Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 280 of Better Blood Sugars with Delaine, Maryland. Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with Delaine, MD where you can learn strategies to lower your blood sugars and improve your overall health. I'm your host, Dr. Delaine Vaughan. 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'm so glad you're taking some time for you, some time for your health. Just a moment in the busy holiday season to kind of take a step away. I'm glad you're trusting me with that time. I feel privileged that you're spending it with me. So today I want to talk about exercise. I know it's a busy time of the year and this should be a pretty quick podcast, but I do think that recognizing the importance of exercise and this one thing that we do, Yes, I will always tell you that the food you eat has the most impact on your blood sugars and your health. And I still believe that. But the second most powerful tool that we have as human beings and as women who are diabetic and want to reverse their diabetes, the second most powerful tool that we have is exercise. If you are not already involved in the Better Blood Sugars with Delay MD Facebook group, go find that. This is actually a question that came from that group. There was discussion about how do you know when you reversed your insulin resistance? This is a pretty common question that I actually get one of people who are women who are asking questions, they asked about, you know, the role of exercise in this. And so this is coming from that question and that conversation.
[00:01:41] Exercise.
[00:01:43] We, you know, lots of, I mean, anybody who's tried to lose any weight or tried to get healthy, we've all tried to use exercise for this. And it is important, but it does have to be coupled with dietary changes. But lots of women are asking about when do I know if I'm insulin resistant or not? Because I'm seeing these low level, kind of just barely elevated fasting blood Sugars or their A1C has come down to 5.9 or 5.8. Maybe it was 12 or something insane. And it's come down to 5.9 or five point eight or five point.
[00:02:16] It's come close to normal. But for whatever reason, it's been six, it's been nine, maybe 12 months. And they cannot get it down below that pre diabetic range or they're having a fasting blood sugar and they can't get it below 106 or 110 or even 118 or 20. They're like, they know in their brain the goal for their fasting blood sugar is really going to be below 100, but they can't seem to drop it below that 100 range. And so what I find is that these women really need to start focusing on muscle.
[00:02:52] And I want to stress that it's muscle, it's not just straight exercise. I'm not talking about walking and running, ladies. I love to run. That is my favorite thing in the world to do. I love a good long hike. I love cardio. And it just is not enough. And the reason that that is is what I want to dive into today. I want to talk about muscle. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue in our body and it tends to be more insulin sensitive than a lot of our other cells or tissue. And that's really awesome because we as diabetics are trying to become less insulin resistant and that means we want to be more insulin sensitive. Insulin resistance is the root cause of your type 2 diabetes. If you have not heard me say this, listen up. Your blood sugars are not an issue of your sugar being too high or too many carbohydrates. That is an a part of it. But the true issue at hand is that your cells are insulin resistant. And that means that no matter what your blood sugar is or is not, your cells are not responding to insulin effectively. What should be happening is your cells should be opening up of insulin and pulling sugar inside and burning it off as fuel. But when you're insulin resistant, that isn't happening. And your blood sugars are climbing high. And that's what we as doctors pick up on your labs, that's what you pick up on your finger sticks, that's what you pick up in your continuous glucose monitors, is that your blood sugars are high, but it is not about your blood sugars. It is about insulin resistant resistance. And so recognizing that we want to improve insulin sensitivity and that is the opposite of insulin resistance. And insulin resistance is what's causing your diabetes. Okay, Muscle tissue is very insulin sensitive. It can be insulin resistant, but primarily it very easily switches over into not being impacted by insulin. Okay, so if you're insulin resistant, it doesn't matter because muscle doesn't always use insulin to burn off your blood sugar as fuel.
[00:04:59] So it's twofold. One, you want more of this Insulin sensitive tissue in your body and that alone is going to to make you more insulin sensitive.
[00:05:11] But the second part that I want you to understand, that's important about having muscle and working on muscle as exercise. The other part of it that's super important is that your body wants to store your blood sugar outside of your bloodstream, inside of something. And muscle is the primary place it really wants to do it. It also does it in the liver. But recognize, you can't make your liver any bigger, but you can grow your muscle. So if you think of muscle as a storage site for your blood sugar, you can kind of think of it like a closet.
[00:05:51] If you have a closet that's three foot by three foot, you can't store as much stuff in it, blood sugar in it as you could if you had a closet that was 10 foot by 10 foot. So you want a bigger closet, you want bigger muscles.
[00:06:07] That's what you're looking for. So you need to be building muscle, not just walking, not just running, not doing the, you know, elliptical at the gym. That's not what I'm talking about. You need to lift heavy shit and make big muscles so that you have a big closet to store your blood sugar outside of your bloodstream. You are not going to get bulky, you are not going to look like arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1987. That's not going to happen. That is not going to be an issue. What you are going to do is build more muscle though. And that muscle is going to be a place where your body can store blood sugar in addition to that. So this is the metabolic improvement that we have with muscle. But the other part of it that I want to remind women, if we are worried about osteoporosis or osteopenia, we're worried about brittle bones.
[00:07:05] It is not the reason that lifting is what helps. That is because you have to have your tendons pulling on your bones in order to stimulate bone growth.
[00:07:17] And you're not getting that effectively from cardiovascular workouts. You're going to get those from muscle workouts. Lastly, the more muscle that you have, the more bubble wrap is around your bones. So as you get older, if you take a fall, you now have a protective, more protection around those bones to keep them from breaking. They're stronger, there's protection around them. All of these things are beneficial, clearly beneficial to you and your health. So recognizing that it's not, you know, lots of people have used or thought that they would use exercise as a way to just burn off glucose and that's important and there's maybe a role in that way to improving your blood sugars. But the bigger issue is that you're creating more insulin sensitivity. That is the opposite of diabetes.
[00:08:14] And you're creating a larger storehouse for you to store glucose outside of your bloodstream. When you do that, what that allows your body to do is stop stimulating your pancreas to make insulin. And if you're not making so much insulin, you're not as insulin resistant. All of this is just, I mean, downward effects of the benefits of muscle. So I want you to really focus on building muscles, my friend. If you are in that group where you are seeing that just blood sugar that's not quite in the normal range, but it's so close and it's been there for a long time, you, my friend, need to lift heavy shit and get bigger muscles. And when you do that, do that for six to 12 weeks and watch what happens to your blood sugars. That is going to be the big change for women in that category where they're almost normal but not quite there. Again, I love a good cardiovascular workout, but it's not improving my blood sugars, it's not improving my insulin resistance the same way lifting weights is. So that's what I have for you. If you have any questions about how you can utilize that tool, please reach out to me. Set up a better blood sugars assessment call. You can always send me an email. Delanelainmd.com Lastly, I want to give you a warning if you are taking medications for your type 2 diabetes. Please be careful as you implement changes that I recommend. You have been medicated for the way you have eaten and really the way you have lived in the past. If you change your human activity, the food that you eat and the exercise that you do and your insulin resistance, if you're changing that, you're going to need less meds. And if you don't go on less meds, you could end up really sick. So I need you to open up a clear line of communication with your primary care, the provider that wrote you those prescriptions, and let them know you're making some changes and ask them, how can I share my blood sugars logs with you and how should I expect to hear back from you about med changes? If you don't do this, you can get really sick, the kind of sick that looks like hospitalizations and maybe even death, and that's not why you're doing it. So I need you to open that line of communication. Lastly, if you're finding benefits from this podcast, please rate and review it on the podcast player 9 out of 10Americans have insulin resistance and they need to hear from people like me that they don't need to be sick and tied to the healthcare system for the rest of their life. The more people that rate and review this podcast, the more humans this podcast gets presented to by the podcast players. So please write and review the podcast so others can get this help. The same help that you've been getting. I hope you found this helpful. I hope your holiday season is going well. If you ever have any questions or want to set up a better blood sugars assessment, call, don't hesitate to send me a message. Delaine Elaine MD Com I will be back next week. Until then, keep making choices for your health, your vitality, your longevity, and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
