[00:00:01] You are listening to episode number 253 of Better Blood Sugars with Delaine, Md. 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, 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.
[00:00:31] All right. Hi there. Welcome to the podcast. I hope this is recording, although I can't be sure. Fingers are crossed.
[00:00:40] I'm glad you're here. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for taking some time.
[00:00:46] Thank you for committing to your health and trusting me to help you along that way. So I appreciate you for being here. Today we are going to talk about exercise and insulin resistance and diabetes and kind of how to improve your insulin resistance using the tool of exercise.
[00:01:07] This month is going to be dedicated to talking about exercise as a tool to help you improve your blood sugars and help you improve your insulin resistance and in general, help you, um, reverse your diabetes. You know, that's such a charge term. Um, I don't know that people like it or don't like it, but, you know, if you're interested in seeing better blood sugars, uh, I'm going to teach you this month. I'm going to talk a lot in the podcast this month about how to do that. So I want to review for anybody who's new or doesn't quite understand, because this is not intuitive and it's certainly not what is taught in the medical community about your diabetes and what's caused your causing your diabetes. So, um, diabetes is insulin resistance. It causes your blood sugars to go high. In the medical community, we diagnose diabetes by high blood sugars, but those blood sugars, that high blood sugar is caused by insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone that's produced by your pancreas, and it is a response to the food that we eat. The insulin allows your cells to open up and bring glucose inside, and so your cell can burn that off, that glucose, glucose off as fuel.
[00:02:24] When our cells are overexposed to insulin, they become resistant to that function. They don't no longer open up. They no longer pull the glucose inside. They no longer burn it off as fuel. And this, of course, allows your glucose to climb high. And that's what we pick up. That's what we call diabetes.
[00:02:42] Blood glucose and blood sugar, they really come from anything that you eat that's starchy. So that's flours, that's sugar, that's rice, that's crackers, that's a bread. That's carbohydrates, essentially. That is bananas. It is apples, it is cucumbers.
[00:02:58] But the cucumbers and the apples and the bananas are foods in their natural form, and the body responds to that differently than it would to flourish. Sugars, you know, instant rice, those sorts of things. So when we're talking about the foods that are a problem, when we're looking at foods to try to fix this insulin response and the insulin resistance, these are usually the foods that we're going to focus on. Okay? So, to fix diabetes, you have to focus on those foods, because that is going to fix the insulin resistance. And you cannot fix the diabetes without fixing the insulin resistance. Today, we're going to talk about exercise and how it works to do this, how it works as a tool for this, we're going to talk some briefly about, um, new information that I've come across and a little bit about how to get started. Started. But really, I'm going to cover that more in future episodes.
[00:03:57] So exercise can be a real key player in improving your insulin resistance in an insulin sensitive human person, being right in our biology. And what I mean by insulin sensitive, that is the opposite of insulin resistance. So it is not diabetic and a non diabetic human being.
[00:04:20] Insulin, the cell will use the insulin to move the glucose inside. Okay? And that glucose will then be burned as fuel. Like I just said, insulin binds on the cell wall of our cells. There's trillions of these floating around in our body and doing various things right. Insulin will bind to cell walls, and that causes the cell wall to open, forms a little port, and that port then allows glucose to transfer inside from the outside of the cell to the inside of the cell. And diabetes, your insulin resistance resistant, which just means that you do not have that insulin binding part, and your cells don't open up, the wall doesn't open up, and it doesn't move glucose inside.
[00:05:02] So how exercise helps, this is when your muscle cells start contracting, and muscles are going to be one of the largest places for you to pull glucose inside. When your blood sugar outside the cell gets high, one of the biggest places for us to bring that to normal or bring that down is by moving it inside the muscle cells. The muscles will store things like glycogen, which is just a form of glucose that our cell or our muscle cells store in order for us to use it in the future when our muscles are contracting and we're not eating. Okay. So, when your glucose level comes high, then what your cell, your muscle cell wants to do is to use insulin to bring that glucose inside. But what it will also do is when it starts contracting and moving, when those muscle cells contract, it opens up. The cell wall opens up and brings glucose inside. Without insulin, it does not rely on the insulin to bring the glucose inside. And this is really awesome, because if you're insulin resistant, the insulin isn't even giving that message appropriately to your muscles. And that just means that your, you know, blood sugar outside is climbing up high because your cells aren't hearing the message of insulin. But when your muscles start contracting, they start to bring glucose inside in a way that does not rely on that binding of insulin at that cell wall. That does two things that are really, really important. One, it lowers your blood sugar, and it fuels your cell, which is awesome. Two, it brings your blood sugar down again. The pancreas usually gets the message from our bloodstream that's circulating our blood, and it senses it. The pancreas is constantly taking samples of that blood to see how much glucose is in there. And if your glucose is low enough, your pancreas, like, we don't need any insulin. There's nothing to move around here. But when your glucose climbs to a certain level, your pancreas is like, oh, we got to send out some insulin. Send out some insulin. Send out some insulin. And it will keep sending out insulin until that glucose level lower. Well, if you're insulin resistant, you're never bringing that glucose inside of the cell. So you're just constantly sending this message to the pancreas to send more insulin. And what causes insulin resistance? It's overexposure to insulin. So, suddenly, you're stuck in this pathway where you can't bring your blood sugars down, and your pancreas won't stop putting out the insulin that's causing the insulin resistance unless you start exercising. Exercising allows you to bring that glucose inside, lowering that blood glucose, which stops sending that message to the pancreas to make more insulin. Huge issue. This is just a huge player, a great tool. The other super amazing part. I don't know, the most magical part of this is that this effect lasts for 48 to 72 hours. That's two to three days after a single exercise bout after an exercise event.
[00:08:00] This is why exercise is so important and such a powerful tool for people who have insulin resistance and diabetes. So I attended a conference last week. I attended it virtually. I had friends that were there live. I really wish I could have been there live, but I've just been traveling too much for other commitments. So I attended virtually. It was the Institute for Functional Medicine, their annual meeting.
[00:08:24] The sessions that I got to go to were amazing. However, there was a session on muscles, on. Specifically on muscles and women's health. It was pretty amazing to well known scientists and, um, one's a PhD, one's an MD or she's a do. I think she's actually. But she's a family practice doctor. Um, we're talking, uh, the family practice doctor was Gabrielle Lyons, and she has a book out about muscle. Um, her work is pretty amazing. The other one was Stacey Sims, also amazing. She has a book called Roar. I think it's great. The only two things that I hesitate, and I'll talk more about this in the next couple podcasts. The only two things that are. The only thing that makes me hesitate about recommending their stuff without any hesitation is that they really are speaking to athletes, to female athletes. So they're talking to the triathletes, to the marathoners, to the, you know, competitive mountain bikers or cyclists, and they are different than just the typical woman. Like, their needs, those women who are competitive athletes, their needs nutritionally are vastly different from the nutritional needs of somebody who is not in that category. And that's most of us. Right? I feel like I'm rather athletic. I exercise five out of seven days, if not six out of seven days a week. I do muscle work, I do running, I run 5 miles many days of the week. Sometimes it's three, sometimes it's seven, depending on my week. I'm a pretty active woman, and I would not put myself in that category of this super competitive athlete. And their nutritional recommendations are really for that category of women.
[00:10:08] So when people read their book, they're like, but doctor, you know, Sims says that we need to eat more. Doctor Lyon says that I need to have more carbs. And my response to that is always, doctor Lyons is speaking to competitive athletes, competitive female athletes, and unless you're doing the exercise component of that woman, you can't have the dietary component of that recommendation also. So. But what they did say that I was just. A couple of things came from their talks. One was that the disease, the chronic disease epidemic that we have in this country, is a disease of lack of muscle.
[00:10:46] It's a disease of muscle. And that was, like, mind blowing for me. I thought that was amazing. And so true.
[00:10:54] Muscle is at the root of this. And it's interesting because I've always really felt like insulin is at the root of most of our chronic diseases. And I still do believe that. But I'll leave. I do believe deeply that muscle could be at the root of the cure for this. Like, yes, we need to stop eating junk food. And neither of those two amazing scientists, and, uh, both of them do multi, you know, so many studies, just amazingly bright women, both of them would tell you, junk food is not on the table. There's no amount of exercise that undoes that. But I could not agree more that we have got to start paying better attention to our muscle mass and our muscle function and that as a healthy human being. The other thing that was said, um, that again, like, when I heard this, I was like, oh, God, that is so true. The other thing that they said is that we cannot, if we do not have healthy muscle and a healthy activity level in our life, if we are not exercising humans, we cannot be healthy humans.
[00:12:00] If you intend to be a healthy human being, you must be an exercising human being also. And I couldn't agree with that more. I think that's spot on.
[00:12:09] So, other benefits, I'm going to talk a little bit more. I'm in the middle of Doctor Sims's book roar, and I've listened to one or two of Doctor Lyon's podcasts, and again, there's a lot of things that they say that I'm like, yep, yep, yep. Absolutely agree with. The one thing that I would warn women of is, unless you're doing the exercise that they're speaking of, you cannot be hoping to hold to the dietary recommendations that those two, um, their coaches, they work with, high, you know, performing athletes. You can't be expected to have the nutritional requirements that those that they're recommending. Recommending and what they talk about. So, um, other benefits of exercise, I want to talk about strength, of course. Being able to be strong enough to do the things that you need to do, that is not only good for our muscle and our insulin resistance and our glucose control, but it's also good for if you fall, you need to be able to pick yourself up off the ground, or if you drop something, you need to be able to pick it up. Just as we get older, as women, we need to be strong enough to take care of ourselves and do the things we need to do each day.
[00:13:16] Other benefits that you get from exercise and strength training, balance. Huge, huge thing. As we get into our older years. I'm 49. I don't feel like I'm that old, but I already am noticing balance issues and me having to really focus more on balance. Balance is really an element of our muscle function and our neuro function. So there's really two things going on there that you're improving. Cognitive neuro, you know, promotion of neuro benefits and health, and the opposite of neurodegeneration, which are like cognitive decline and Alzheimer's. Right. That's part of it. And then also our muscular activity. Um, and the connection between those two. So balance is a big thing that you get when you are exercising. And then, of course, going into our older years, the older we get, just in the next birthday, you got, the more muscle mass that you can have on your body. Protects your bones from breaks. Protects. I mean, it keeps them, the bones themselves stay stronger, but they also have more things wrapped around them to protect them, more things like muscles wrapped around them to protect them. Um, so just in general focus, focusing on how much muscle mass do you have as you're going into your elder years?
[00:14:32] Um, so those are, um, the reasons that exercise is so helpful, and I think it's really important. The other thing that I did want to talk about was kind of how to get started. What do we do to get started? Um, with an exercise program. One, I want you to do something that you will continue to do. That's really, that's prime, that's number one. That's the alpha. That is the thing you're going to need to focus on. Doing something that you can continue to do is the best exercise for you. Doing some exercise is always better than none exercise, some versus none. Um, so if it's you're starting with walking or you're starting with, um, you know, just some calisthenics, sit ups, push ups, they may not be perfect exercises. I'm not going to say they're being perfect exercises, but there's something you'll do. Then do that. Start there. Start at ten minutes a day. Ten minutes a day, ladies, is not enough.
[00:15:28] I need you to understand that. Do not believe you can do ten minutes a day for the rest of your life and have all the benefits you need.
[00:15:35] All the things that we're talking about that are going to be benefiting you as you grow older. If you're doing ten minutes a day of exercise, that's not it. You want to start at ten minutes a day and then you want to work up. Your goal is going to be at 210 minutes a week.
[00:15:49] Some people say 150. The more. More information out there, I think we need more. So 210 minutes a week. So start at ten, work up. If that's all you can do, great. Whatever you can do. Walking, slow, jog, sit to stand, wall push ups, sit ups. So sit to stand, that's sitting in a chair and then standing up. This works balance, this works your quads, this works your core strength, that works all sorts of things. It's a quality exercise. If you can get into a class and have a quality instructor teach you and guide you through, great. But whatever it is, set yourself a minimum baseline commitment. And if that means needs to be ten minutes, no matter what. At the end of the day, if I haven't done at least ten minutes, I know I can do at least ten minutes of exercise before I go to bed. Do that and then work your way up.
[00:16:39] So that's what I have. I'm going to talk more this month about the benefits of training your muscle and building muscle versus cardio, and what the differences and why they're different and what you should be doing to help your insulin resistance. But right now, I just want you to understand the importance of exercising it. I truly cannot be stated enough, and in my soul of souls, I really do agree. I think it was Doctor Lyons that said, you know, if you're going to be a healthy human, you must be an exercising human. Like that is a requirement to being healthy. I do believe that. So, um, and it's an incredibly powerful tool for you to improve your insulin resistance. So if you're wanting to see better blood sugars, this is going to be a great tool to get you there if you are on medications. And I will be talking about this in future podcasts this month about meds and, um, exercise. But make sure you're, you know, talking with your doctor before you start an exercise program. And if you start making any of the dietary changes that I recommend in this podcast, you need to keep a close eye on your blood sugars, you need to call your doctor, you need to find out how they want you to share your blood sugars with them and how they intend to share medication changes with you so that you can stay safe. If you do not do this, it can be very dangerous. Depending on your medications, you can get very sick. The kind of sick that involves a hospital stay, an ER visit, and possibly even death. And you are not making these changes to die early, you're making it to have a longer life. So please be very careful and call your doctor and get a good line of communication open with them.
[00:18:06] Um, I do have help for you. If you're wondering about what to eat and how to get on that path. I do have a 14 days to better blood sugars workbook. You can download
[email protected] forward slash better if for some reason that link doesn't work, you send me a message. Delaney lanemd.com I will get you a copy of this. Um, if you have any questions, email me delanemd.com. i'm happy to answer anything. And then I would also like to ask you if you're enjoying this podcast and finding the information helpful. Please rate it and review it. The more people that rate and review this podcast, the more people this podcast podcast gets offered to or put in front of so that they have access to this information. Nine out of ten of Americans are struggling with health and insulin resistance. People need to hear this information so they know they don't need to be sick and tied to the healthcare industry for the rest of their life. I want you to keep listening. Keep avoiding foods that are making you sick. Keep making choices in the benefit of your health and your vitality and your longevity. I'll be back next week. Bye.
