June 5, 2025 • 44 mins
Jenna sits down with Sophia; certified nutrition educator, Sophia helps fix your blood sugar without "dieting" BS! Follow Sophia on IG @glycemicinsights or go to her website; https://glycemicglow.com
Love Your Body, Love Your Life is broadcast live Thursdays at 4PM ET and Music on W4HC Radio – Health Café Live (www.w4hc.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Love Your Body, Love Your Life TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com). Love Your Body, Love Your Life Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Love Your Body, Love Your Life is broadcast live Thursdays at 4PM ET and Music on W4HC Radio – Health Café Live (www.w4hc.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Love Your Body, Love Your Life TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com). Love Your Body, Love Your Life Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Any health related information on the following show provides general
information only. Content presented on any show by any host
or guest should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.
Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,
or treatment program.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome to Love Your Body, Love Your Life. My
name is Jenna. I am the host of today's show,
and I'm also the author of the book titled Love
Your Body, Love Your Life, Fifty two Tips that will
Radically change your health. You can find my book on
Amazon and on Barnesannoble dot com. And today I am
joined by Sophia, who is a certified nutrition educator. She
(00:50):
helps people to balance their blood sugar without dieting. So
we have a little delay again, and I apologize for that,
you guys. I'm near my router, so I don't know
what's going on with that, So hopefully you are tuning
in and listening. I think that would be more enjoyable
than watching this because it has a little a bit
(01:13):
of delay. But I do encourage questions and any kind
of comments and anything you want to know about blood sugar, hormones,
weight loss, anything to do with that kind of genre.
We're going to be talking live about that, so I
want to get right into it. So Sophia, welcome to
(01:34):
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Hi, thank you so much for that lovely introduction. I
really appreciate being here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yes, yes, I am frozen on my end, so I
don't know what's happening here.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Okay, yeah, I see that.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh okay, Well we're going to just keep going because
I'm sure people are listening in on audio, So let's
just keep going and hopefully my screen will unfreeze at
some point. Okay, Sophia, So thank you for being here.
(02:10):
First of all, it's weird talking to you like this,
So there we go. I don't know what's happening. This
is like the third show that this Wi fi is
not connecting correctly, so I apologize for that, but yeah,
we'll get through it. So, Sophia, so let's tell everybody
how what led you into this kind of work?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So for me, this work is really personal, and it's
because I come from a family where type two diabetes
wasn't just a diagnosis, but it was like it was
a reality with pretty serious complications. And I grew up
watching how blood sugar issues affect like people, especially my
(02:54):
family members, and so I always had this feeling in
the like in the back of my mind that I
needed to take a different path, a preventative one essentially, right,
But I mean I was young, but I was young,
so it didn't really hit me until my first personal transformation.
(03:15):
It didn't start with diabetes. It started with my skin.
So at age nineteen, which was over a decade ago,
I had just graduated castology, was working full time right
after high school in the beauty industry. I was using
well what I thought was the top tier products, prescription, retinal,
(03:37):
expensive skincare routines. I was a skincare junkie. But no
matter what I did, I still had stubborn acting right,
and that happened. That was going on for about two years,
and then the real change that happened, like the significant change,
was when I started learning about something completely different, which
was nutrition and gut health. So I was reading more
(04:01):
about I was learning about probiotics, right, and it's not
just one or two probiotics. I was learning about sixteen
different strains and how they could actually impact your health,
like from the inside out and your skin. So then
after that I also learned about the role of fiber
and healthy fats like omega threes and reducing inflammation, which
(04:25):
is like for my case, it was like redness and
like irritation. So I made like a shift, right, So
I started eating whole foods because I was eating anything
and everything right after high school. We were eating out
all the time, fast food and just like packaged food.
So I started taking initiative and started making my own food,
my own meals, just whole foods, and I added probiotic
(04:47):
rich foods. So at the time it was just mostly
actually just probotic supplements. I didn't know about sauer kraut
or kimchi. And then I started incorporating flack seed into
my routine, just focusing on like healing my body, not
just treating my skin, and within three months, my skin
completely cleared up. It like transformed the skin care products
(05:13):
for two years. Right, even though I went to school
I was an a steutician. That shift that was like,
that was a moment when I knew I needed, I
wanted and I needed to study nutrition, like seriously. I
didn't do it right away, but as I was working
full time, that's when I pursued my bachelor's degree in
health science. So I did health promotion and disease prevention,
(05:35):
and then after that, I.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Still went back to school.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
To learn about medical nutrition therapy. So it wasn't just
to understand the science, but also to just help people
how to heal from the root, which is what I
felt that I did with myself. I helped myself from
the root, and I.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Worked in clinical nutrition.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
It didn't really last that long though, even though I
was moving up and I did well in the field,
I just did not see myself in that environment in
the long run. So I mean, that's where I'm at now.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
That's so good, Sophie, and at such a young age,
and I know a lot of people can probably relate
to being that age and seeing skin issues and you know,
other things happening.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So we're grateful that you took this route because now
you can educate us.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So you mentioned probiotics, probiotic rich foods other than the supplement,
So can we just start there and what that would
do to help people.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, so probiotics, there's probiotics and probiotics for probiotics are
naturally like bacteria that's alive in our gut that just
helps break down food easier and it could be stuff
that's already fermented, like your sauerku kimchi, and then Keifer.
Keifer was probably the first one that I that I used,
(07:07):
and also yogurt. Yogurt was probably one of the first
ones that I used. They have they naturally have occurring probiotics.
Prebiotics are certain foods that you eat that feeds the
natural probiotics inside our microbiome.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
So that could be like.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Fruit, fruit with like uh the skin on, like apples, pears,
and even like sartichokes. Certain certain root vegetables feed fiber
pretty much insoluble fiber feed the gut, the gut bacteria
the probiotics in your body.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Hmm, okay, So would you recommend somebody starting with that, Like,
let's say they want to lose weight by stabilizing their
blood sugar. How would somebody start or what would you recommend?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So? Okay, so losing weight by starting with blood sugar?
So okay, let me just want to introduce this basically
with the big picture. So I want what I try
to help people understand is that I know a lot
of people come to me for weight loss. That's like
the first main thing. But I also want them to
understand that weight loss isn't like the main goal, but
(08:19):
it also is a happy side effect of healing your metabolism,
healing your body right through nutrition. So when we talk
about blood sugar and what happens to your body, So
when your blood sugar is stable, your body stays calm
and balanced, you have steady energy all day, your cravings
(08:40):
naturally decrease, versus the opposite when your blood sugar spikes
and it crashes. So I just want to be clear
about what's normal and what's harmful. Blood sugar spikes aren't
always bad. It's a natural, like normal signal that your
body tells you that hey there's energy here.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Let's use it.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
It's it's part of a normal like healthy functioning metabolism
or just a natural body reaction. But the problem sometimes
is if the spike itself right. So it's like when
those spikes happen all day every day from the ultra
processed foods or sugary drinks, sodas and constant snacking, that's
(09:22):
when things could become dysregulated and a little bit more
difficult to manage. Because when that happens, when you have
that blood sugar spike, your insulin, which is produced by
your pancreas. It's a hormone that's supposed to help balance
your blood sugar in your body. However, when you have
chronic high insulin levels, it could potentially also be your
(09:45):
fat storing hormone if you don't use that access energy,
that access like blood glucose. So when those levels, those
high levels of insulin are just they keep there. When
the levels are con high, the fat just gets locked
in storage, and you're more prone to blood sugar crashes.
(10:07):
You get hungry and you crave more food, and naturally
people like to reach for another fix, like or not,
like a quick fix, a snack, whatever is available, especially
if they're not prepared, and the cycle repeats.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
So it creates like.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
A cycle, right I usually I call this like a
vicious cycle. You spik your blood sugar spikes, you crash.
People naturally get something sweet or something easy to just
spike or just to raise their sugar a.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Little bit more.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But when you use that, when you get a refined
carb or a snack that isn't really the best choice,
you crash again.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, do you go.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Over through that cycle and you tend to overeat and
it repeats the cycle, and I feel like that's all
that's like a big misunderstanding or misconception.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
I mean, hypoglycemia.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
It is no joke either, right that I feel like
that's even more dangerous than like high blood sugar.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
To be honest.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But instead of just going through that cycle of eating
like those quick, easy snacks that are like refined carbs, crackers, cookies, anything,
I don't every I mean there's so many things out there. Yeah,
it's still going to spike you and you're still going
to crash. So you want to so the solution, right,
instead of getting trying to get yourself out of that
(11:27):
cycle that repeats. And it's not your fault, right, it's
not anyone's fault. It's just easy, right to focus on
like your protein, your healthy fats, and your fiber rich
foods because all those three, that three, that combination helps
keep your blood sugar steady. And when you do this,
your body eventually will shift from storing fat to burning it.
(11:50):
So overall, like when your blood sugar is spiking all day,
your body is stuck in storage mode. But when you
keep it stable, shifts from storing fat to burning it.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
So what can we do to shift that, like, can
you walk us through like a day or something like
if somebody wants to shift from those spikes all day,
what can they do as far as like a plan
for like one day plan or something.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
So the easiest thing I feel is setting your day
with your breakfast. Try to have at least like three
to five like meals prepped and ready to go for
your breakfast, especially if you're short on time. And because
when you have your breakfast ready with like a protein
and a fat, like a healthy protein and a fat,
(12:44):
it sets the tone for the whole day.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So what would be an example of a breakfast like
some ago, they're busy, they have kids, the whole the
whole nine, right, and oh yeah, go ahead. No, I
was just gonna say, because I know most people don't
have time for breakfast if they have family and everything
(13:07):
like that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, that's very common, especially with a lot of my clients.
So I'll provide the examples that helped my clients.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I mean I could.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
For me, I like to cook my breakfast every morning,
but they're not. Everyone has that same routine. So a
lot of people like to do their yogurt and they
add their pumpkin seeds, their flax seeds, any berries, or
even chia seeds, a lot of them. They say that
they've really been enjoying their chia seed pudding, so they've
(13:36):
been using that just to help them like something to
grab and go. And if they do want to have oatmeal,
like they add, I recommend them to not have it
by itself. They try to have like hard boiled eggs
or like. Yeah, so they try to have hard boiled eggs, yogurt,
what else. Oh, sometimes they have their protein shakes as well,
(14:01):
as long as it really does have like a natural
fat in it. So I mean you could use coconut oil.
Some people don't mind using avocado, like the actual avocado
fruit with their shakes, just to help maintain that stability
throughout the morning and they don't have to crash and
be hungry before lunch.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, just so I'm clear, sofia, the fats and the
protein will stabilize the blood sugar. Yes, we can have
a carb as long as we're adding a protein and
a fat.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yes, okay, yes, because it's really common for people to
just eat refined carbs by itself and it doesn't really
last them that long.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Mm, So we have a piece of toast. Can we
have almond butter and ghee? For example?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Have you had that before? Gay with toasts?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That has actually been my breakfast. Okay, that's why I'm like,
I'm sorry, I'm my it is so stuck so you
can't see my face, but that's been my breakfast. Is
like a low card piece of bread, yeah, ghee and
almond butter, and then I'll have like a green.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Tea or something.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah. I mean you could add more to that if
you can. I would recommend to add something more like
a hard boiled egg.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I don't know if you eat eggs. Oh yeah, I
love eggs.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
But yeah, that's always a good option. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Okay, okay, So I just wanted to make that clear
for so okay, so let's let's get into so would
that be something that you would suggest if somebody's trying
to get off of insulin?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So okay, So personally, I haven't worked with anyone that
was put on insulin and my experience, but I do
have something some suggestions.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
First of all, like always work.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
With their healthcare provider when making medication changes. But I
do feel like there's a common misconception with needing insulin
with type two diabetes. So most people think that type
two diabetes means that they need more insulin. But most
of the time that's not really like the issue or
(16:20):
the real problem. So the truth is that the true
understanding is that type two diabetes is usually about having
too much of your own insulin, not too little. So
essentially your cells are overloaded and they can't take in
any more glucose because they're already overloaded with glucose, and
(16:41):
the insulin is just trying to pump out and just
do its job. It doesn't know that your cells are overloaded.
It's just doing his job. But I just want to
mention real quick. How I learned about this was through
doctor Jason fun So. He's a nephrologist. He specialized in
kidney health. He wrote the Obesity Code, the Diabetes Code,
(17:04):
and he co wrote the pcos plan. So he was
an aufhrologist, which he specialized in kidney health. And his
whole all of his clients, like the majority of his
clients that he treated for kidney disease, it all came
from type two diabetes. So he wanted but he just
he only knew what to do and which was prescribed
(17:27):
more insulin, but nothing was working. And so he went
back and studied type two diabetes and he came he
pretty much cream up with this analogy. Right, So the
overflow paradigm. So he explains it, how think of your
cells like a suitcase that's already packed full. Insulin is
(17:49):
trying to stuff more clothes in, but there's no room.
And the solution isn't to force more in or to
give the patient more insulin. It's to try to pack
what's already there. So and that's what they talk about
in all these three books. So what they did, what
he did, he took a step back from just Instead
(18:11):
of prescribing insulin and treating people with met Foreman and
just medications, he went the dietary modification route and he
treated most of his patients with dietary modifications and fasting.
And so for me as a nutritionist, these are the
like the suggestions that I would recommend to support better
(18:34):
blood sugar balance and reduce insulin load. Right, so first
I would suggest like these five things. So we want
to first lowering the insulin spikes naturally is choosing your
whole foods over processed ones and donat your carbs alone,
and then try try strategic fasting.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
It doesn't have to be complicated.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
It could be an overnight twelve or fourteen hours, right.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
And then just being.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
More physically active because a lot of people, even being
sedentary could could be detrimental to our health in the
long run.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
So even moving like ten to fifteen minute like.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Walks after a huge meal makes a difference, or not
a huge meal, but just like after eating. And also
try to reduce stress, because this was literally the most
common issue that I went through with a lot of
my clients. Even though they were doing everything right, checking
in with me, doing their homework, applying the homework, the
highest stress mainly from like mental and emotional because of
(19:37):
their jobs, Like it kept their blood sugar high, and
it could still raise your blood sugar even without any food.
So in the end, we want to kind of help
rebuild that flexibility by training your body to burn glucose
and fat.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I agree TOFIA like stress just in my own I
guess then, you know, just coming from my perspective, I
feel like stress automatically just puts you in fight or flight,
and like all the cells are activated and you can't
(20:15):
think correctly.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, yeah, because your body is like ready, that's the thing.
Your all of your blood is rushing to your limbs
because it's ready to literally like fight or flight, and
so you don't have a lot of blood running in
your organs. And when you're in that rest, when you're
in the parasympathetic right, yeah, so digest, Yeah, when all
(20:41):
your blood is going to your organs and they're doing
their yeah, their job. And so with like going back
to fixing like your insulin, like or getting off insulin.
You don't want to fix an overflow by forcing more in.
You want to fix by release what no longer serves
your body. It's layered and it's gradual, it takes time.
(21:05):
And yeah, so stress is like a huge, huge factor.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I agree. So can we talk about some things. Let's
just take a very busy business man or a very
busy business woman. They own their own business. It's high stress.
They're the president or the CEO of this company, and
they know they have to get healthier, but they have
(21:33):
a demanding job and maybe they're even in a demanding relationship.
How does one bring their stress level down in that situation?
Speaker 4 (21:43):
So I feel like it okay.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So going back to certain individuals that I've worked with
a lot of, like if you want to talk about
if they're in a demanding relationship, obviously communication and then
also I feel like it's about managing your time because
when you manage your time and your schedule thing, it
(22:06):
will be everything will be a little bit more manageable,
like right from when you wake up to when you
go to sleep, and having those boundaries too, because I
feel like some people did get stressed because they were
all this stuff that I teach people and apply. They're
all new skills and skills get take time, and so
(22:28):
you build up gradually with what you can handle. So
you want to do one step out of time. But
I feel like it's time management. It's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
For somebody to bring their stress level down if they.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Are because I notice a lot of people that stress
out is because they feel like they don't have enough
time or they just don't know. They just need to
know how to organize their tasks, even if it's something
as simple as a chore something like, it's better sometimes
just have organized it throughout your day, throughout your life.
It just makes things a little bit more manageable. I
(23:05):
mean that's the thing, like we're always life is always going.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
To be stressful.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
And when you nourish, when you nourish yourself and you
implement like those healthy habits, you yourself become more resilient
and your body becomes resilient and you recover faster.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I like the whole organization idea because I feel like
then because a lot of times it's like our stress
is just in our mind. We're overthinking and we're making
something bigger than it is or something like that. So
I feel like if it's the time management or more
(23:43):
organization in your day meal prepping, then it's like you
don't have to really think about those things. Yeah that Q.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, you don't have to worry about it because it's
one less thing to think about and you want to
use your mind, like your thinking skills everything to actually
for actual real life decisions. And like you have your
meal like preps, that's like one last thing they had.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
To worry about.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, and a lot of people do stress about that,
which feels like you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I know. I mean I can remember when I was
working as a sales rep and I was always in
my car. I was and I'm always I've always been
a meal prep person, but my stress level was so high, Sophia,
because I was on the road and I was eating
in my car, and so it was just like, yeah,
(24:36):
I think definitely the meal prepping helps.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
At least, yeah, with what you can control. Obviously you
can't control a lot of stuff like that when you're
on the road. I mean I had I had clients
that they love to travel or they even travel for work,
and a lot of the fasting helped them out. But
also instead of going fast food, they would try to
just do like do grocery runs because it's easier for
(25:01):
them to choose to have more control over their food choices.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Can we talk a little bit about the fasting.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean fasting. I feel like it's different for everyone,
for male and female. I feel like it shouldn't be
a punishment, it shouldn't be starvation. It's pretty much allowing
your body to like to have a break, to rest
and to heal. So for someone who has diabetes or
(25:29):
they're like they just want to balance their blood sugar,
it just helps their body. It allows their body to
give it time to burn stored energy. And just help
them lower those insulin levels. And some people also do
it because it helps support their cell repair if done correctly.
Because I feel like there's no one size fits all.
(25:52):
If it works best when your body's already nourished and
when it's not stressed. So if you're like under eating
and you're over stressed, fasting might make things a little
bit worse. So sometimes fast you don't get into fasting
right away. With some of my clients, I want them
to know how to eat first. Yeah, eventually get into fasting,
(26:15):
especially for women too, like we need like listen, we
need to listen to our energy and like hormone signals
because and some people disagree, fasting in the morning isn't
really a good idea because we naturally have high cortisol
because we have to wake up and when you fast,
those cortisol levels stay high. So some I had a
(26:37):
client she fasted, she skipped dinner, and uh, that worked
out better for her. So everyone's different. Some people they
preferred fasting skipping breakfast in the morning.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
But yeah, so she just because I'm just curious, so
she wouldn't eat anything at all at night because that's
one of my.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I think she was stop eating that for okay, so
it could start gradual. I mean some people naturally already
fast by not eating for twelve hours, Like if you
have your dinner at seven and then twelve hours after
that is seven am. People don't even eat till like
wait after that, so that's already past the twelve fourteen hours.
Some people already do that, And then you want to
(27:21):
leave like four to five hours in between meals. So
some people were just fast by eating two big meals.
But and if they want to do longer fasting, it's
only when like your energy, when you think your energy
is stable, so they work up to it. H Some
people do it to reset their digestive system too.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Have you ever heard of that book Fasting like a Girl?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Oh, my doctor, mindy pills?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
No, I have or pills.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Sorry, I don't know if I said that right.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I have.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I just haven't read it yet, but I do. It's
on my wish list for audible.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh okay, if I ever see if we get together again,
I have it.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Many books on my audible. I mean all these three
books that I showed you.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I also have them on my audible.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I'm just always reading these books and getting back to
it because I'm always learning something new.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, I'm a big book reader too.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
She has a whole like plan around fasting. I mean
her her take on it is definitely interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, I think it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah she because for us, like we can't fast certain
certain times in the month.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
So okay. So then with what we've talked about, Sophia,
would you say that keeps our metabolism high or would
you add anything to the conversation around keeping the metabolism
high and like that fiery kind of you know, to burn.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
So and okay in Mike, in our in this context
that we're talking about from metabolism, I mean, metabolism could
be so much, so many different things. You could have
a whole degree metabolism, right, you could, because like just
the different pathways everything, how it works in your body.
But in this context when we talk about metallism, I
(29:11):
just want to mention that it's mainly how fast you
burn calories and how your entire body creates and uses
energy and so figuring out whether if that if your
body is using that energy or storing it as back.
So a healthy metabolism could mean what your body does
(29:32):
with the food, right, is it feeling your cells? Is
it balancing your blood sugar or is it spiking it?
Or is it like is it burning?
Speaker 5 (29:42):
What?
Speaker 3 (29:42):
It what it doesn't need? So like a stress or
overloaded metabolism could mean that that's when you're when things
start getting stored and fat loss almost seems impossible like
fight or flight. Right, your body's not in the mom
when you're in that high stress level like state your
body does, it's not going to burn like any fat
(30:04):
It's going to try to survive. Yeah, I mean, so
signs of slow metabolism every day. It could be constant fatigue.
It could be waking, especially around like the belly, the midsection.
It could be brain fog. It's some people. It could
mean that you're always feeling cold, or you have strong cravings.
(30:24):
You could have mood swings. It could be different things.
And then also like what's I mean what slows it down?
What makes what interferes with the healthy metallism. It'd be
like skeeeping meals or eating too little. It could be
it could even be like too much cardio without strength training.
I feel like that's what I did for over ten years.
(30:44):
I overworked myself and I didn't have any muscle mass,
but I just did cardio and then not eating enough
protein or not having a good like sleep schedule, like
I said, chronic stress mainly like mental and emotional and
just being in that constant like blood sugar roller coaster.
(31:05):
So those are things that you could take in mind
if you feel if you're concerned, if you feel like
your metallism's kind of like unstable, in order to boost
it naturally. I first think, I mean, this is what
everyone says, and it's like true to form. It's like
you want to eat enough protein. And the reason that
(31:25):
you want to eat enough protein is because it's it's
gas like it's like so it has a high thermic.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Effect on your body.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
And when I say that is that when you eat protein,
your body burns calorie digesting that protein. So as opposed
to like when you're eating refined carbs, your body you
don't need any like you don't need your body doesn't
burn any calories, doesn't need any energy to digest carbs.
(31:53):
So protein helps pretty much like increase your basal metabolic
rate along with building muscle right lifting weights, when you
burn muscle, when you build muscle, and you eat your protein,
you're increasing your basal metabolic rate, which means your basil
metabolic rate is the amount of calories that you burn
(32:15):
that your body burns at rest by doing nothing, just
by sitting, sleeping, breathing, you know what I mean. Kind
of keep that as part of your routine and then
also prioritizing sleep. I just feel like that just helps
your body recover. Especially even people who are trying to
increase muscle mass, are trying to go to the gym,
(32:37):
they need to also take their sleep serious in order
to see their gains.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And again, like I said, some of this stuff is
going to sound repetitive, but manic stress stress, here's your
body from recovering. And the thing is like we I mean,
there's so many types of stress. There's good stress and
bad stress. I feel like, like, because there's you stress,
it's called eu stress. It's one word that's like stress
(33:04):
like weight lifting weights. That's a type of stress. But
it's like it's like a quick stress.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
It goes away.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
But then there's people that are in constant like stress
from work, like constant and like emotional mental stress from
most of the time it's work or just making ends
meet or just like I said, beaming your head anything.
So those that's the stress that we want to like
be careful with right and then obviously just trying to
(33:32):
eat the right foods to keep your like your blood
sugar stable, just to keep your energy level stable. So
all these habits could help support a healthier metallism and
can make it, could make it may make bat loss
more accessible over time, especially like with paired with other
lifestyle changes. So like your metallism isn't like really slow
(33:56):
or broken. It's slow because it doesn't feel safe, and
like you just want to you want to feel it,
you want to move it, and you want to rest
it like your body, and then see what happens after that.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Interesting how you said it doesn't feel safe, because I
feel like if what I'm hearing is most people they say,
oh I want to lose weight, or you know, then
they go in they starve themselves or they do something
like I heard you say in the beginning. You know,
it shouldn't feel like punishment. So I feel like that's
(34:34):
so on point for from what I teach, you know,
to kind of love yourself more. And obviously I won't
get into my story, but I've learned the hard way,
but I love that what you're saying. So, so okay,
so let's kind of get into a little bit. So
(34:56):
you mentioned more weight training. What is ideal or weight
training two to three times a week?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Oh yeah, sorry, No, I think two to three times
a week is a good start. I mean, and you
you still see results. And I do honestly body weight
and even the dumbbells all that stuff. It's like it's
good enough. You don't have to rely on heavy equipment
or I mean, the machines are good too, but you
(35:26):
could do exercises at home two to three times a week,
and even using your body weight calisthenics that's also pilates
is good too. So yeah, yeah, it doesn't have to
be crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, as long as you're doing the other I went
for a walk and I actually put on my like
my leg weights, like.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
That's always a good one. You could use it on
the treadmill. Yeah, exactly what you did too.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah cool, Okay, So I just kind of want to
get into what your typical day looks like, and then
we're going to try to get to some questions before
we wrap up. Yeah, tell me exactly what you do.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So as far as like eating, I so I always
as soon as I wake up, I always drink water,
always drink water, and I usually have gin sing tea
and electrolytes, just because when we wake up, our blood
sugar is super concentrated because we were just laying down
for a long time, so you kind of want to.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Let that.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Just disperse a little bit. And then when I do eat,
I usually eat about an hour an hour and a half,
like ninety minutes after waking up.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
And I always my.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Breakfasts always been the same, but the only thing that
rotates is the protein. So I always have two eggs
with either oil or grass or butter, and then my
protein is either smoked salmon or chicken sausage or leaf sausage.
I always keep it simple and whatever veggies I have prepped.
Times I have frozen veggies, but I just throw that
(37:02):
in there and that sets me pretty. That sets me
good for like about four to five hours. I still
eat three meals a day, and there's spaced apart about
four to five hours, and then lunch. I always rotate
my protein. I don't really snack ever, because I don't
really I mean, I don't need to but my lunch
(37:23):
it's also like just not six ounces of protein, sixty
seven ounce of protein. It could be usually I have
I rotate my fish, salmon, cod, sardines, or sometimes I
have beef, sometimes I have pork. And then I don't
know why, I rarely eat chicken, but I do eat
it though, But I don't know why I just rarely
(37:43):
eat it. It's just I feel like I get more
nutrients out of these other proteins just because of the minerals.
And then also vegetab I do eat. That's in the
for lunch. That's when I have my carbist meal or
I have I still have my white rice or usually
have a quinoa or even soup potato, the starchy vegetables.
(38:06):
But I always have that at lunch, and then at
dinner same thing. I have more vegetables in dinner, and
my proteins saying like five it's a little bit less
five to six ounces, but it's just whatever I have
on rotation because I always buy. The thing is my
food is the same. My meals are the same for
four to five days, usually my lunch and my dinner sometimes,
(38:30):
so I eat the same thing four to five days
and then I go back and I rotate my proteins
so and then I drink about eighty ounces of water,
and then between that I drink a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Of tea and it's just gin Sing tea.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Well, I drink gin Sing tea, and then I drink
at night, I drink lemon balm because it's a little
bit more. It relaxes you more and it's easy on
the digestive system. And then I sometimes it's just I
just I grab so many random different teas because I
like to try different things. But in the morning it's
always ginsing because it gives you a little bit more energy.
(39:08):
And I always like drinking Gin Sing before a workout
just because it helps me more with endurance.
Speaker 4 (39:13):
I last longer.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Your BAMT.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, your Romanates, I have that. So I have a
concentrated form of your ramate. It's the powder form your romanate,
and it's it's smoked, I believe, and it's grinded up
so it's like super constant. It's pretty strong. I have
it sometimes when I feel like I need that.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Extra boost, I really want to try that one.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty strong, and so if I do
so when I do wake up, when I do have
my exercises in the morning, I wake up extra early.
I usually don't. I mean I have a small like
I usually have coffee with a little bit of butter
just to kind of hold me over for a workout,
or I just have yogurt. But usually those days I
(39:59):
do have a second cup of caffeine, whether from green
Tea or yourble mate, because I don't want to overcaffeinate myself.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I know, right, because then you can't that night. Okay,
let's try to get into some of these questions if
we could wrap it fire, because our time is kind
of wrapping up here. Let's go with the ones that
just came in. What is that lemon balm?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
That's a tea, right, yeah, so it's an herbal tea.
It's like a leaf, and lemon balm is supposed to
help just like soothe the digestion, but it also helps
with anxiety. You could buy it as an extract or
I like to buy it as the loose dried leaf
and it because sometimes I'm always I need I need
(40:46):
something at night to relax me and to tell me, hey,
it's time to wind down. And that one's more of
a gentle gentle way of like winding myself down because
if I have camrameal lavender Valerian, it's a little bit
too strong and too heavy for me sometimes. And that
one I take it after dinner just to like really
(41:08):
like set the tone for like the rest of my
evening without knocking me.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Got it?
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Somebody asked, is that one a drink additive? I don't
know what.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Is that one drink?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Is that one drink additive?
Speaker 4 (41:25):
What did I say? Maybe the left lemon ball?
Speaker 6 (41:30):
I'm sorry that one came in when y'all said, So
it's strong.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
And oh, is it like an additive? I mean it's
a it's it's like a it's a powder form your mamatee.
You could drink it as a tea.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
I drink it as a tea.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
It dissolves in water. You could drink it in just
regular water. But I drink it as a tea and
sometimes sometimes it could be a little bit strong if
you're not used to having a lot of caffeine.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
But it has.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Divia, which is a natural It's a plant based sweetener
that doesn't affect your blood sugar, so it helps a
lot for a lot of people who have diabetes.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Could drink that tea.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
The Yerba mate. Yeah, I definitely want to get that
and try it.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
I'll send you the link, or if anyone was interested,
I could send them the link if they could read
on it and how it works.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Let's at that. With that, Sofia, let's let's tell people
where they can find you, because we're going to wrap
up here. And I'm sorry if I didn't get to
all the questions. But if somebody or any of you
want to reach out to Sofia or myself, you you're
more than welcome to let everybody know where they can
(42:46):
find you.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, So if they want to reach directly to me,
you could always find me on Instagram. My name is
Glycemic Insights and then also you could see my I
have a website where I also provide more education like
blogs and like free resources that has that have helped
my clients in the past. And but if you want
(43:08):
to talk to me directly, you could just message me on.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Instagram and what's your website name?
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Oh yeah, my website glycemic glow dot com, glycemic glow
the chat surely semic glow dot com.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
So yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
If anybody else wants to ask Sophia anything, find her
on Instagram or go to her website dot com. So amazing,
Thank you so much on the show. Thank you for
having me. I know I learned a lot, and I
apologize again for this delay and my my camera, but
(43:50):
this was a good show. Definitely. It taught me a lot.
So I know a lot of people got some things
out of it.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yeah, I hope, so yeah, I hope it was as
easily as digest as.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
Pass so for sure, oky dope, great, Thank you so much.
M HM care all right you too, bye bye, all
right you guys.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Thank you to Sophia again. Find her at glycemicglow dot
com or Glycemic Insights on I G Instagram. And until
next time, love your body and love your life. Take
care bye.
Any health related information on the following show provides general
information only. Content presented on any show by any host
or guest should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.
Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,
or treatment program.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome to Love Your Body, Love Your Life. My
name is Jenna. I am the host of today's show,
and I'm also the author of the book titled Love
Your Body, Love Your Life, Fifty two Tips that will
Radically change your health. You can find my book on
Amazon and on Barnesannoble dot com. And today I am
joined by Sophia, who is a certified nutrition educator. She
(00:50):
helps people to balance their blood sugar without dieting. So
we have a little delay again, and I apologize for that,
you guys. I'm near my router, so I don't know
what's going on with that, So hopefully you are tuning
in and listening. I think that would be more enjoyable
than watching this because it has a little a bit
(01:13):
of delay. But I do encourage questions and any kind
of comments and anything you want to know about blood sugar, hormones,
weight loss, anything to do with that kind of genre.
We're going to be talking live about that, so I
want to get right into it. So Sophia, welcome to
(01:34):
the show.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Hi, thank you so much for that lovely introduction. I
really appreciate being here.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yes, yes, I am frozen on my end, so I
don't know what's happening here.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Okay, yeah, I see that.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh okay, Well we're going to just keep going because
I'm sure people are listening in on audio, So let's
just keep going and hopefully my screen will unfreeze at
some point. Okay, Sophia, So thank you for being here.
(02:10):
First of all, it's weird talking to you like this,
So there we go. I don't know what's happening. This
is like the third show that this Wi fi is
not connecting correctly, so I apologize for that, but yeah,
we'll get through it. So, Sophia, so let's tell everybody
how what led you into this kind of work?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So for me, this work is really personal, and it's
because I come from a family where type two diabetes
wasn't just a diagnosis, but it was like it was
a reality with pretty serious complications. And I grew up
watching how blood sugar issues affect like people, especially my
(02:54):
family members, and so I always had this feeling in
the like in the back of my mind that I
needed to take a different path, a preventative one essentially, right,
But I mean I was young, but I was young,
so it didn't really hit me until my first personal transformation.
(03:15):
It didn't start with diabetes. It started with my skin.
So at age nineteen, which was over a decade ago,
I had just graduated castology, was working full time right
after high school in the beauty industry. I was using
well what I thought was the top tier products, prescription, retinal,
(03:37):
expensive skincare routines. I was a skincare junkie. But no
matter what I did, I still had stubborn acting right,
and that happened. That was going on for about two years,
and then the real change that happened, like the significant change,
was when I started learning about something completely different, which
was nutrition and gut health. So I was reading more
(04:01):
about I was learning about probiotics, right, and it's not
just one or two probiotics. I was learning about sixteen
different strains and how they could actually impact your health,
like from the inside out and your skin. So then
after that I also learned about the role of fiber
and healthy fats like omega threes and reducing inflammation, which
(04:25):
is like for my case, it was like redness and
like irritation. So I made like a shift, right, So
I started eating whole foods because I was eating anything
and everything right after high school. We were eating out
all the time, fast food and just like packaged food.
So I started taking initiative and started making my own food,
my own meals, just whole foods, and I added probiotic
(04:47):
rich foods. So at the time it was just mostly
actually just probotic supplements. I didn't know about sauer kraut
or kimchi. And then I started incorporating flack seed into
my routine, just focusing on like healing my body, not
just treating my skin, and within three months, my skin
completely cleared up. It like transformed the skin care products
(05:13):
for two years. Right, even though I went to school
I was an a steutician. That shift that was like,
that was a moment when I knew I needed, I
wanted and I needed to study nutrition, like seriously. I
didn't do it right away, but as I was working
full time, that's when I pursued my bachelor's degree in
health science. So I did health promotion and disease prevention,
(05:35):
and then after that, I.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Still went back to school.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
To learn about medical nutrition therapy. So it wasn't just
to understand the science, but also to just help people
how to heal from the root, which is what I
felt that I did with myself. I helped myself from
the root, and I.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Worked in clinical nutrition.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
It didn't really last that long though, even though I
was moving up and I did well in the field,
I just did not see myself in that environment in
the long run. So I mean, that's where I'm at now.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
That's so good, Sophie, and at such a young age,
and I know a lot of people can probably relate
to being that age and seeing skin issues and you know,
other things happening.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So we're grateful that you took this route because now
you can educate us.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So you mentioned probiotics, probiotic rich foods other than the supplement,
So can we just start there and what that would
do to help people.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, so probiotics, there's probiotics and probiotics for probiotics are
naturally like bacteria that's alive in our gut that just
helps break down food easier and it could be stuff
that's already fermented, like your sauerku kimchi, and then Keifer.
Keifer was probably the first one that I that I used,
(07:07):
and also yogurt. Yogurt was probably one of the first
ones that I used. They have they naturally have occurring probiotics.
Prebiotics are certain foods that you eat that feeds the
natural probiotics inside our microbiome.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
So that could be like.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Fruit, fruit with like uh the skin on, like apples, pears,
and even like sartichokes. Certain certain root vegetables feed fiber
pretty much insoluble fiber feed the gut, the gut bacteria
the probiotics in your body.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Hmm, okay, So would you recommend somebody starting with that, Like,
let's say they want to lose weight by stabilizing their
blood sugar. How would somebody start or what would you recommend?
Speaker 3 (07:55):
So? Okay, so losing weight by starting with blood sugar?
So okay, let me just want to introduce this basically
with the big picture. So I want what I try
to help people understand is that I know a lot
of people come to me for weight loss. That's like
the first main thing. But I also want them to
understand that weight loss isn't like the main goal, but
(08:19):
it also is a happy side effect of healing your metabolism,
healing your body right through nutrition. So when we talk
about blood sugar and what happens to your body, So
when your blood sugar is stable, your body stays calm
and balanced, you have steady energy all day, your cravings
(08:40):
naturally decrease, versus the opposite when your blood sugar spikes
and it crashes. So I just want to be clear
about what's normal and what's harmful. Blood sugar spikes aren't
always bad. It's a natural, like normal signal that your
body tells you that hey there's energy here.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Let's use it.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
It's it's part of a normal like healthy functioning metabolism
or just a natural body reaction. But the problem sometimes
is if the spike itself right. So it's like when
those spikes happen all day every day from the ultra
processed foods or sugary drinks, sodas and constant snacking, that's
(09:22):
when things could become dysregulated and a little bit more
difficult to manage. Because when that happens, when you have
that blood sugar spike, your insulin, which is produced by
your pancreas. It's a hormone that's supposed to help balance
your blood sugar in your body. However, when you have
chronic high insulin levels, it could potentially also be your
(09:45):
fat storing hormone if you don't use that access energy,
that access like blood glucose. So when those levels, those
high levels of insulin are just they keep there. When
the levels are con high, the fat just gets locked
in storage, and you're more prone to blood sugar crashes.
(10:07):
You get hungry and you crave more food, and naturally
people like to reach for another fix, like or not,
like a quick fix, a snack, whatever is available, especially
if they're not prepared, and the cycle repeats.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
So it creates like.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
A cycle, right I usually I call this like a
vicious cycle. You spik your blood sugar spikes, you crash.
People naturally get something sweet or something easy to just
spike or just to raise their sugar a.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Little bit more.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But when you use that, when you get a refined
carb or a snack that isn't really the best choice,
you crash again.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, do you go.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Over through that cycle and you tend to overeat and
it repeats the cycle, and I feel like that's all
that's like a big misunderstanding or misconception.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
I mean, hypoglycemia.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
It is no joke either, right that I feel like
that's even more dangerous than like high blood sugar.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
To be honest.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
But instead of just going through that cycle of eating
like those quick, easy snacks that are like refined carbs, crackers, cookies, anything,
I don't every I mean there's so many things out there. Yeah,
it's still going to spike you and you're still going
to crash. So you want to so the solution, right,
instead of getting trying to get yourself out of that
(11:27):
cycle that repeats. And it's not your fault, right, it's
not anyone's fault. It's just easy, right to focus on
like your protein, your healthy fats, and your fiber rich
foods because all those three, that three, that combination helps
keep your blood sugar steady. And when you do this,
your body eventually will shift from storing fat to burning it.
(11:50):
So overall, like when your blood sugar is spiking all day,
your body is stuck in storage mode. But when you
keep it stable, shifts from storing fat to burning it.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
So what can we do to shift that, like, can
you walk us through like a day or something like
if somebody wants to shift from those spikes all day,
what can they do as far as like a plan
for like one day plan or something.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
So the easiest thing I feel is setting your day
with your breakfast. Try to have at least like three
to five like meals prepped and ready to go for
your breakfast, especially if you're short on time. And because
when you have your breakfast ready with like a protein
and a fat, like a healthy protein and a fat,
(12:44):
it sets the tone for the whole day.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So what would be an example of a breakfast like
some ago, they're busy, they have kids, the whole the
whole nine, right, and oh yeah, go ahead. No, I
was just gonna say, because I know most people don't
have time for breakfast if they have family and everything
(13:07):
like that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Yeah, that's very common, especially with a lot of my clients.
So I'll provide the examples that helped my clients.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I mean I could.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
For me, I like to cook my breakfast every morning,
but they're not. Everyone has that same routine. So a
lot of people like to do their yogurt and they
add their pumpkin seeds, their flax seeds, any berries, or
even chia seeds, a lot of them. They say that
they've really been enjoying their chia seed pudding, so they've
(13:36):
been using that just to help them like something to
grab and go. And if they do want to have oatmeal,
like they add, I recommend them to not have it
by itself. They try to have like hard boiled eggs
or like. Yeah, so they try to have hard boiled eggs, yogurt,
what else. Oh, sometimes they have their protein shakes as well,
(14:01):
as long as it really does have like a natural
fat in it. So I mean you could use coconut oil.
Some people don't mind using avocado, like the actual avocado
fruit with their shakes, just to help maintain that stability
throughout the morning and they don't have to crash and
be hungry before lunch.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, just so I'm clear, sofia, the fats and the
protein will stabilize the blood sugar. Yes, we can have
a carb as long as we're adding a protein and
a fat.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yes, okay, yes, because it's really common for people to
just eat refined carbs by itself and it doesn't really
last them that long.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Mm, So we have a piece of toast. Can we
have almond butter and ghee? For example?
Speaker 4 (14:49):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Have you had that before? Gay with toasts?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That has actually been my breakfast. Okay, that's why I'm like,
I'm sorry, I'm my it is so stuck so you
can't see my face, but that's been my breakfast. Is
like a low card piece of bread, yeah, ghee and
almond butter, and then I'll have like a green.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Tea or something.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah. I mean you could add more to that if
you can. I would recommend to add something more like
a hard boiled egg.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
I don't know if you eat eggs. Oh yeah, I
love eggs.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
But yeah, that's always a good option. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Okay, okay, So I just wanted to make that clear
for so okay, so let's let's get into so would
that be something that you would suggest if somebody's trying
to get off of insulin?
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (15:44):
So okay, So personally, I haven't worked with anyone that
was put on insulin and my experience, but I do
have something some suggestions.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
First of all, like always work.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
With their healthcare provider when making medication changes. But I
do feel like there's a common misconception with needing insulin
with type two diabetes. So most people think that type
two diabetes means that they need more insulin. But most
of the time that's not really like the issue or
(16:20):
the real problem. So the truth is that the true
understanding is that type two diabetes is usually about having
too much of your own insulin, not too little. So
essentially your cells are overloaded and they can't take in
any more glucose because they're already overloaded with glucose, and
(16:41):
the insulin is just trying to pump out and just
do its job. It doesn't know that your cells are overloaded.
It's just doing his job. But I just want to
mention real quick. How I learned about this was through
doctor Jason fun So. He's a nephrologist. He specialized in
kidney health. He wrote the Obesity Code, the Diabetes Code,
(17:04):
and he co wrote the pcos plan. So he was
an aufhrologist, which he specialized in kidney health. And his
whole all of his clients, like the majority of his
clients that he treated for kidney disease, it all came
from type two diabetes. So he wanted but he just
he only knew what to do and which was prescribed
(17:27):
more insulin, but nothing was working. And so he went
back and studied type two diabetes and he came he
pretty much cream up with this analogy. Right, So the
overflow paradigm. So he explains it, how think of your
cells like a suitcase that's already packed full. Insulin is
(17:49):
trying to stuff more clothes in, but there's no room.
And the solution isn't to force more in or to
give the patient more insulin. It's to try to pack
what's already there. So and that's what they talk about
in all these three books. So what they did, what
he did, he took a step back from just Instead
(18:11):
of prescribing insulin and treating people with met Foreman and
just medications, he went the dietary modification route and he
treated most of his patients with dietary modifications and fasting.
And so for me as a nutritionist, these are the
like the suggestions that I would recommend to support better
(18:34):
blood sugar balance and reduce insulin load. Right, so first
I would suggest like these five things. So we want
to first lowering the insulin spikes naturally is choosing your
whole foods over processed ones and donat your carbs alone,
and then try try strategic fasting.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
It doesn't have to be complicated.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
It could be an overnight twelve or fourteen hours, right.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
And then just being.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
More physically active because a lot of people, even being
sedentary could could be detrimental to our health in the
long run.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
So even moving like ten to fifteen minute like.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Walks after a huge meal makes a difference, or not
a huge meal, but just like after eating. And also
try to reduce stress, because this was literally the most
common issue that I went through with a lot of
my clients. Even though they were doing everything right, checking
in with me, doing their homework, applying the homework, the
highest stress mainly from like mental and emotional because of
(19:37):
their jobs, Like it kept their blood sugar high, and
it could still raise your blood sugar even without any food.
So in the end, we want to kind of help
rebuild that flexibility by training your body to burn glucose
and fat.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I agree TOFIA like stress just in my own I
guess then, you know, just coming from my perspective, I
feel like stress automatically just puts you in fight or flight,
and like all the cells are activated and you can't
(20:15):
think correctly.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, yeah, because your body is like ready, that's the thing.
Your all of your blood is rushing to your limbs
because it's ready to literally like fight or flight, and
so you don't have a lot of blood running in
your organs. And when you're in that rest, when you're
in the parasympathetic right, yeah, so digest, Yeah, when all
(20:41):
your blood is going to your organs and they're doing
their yeah, their job. And so with like going back
to fixing like your insulin, like or getting off insulin.
You don't want to fix an overflow by forcing more in.
You want to fix by release what no longer serves
your body. It's layered and it's gradual, it takes time.
(21:05):
And yeah, so stress is like a huge, huge factor.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I agree. So can we talk about some things. Let's
just take a very busy business man or a very
busy business woman. They own their own business. It's high stress.
They're the president or the CEO of this company, and
they know they have to get healthier, but they have
(21:33):
a demanding job and maybe they're even in a demanding relationship.
How does one bring their stress level down in that situation?
Speaker 4 (21:43):
So I feel like it okay.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So going back to certain individuals that I've worked with
a lot of, like if you want to talk about
if they're in a demanding relationship, obviously communication and then
also I feel like it's about managing your time because
when you manage your time and your schedule thing, it
(22:06):
will be everything will be a little bit more manageable,
like right from when you wake up to when you
go to sleep, and having those boundaries too, because I
feel like some people did get stressed because they were
all this stuff that I teach people and apply. They're
all new skills and skills get take time, and so
(22:28):
you build up gradually with what you can handle. So
you want to do one step out of time. But
I feel like it's time management. It's the biggest thing.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
For somebody to bring their stress level down if they.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Are because I notice a lot of people that stress
out is because they feel like they don't have enough
time or they just don't know. They just need to
know how to organize their tasks, even if it's something
as simple as a chore something like, it's better sometimes
just have organized it throughout your day, throughout your life.
It just makes things a little bit more manageable. I
(23:05):
mean that's the thing, like we're always life is always going.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
To be stressful.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
And when you nourish, when you nourish yourself and you
implement like those healthy habits, you yourself become more resilient
and your body becomes resilient and you recover faster.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I like the whole organization idea because I feel like
then because a lot of times it's like our stress
is just in our mind. We're overthinking and we're making
something bigger than it is or something like that. So
I feel like if it's the time management or more
(23:43):
organization in your day meal prepping, then it's like you
don't have to really think about those things. Yeah that Q.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Yeah, you don't have to worry about it because it's
one less thing to think about and you want to
use your mind, like your thinking skills everything to actually
for actual real life decisions. And like you have your
meal like preps, that's like one last thing they had.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
To worry about.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, and a lot of people do stress about that,
which feels like you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I know. I mean I can remember when I was
working as a sales rep and I was always in
my car. I was and I'm always I've always been
a meal prep person, but my stress level was so high, Sophia,
because I was on the road and I was eating
in my car, and so it was just like, yeah,
(24:36):
I think definitely the meal prepping helps.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
At least, yeah, with what you can control. Obviously you
can't control a lot of stuff like that when you're
on the road. I mean I had I had clients
that they love to travel or they even travel for work,
and a lot of the fasting helped them out. But
also instead of going fast food, they would try to
just do like do grocery runs because it's easier for
(25:01):
them to choose to have more control over their food choices.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Can we talk a little bit about the fasting.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean fasting. I feel like it's different for everyone,
for male and female. I feel like it shouldn't be
a punishment, it shouldn't be starvation. It's pretty much allowing
your body to like to have a break, to rest
and to heal. So for someone who has diabetes or
(25:29):
they're like they just want to balance their blood sugar,
it just helps their body. It allows their body to
give it time to burn stored energy. And just help
them lower those insulin levels. And some people also do
it because it helps support their cell repair if done correctly.
Because I feel like there's no one size fits all.
(25:52):
If it works best when your body's already nourished and
when it's not stressed. So if you're like under eating
and you're over stressed, fasting might make things a little
bit worse. So sometimes fast you don't get into fasting
right away. With some of my clients, I want them
to know how to eat first. Yeah, eventually get into fasting,
(26:15):
especially for women too, like we need like listen, we
need to listen to our energy and like hormone signals
because and some people disagree, fasting in the morning isn't
really a good idea because we naturally have high cortisol
because we have to wake up and when you fast,
those cortisol levels stay high. So some I had a
(26:37):
client she fasted, she skipped dinner, and uh, that worked
out better for her. So everyone's different. Some people they
preferred fasting skipping breakfast in the morning.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
But yeah, so she just because I'm just curious, so
she wouldn't eat anything at all at night because that's
one of my.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I think she was stop eating that for okay, so
it could start gradual. I mean some people naturally already
fast by not eating for twelve hours, Like if you
have your dinner at seven and then twelve hours after
that is seven am. People don't even eat till like
wait after that, so that's already past the twelve fourteen hours.
Some people already do that, And then you want to
(27:21):
leave like four to five hours in between meals. So
some people were just fast by eating two big meals.
But and if they want to do longer fasting, it's
only when like your energy, when you think your energy
is stable, so they work up to it. H Some
people do it to reset their digestive system too.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Have you ever heard of that book Fasting like a Girl?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Oh, my doctor, mindy pills?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
No, I have or pills.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Sorry, I don't know if I said that right.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I have.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I just haven't read it yet, but I do. It's
on my wish list for audible.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh okay, if I ever see if we get together again,
I have it.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Many books on my audible. I mean all these three
books that I showed you.
Speaker 4 (28:02):
I also have them on my audible.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I'm just always reading these books and getting back to
it because I'm always learning something new.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, I'm a big book reader too.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
She has a whole like plan around fasting. I mean
her her take on it is definitely interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, I think it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah she because for us, like we can't fast certain
certain times in the month.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
So okay. So then with what we've talked about, Sophia,
would you say that keeps our metabolism high or would
you add anything to the conversation around keeping the metabolism
high and like that fiery kind of you know, to burn.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
So and okay in Mike, in our in this context
that we're talking about from metabolism, I mean, metabolism could
be so much, so many different things. You could have
a whole degree metabolism, right, you could, because like just
the different pathways everything, how it works in your body.
But in this context when we talk about metallism, I
(29:11):
just want to mention that it's mainly how fast you
burn calories and how your entire body creates and uses
energy and so figuring out whether if that if your
body is using that energy or storing it as back.
So a healthy metabolism could mean what your body does
(29:32):
with the food, right, is it feeling your cells? Is
it balancing your blood sugar or is it spiking it?
Or is it like is it burning?
Speaker 5 (29:42):
What?
Speaker 3 (29:42):
It what it doesn't need? So like a stress or
overloaded metabolism could mean that that's when you're when things
start getting stored and fat loss almost seems impossible like
fight or flight. Right, your body's not in the mom
when you're in that high stress level like state your
body does, it's not going to burn like any fat
(30:04):
It's going to try to survive. Yeah, I mean, so
signs of slow metabolism every day. It could be constant fatigue.
It could be waking, especially around like the belly, the midsection.
It could be brain fog. It's some people. It could
mean that you're always feeling cold, or you have strong cravings.
(30:24):
You could have mood swings. It could be different things.
And then also like what's I mean what slows it down?
What makes what interferes with the healthy metallism. It'd be
like skeeeping meals or eating too little. It could be
it could even be like too much cardio without strength training.
I feel like that's what I did for over ten years.
(30:44):
I overworked myself and I didn't have any muscle mass,
but I just did cardio and then not eating enough
protein or not having a good like sleep schedule, like
I said, chronic stress mainly like mental and emotional and
just being in that constant like blood sugar roller coaster.
(31:05):
So those are things that you could take in mind
if you feel if you're concerned, if you feel like
your metallism's kind of like unstable, in order to boost
it naturally. I first think, I mean, this is what
everyone says, and it's like true to form. It's like
you want to eat enough protein. And the reason that
(31:25):
you want to eat enough protein is because it's it's
gas like it's like so it has a high thermic.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Effect on your body.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
And when I say that is that when you eat protein,
your body burns calorie digesting that protein. So as opposed
to like when you're eating refined carbs, your body you
don't need any like you don't need your body doesn't
burn any calories, doesn't need any energy to digest carbs.
(31:53):
So protein helps pretty much like increase your basal metabolic
rate along with building muscle right lifting weights, when you
burn muscle, when you build muscle, and you eat your protein,
you're increasing your basal metabolic rate, which means your basil
metabolic rate is the amount of calories that you burn
(32:15):
that your body burns at rest by doing nothing, just
by sitting, sleeping, breathing, you know what I mean. Kind
of keep that as part of your routine and then
also prioritizing sleep. I just feel like that just helps
your body recover. Especially even people who are trying to
increase muscle mass, are trying to go to the gym,
(32:37):
they need to also take their sleep serious in order
to see their gains.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
And again, like I said, some of this stuff is
going to sound repetitive, but manic stress stress, here's your
body from recovering. And the thing is like we I mean,
there's so many types of stress. There's good stress and
bad stress. I feel like, like, because there's you stress,
it's called eu stress. It's one word that's like stress
(33:04):
like weight lifting weights. That's a type of stress. But
it's like it's like a quick stress.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
It goes away.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
But then there's people that are in constant like stress
from work, like constant and like emotional mental stress from
most of the time it's work or just making ends
meet or just like I said, beaming your head anything.
So those that's the stress that we want to like
be careful with right and then obviously just trying to
(33:32):
eat the right foods to keep your like your blood
sugar stable, just to keep your energy level stable. So
all these habits could help support a healthier metallism and
can make it, could make it may make bat loss
more accessible over time, especially like with paired with other
lifestyle changes. So like your metallism isn't like really slow
(33:56):
or broken. It's slow because it doesn't feel safe, and
like you just want to you want to feel it,
you want to move it, and you want to rest
it like your body, and then see what happens after that.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Interesting how you said it doesn't feel safe, because I
feel like if what I'm hearing is most people they say,
oh I want to lose weight, or you know, then
they go in they starve themselves or they do something
like I heard you say in the beginning. You know,
it shouldn't feel like punishment. So I feel like that's
(34:34):
so on point for from what I teach, you know,
to kind of love yourself more. And obviously I won't
get into my story, but I've learned the hard way,
but I love that what you're saying. So, so okay,
so let's kind of get into a little bit. So
(34:56):
you mentioned more weight training. What is ideal or weight
training two to three times a week?
Speaker 4 (35:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Oh yeah, sorry, No, I think two to three times
a week is a good start. I mean, and you
you still see results. And I do honestly body weight
and even the dumbbells all that stuff. It's like it's
good enough. You don't have to rely on heavy equipment
or I mean, the machines are good too, but you
(35:26):
could do exercises at home two to three times a week,
and even using your body weight calisthenics that's also pilates
is good too. So yeah, yeah, it doesn't have to
be crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, as long as you're doing the other I went
for a walk and I actually put on my like
my leg weights, like.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
That's always a good one. You could use it on
the treadmill. Yeah, exactly what you did too.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah cool, Okay, So I just kind of want to
get into what your typical day looks like, and then
we're going to try to get to some questions before
we wrap up. Yeah, tell me exactly what you do.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
So as far as like eating, I so I always
as soon as I wake up, I always drink water,
always drink water, and I usually have gin sing tea
and electrolytes, just because when we wake up, our blood
sugar is super concentrated because we were just laying down
for a long time, so you kind of want to.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Let that.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Just disperse a little bit. And then when I do eat,
I usually eat about an hour an hour and a half,
like ninety minutes after waking up.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
And I always my.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Breakfasts always been the same, but the only thing that
rotates is the protein. So I always have two eggs
with either oil or grass or butter, and then my
protein is either smoked salmon or chicken sausage or leaf sausage.
I always keep it simple and whatever veggies I have prepped.
Times I have frozen veggies, but I just throw that
(37:02):
in there and that sets me pretty. That sets me
good for like about four to five hours. I still
eat three meals a day, and there's spaced apart about
four to five hours, and then lunch. I always rotate
my protein. I don't really snack ever, because I don't
really I mean, I don't need to but my lunch
(37:23):
it's also like just not six ounces of protein, sixty
seven ounce of protein. It could be usually I have
I rotate my fish, salmon, cod, sardines, or sometimes I
have beef, sometimes I have pork. And then I don't
know why, I rarely eat chicken, but I do eat
it though, But I don't know why I just rarely
(37:43):
eat it. It's just I feel like I get more
nutrients out of these other proteins just because of the minerals.
And then also vegetab I do eat. That's in the
for lunch. That's when I have my carbist meal or
I have I still have my white rice or usually
have a quinoa or even soup potato, the starchy vegetables.
(38:06):
But I always have that at lunch, and then at
dinner same thing. I have more vegetables in dinner, and
my proteins saying like five it's a little bit less
five to six ounces, but it's just whatever I have
on rotation because I always buy. The thing is my
food is the same. My meals are the same for
four to five days, usually my lunch and my dinner sometimes,
(38:30):
so I eat the same thing four to five days
and then I go back and I rotate my proteins
so and then I drink about eighty ounces of water,
and then between that I drink a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Of tea and it's just gin Sing tea.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Well, I drink gin Sing tea, and then I drink
at night, I drink lemon balm because it's a little
bit more. It relaxes you more and it's easy on
the digestive system. And then I sometimes it's just I
just I grab so many random different teas because I
like to try different things. But in the morning it's
always ginsing because it gives you a little bit more energy.
(39:08):
And I always like drinking Gin Sing before a workout
just because it helps me more with endurance.
Speaker 4 (39:13):
I last longer.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Your BAMT.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Yeah, your Romanates, I have that. So I have a
concentrated form of your ramate. It's the powder form your romanate,
and it's it's smoked, I believe, and it's grinded up
so it's like super constant. It's pretty strong. I have
it sometimes when I feel like I need that.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Extra boost, I really want to try that one.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty strong, and so if I do
so when I do wake up, when I do have
my exercises in the morning, I wake up extra early.
I usually don't. I mean I have a small like
I usually have coffee with a little bit of butter
just to kind of hold me over for a workout,
or I just have yogurt. But usually those days I
(39:59):
do have a second cup of caffeine, whether from green
Tea or yourble mate, because I don't want to overcaffeinate myself.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I know, right, because then you can't that night. Okay,
let's try to get into some of these questions if
we could wrap it fire, because our time is kind
of wrapping up here. Let's go with the ones that
just came in. What is that lemon balm?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
That's a tea, right, yeah, so it's an herbal tea.
It's like a leaf, and lemon balm is supposed to
help just like soothe the digestion, but it also helps
with anxiety. You could buy it as an extract or
I like to buy it as the loose dried leaf
and it because sometimes I'm always I need I need
(40:46):
something at night to relax me and to tell me, hey,
it's time to wind down. And that one's more of
a gentle gentle way of like winding myself down because
if I have camrameal lavender Valerian, it's a little bit
too strong and too heavy for me sometimes. And that
one I take it after dinner just to like really
(41:08):
like set the tone for like the rest of my
evening without knocking me.
Speaker 4 (41:14):
Got it?
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Somebody asked, is that one a drink additive? I don't
know what.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Is that one drink?
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Is that one drink additive?
Speaker 4 (41:25):
What did I say? Maybe the left lemon ball?
Speaker 6 (41:30):
I'm sorry that one came in when y'all said, So
it's strong.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
And oh, is it like an additive? I mean it's
a it's it's like a it's a powder form your mamatee.
You could drink it as a tea.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
I drink it as a tea.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
It dissolves in water. You could drink it in just
regular water. But I drink it as a tea and
sometimes sometimes it could be a little bit strong if
you're not used to having a lot of caffeine.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
But it has.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Divia, which is a natural It's a plant based sweetener
that doesn't affect your blood sugar, so it helps a
lot for a lot of people who have diabetes.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Could drink that tea.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
The Yerba mate. Yeah, I definitely want to get that
and try it.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
I'll send you the link, or if anyone was interested,
I could send them the link if they could read
on it and how it works.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Let's at that. With that, Sofia, let's let's tell people
where they can find you, because we're going to wrap
up here. And I'm sorry if I didn't get to
all the questions. But if somebody or any of you
want to reach out to Sofia or myself, you you're
more than welcome to let everybody know where they can
(42:46):
find you.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, So if they want to reach directly to me,
you could always find me on Instagram. My name is
Glycemic Insights and then also you could see my I
have a website where I also provide more education like
blogs and like free resources that has that have helped
my clients in the past. And but if you want
(43:08):
to talk to me directly, you could just message me on.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Instagram and what's your website name?
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Oh yeah, my website glycemic glow dot com, glycemic glow
the chat surely semic glow dot com.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
So yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
If anybody else wants to ask Sophia anything, find her
on Instagram or go to her website dot com. So amazing,
Thank you so much on the show. Thank you for
having me. I know I learned a lot, and I
apologize again for this delay and my my camera, but
(43:50):
this was a good show. Definitely. It taught me a lot.
So I know a lot of people got some things
out of it.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yeah, I hope, so yeah, I hope it was as
easily as digest as.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
Pass so for sure, oky dope, great, Thank you so much.
M HM care all right you too, bye bye, all
right you guys.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Thank you to Sophia again. Find her at glycemicglow dot
com or Glycemic Insights on I G Instagram. And until
next time, love your body and love your life. Take
care bye.
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