Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 279 of Better Blood Sugars with Delaine, Maryland. Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with DelaineS, Maryland. Where you can learn strategies to lower your blood sugars and improve your overall health. I'm your host, Dr. Delaine 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 and welcome to the podcast. I am so glad you're here and devoting some time to you and to your health.
[00:00:34] Today we are going to discuss probably the most important strategy for managing your food choices, your diabetes and your health during the holidays. It is not just about the holidays, it is also about the rest of your year and all the time. Just your general approach to managing being healthy. The most important thing that drives your health is a single thing that really has nothing to do with food or exercise. It's really your mindset. So we're going to discuss how this impacts your health and how it will impact your holidays and also how to apply this long term.
[00:01:14] Recognize that if you're putting your efforts and really pouring your energy into the food and exercise that you do, you're directing your efforts at the wrong thing. The key point to resolving your diabetes and becoming a naturally healthy human being is to start thinking healthy. To start thinking like a healthy person, to start thinking like a non diabetic person, to start thinking like a naturally healthy woman.
[00:01:45] Again, this is going to be applicable for the holidays, but it's also going to be applicable to your health long term. So I want you to start asking yourself, or just start maybe even looking, how do like thinking in your brain of the people that you know? How do healthy people maintain their health? What are the daily activities of these people, of healthy women, of healthy people? What are their days like? Like, what do they do throughout their day? How are they scheduling their days? How are they eating? How are they exercising? How are they sleeping?
[00:02:18] This is a big one. How do they manage the unexpected?
[00:02:23] How do they manage their stress?
[00:02:26] What are they doing? And then how can you implement these things into your life?
[00:02:32] This is going to start setting a compass, a guide for you to start using to moving towards being healthy.
[00:02:40] Specifically, I do want you to think about what the holidays look like for these people. How are these people who are healthy, how do they manage the holidays? And then I want you to try to start to look at where you can apply these things to make your holiday health choices.
[00:02:57] Most women report that during the holidays, they really struggle. They struggle with things like the unknown, the unexpected. They struggle with, you know, holiday parties. What's going to be served at a holiday party? What's going to be served at a holiday dinner?
[00:03:10] Will there be anything for them to eat there? How will you handle a temptation? How about the holiday goodies in the break room? How are you going to handle these situations?
[00:03:20] And this is what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the mindset to adapt the mindset to adopt into your brain and how this is really the most powerful tool to fixing your diabetes and creating the health that you want. The health that you want is going to be available when you realize this is it. This is the thing. The health that you want is going to be available to you when you realize that you are the biggest player in your health.
[00:03:52] The current health that you have has been primarily created by the choices you have made.
[00:03:59] The health that you want is going to be primarily created by the choices that you make.
[00:04:07] This is a concept in psychology that's talked about that's called the locus of control. And this is the location, like the place that you attribute the control of the outcomes that you get in your life. People do this professionally, people do this financially. People do this with their health.
[00:04:24] If you can shift your locus of control to you being the primary creator of your life, it will make you unstoppable with your health and every other thing that's important to you.
[00:04:39] Developing a sense of agency is the most important aspect of creating your health. I hope this creates excitement in you that you actually are the primary driver of the health that you have and the health that you want. And when you understand this, you can take on anything in your life. So if you look at a locus of control and you look at this concept, there's an internal locus of control and there's an external locus of control.
[00:05:10] The internal locus of control looks like I make things happen, look at what I can do. I determine my results.
[00:05:20] This is where we want our brain to be. We want to move it from an external locus control of control. And this is what most people realize, or most people think their locus of control is external to them. And this is not anybody's fault. I don't know that we need to blame anybody, but I do want to point out that the medical system definitely externalizes a patient's locus of control, meaning that we will tell you, the doctors will tell you that genetics are the primary driver. And they will even look, they'll be like, this gene is the place where this disease is. Harvard, right? Like, or these genetic predispositions are what create diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, cardiac disease, what a kidney disease. These genes are what is creating that disease that externalizes. I mean, yes, your genes are inside of you, and that's great and grand, but you don't have any control over your genes.
[00:06:24] The medical community will take the control of your health from you and put it into the hands of something that you absolutely have no control over.
[00:06:35] So people who have external lo. Locus of control, they have thoughts running through their head like, there's nothing I can do about my. My future or my health. Why bother? Why does everything happen to me? That's another thing. Why, you know, they'll get the diagnosis of high blood pressure and then high cholesterol and then high, you know, diabetes. And they're like, why are these things? Why does everything happen to me? This causes women to look for why they have no control over their health.
[00:07:06] Women will. This will lead women, this external locus of control will lead women to look for evidence of how they have no control over the health. And what this does is it causes you to or creates you fighting for the struggle that you have. You fight for your limitations.
[00:07:25] And this is why I want to offer to you the idea that DNA drives our health.
[00:07:32] That's something science and medicine has handed to human beings. Like that idea is something that science and medicine has handed to us. It creates limitations and it creates struggle.
[00:07:44] It puts your locus of control outside of your agency. Again, your DNA is within you, but you have no control over it. You can't change your genes. I have brown eyes. There is nothing I can do to change that. That is genetically mediated. And I could put blue contacts in and my eyes might look blue, but they're still brown. This is because that's how genes work.
[00:08:08] I actually have no control to change my genes.
[00:08:13] It keeps us in a position of having the least power that we. It's possible over something that's important to us, like our health. So if our health is created by our genetics, we have little agency or power to change it. But if our health is created by us, by our actions, that internal agency, that internal locus of control, if we start to see that my health is created by the things that I do, you know, I would offer that 90 to 95, maybe 99% of your health is created by your actions. But if I can just talk you into starting to see small increments 1% increments of where you're creating your health. That's going to help you shift this locus of control to being from external to internal.
[00:09:00] If we can start to see that our health is created by our own actions, it gives you almost unlimited power to create the health that you want.
[00:09:11] We can change our health, we can stop the disease that's in our life. When we can stop, you know, giving the power of our disease to our genes, but instead taking the power back and seeing that it's in our choices and our decisions and our actions. So if you think about most healthy people in the United States, that they're actually healthy because of the things that they do and not their genes. If you can start shifting that mindset, you can recognize that that is how they create their health.
[00:09:43] Most of chronic diseases in America are directly caused by, if not heavily tied to, lifestyle choices.
[00:09:54] Lung disease, cancers, strokes, heart attacks, you know, heart disease. All of these things are heavily, if not entirely tied to lifestyle choices.
[00:10:07] Studies show that 9 out of 10 of Americans are not optimally healthy. That means they're not healthy.
[00:10:14] Maybe they don't have a disease yet, but they're not healthy.
[00:10:19] That means that they're not disease free.
[00:10:22] And if you consider them that healthy versus unhealthy Americans, if you look at the 90% of Americans that are not in that optimal health and the 10% that are in the health right, they have the optimal health.
[00:10:34] And all of them have family matter members who, because of that statistic, nine out of 10 people, all of them have family members that are unhealthy.
[00:10:44] So they have the genetic quote unquote disposition to being unhealthy. Also, it runs in their family too. The difference between the healthy and the unhealthy American though, are the decisions that they make. So having this internal versus an external locus of control is the difference between healthy and unhealthy. Unhealthy people, they lean on this belief that they're outcomes are related to the circumstances that they find themselves in. And it is unavailable to them to change those circumstances to the. And these are the circumstances that allow other people to be healthy. So genes, they're like, oh, their genes are better. It doesn't run in their family, there's not enough money, they have different jobs, their schedules aren't as busy, their family obligations aren't as much. All of these examples are circumstances that are external to us. They are external loci of control.
[00:11:44] If you're hearing any of these floats through your brain right now, take a Deep breath.
[00:11:49] Give yourself the gift of being open minded here.
[00:11:53] Because healthy people that have that internal locus of control, no ma know they understand.
[00:12:00] These people know that no matter what their circumstance is, their actions are still the biggest player in their health.
[00:12:10] This is an internal locus of control and it can be grown and honed. It can be developed. So I want to talk and again, this is going to happen for the holidays, right? Like the holiday.
[00:12:23] You know, what's at the holiday dinner, what's at the holiday party, what's in the break room for holiday treats, what you know is going to show up that I didn't know about? What unexpected thing is going to happen that I didn't plan for? The way that we handle those things from an internal versus an external locus of control is the difference between your health and the holidays. If you are handling it like no matter what is in the break room, I'm going to make a good decision for my health. No matter what is at the holiday dinner, I'm going to make sure I get to make a good decision for my health.
[00:13:00] That no matter what. Gosh, if you have that no matter what going through your head, you're probably not listening to this podcast because you've already mastered your health.
[00:13:09] If you have that no matter what mentality in another area of your life, I want you to start directing it and learning how to convert that no matter what mentality that is an internal locus of control. I want you to start converting that into your health. How do you start growing this? As far as your health goes again, I think you have 90 to 99% control over your health. If you're not there, though, I want you to start looking at how you make 1% changes, how you can make a 1% change in your agency and bring that control back to you. You want to have better health. If that's the case, you already have some hope about what's possible. I want you to lean into that hope and start again making the 1% changes, doing the small things that create evidence that your locus of control is inside of you and you can take control of your health.
[00:14:04] Lots of times women will want to do big things. They want to go on these really aggressive diet plans, they want to start doing shakes or they want to join in, you know, some kind of food program, I call it astronaut food, where they start sending you packages of food or they start this really aggressive workout program. They're doing 90% changes. And then of course, they can't do it long term. They don't do it Long term. Almost every woman that does this does not create long term health. And likely all of us have an example of this. They make these big changes and they don't create the long term changes that they're looking for. Start making the 1% changes and start today. Master it and do something else. One percent more in two or three days and 1% more in two or three days. If you do that for a year, you're gonna make big changes. It's just the math. If you do a 1% change every two to three days and you keep accumulating those 1% changes, you are gonna get the results that you're looking for in a year.
[00:15:06] This is what healthy people do.
[00:15:09] Look at the people who are healthy who have either always had their health because they do certain things that has maintained their health or who had, you know, disease present and they resolved it. Look at what they're doing, compare it to what you're doing and then get some ideas about what those 1% changes are. I want you again, I really invite you to keep an open mind, my friend. If you are interested in getting healthy, if you are really wanting to put this diabetes business behind you, give yourself the gift of entertaining. The ability to drop the story that it's something outside of you that's creating your disease. If you can do that, that is going to be the place where you can start making changes. So ask yourself some questions. What will you be doing differently in your life when you're off meds? When your A1C is normal? When you're diabetes free? When you're healthy? What are you going to be doing in that time, in that place in your life when you're that version? What does it look like?
[00:16:22] Who do you look like? Allow yourself to imagine what your life looks like when you're healthy.
[00:16:32] Allow yourself to imagine what you're going to be doing when you're healthy.
[00:16:37] You're going to have to give yourself permission to determine what your entire life looks like when you're healthy. Not just your doctor's appointments, not just your lab results, not just the meds you take each day, not only the body that you have, you're not going to have. You don't need to look at just those things. You need to look at the entire picture also. What does the food that you eat look like? What does your exercise look like? How does your sleep look? How does your stress management look? How do you handle holiday parties? How do you handle holiday dinners? How do you handle break room snacks? How do you handle the unexpected when you're healthy. Write these down, rewind the 15, 15 second rewind, go back, write these down and answer them. How do you handle the unexpected? How do you feel during these times? When you're at the holiday parties, when you're in the break room, when the unexpected arises? When you're eating the food that is going to create the health that you want. When you're doing the exercise that's going to create the health you want? How do you feel during those situations? How do you handle these situations?
[00:17:51] Seeing how your decisions and your actions in these situations directly create the health that you want will shift your locus of control from the external to the internal. This is how you grow it.
[00:18:06] This is how you actually create the health that you want through the holidays and also long term. I'm recording this on December 1st. If Thanksgiving did not go the way you want it to do, or you wanted it to go, if the last holiday that's passed did not go the way you wanted it to go, I want you to sit down and answer some of these questions and I want you to keep answering them every single morning of your life through the holiday season. This is how you're going to create the health that you want.
[00:18:39] That is all I have for you this week. I hope you found it helpful. I will be back next week, but if you have any questions about this you can always send me an email delanelmd.com if you want to schedule a better blood sugars assessment call go to calendly.com Delane MD and click on the Better but Blood sugars assessment call Calendly is C A L E N D L Y.com forward/ DeLaine, MD.
[00:19:09] You can get to my schedule that way and you can schedule whenever is convenient for you. But if you don't find a time to schedule, just send me that email delanelainmd.com and I will happily get you on my calendar. Lastly, if you've been medicated for your type 2 diabetes, please be careful making the changes that I recommend during this podcast. The changes or the medications that you have been given for your type 2 diabetes have been given because of the way you've eaten in the past. And if you change the way you eat, you're going to need to change those meds. And if you don't, you can get very sick. The kind of sick that looks like hospitalizations, ER visits and death. And that's not why you're doing this. So make sure that you are being safe about that and what safe looks like is you contact the provider who wrote the medication prescriptions for you and you say, hey, listen, I'm going to be doing this thing differently and I think I'm going to need to come off my meds and that's actually my goal. And then you ask them, how can I share my blood sugar readings with you and how should I expect to hear back from you to change my medications?
[00:20:12] Open that line of communication with your provider so that you can stay safe while you make these changes. If you don't, you can get very sick. Okay. If you're not sure what to eat, there's tons of help at my website, Delaine MD.com you can find, you can get the, you know, access to my calendar through the Work with Me link there, but you can also find the 14 days to better Blood Sugars guide. You can go directly there by going to Delaney.com forward/better B E T T E R. This is a 14 day guide, very straightforward. You will see lower blood Sugars in that 14 days and if for some reason you've done it and you haven't seen those, please set up a better blood sugars assessment call. Let's see how we can make that work. If you did it for 14 days and you saw amazing blood sugars, but then I had a hard time making it last longer than the 14 days, like how do you apply it long term? Set up a better blood sugars assessment call. That is where you're going to get the help. It is free. There is no investment, just takes 45 minutes of your time. That is where you're going to get the help for the long term results that you're looking for. Lastly, if you have liked this podcast, if you're enjoying this podcast, if you're learning from this podcast, if you're seeing amazing results from this podcast and I hear from women every week that tell me this, if this is you, please like and rate and review this podcast on your podcast player. The more ratings and reviews this podcast get, the more it gets put in front of other people who need to hear the same message. Help me get this word out that you do not need to be sick and tied to the health care system for the rest of your life. It is possible to live healthy. So that's all I have for you this week. I will see you next week, but until then, I want you to keep listening. I want you to keep avoiding foods that are making you sick and keep making the choices for your health, your vitality and your longevity. I'll talk to you later. Bye.
