting diabetes one day. So that's the main lie.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Why does talking about glucose matter.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Because for many of us, we are experiencing symptoms on
a daily basis that we think are normal. So we
think it's normal to crape sugar all the time. We
think it's normal to have irregular cycles. We think it's
normal to have egzema, acnesoriasis. We think it's normal to
feel tired, we think it's normal to feel addicted to sugar.
(09:18):
All of those symptoms and more are actually our body
speaking to us and telling us, hey, you probably have
gluco spikes and you should fix them. So everybody needs
to know about this very easy science and the easy tips,
easy hacks we can put in place to feel better.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I read a stat that says eighty percent of the
population has glucose spikes every day, and you just walk
us through a few. But what does a spike actually
do to us?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
So there's two things. There's a short term impact in
your body and the long term impact. So short term,
when you have a glucose spike after you eat a
lot of carbs in one go, like, for example, if
you have a meal consisting of an orange juice, a
big bowl of pasta, and chocolate cake, that's a lot
of carbs and sugar, and that's going to create a
big glucose spike. That's going to lead to three main things.
(10:03):
The first one is inflammation in your body, and we
won't lower inflammation for better health. The second one is
faster aging. So with every glucose spike, we accelerate this
process called glycation, and glycation is the aging of our body,
and we don't want to accelerate aging, we want to
slow it down. And the third thing that happens is
that our body generally will put on fat to protect
(10:24):
us from the big glucose spike. So your body will
take some of the glucose and turn it into fat
to get your glucose levels down. So inflammation, aging, and
fat gain are the short term effects of the spike.
Then you have after the spike, you have the drop,
and this drop can lead to cravings, hunger, and fatigue.
So it's not a very good combo. And then long term,
(10:45):
if you have lots of spikes for a long time,
then you are a higher risk of developing type two diabetes,
of developing pcos, of developing Alzheimer's, of developing heart disease.
Steady glucose levels are true the foundation of a healthy
body and mind, short term and long term.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
And so once we start tracking our glucose and we
talked about a glucose monitor, which is literally something you
can put on your body. Is it like a needle
that goes into your hand?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
No, it's not. So I wear Stello, which is the
one I recommend. It's amazing. So Stello is a little device.
It's like a little sticker that goes onto your arm
and there's a very thin fiber. I'm going to send
you one so you can try. Have you tried one before? Now, okay,
I'll send you one. You'll love it. So it has
a kind of little flexible fiber it's like almost like
a little human hair. They're with human hair, maybe a
bit thicker, and it's about maybe a third of an
(11:33):
inch long, and it stays under your skin for two weeks.
So when you apply it, there's a little needle that
goes into place the fiber, but the needle comes out
and you don't feel anything. It's like extremely extremely quick
like that. You have a little applicator and it goes
and so this stays in place for two weeks, and
it sends twenty four to seven your glucose levels to
your phone, so you see on your phone what's happening
(11:56):
inside your body. It's really really cool. So you can
eat something and then you see a big spike or
a small spike, and you can correlate correlate that to
how you feel, and you're like, oh my god, the
oats and banana I have every morning are actually causing
a big spike and then two hours later I feel
tired when I'm crashing. So you can start to connect
the dots and you become a detective and you see
which are the foods in my life that are impacting
(12:18):
how I feel.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And having glucose spikes also will does it lead to
gaining weight.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
So it can. The main thing is if you're trying
to lose weight, you need to balance your glucose levels,
because in order for your body to burn fat, you
need to have steady glucose levels. If you keep spiking
your glucose all the time, you're preventing your body from
burning fat. And also if you keep spiking your glucose
levels all the time, you're going to exacerbate cravings. So
(12:48):
it's going to be hard to lose fat on your
body if you're craving sugar all the time and your
body can burn fat. And for me, the stuff I teach,
it's not a diet. The purpose is not weight loss,
but it's often a consequence. Like usually when your glucose
levels come back into balance, you have less addiction to
sugar and your body can burn more fat, which is healthy,
and so one of the consequences is fat loss.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Jesse predominantly lives in Paris and we're currently sitting here
in Los Angeles in the US. Have you noticed that
Americans have a harder time managing their glucose than say Europeans.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
So the stats are pretty clear. For example, if you
look at diabetes it's more prevalent in the US and
in Europe. And I think one of the main things
is that in the US there's more reliance and processed
foods and just less cooking. Cooking is less cultural. There's
more takeout, people eat on the go at work in
their cars, whereas, for example, in France, there's much more
of a culture of actually cooking and sitting down for
(13:46):
meals with fresh foods. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
How come when I travel to Europe I feel so
much better eating the food than I do when I
eat the food here in the US.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Because it's higher quality. So the flower is higher quality,
the proteins of higher quality, the milk is high quality.
But also probably because you're walking more, so we walk
a lot in Europe. And probably also because you're spending
more time eating your meal. You're not so rushed like
you actually sit down, for example, at the restaurant, and
a typical French lunch is at least an hour. You're
not eating at your desk under neon lights, super stressed.
(14:20):
You take more time. So it's a healthier relationship with food.
The food itself is better quality. And I think also
the movement is a big one. I just walk so
much more when I'm in France than when I'm in
the US. Like in La Here, i haven't walked in
like a month. I'm just it's awful.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It's so true. I walk more in New York than
I do in Ally by far, although I've been trying
to get in hikes every morning just to add those
extra steps in. Yeah, we touched on diabetes, and I
feel like, for the longest time, when I've historically heard
about blood sugar spikes and glucose, it is in the
context of a diabetes patient. Do you feel like that
is a misconception about glucose and something that you're actively
(14:57):
trying to change.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, totally, Because by the time you have diabetes, you've
had glucose spikes for decades. So that's the thing. Right,
So managing your glucose spikes can help you prevent diabetes,
but it also can help you feel better on a
daily basis. So saying that glucose only matters if you
have diabetes is like saying brushing your teeth only matters
if you have cavities. It doesn't make any sense. We
(15:19):
all brush our teeth to prevent cavities, right, same thing
with glucose. We should all learn about our glucose levels
to prevent diabetes and also to feel better on a
daily basis.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
So five hacks. Yeah, I would love for you to
give us five hacks to managing our glucose levels, things
that we can implement immediately.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Okay, five hacks to manage your glucose levels. Number one,
have a savory breakfast built around protein. This is super
super key to having steady glucose levels all day. So
omelet greek yogurt, leftover meat, fish from last night. Whatever,
protein is key. Second one, when it's easy, starts your
meal with vegetables. So I don't usually do this at
(15:58):
breakfast because I don't really want veggies at breakfast, but
you can if you want. This is super powerful because
veggies contain fiber, and fiber at the beginning of a
meal creates a protective mesh in your intestine that reduces
the glucose spike of the rest of your meal. Number three,
move it number three three. That was two to three.
Move after eating, after you eat something high in carbs,
(16:20):
If you move your body, if you go for a
walk for a run, if you even just tidy your
kitchen or do your laundry movement is going to soak
up some of the glucose from that meal into your
muscles and reduce the spike. Number four H vinegar, so
vinegar is super interesting. If you have a tablespoon of
vinegar and a tall glass of water, it can be
(16:42):
any type of vinegar, apple, cide of vinegar, red vinegar,
white vinegar, whatever you want. If you have it before eating,
like five minutes before you eat, this can reduce the
glucose spike of your meal by up to thirty percent
just by adding the vinegar because it slows down the
digestion of carbs. And then last hack, put clothing on
your car so avoid eating your carbs naked, meaning if
(17:05):
you're gonna have pasta or donut or cookie, don't eat
them on their own. Always put clothing on them, clothing
being protein, fat, or fiber. Example, pasta on its own
that's naked, that's not good. Pasta with chicken, spinach and
parmesan that's good. It has clothing on it. Other example,
cookie on its own naked not good. Cookie with ten
(17:28):
almonds better because that's clothing on the.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Cookie like a banana. But add add in some peanut butter.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Exactly when sweetened peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Unsweetened peanut butter. What peanut butter brand do you gravitate
towards our kitchen?
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That's a good question. I like crunchy. Whatever is the
crunchy peanut butter?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I do too. So if somebody changed nothing about what
they eat, but only the order that they're eating in,
what's the difference that this could make.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
A huge difference. So in the studies, if you just
change the order, you can reduce the glucose seventy five percent.
So if the only thing you do but the remaining
of your life is have your veggies first, and then
your proteins, and then your fats and then your carbs,
this can have a massive impact on erglucose cevels. So
it can reduce your hunger, it can reduce your cravings,
(18:15):
it will reduce inflammation, it will slow down aging. It's
a very good idea, and only do it when it's easy.
We don't want to be obsessive with this, right.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
So I would imagine most of our listeners are coffee drinkers.
There's a lot of chatter and health noise around how
we should be ordering our coffee. Yeah, So how would
you suggest ordering your coffee and when do you know
that that coffee is causing a glucose spike based on
the reactions that you're having.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So a regular black coffee does not cause a spike
in most people. The only way to know if black
coffee is causing a spike is to wear stello so
you can see what's happening in real time. But for
most people it doesn't cause a spike. It only tends
to cause a spike in people for whom coffee makes
them very anxious and jittery because of this potential stress response,
(19:03):
The real thing to think about with coffee is what
milk you're putting in, and if you're putting any sweeteners
or sugar in so milk oats milk is going to
be really bad for your glucose levels because it's basically starch.
Oat milk is like pasta juice or rice juice. It's
just the starch that's been blended, broken down, chemically altered
(19:28):
to extract the starch from it. So better options are
things like unsweetened almond milk. There's this new thing pistachio milk.
Have you seen this now? So unsweetened pistachia milk. Maybe
I just have a whole whole dairy like whole cow's milk,
because it's high in protein, high and fat. It's great.
And then obviously if you add sugar to your coffee,
that's going to create a glucos mic.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Do you get frustrated walking into an American grocery store
and seeing all the marketing that goes on because there
are a lot of oat milks out there on the market.
When I'm walking through the you know, the milk ale,
the dairy aisle, I see so much marketing around certain milks,
kind of tempting you to purchase them, making you think
that they're healthier than they are.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, for sure, I think I think I'm angry at
the food industry for all of the all of the
tricks they try to play on us, because most people
want to feel good. Most people are buying oat milk
because they think it's better for them. They're like, oh,
this is plant based, it's better for me, yadi, YadA,
But they don't actually know the truth, which is what
molecules are inside. So yes, I've been endlessly frustrated and
(20:32):
angry at marketing tricks that food companies use for sure,
but it's not just in America, like this happens in
any supermarket in the world. What are you the angriest
at the label that says no added sugars? Because if
you look, for example, at fruit juice, fruit juice is
extremely high in sugar. One glass of orange juice has
(20:52):
the same amount of sugar as to can of coke,
and for your body, they're exactly the same. The amount
of the sugar in the orange juice is the same
as the sugar in the can of coke. But on
a bottle of fruit juice, you can say no added
sugar because you haven't added any like white powdered sugar
to the recipe. The sugar is naturally present. But when
(21:15):
somebody sees no added sugars, they think it means low
and sugar, but it does not. So that's the one
that I hate the most.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
When you're at a supermarket, checking out or picking up
groceries at local markets in Paris, what can you most
often see in your cart? Like what are you gravitating
towards it? In the aisles?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Greek yogurt, hummus, avocados, lots of salads, salmon, chicken, lots
of eggs, lots of parmesan. I'm like addicted to parmesan,
dark chocolate, rice, spaghetti. I love spaghetti, some anchovies, some bananas, berries,
(21:59):
peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
So when you started tracking your glucose and began to
reverse this cycle of spiking your glucose through the order
of foods that you were eating it and what you
were eating, how quickly did you notice for yourself that
you were able to reverse it? And then for our listeners,
how quickly can they reverse it?
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I felt better pretty much immediately because I switched from
a sweet breakfast to savoryone, and you just feel fuller,
you have better energy levels, and you feel more in
control on your own brain. So that was really fast.
Your glucose levels respond in real time to what you're eating,
which is why wearing glucose monitor is so interesting because
(22:50):
you see immediate change. You see exactly what's going on
now in terms of ridding quote unquote my body of
glucose spikes and creating a stronger foundation, stronger baseline. I
think it took me probably a month a month of
the hacks to really feel like things were profoundly shifting
in my biology. And for anybody who's interested in managing
(23:11):
their glucose levels, you will feel a difference within a
day when you apply the hacks, especially if you have
been on a cycle or glucospikes your whole life and
you didn't know it.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Are there any studies that show that?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
So the studies that we have are often association studies
showing different diets and how they impact things like depression symptoms,
anxiety symptoms, overall fasting glucose levels numbers. I would love
for us to design a specific study, which is you
just take two groups of people. One group puts on
(23:42):
a glucose monitor, the other group doesn't, and then we
give them lots of test about how they're feeling, their
inflammation levels, et cetera. But those are not yet very prevalent, no.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So what I'm learning is that a lot of glucose
spikes and glucose management, blucture management comes down to how
we're fueling our bodies. But what we haven't talked about
is stress on the body, whether it be physical or emotional.
So how is stress impacting our glucose levels?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
So interestingly, stress from a biological standpoint often has a purpose.
So when you back in the day when you were
all together and you felt stress, it was mostly because
you were in danger, right, so maybe something was chasing
you and you had to run really fast. And so
your body's response to stress is often to release a
(24:36):
lot of glucose into your blood stream to make sure
your muscles have access to energy to contract and run fast.
And so sometimes when you feel stressed, you'll see a
very big glucospike on your stello because that's your liver
releasing glucose into your blood stream to fuel your working muscles.
For example, one of the biggest glucose spikes that I
ever saw was after one of the first conferences I gave,
(24:58):
and it was like under three hundred people and I
was super scared. And after the conference, I looked at
my glucose monitor and I saw a massive glucos spike,
even though I hadn't eaten anything. It was just my
liver thinking I was in danger and releasing glucose into
my blood to make sure I had energy to run away.
So stress can impact us, and then chronic stress, which
(25:20):
is also a big issue. So chronic stress can also
make your body less good at managing your glucose levels.
So you can be getting bigger spikes for the same
foods in a period where you're stressed.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Yeah, it's almost like when you're giving a presentation in
front of a big group of people, it's your body
going into fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
No, yeah, totally absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Which is similar to the feeling that you mentioned previously
when we were hunter and gatherers and an animals chasing you.
You get this big rush of adrenaline. So how do
you balance that, Like, how do you manage that? Well?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
This and sometimes you're going to be stressed. You know,
maybe you can't do much about it. I mean, if
I speak just for myself, what's helped me be less
stressed is just to do the stressful thing over and
over again. So now you can put me in front
of ten thousand people and then I'm not stressed. But
you know, several years ago I was stressed about smaller presentations.
I don't know. I don't have very good tips. I
(26:13):
know there's things that you can do. Breath work, you
can do the physiological side when you go, you can
do that.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
You can pop a beta blocker.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
I mean, if that's your vibe, working out is helpful. Also,
you know, moving your body. Going to the gym can
really help with your stress levels. But I don't have
any magical solutions. Sometimes you're going to get a glucospike
and that's okay. And sometimes you wake up and you
want to eat five croissants and that's also okay. You know,
we have to use the hacks when they're easy, and
understand that gluco spikes are also fine, and one glucospike
(26:46):
is not going to harm you. It's about helping your
overall baseline be a bit steadier and healthier.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And it's also about learning certain lifestyle habits that you
can implement on a day to day basis, and understanding
that we're human. We're gonna cheat. Sometimes we're gonna mess up.
That's okay. Sometimes you don't have access to vinegar before
having gelato when you're out with your partner, right.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, But I want people to think about these hacks
like they would think about brushing your teeth. So if
you forget to brush your teeth one day because you're
tired and you we're going to bed, you're not gonna
wake up the next day and be like, oh man,
I forgot to brush my teeth. I'm such an idiots.
Oh my god, you don't care. You're like, I'm just
gonna brush my teeth. Now, that's the same thing for
the hacks. This is not a diet. These are principles
(27:28):
that are important biologically, but they're not something you can
fail at. They're just tips to keep in mind. Brush
your teeth, drink water, wear a sunscreen, have a savory breakfast.
They're all in the same bucket for me.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, they have to become what's the term in marketing
where it's like you gravitate towards picking up dove deodoring
because you've always gotten it. There's a certain habit. It's
it's a habit, but it's like, yeah, it's creech, you're uh,
it's you want things to become like you're creatures of
habits assurants. So it's making a habit something that's sustainable
(28:06):
and doable, but just inherently so. I think that's a
really interesting thing when it comes to glucose spike spikes,
and that's why you're instagram and the graphs that you
do breaking it down for people like me that aren't
sciencey and don't know all of this stuff, like you
just make it so tangible and easy to digest. Okay,
stress on the body. We haven't talked about it in
the terms of working out, but there's a lot of
(28:27):
people on the show that are long distance runners, athletes
love to exercise. So let's talk about how we can
manage our glucose levels while we're working out.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Okay, so there's two main categories here. If you're doing
a light workouts, so we're talking fifty percent of your
max heart rate, so you're doing a light job, you're
doing a long walk, you're doing a hike, you're doing
a light weight session, some easy cycling. When you're doing
fifty percent max heart rate exercise, your body's mainly burning
(28:58):
fat for fuel, mainly burning fat, not glucose for fuel.
So before these exercises, you don't need to be stocking
up on carbs. You don't actually have to eat before
these workouts. Generally, if you want, you can, But this
is not where glucose really comes into play. Glucose is
more important when you're doing exercises at about eighty five
(29:19):
percent of your max heart rates. So we're talking like
sprinting a long distance running, a proper weight session at
the gym, a hit class, et cetera. Here, at eighty
five percent of your max heart rate, your body and
your muscles are burning glucose for fuel majoritarily, So you
need to make sure if you want optimal performance, that
there's glucose available to your body. So what do you
(29:40):
do two hours before the day before you eat carbs.
You eat carbs, but you eat carbs without giving your
body a glucose spike because you need the carbs, you
need the glucose, but you don't need the spike. So
what you do is you pair the carbs with something else.
You put clothing on them. So you do banana with
peanut butter. You do rice and eggs, you do pasta
and chick can, you do toast and avocado, you do
(30:04):
what's your favorite combination of carbs and something else?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
And my favorite combination is a banana with peanut butter.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, So that's a perfect example. The banana has
lots of glucose in it, but with the peanut butter,
you're also giving your body protein and also lowering the
spike of that banana. And when you're doing long distance activities,
having some glucose also on the go is helpful, so
you can do gels, et cetera. That's a trick that
works because your body is looking for glucose for energy.
(30:30):
And there's another interesting one that I have recently found
in the science, which is that if during an intense
exercise you or swish in your mouth something sweet, you
don't even have to swallow it or to drink it.
So for example, orange juice, so you just swish into
your mouth. This can increase your performance because your brain thinks, oh,
I have sugar arriving, so I can push harder. That's
(30:51):
a fun one to try out.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
And why would people do that versus drinking it?
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, you can totally drink it. But the science is
interesting because that shows that you don't actually have to
drink it. It's not the act of the drinking it.
It's the feeling of sweetness in your mouth that triggers
your brain to perform better in terms of the exercise.
But you can totally drink it. It's just a little
science fact.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I think as athletes and
as people that exercise, it's like you constantly hear food
is fuel. It is, and it's interesting to really know
how to best fuel your body for optimal performance. So
the biggest thing that I like to focus on, especially
as a woman and even for our male listeners, is
that women and men should work out differently. Specifically, women
(31:36):
need to focus on the cycle right in their time
of month that it is. Can you talk to us
about that in terms of managing your glucose spikes while
going through different stages of your period.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Absolutely, so the week before your period, because of your
hormonal shifts, you will get bigger spikes from the same foods.
So that cookie that you like eating, if you're in
PMS zone, you'll have a bigger spike from it than
if you're at the beginning of recycle. What does this mean.
It means that the foods that you're used to eating
are going to create more inflammation and bigger glucose crashes,
(32:09):
therefore potentially more cravings. So that's one of the reasons
that we may crave more sugar just before our period,
because our glucose is more unsteadih before a period. And
so in that case, what do we do. We use
the hacks even more in the week coming up to
our period to try to reduce the spike and crash
(32:30):
induced cravings.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
So do you think it is important for women to
understand where they're at in their cycle when it comes
to tracking glucose.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I think it is, But I think it's you don't
have to do that. I would say, if you apply
the hacks all the time, it's going to be super,
super helpful. I don't think you should just apply the
hacks in the full color or the detail phase. I
don't think that makes sense. I think these should become
a baseline for everybody all the time.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Okay, so it truly is for men. In men, the
hacks say universally.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
About absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So what then would you tell women to do differently anything?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No, Honestly, when it comes to blood sugar management and
our glucose levels, men and women both use glucose for energy.
I think it's it's why the hacks are universal and
work better for everybody. I think, for example, if you
look at menopause or if you look at pregnancy, then yeah,
(33:31):
females have much different considerations. But apart from those parts
of life.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
The hacks work the same for everybody.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
We talked about cardio, but how does muscle specifically help
when it comes to managing glucose spikes?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
So muscles are your best friends when it comes to
who goes, because your muscles are going to soak up
glucose from your bloodstream after a glucose spike. So the
more muscle mass you have, the smaller glucose spikes you
will have. That's why we see that having higher muscle
mass leads to a lower probability of developing gestational diabetes,
(34:20):
which is the diabetes of pregnancy. Glucos spikes will be
smaller if you have more muscle to soak up the
glucos you just ate.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, and I'm I'm really excited to talk about your
book that you recently wrote. So guys, I have it
right here. It's called Nine Months That Count Forever. How
your pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future. You recently wrote
this book. It's very helpful for women that are pregnant,
including myself. So I want you to break down this
(34:49):
book for us and the core principles that you wrote about.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
So one thing to know is that in pregnancy there's
a huge gap between what science knows and what parents
are actually told. And I experienced this firsthand. I was like,
why is this not being discussed? So this book has
four simple pillars that if you apply them during pregnancy,
you're going to help your baby develop in a more
(35:13):
optimal way because when you're pregnant, your diet is actively
influencing your baby as he or she is developing in
your uterus, and you have so much more power than
you've been told. So Number one is glucose. So during
pregnancy it's important to use the glucose hacks and to
manage your glucose levels because your baby is connected to
(35:34):
your bloodstream, so if you have higher glucose levels, your
baby also has higher glucose levels in the womb, and
your baby also registers glucose spikes, so you want to
make sure to be using all the hacks we just
spoke about so that you can eat the carbs that
you like during pregnancy with smaller spikes, because with bigger spikes,
your baby is also feeling the inflammation and the faster
(35:55):
aging and the fat mass, so that's really important. Second
one is coling. Okay, Colin is amazing. Colin forms your
baby's brain and your baby's brain cells, and most of
us don't eat enough colin during pregnancy. Colin is found
in eggs, in animal foods like chicken, salmon meat, and
also in some plant foods, but really the animal foods
(36:16):
are the best sauce. And ninety percent of pregnant moms
today are eating a diet that is not giving them
enough coalin ninety percent of moms during pregnancy, So what
do you want to do? The easiest way to get
enough colin is to eat four eggs a day that
gives you all the colin that your baby needs for
optimal brain development. You can also take colin supplements if
(36:38):
you don't have eggs, and then if you make sure
to have a good animal protein source at every meal,
you're probably going to reach that. But honestly, eggs are
super food during pregnancy. So I had so many freakin eggs.
I probably had like a thousand eggs over the nine
months of pregnancy because I really want to get enough colin.
So colin is really key and important. For example, there's
(36:59):
some scientific studies that have been done where moms are
given a coalin supplement during pregnancy and some moms are
given double the coaling supplement, and they find that in
the moms that had the most coaling, the baby in
the first year of age had a faster reaction time
when he was put in front of a test on
a computer, a standardized test that measures reaction time because
(37:22):
that's linked to adult IQ. So they saw that in
the moms that had the most colin supplementation, the babies
had a ten percent faster reaction time to this test
after birth in their first year of life. So the
amount of coaling you eat will directly impact your baby's
brain development, and we want to make sure we give
our baby as much coaling as possible in the womb.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
So even if it's something that you're not eating, could
you can take a supplement like like a pill, kind
of like you take an iron supplement or your prenatal
every day.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, absolutely so in the book, I explained exactly what
supplements to look for, But you can take a colin
supplement for sure. Now colling from food and that's the
same as everything will be better absorbed by your body
than colin from supplements. So I really recommend the four
eggs or just making sure you're having animal protein at
every meal to make sure that you're giving your baby
(38:12):
the colin that he needs. Because again, ninety percent of
moms without this being their fault, just as a result
of the food environment we live in. Ninety percent of
moms have a diet that is not giving them enough
colin during pregnancy. And this is something that for example,
the American Association of Pediatrics has called, you know, an emergency,
but nobody talks about it. So we really really have
(38:32):
to make this information more widely known. So that's the
first two ones. So glucose hacks colin. Then we have protein.
So when your baby's born, if you exclude water, your
baby is fifty percent protein. Protein is not just muscles.
Protein is skin, immune system, organs, all sorts of tissues,
not just muscle. And so you as the mom, when
(38:54):
you're pregnant, you are giving the protein to your baby
so that he or she grows. I say he because
I had a son, so excuse me, but I'll say
you are giving your baby the protein that he needs
to your food. And so naturally the amounts of protein
that you eat needs to increase. So you need to
have about one point six grams of protein per kilo
of bodyweight per day in the second and third trimesters.
(39:17):
For me, that worked out to about one hundred grams
of protein per day. And so I made sure to
track it because I wanted to make sure my baby
had all the protein that he needed, because some animal
studies show that when moms don't eat enough protein during pregnancy,
their baby comes out smaller and has this programming in
them that says, keep your muscles small, don't become too
(39:38):
big and too muscular, and this setting in the animal
studies stayed with the baby for life. So when I
look at some of my friends who have a really
hard time building muscle, I kind of wonder, and I'm
kind of in this case, I wonder like, maybe this
has to do with the mom's protein levels during pregnancy,
because during pregnancy, your baby is calibrating his body and
(39:59):
is taking signal and is laying the foundation of metabolism
and organs. So we want to make sure our baby
has all the protein that he needs so that he
feels like he can make as much muscle mass as
he needs throughout his life. And the last one is
omega three's. Omega threes are a super important fat. They
come from algae and fish in the ocean, and they
also build our baby's brain. And in one study, when
(40:22):
moms were supplementing with omega three's during pregnancy, their kids
had a four point increase in IQ at four years old.
So I had fish two three times a week, and
I supplemented every day with two grams of omega threes.
And this is most important in the third trimester of pregnancy,
which is when most of the brain formation happens. But
you want to try to get your omega three levels
(40:43):
up as early as possible because they get stored in
your body. So to recap glucose hacks for glucose levels
because also pregnancy you can increase sugar cravings, so the
hacks are even more helpful then glucose hacks for exit
day or animal foods or coline supplement for colin enough protein,
and then omega threes through fish three times a week
(41:05):
or a supplement. And in the book, I have all
the details about how you can find the right supplement.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
It's amazing how how we're fueling our body and managing
our glucose levels and the supplements that we're intaking while
the babies in utero really does have the long term
effect on that child's life.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah, and it's a moment of outsized impact. It's a
little bit like when you plant a seed in soil.
The soil that you choose is going to co create
that trees plan. Right, the seed has a plan. I
want to be a majestic apple tree, but depending on
the soil that the seed is in, well, the tree
(41:52):
is going to adapt and grow bigger or a bit smaller.
And it's the same thing as the mom. We are,
in essence are baby's soil and so more information we
have on what we can do because the food system
is failing us. The more information we have on how
we can navigate the food system to give our body
the very important nutrients, the more chances our baby will
(42:15):
have to be able to develop as optimality as he wants.
How are you feeling in your pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
What's your diet like my diet has I mean, I
feel like I'm training harder than I ever had in
this pregnancy. And when I say training, I don't mean physically,
but I mean literally what I'm eating and the fuel
that I'm putting in my body. Like I would say
typically pre pregnancy. I've always been healthy, but I've never
been so health conscious, and now I am so health
conscious because of exactly what you're saying. It's I want
(42:42):
to make sure I'm giving this baby everything it needs,
you know, I want to make sure I'm giving it
enough iron and just everything that you aren't typically as
focused on pre pregnancy. It's just becomes so much more important.
So I've heard a lot of women say, you know,
being pregnant it's the hardest into ten months of their life.
And that's because you really have to be so so
(43:05):
focused on what you're putting in your body and how
you're treating your body. You know, it's like, physically I'm
doing a lot less.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah. And then the first trimester, I don't know if
you were nauseous. I was extremely nauseous, so I couldn't
do any of these things for the first four months.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Oh, you couldn't follow the guy.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I couldn't follow anything that I was doning in the science.
The first four months were basically just past trees. It
was awful. That's the only thing I could stomach. So
the first trimester can be hard, but if you don't
feel nauseous, it's a great idea to start these things
as early as possible.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah, And I feel like also, I have a friend
who's pregnant at the same time as me, one of
my best friends, and she was super nauseous actually throughout
her entire pregnancy. She's nearing the end and she's still
really nauseous. She's sick almost every day, which can happen
to I think a lot of people say, like, you're
just nauseous during your first trimester, which think of that
as a blessing, because some people really are nauseous all
(43:55):
the way through. And what she constantly says is, you know,
I'm putting the right fuel in my body to an extent,
because she has to eat a little bit more bland
due to the nausea. But what she gets so upset
about is feeling like she's not fueling her body enough
for the baby. And I think it's also important to
remember that babies are like parasitic and they take from
(44:15):
you what they need, but smith you really.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, your baby will not take what he needs. Your
baby will take what he can. So if there's not
enough colling your OMEGA three's, your baby will not be
able to get all the amount that he needs. And
that's one of the biggest myths. So your baby will
take some stuff, you know, but with a certain limit.
So your nature will always prioritize the mom at the
end of the day, so your baby will not be
(44:40):
able to take all of your cooling reserves, all of
your OMGA three reserves, or all of your protein reserves.
Babies are extremely resilient and your baby will be fine,
but that last little bit of optimization will not happen
if you're not able to give and to have in
your diet all the stuff that you need. And this
is not the mom's fault. It's just a consequence of
the fact that we're eating food that is very poor nutrition.
(45:02):
We don't eat organ meats anymore, we eat processed foods,
we eat sugar, et cetera. And in some cases you're
nauseous the whole the way through, and in that case
you just have to do the best you can. You know,
babies are resilient. I was born to mom who basically
only eats sugar in her whole pregnancy. And I'm fine.
But when we have information and when we can act
on it, why not.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah, It's like, why not give you that child the
best possible nutrients you can, knowing what we know now.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yeah, but it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot
of pressure, for sure, and I hope this can help
people navigate the pressure easily.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
And for our men listening, listen up, because you need
to make sure your wife, if your partner is pregnant,
is fueling her body. Right.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
Yeah, read this book and be in charge of all
the cooking and the grocery shopping. This is not the
female's fault. If you're a man, read the book and
do all the shopping, do all the cooking so that
your partner has all the food that she needs. Because
you know, babies develop in the bodies of women. But
it's our entire society that needs to be in charge
(46:02):
of making sure women have access to their right foods well.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
Isn't it also true that mourning sickness or is this myth?
Mourning sickness and nauseen pregnancy can also often come as
a byproduct of the male sperm and what they're putting
in their body.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I have not found conclusive evidence about this. It seems
that morning sickness is more related to hormones that the
pluscenta itself is producing and the embryo itself is producing.
I haven't seen any evidence that says it's the guy's fault. No,
but if you have any studies about this, please send
them my way.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
I would love to see, But regardless, it's important for
men and women making sure you're feeling your body right
and you know, coming off of pregnancy. Like I think
one of the things that has fundamentally shifted for me
in this pregnancy. While I really have been eating super healthy,
training my body physically the right way gently, and just
kind of doing everything as right as I possibly can,
(46:59):
I've been doing so much research and for me, it's
now going to extend, Like what I'm doing now isn't
going to change post pregnancy, you know, because I want
to have more babies, you know, obviously, like we want
to grow our family, and I've just found it to
be so important to kind of be training for life
and using this pregnancy as a really good way to
(47:20):
introduce these habits because I do have PCOS, and PCOS
is a common commonly coincides with some infertility issues. So
I'm curious, like, you know, what are your thoughts on
pcos at infertility and how they relate to glucose spikes
and glucose management.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
So PCOS is one of the leading causes of infertility
and females and PCOS. I mean, I'm sure you know
this by hard, but it's a it's an umbrella term
that relates to many different symptoms, and so the symptoms
that fall into the PCOS umbrella are missed periods, lack
of ovulation, acne, losing hair on your head, having high distoster.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I have every single one of those, by the way, guys,
there you.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
Go, so post your child. But these are the symptoms
of something else going on within and in seventy percent
of PCOS cases, you also see high insulin levels. Do
you know if you have high insulin level? I think
I do, okay. So that means that the high insulin
levels are then impacting downstream hormones and likely leading to
(48:24):
those symptoms. So it's the high insulin that we have
to take care of. So why does want to have
high insulin levels. Insulin is a hormone in charge of
reducing glucospikes, So when you have a lot of glucospikes,
you have a lot of insulin present. If you reduce
your glucose spikes, your insulin levels will reduce, which means
your testosterone will lower, which means normally the symptoms will
(48:47):
then disappear. So PCOS is something that you can completely clear,
like once you have no longer the high testosterone and
those symptoms, you don't have PCOS anymore because it's a
symptom driven condition, So it could be interesting. I'm not
sure what you've done so far, but like if you
were a stello, when you look at your glucose levels,
you might be able to see that some of the
(49:09):
foods that you're eating are actually causing lots and lots
of spikes, which could be one of the reasons you
have high insulin, which could then be leading to the
downstream PCOS. And that's why I've seen a lot of
readers of mine females who have pcos you want to
have a baby, They're like, I'm not overdating anymore. What
am I supposed to do? So they're about to start
IVF and then they reduce their glucose spikes which reduces insulin,
(49:30):
and boom they get their period back. So it's very
important if you have pcos to look at insulin and glucose.
You can ask a doctor to do a fasting insulin
test and a fasting glucose test, and I talk about
this in the book, like how to then take that
to figure out where you're at and this will give
your information on whether the PCOS is being driven by
high insulin, in which case, lower your glucose spikes as
(49:51):
the first step.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
And about one in ten women of child's bearing age
are thought to have PCOS, So this is a really
common issue.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It is a common issue, but it's more common now
than it used to be because it's often driven by
these glucose and insulin problems that come from the food
that we eat and the lifestyles that we eat.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah, so these are you know, and I do see
a lot on that, Like when I was going through
my conception journey and we were thinking about, you know,
trying to get pregnant, and luckily we got pregnant very quickly.
So I think that's also a misconception. Is a lot
of people think, you know, if they have PCOS, they
you know, it's going to be hard for them to
get pregnant. I didn't have that experience. I don't know
(50:33):
about future babies. I'm sure there will be times where
it's going to be harder for me. But it is
nice knowing that there are ways you can fuel your
body to reverse PCOS. And it's so rarely talked about
because I feel like doctors constantly put us on different
medications for.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
It, and this just masks the symptoms. So why do
people get on the pill when they have pcos Because
the pill is female hormones. So if you have pcos,
you have high testosterone in your body. So by adding
female hormones, you're bringing back the balance a little bit.
So the testosterone to female hormones balance is a little
bit better. But then if you stop the pill because
you want to have a baby, bam, testosterone is again
(51:13):
on overdrive and therefore you have those symptoms and you
can't get pregnant.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Yeah, and I like that it's still so simple. We
just go back to our five basic hacks that we
talked through in the beginning of this episode, and you
start implementing those immediately.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah. And my first book called Glucose Revolution goes through
all of these hacks, talks about pcos also, and it
can be a really good guide if you want to
get onto the steady glucose journey.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
So ozempic ozempic is a medication that treats basically diabet
these patients, right, So I'm curious what is your viewpoint
on ozempic as somebody that does sort of operate in
this space of managing levels that are similar to what
(51:57):
a GLP one helps with.
Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yeah, I mean two things, like they DELP one medication
has been very helpful for a lot of people. But ultimately,
what is really going on if we zoom out, we're
talking about a drug that reduces appetite, and this is
helping people because the food around them is so toxic
(52:20):
that by eating less they get healthier. It's a little
bit like if the tap water was toxic and instead
of fixing the tapwater, we gave people a drug them
make them less thirsty. That's kind of what's going on here.
So the problem is the food system that we live in.
This is helping people navigate the food industry, but it's
(52:45):
not solving the underlying issue. And in fact, people don't
have a GLP one deficiency. That's not what we're fixing here.
So what's going on is that when people stop the
GLP one drugs, they often gain all the way back,
and when they're all on the drug, if they're not
eating enough protein, they're going to be losing a lot
of muscle mass. So if you're on nozembic or any
(53:06):
all of the other ones, it's really important to eat
enough protein to maintain your muscle mass so that you
don't end up in a situation with lower muscle mass
at the end.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yeah, it's really important, and I feel like you see
in all the ads for these medications, but the most
important thing really is to if you're taking one of
these medications, compliment it with healthy lifestyle changes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
Absolutely, and a high protein one hundred grams a day
is a good goal and weightlifting if you can.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yeah. Is there a correlation between Alzheimer's and metabolic health.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Yes, so having high glucose levels in your midlife, in
your thirties and your forties is associated with the higher
risk of Alzheimer's disease as you age, and Alzheimer's sometimes
is called type three diabetes because what we see in
the brains of people with Alzheimer's is high and sulin levels,
insulin resistance, and inflammation and glycation, which are things that
(53:58):
are consequences of high glucose levels. So it's I mean,
it's a complicated disease for sure, but we're starting to
understand there are real roots in our duclose levels, our
insulin levels, and our metabolic health. So if we want
to put all the odds in our favor for healthy
brain as we age. Managing ducose levels early in life
is a really really good place to.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Start, and that prevention just looks like again following the hacks.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
This is the cool thing about the hacks is that
you may come to them for like fertility or exema,
or fatigue or cravings, but they have so many benefits
on all aspects of your physical and mental health.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
It's very interesting that it's, you know, like our glucose
levels affect all of these other systems in our body connected.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Everything is connected. Yeah, Glucose is used by every single
one of your cells. It's your body's energy source. Like
we're talking about something that underlies your entire life force.
When you make sure your cocost levels are in a
healthy face, your entire system benefits.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
What's the biggest misconception that you've heard about glucose.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
That it only matters if you have diabetes. That's the
biggest one. That's the biggest, biggest one, which is not
true at all. It matters for all of us at
all stages in life, and even kids should have better
gree coost levels. You know, if we eat sugar every
single morning, as a kid, it's not going to help
our brain development. Like, we need to have steady glucose
(55:32):
levels even as children to be able to have the
healthiest possible brain.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
I feel like we need Glucose Goddess snacks at the supermarket,
like little pairings, like a little shot of vinegar with
a side of love it, you know, just like an
easy grab and go.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
Situation love it. That's a good idea.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
So if you could change one thing about how people
think about glucose energy and health overall, what would it be.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
I would make sure people understand that fruit juice is
not a health food. That's a big one. Smoothie if
they contain protein and fat are fine, but just fruit
smoothies that's a big glucos spike. You don't want that.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
Everybody listening, You need to go follow Jesse Glucose Goddess
on Instagram if you want to learn more about managing
your glucose spikes. Also, if you're pregnant, pick up this book.
It is going to be your bible.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Nine months that count forever.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Nine months that count forever. Thank you so much for
staying down with you. Thank you guys so much for
tuning into today's episode with Glucose Goddess Jesse. If you
learn something today, please make sure you hit that follow
button on whatever podcast platform you are listening to us
(56:48):
on so you never miss an episode and share this
conversation with a friend somebody who could maybe learn a
little something from it. I appreciate you guys so much,
really appreciate you listening today and making it this far
in the episode. And I will see you next week. MHM.
Host
Kate Mackz
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