Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 272 of Better Blood Sugars with Delane, Md.
[00:00:07] Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with Delane, MD, where you can learn strategies to lower your blood sugars and improve your overall health. I am your host, Doctor Delane Vaughn. Ladies, if you know you're capable of doing badass things at work and for your family, but you're confused and frustrated with why you can't seem to stop eating the chocolate cake, this podcast is for you. Let's talk. Hey there, friend. Welcome to the podcast. I am so glad you're joining me today. I'm glad you're taking some time for you, I'm glad you're taking some time committing to your health.
[00:00:38] I want to talk today about the strategies you've taken in the past to improve your blood sugars and then the strategies that maybe going forward need to be taken. I definitely know that the women I work with are typically pretty badass. They're great moms. They're wonderful mothers to their kids. They're incredibly hardworking, professional people. They are wonderful friends and great partners and great siblings and sisters to their family and their caring daughters, to aging parents and aging loved ones. They do all sorts of really amazing things. My suspicion is you are the same. You do the same. You are amazing also. And you want to keep being that woman. And, in fact, you want this to apply to your health and all sorts of other aspects of your life. But you can see how your diabetes and its impact on your health are going to get in the way, or are currently getting in the way of being that version of you. It worries you. It's a threat to the vision you've always had of yourself.
[00:01:50] It's scary. You've always assumed that you would be the mother who could keep up with her kids even into their, like, early adult lives, like they're going off to college, they're doing all these different things. Maybe they're traveling, they're doing all these things. And you thought you would be the mother that didn't feel so exhausted that they couldn't take the phone call, they couldn't go on the trip. They couldn't pick them up from the airport. But you find that you're tired all the time.
[00:02:13] You're having a hard time keeping up with your kids at their soccer games. You're having a hard time keeping up, you know, with all the things that your kids need to do because you're tired, you're heavy, you feel weighed down.
[00:02:23] And then, in addition, you're burdened with this constant worry about your health.
[00:02:28] Many women that I work with, they always assumed they would be on the a team professionally. Like, until they retired. They would be a team players. They would fulfill leadership roles.
[00:02:39] They would be at the top of the game. They'd be leaving their mark on their profession.
[00:02:44] And these women are starting to realize that they feel so poorly on the meds that they are taking that they can't be on that a game, or they have doctor's appointments that they have to go to that cut into their work days and their productivity. And then they start to see, like, oh, one of our colleagues just had a heart cath, and he had to take time off of work because of his type two diabetes. You're starting to see that the long term complications associated with your type two diabetes are starting to cut in to your ability to show up professionally the way you wanted to. You're seeing it cut into your productivity, and in the end, you realize on some level that is cutting into your bottom line, the money that you hoped that you would have in the bank for retirement. Like, either you're not able. Either you're not maybe making as much, or you're realizing, I'm going to have to retire much sooner than I anticipated because of my diabetes. It's starting to cut into the bottom line in your dream of your retirement and how you would live your retirement in a financially stable way and healthy enough to enjoy all the adventures that you probably put on the back burner while you're professionally engaged, you're starting to see that your diabetes is cutting into that vision of what you'd assumed life would be like.
[00:04:02] Many women assumed that they'd be leading the pack for their social life, like they would have an active social life. They'd have girls nights out. They have girls weekend getaways.
[00:04:12] They might have great get togethers with family. They might have great parties that they're going to. They might have galas that they're going to. You know, we reach that age. We're starting to go to these events that are maybe, like, contributing on some level to things, to organizations that are important to you. But what women find is that they're increasingly isolating themselves because they're either embarrassed of the way that their body looks, or they feel so cruddy on the meds that they're on, or they don't want to go out with their girlfriends or go away with their girlfriends because they're embarrassed about the meds that they're having to take because of their diabetes.
[00:04:51] Many times, women feel like they can't control themselves around the food, so they just avoid the outings altogether. They avoid the people they love, they avoid their family, they avoid doing the events that have, again, this like, important aspect of them giving back to their community. And they're avoiding it because of their diabetes.
[00:05:12] Many of these women find at these family gatherings, at holiday events, they find themselves gravitating to the back of the pictures because they don't want to see themselves in the photographs.
[00:05:21] They find themselves without energy to provide the care that they thought they would always provide for their parents and their loved ones. They thought that they would have the energy to take care of those people in their aging years. And they're finding they don't have that.
[00:05:36] Listen, ladies, listen to me. If you've been shopping for shoes, come back to me. We get one run at this life. We get a single chance, one shot at this life. If you are not ready or willing, if like, you're not ready to make the exchange of this one shot at life for another Oreo or another ding dong or more donuts, if you're not willing to make the exchange of your health or another one of those pieces of junk food that you've had a thousand of, so much that it's made you sick.
[00:06:10] It is time, ladies, to make a change. Okay, I want you to see you've already done amazing things in your life. You've already done really hard things in your life. Every one of us have. Like you don't get to like thirties, forties and fifties without having sixties, seventies without having done some things. You've already done amazing things. And you can and will be amazing at your health. Health as well. If you give yourself the opportunity to do it in a way that's sustainable.
[00:06:41] You likely already know and have evidence that when you put your mind to do something, you are a get shit doner. You will want to believe in the moment right now as we're talking about it. But I've had all these previous failed attempts. I've tried to change the way I eat and my relationship with food, and it's never worked. And you're going to see that as an indicator that the next attempt that you make will fail as well. But I want you to hear something. You have been using the wrong tools to do this. This is common for successful women to have this experience.
[00:07:16] We believe because we're successful and we have forced ourselves to study. Right? Like I went through medical school, there's like, I feel like there was ten years of my life I forced myself to sit behind a book, but I knew there was always an end in sight.
[00:07:30] You have forced yourself to excel professionally, but you knew it was for a short term time. You knew you were going to have a short moment, that you were going to have to really work at it. But then there was going to be a pause. Okay. This is why successful women believe that they can coerce themselves into eating differently. Like, just put my. Put my nose to the grindstone, just get it done, and then I won't have to do it anymore. And that is beautiful. We fail. That's why the tools that you've been using are wrong. If you've been coursing yourself to do a behavior or forcing yourself to do a behavior, this is why it hasn't worked. Think about it. Like, I just renovated or I just re. I don't know. I didn't renovate my house. I just painted everything, though. I painted all the walls. It's a big house, man, and painting blues. I don't even like the color. I mean, it's a fine color. It's a very nice color, but I would have chosen something different. And I don't like the color, but I like painting my walls so little that I'll deal with the color that I'm not in love with because painting was not fun. But I forced myself, right? Like, I forced myself to paint the walls in the same way you force yourself to paint the walls in the kitchen. We try to force ourself or coerce ourself to make food changes, and we see this as the way that we get shit done.
[00:08:51] Understand?
[00:08:52] Course of forcing works fine for single event tasks, like painting my kitchen. Right. The reason I'm not painting my kitchen again is because I don't like it. I don't like to paint. If I did like to paint, it would be different, but I don't. The reason I was able to study for a test until 03:00 a.m. in the morning was because once the test was taken, I could. I didn't have to do that anymore.
[00:09:16] Coercive forcing of a task is fine in single event tasks, but will not work for a lifetime of changes.
[00:09:25] And there's a different approach you have to learn and you have to take, and it involves rewiring the way you think about your food. And that's what changes that part of your life long term. It's not from forcing.
[00:09:38] Jenny Craig didn't teach you this. Weight watchers doesn't do this for you. Nutrisystem didn't do it for you. It's unlikely your trainer does it for it for you. Like, we don't rewire through that. It's unlikely your nutritionist or dietitian has had this approach. And for the love of all that's holy, I love my diabetic educators out there, but that is also not what they're doing. They literally teach you to force yourself to make a food change and hold it as long as you can. And then they tell you things like, oh, it's okay to have a cheat day, and then you can't figure out why you're not fixing your insulin resistance.
[00:10:13] This is why your previous attempts have failed. It's not because you are broken, it's because the approach that you've taken isn't sustainable.
[00:10:21] You cannot hear me on this. You can't force yourself to paint the kitchen. You can't force yourself to get the can of paint and paint your kitchen every day for the rest of your life unless you're a professional painter, unless you have chosen the career path of painting, and you love the career path of painting and you love it. You love changing the way a living space looks. You love, you see it as creative, you see it as fun.
[00:10:49] Those women, they can paint the kitchen every damn day, but they're not doing it because they're forcing themselves. The people who do this are changing the way they look at painting. That's what it comes down to. If you're wanting to change the way you're eating, you have to change the way you're looking at it. You can't sit there and force yourself.
[00:11:07] This is why a course of approach cannot work long term, because you have to change the way you're looking at that, not just force yourself to do it, you cannot force yourself to do the things you don't want to do. Girl, you are a grown ass woman and it just is not going to fly. You're never going to do that long term. So if you're really ready to make this change, if you're serious about being the woman you've always envisioned yourself to be, and you're ready to do that, there's help. Like, you can learn how to do this, you can figure this out, but you're never going to get there using the same strategies that you've already used a thousand times over that didn't work in the past, they aren't suddenly going to work in the future.
[00:11:48] So let's talk. What can be different? What needs to be different? How do things need to go differently? First, it is possible, my friend. Hear me. It is possible to not be compelled by foods. It is possible for the ice cream and the Doritos and the pizza and the donuts to not drive you to sacrifice your health goals and the dreams that you have for yourself just for another food that you've already eaten a million times.
[00:12:14] Understand that this is a skill that can be taught and it can be honed, but it takes time to deconstruct the way you've been doing it. The beliefs, the thoughts, the neural grooves in your brain that have created you eating these foods. You have to take the time and you have to get really granular and deconstruct that belief pattern that you have been enacting over and over to the point that you got sick. You have to change that.
[00:12:42] Having a guide to work through that with you through every time that you fail and you do it the way you used to do it, having somebody to deconstruct that with you is key to changing this part of your life. And this is what coaching does. This is the difference between coaching and coercion.
[00:13:00] Learning what the cause of insulin resistance is like what causes your diabetes. Insulin resistance is what causes your diabetes. Insulin resistance is caused by the foods that you're eating. Learning the strategies behind changing that. How do I change what I eat? That's like that. Coercion versus coaching, right? But in addition, how does exercise work? How does sleep play into this? How does stress play into this?
[00:13:24] Learning those strategies is key. If you're going to change this, having a guide there to explain what your numbers mean, why your blood sugars are doing what they're doing, and give you clear, focused strategies to changing them. That is what is going to help you change this permanently.
[00:13:42] That is what is going to help you do this differently long term. That is what is going to help you change your relationship with food.
[00:13:50] Many women get scared I'm going to have to stop eating these foods. And what I want to offer you is you're not going to have to stop eating these foods as much as you're going to have to stop eating foods. Like you're going to have to stop taking a big risk with your health. Just have the food that you've already had a thousand times that has to stop.
[00:14:06] If you know that ice cream makes your blood sugars go up, but you continue to eat it and just hope that it's not going to happen this time or it won't be that bad, that is what has to change. And sometimes it takes breaking up with that food until that belief changes, I want to offer to you. My last a one c was 4.9 and it was taken in the last six months. My a one c was 4.9 and ladies, I eat ice cream, but I no longer eat it in a way that creates health consequences that I do not like. And that happened through coaching, not through coercing myself to do it. Different coercion never got me there. Coaching did.
[00:14:44] Your brain is likely flipping out. Wait, what? No more ice cream. And what I want to tell you is it's not a never ever deal. But until you can stop giving ice cream the power to make you take big risks with your health, you may have to break up with it for a bit.
[00:15:00] So ladies, this is what my coaching program does. This is the work that must be done for a woman who is serious about fixing their diabetes and living a naturally healthy life for the rest of their life. So if you have not already done so, I want you to set up a better blood sugars assessment call. It's a 30 to 45 minutes Zoom meeting. You can be on camera, you can be off camera. I don't care either way. But you and I are going to discuss what your current numbers are. We're going to discuss your blood sugar readings. We're going to discuss your labs. We're going to look at what you're eating currently. We're going to look at how you're exercising. We're going to talk maybe about sleep and stress, and we're going to determine how coaching can help you change those aspects of your life.
[00:15:41] If the coaching is what you need, then we can discuss what that would look like for you and I to work together. What are the options for you and I to work together so you can finally put this behind you? That life that you always envisioned yourself having, being a great mom, being present. And for those of you who aren't there, but maybe starting to see this, what kind of grandma did you imagine you'd be? What kind of grandmother did you imagine you would be showing up to your grandkids with? And are you going to be able to do it with diabetes?
[00:16:10] What kind of professional person are you going to be? To the point you retire, how is your retirement life going to be? If you are ready to make sure that that is the future you have ahead of you? This is what helps with that.
[00:16:24] I want you to please go and set one of these calls up. You can schedule, you can get access to my calendar by scheduling at www.calendly.com forward slash Delanend calendly is c a l e n d l Y. Delanemd delanemd.com www.callendley.com forward slash Delanemd. Go get that scheduled. Get started on this, ladies. We get one shot at this life. How many more minutes of your life do you wanna waste being sick and not living the life that you wanted? Go schedule that call. All right. Lastly, if you are on meds, you've been medicated because of the way you've eaten in the past. And if you change the way you eat, need to change your meds. If you don't, you're going to get real sick. So I need you to call your primary care provider and let them know that you're making changes. Ask them how you should share your blood sugar logs with them and then ask them how they intend to share your medication changes with you. Get real clear on that. Get a line of communication open with them to keep you safe and not sick and possibly even dead from being on these meds and making these changes.
[00:17:29] Lastly, ladies, keep listening. Keep avoiding the foods that are making you sick and keep making choices for your longevity and vitality. And start by going to schedule one of those calls. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
