Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You are listening to episode number 254 of Better Blood Sugars with Delaine, Md.
Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with Delane, 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.
Hi there. Welcome to the podcast. I'm having some glitches with my microphone, so I hope this records well. I don't have a long podcast scheduled today or planned today, so hopefully it doesn't give me a hard time and we can get through this. I am so glad you're here. I'm glad you're taking time. For you, it is summer and it's warm, and I'm just. I'm digging it all. I'm loving the heat, loving the sunshine. I'm loving the humidity. I know I'm in the minority maybe in that, that I don't. I enjoy that and most people don't. But, um, I hope you're finding some time to enjoy the summer, the change in the season, maybe the later, you know, the sun's staying up longer, it's sunnier, it's bright out. We're able to do more things. I don't know. I always feel more vibrant in the summer, so I hope you're enjoying that. Today. We are going to talk about exercise. We are going to talk about exercise recommendations and how to use exercise to improve your blood sugars and your insulin resistance.
Lots of scientists are talking about this. Gabrielle Lyons, Stacey Sims, Ben Bickman, Mary, I think it's Mary Claire Haver. These are all different physicians or scientists that I have recently heard speaking about the importance of exercise for our health. I shared on the podcast last week that Gabrielle Lyons said, and I agree, like, shockingly, like, I'm so like, oh, my gosh. So I knew it. But, gosh, to hear it put into a sentence that I heard somebody else speak was just so powerful. But you cannot be a healthy human if you are not an exercising human. Like, you just can't do it. And so realizing that if we are truly looking to be healthy, that exercise is really a key component of this, it's not like just icing on the cake, huh? That's pretty funny, huh? So we are going to talk about recommendations. We're going to talk some about warnings. We're going to talk about the ADA, the AHA, the American Health association or Heart association, I'm sorry, the American College of Sports Medicine, what their different recommendations are. And then we're going to talk briefly about things to do. So I'm going to go through those recommendations.
I do want to start with pointing out that all of those scientists that I talked about and listed there, they all recommend muscle building over cardio, which is a huge shift for some of us. I'm, I'm those people that we're talking about. It's a ginormous shift. Right. Like, I was all about the cardio. And Marie or Mary Claire Haber has a really great, um, way of looking at this. So I'm going to share that. But we're going to discuss exercises to do today. We're going to discuss, this is what Marie or Mary Claire Haver says. She says we need to switch from exercising to be thin and instead exercising for our health and our body composition. And she also said the same thing about food. We need to stop eating for aesthetics and instead eating for what our body needs and our body composition needs are. So we're going to talk about how to do that today.
I do want to talk about warnings and not my typical med warning, although that's important.
I want to talk about if you have diabetes and you have any of the complications associated with type two diabetes. That's heart disease, that's hypertension, that's kidney disease, it's eye disease. Retinopathy is what we call it. Right? Peripheral neuropathy, meaning you have burning in your fingertips or your toes that are associated with your diabetes, maybe they call it diabetes diabetic neuropathy. If you have autonomic neuropathy where your heat and cold don't manage correctly, or your blood pressure and heart rate don't manage correctly because of your diabetes, because of nerve damage, secondaries caused by your diabetes, if you have peripheral vascular disease, meaning have poor blood flow to your feet, to your hands, if you have osteoporosis, if you have any of these diabetic related complications, I need you to talk to your doctor before you start a strenuous exercise program.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: If you're on insulin, you probably need to have the ability to check your blood sugar while you're exercising.
So that's the first warning I want to give.
So we talked last week about how exercise, how the contracting muscle, the exercising muscle, improves your insulin resistance and your blood sugars. Go back and check that out. But do understand that the exercise must be strenuous to get that improvement on your insulin resistance and your blood sugars. So if you have these complications, you should expect that you're going to do strenuous exercise. You just need to get cleared by your doctor. All right, so let's start with some of these bigger organizations. Their recommendations, the ADA, the American Diabetes association probably also recommends you get like 30 grams of carbs per meal. And I'm not saying that that's wrong, but sometimes the things that the ADA recommends really is going to keep you sick. It's not going to make you better. It's not going to fix your diabetes. It's going to manage your diabetes. And this recommendation for exercise from them is a similar recommendation. They recommend 150 minutes each week, and it's probably not enough. It gives just a general recommendation. It does not give you guidance. If you go to the ADA, their website does not give you guidance on what sort of exercise, on muscle building, on cardio, on how much of each you should be getting. It gives you none of that. It tells you 150 minutes a week, and then it gives you recommendations on how to get that into your schedule and how to break that down. And then it talks about smart goals and committing and getting it on your schedule. All of those things.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:06:25] Speaker A: So I want you to understand the research my friends are not supporting that you are going to be able to do 150 minutes of yoga exercises or yoga video through, like, YouTube or Netflix. That is not going to cut it. I love yoga. I love yoga for me. I love yoga for you. I love my yogis. But it's not going to build the muscle. It's not going to be the strenuous activity that you need to have to improve your insulin resistance and your blood sugars.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:06:55] Speaker A: So that's the ADA recommendation.
The. In 2024, January of 2024. So this year, the American Heart association came out with recommendations to get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity aerobic exercise, or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic aerobic exercise, or combination of both, preferably spread throughout the week. It recommends to add moderate to high intensity muscle strengthening activity, such as weights or resistance, on at least two days per week. It says, spend less time sitting. Even light intensity exercise can often offset some of the risks of being sedentary. Talks about gaining more benefits by being acted. So this is interesting. The AHA starts to talk about giving, doing more exercise, and that's what we're realizing five years ago, ten years ago, they were saying 100, 5180 minutes a week, and now they're like, probably not enough we probably need closer to like 300 minutes. So that's 5 hours per week of exercise. And so the AHA, the American Heart association, says to gain even more benefits and be active for at least 300 minutes each week. And then, of course, it talks about increasing amount and intensity gradually over time. And I do think that that is important. So those American Heart association recommendations were better than the American Diabetes association recommendations. So I think we're improving. But I got to tell you, the American College of Sports Medicine really takes the cake here. They really give some really amazing recommendations. They had a very nice PowerPoint, I'm sorry, a PDF available online. So if you look up American College of Sports Medicine recommendations for diabetics, they, I feel like, had the best recommendations. They had do's and don'ts. Their dues are regular and structured aerobic and resistant exercise. Resistance exercise is the best treatment. Is the best treatment, they say, for type two diabetes, they talk about building up to 600 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise seven days, I'm sorry, 16 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise seven times. So seven days a week or 420 minutes a week. So they take even farther than the AHA did. They say to take care of your feet, watch for cuts, bruises, anything that may not heal well, any injuries, they say to watch for. And then they talk about walking or light exercise after a meal. It will help with your blood sugar control. They talk about portion control and eating a healthy diet. Lastly, on their don'ts, one of the important things that they say that I don't think we hear enough, they're like, don't drink those sugary drinks. Don't drink the sugar free drinks either. You do not need Gatorade unless you're an olympic elite athlete. You do not need Gatorade to replenish. Now, maybe on an August day in Kansas in the afternoon, there, there is benefit to some electrolyte replenishment for the average human. Exercising, though, you just need some water, okay? Do not fall for the Gatorade. You know, marketing scam that you need to have Gatorade or something bad is going to happen to you.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Drink water. All right? So I do want to warn you that as you start this, your body make it sore.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:10:18] Speaker A: There will be soreness. I'm going to give you some recommendations on what sorts of exercises you want to do. Before I do that, though, I want you to understand increasing your protein intake is required for building the muscle, and the muscle is what improves your insulin resistance and therefore your blood sugars.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:10:36] Speaker A: So you have to provide adequate building blocks. So you should be eating 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight. And this is new, and, like, it's not new information, this is old information. But we are starting to realize the importance of this piece of our dietary, um, this strategy in our diet. Like, this part of our diet is really, really important. And each year, each week, each month, I feel like there's more and more information about this. I think I used to, um, certainly personally, and even my recommendations for my diabetics was to watch how much protein you're getting, because there can be a conversion by the liver into glucose, and that can drive your blood sugar up. And I think I was wrong there, number one. And number two, I need you to understand that you need to have about 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight of protein each day.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Each day. This one gives you the building blocks, but two, it also helps with the muscle soreness. So if you're finding you're starting this exercise regimen and you're doing this thing and your body is so sore that you're miserable, please increase your protein intake each day. Okay, so let's talk about what to do for exercises.
So I think many of us know that, like, oh, we're going to curl by. We're going to do bicep curls. We're going to do, you know, squats, we're going to do, you know, hamstring curls or whatever.
I want you to think very hard about what functional exercises you need to be doing.
A bicep curl is not a horribly meaningful exercise unless you're planning on only lifting things from the, you know, thigh area up to the chest area. That's not a horribly functional exercise. And what I mean by functional is that you need to do movements that are going to mean something in your future, okay? You need to start training those muscles. So if you want to be independent and live independent into your sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, my 95 year old grandmother, who still lives alone, and she is unstable on her feet, she does make me really nervous, but she does exercise.
And you need to start being really cognizant about functional exercises that are going to keep you safe in those later decades. So bicep curl is not that, but being able to lift yourself up off the ground. So a push up is probably going to be important. So do you do a standard push up? If you can do it like, that should probably be something you want to keep in each decade of your life. You want to keep being able to do a standard push up at least one. One. Ideally you're doing three sets of twelve, right? So that is a functional exercise. So you want to make sure that you're doing functional things. You want to be able to pick yourself up off the ground if you fall, you want to be able to bend over and pick something up without losing your balance or hurting yourself.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:13:36] Speaker A: These are functional exercises and that's what I mean. So I am not an exercise scientist, I'm not a physical therapist. I don't, I'm not going to try to pretend like I have all the answers for what exercises to do, but I am going to give you some simple examples.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: I think that working, if you have not been lifting heavy things, I'm going to get to that. But if you haven't been working on weights and working with weights, then you need to start with body weight exercises. That is your resistance only. So tricep presses, you're on the ground and you put your hands up on a chair or on the sofa and you start to lift your bottom off the ground. Those just your body weight. Those are probably going to be more functional than a tricep press with a weight above your head.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Um, push ups again. If you can do a standard push up, awesome. If you need to modify it with your knees down, fine. Work up to the standard. If that is even too much, then do a wall or a counter push up. Do something. But it has to be strenuous. Again, like don't, don't throw yourself a softball here. This is not the time for doing weak sauce work. This, it needs to be hard. It needs to make you work. Feel like you're working for it. Half get ups, these are probably, you can google this and look it up. You can get a video, but these are probably actually better than sit ups. Sit ups are not horribly functional exercises. But half get ups you lay on your back, you lift one knee up and you take the arm on that same side. So you're laying down flat, you take the arm and you raise it up above your head, reach it towards the ceiling and kind of half get up and then you go back and you do it again. And eventually you build up to having weights in your arm and you keep doing that. That's probably a more functional exercise than doing a sit up.
Lower body exercises, sit to stands. If that's all you can do, that's enough. Start there. If you can just do sitting in a chair to standing and you do ten of those and your muscles are jiggly and you feel like you're working great. Do three sets of ten. At some point, you're going to want to move to doing squats. Maybe you move to doing lunges, maybe you do move to doing jumping squats. All of these are important to build muscles. These muscles also, of course, put tension on your bones and they build your bones. All of this is incredibly good for you, but you have to really work at it.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Once you get past these body weight exercises and you're like, yeah, I'm doing standard push ups. And I do, you know, three sets of ten. It's not a big deal. It's not even that hard at that point. Then we need to look at waiting stuff. Whether you wear a weight vest for your pushups, whether you, um, you know, do an incline where you start putting your feet up in the air instead of your hands up in the air, that's going to make it easier. But you put your feet up in the air, it's going to make it harder. So doing all of these different things, you know, it can be as simple as body weight. It doesn't need to be complicated or expensive.
So eventually you're going to work to make it harder and harder with progressive, um, difficulty so that you can continue to build those muscles. But here's the thing, ladies, we need to lift heavy things, period. End of sentence. It should be heavy. It should feel like work. It should also be functional. You should watch your form closely, so make sure you're getting guidance, whether you're learning it from a book or whether you're watching it on a video, or whether you hire a trainer to get you to know these exercises. Do watch your form and progress slowly, but don't give yourself a pass here. This is not the time to give yourself a pass. If you're going to spend the time, do it and do it well so you get the full benefit from it.
Cardio is important and you want to do some cardio, really, you should be shooting for three to four days a week of muscle work, and you should be filling in the rest of those 300 to 420 minutes a week with cardio. Okay? So shoot for 300 to 420 minutes a week of exercise, three to four days of lifting heavy things, and. No kidding, seriously, I'm talking about heavy, heavy things.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: There is mixed information. I just recently switched to doing, um, zone two workout, which is there's mixed information out there. I've heard mixed things depending on who I'm speaking to. So I'm not, not going to make any recommendations. Get your heart rate up. That's really what's important.
I want to remind everybody the warning that I always give. Please be careful if you are in meds making the changes that I recommend in these podcast episodes. You have been medicated for the way you've lived in the past. If you change the things, your lifestyle, activities, your daily habits, if you change those, you're going to need to change the meds. If you don't, you may get really sick. The kind of sick that looks like going to the hospital, being admitted, er visits, those sorts of things, and really, possibly even death, it can be very dangerous. So I want you to start keeping a log of your blood sugars, and I want you to call your doctor and I want you to find out how your doctor wants you to share those blood sugars with them. And then I want you to hear from your doctor how they intend to share their medication recommendations with you.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:18:50] Speaker A: This is going to keep you safe. Please open this line of communication up with your medical provider so that you can stay safe as you make these changes. If you're not sure what to do, like if you're not I don't know what to eat, I'm not sure. Go to my website, delanemd.com forward slash better. You can find there a 14 day food guide set up as a menu so there's breakfast, lunch and dinner for 14 days of the foods that you can eat to start seeing better blood sugars. This is a very powerful guide. Make that phone call to your doctor because your blood sugars will drop. But go download that guide if you're not sure. If you're like, it doesn't matter what I eat, I don't know, it never changes. Do that guide, commit to it to 14 days and you are going to see better blood sugars. It's a very powerful guide. I've heard such amazing things from women. You can look at my website and see the things that I've heard. It's been amazing. So go download that delanemd.com forward slash better. Lastly, I ask that you would rate this podcast if you're finding benefits from this podcast, the more times you rate it, the more people this is going to be put in front of or offered to for them to listen to. Recognize. Nine out of ten of Americans have insulin resistance. They are on the path to diabetes.
Everybody needs to be hearing this, that you don't need to be sick for the rest of your life. Living on meds and tied to the healthcare system, you can be healthy. We need to understand this. That's what this podcast is dedicated to. Please rate it. Please share it on social media. Get the word out to your friends, because we all need to hear it. All right, I will be back next week, but until then, keep listening. Keep avoiding the foods that you know make you sick. Keep making the choices for your health, your vitality, and your longevity. I'll talk to you later. Bye.
