[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 255 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.
[00:00:29] Hey there, and welcome to the podcast. I am glad you're here. I'm glad you're taking a second for yourself, a minute for yourself. Today it is Father's day. So a lot of us women have been doing what we can to make today special for the men in our lives, for the dads in our lives. And so I'm taking a minute today to share some information with you, but I hope that you're finding a minute for you and I appreciate that you're doing that and that you're spending it with me. So today's podcast is going to be a little different.
[00:01:01] It will eventually be posted on YouTube. A lot of times I broadcast these live on YouTube. However, my equipment is giving me a hard time. Apparently it's taking Father's day off. So, um, the Internet is a little sketchy and my mic has been acting funny. So I just decided to go ahead and record this and not broadcast it live in case anything goes squirrely and then I can fix it and I will post it onto YouTube. So the recording will be up on YouTube, but it's not going out live. So today this is going to be a question and answer session about exercise. The month of June. I have devoted to the podcast to talking about exercise. Um, we've talked about, you know, why exercise isn't so important. We've talked about how to exercise, what are the recommendations made by various different organizations and what, what works and what doesn't work with those. Today I am going to share with you questions that I asked for. I reached out to people and asked for their questions. You know, what can I do to help you out? What don't you understand? And a lot of this comes from questions from the Facebook group. So if you don't know there is a better blood sugars with Delane MD Facebook group, you can search for that and you can ask for like membership in the group and I'll let you in. Great, great, great community of women, helping each other out, supporting each other. Um, just really a lovely group of women also, you have access to me in there. So if you have questions for me, you can post them in there and I will answer them. But also I will ask you, like, what do you want to hear about? What do you want to know about? What is burning that you. What information are you burning to know about is really what it is. And so that's really where I got a lot of these questions that I'm about to answer, um, from. I got them from the Facebook group. So we're going to dive into that. Before we do, I want to recap for you why exercise is important for improving your blood sugar.
[00:02:56] Recognize one.
[00:02:59] When we are exercising, our cells will use glucose. Our muscle cells will use glucose in an alternative way that is not dependent on insulin. And remember, if you think about what is causing your high blood sugars, what causes your diabetes. Your diabetes is caused from insulin resistance. Your cells are resistant to the function of insulin, which means they don't respond the way they should. And this allows your blood sugars to climb quite high.
[00:03:31] That is what type two diabetes is. That is what insulin resistance is. Okay? So when you can get your cells to work in a way to bring glucose inside and use it as fuel in a way that does not rely on insulin, you're bypassing. The problem is really what comes on, right? Like, in the presence of insulin, a normal cell is going to open up, bring glucose inside, and burn that glucose as fuel. However, when you're insulin resistant, you don't do that. So there's glucose on the outside of the cell. Insulin is present, but the cells are. Are resistant to responding to it, so they don't open up. That allows the glucose to climb quite high on the outside of the cell. It also means the cell on the inside is not having fuel to burn off. Okay.
[00:04:27] When we exercise, our muscle cells use glucose as fuel in a way that is not reliant on insulin. So it does not matter how insulin resistant you are, your cells still open up and bring glucose inside and burn it off as fuel. It's a really, really clever mechanism that our cells have. So that's one way that it helps get you better blood sugars, but the other way is the more muscle mass that you have gives you more places to park to what we call sink glucose. It gives you a place to store glucose in the muscle, but you have to have muscle, and you have to have a significant mass of muscle on your body to have a significant place to put all that glucose. If you don't have that muscle space, you don't have anywhere to put the glucose, the muscle turns it into glycogen and stores it for when it needs it later.
[00:05:33] And if you don't have enough muscle mass, you're not having an opportunity or missing out on an opportunity for a place to store glucose, bring it out of your blood system. And when you're doing that and your glucose drops low, suddenly you're not sending a message to your pancreas all the time to make all this insulin, which keeps you insulin resistant. Okay? So it's really important to pull that glucose out of the bloodstream.
[00:05:58] And the way that you can do that, the most effective way, the way that you do that with the least amount of side effects, like, biggest side effect you're going to have from exercise, like pulling a muscle, right. The way that you do it, is to exercise. That is the best way that you can do this.
[00:06:15] So that is how exercise improves your blood sugars. Again, we talked about this process two weeks ago. Um, so it would have been episode number 253 if I'm doing my math correctly. And then episode number 254 was recommendations from the ADA, from the American College of Sports Medicine, from a variety of different places for what to do, how to exercise. Like, how do I implement an exercise routine today?
[00:06:46] I want to answer questions from listeners. So one of the questions I have is about hit training. How much hit training? So that's HIIT. That's high intensity interval training. How much interval training is beneficial? Like, what do I have to do? So, high intensity interval training is, like, depending on who you're getting it prescribed from, like, who's telling you what to do, but it's usually like 30 to 45 seconds of super high intensity, like, max intensity work followed by 30 to 45 seconds of kind of low intensity work. And you do cycles of these, maybe five cycles of these. Right? So the question was, how much high intensity work do you have to do? Like, what is it that's going to turn on that kind of alternative method for bringing blood sugar in? What is it that you can do for hit work that is going to be beneficial to your blood sugars? What I came across was really as little as, like, 30 seconds to three or four minutes, even. Like, that short frame of work of the high intensity interval training is going to give you a benefit, the benefit that you're looking for for your blood sugars.
[00:08:08] So, um, there's a hundred different ways to do this, really. You can do it with sprints, you can do it on a treadmill, sprints, you can do it with, um, cycling on a bike, you could do it on an arc trainer. You can do it a hundred different ways. There's really no one way to do hit training, and I am not a master of hit training. I don't want anybody to think that, like, I'm some kind of hit training guru. I'm not. I don't utilize hit training that way. I do high intensity work, but not in the classic hit training methods. So, um, what I have found, though, like, when I looked up the information and it was a various different, uh, literature pieces, like medical literature pieces that I looked at, um, that was what kind of came out of that. There were many that were reviewing multiple different studies then many that were doing just single studies on, you know, 350 people or whatever, just, you know, a small, you know, uh, sample of people. But that was kind of across the board. What you came to was at least 30 seconds, up to three or four minutes, depending on how trained you are, is going to be beneficial for your blood sugars. So that's what I came across for that question, then. X the next question I want to go into was a question about carb recommendations by dietitians or trainings trainers. During exercise, the listener asked about 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates ingested per 60 minutes of cardio. So for every 60 minutes or 1 hour that you are doing cardio, you should be ingesting 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates. Now, many of you are aware, there have been times in my past where I've told people like, you shouldn't be eating more than 50 grams of carbs in a day.
[00:10:03] And so, of course, there's a discrepancy, there's a huge discrepancy between dietitians and trainers and these sorts of recommendations and what recommendations I give people to help fix their insulin resistance. So the first thing I want you to think about is one, are your cells starting at a normal place? Are your cells starting at a non insulin resistant state?
[00:10:30] If your cells are non insulin resistant and we're looking at how many carbs do you need per hour of cardio, the answer to that is going to be different than if you're starting at an insulin resistant state and answering the question of, you know, how many carbs do I need for 60 minutes of cardio? Okay, that's the first thing. The second thing. The, the main question I ask women when they ask me this is like, how long are you exercising?
[00:10:59] I mean, how many hours are we talking? Are you doing an hour and ten minutes? Are you doing 3 hours. What's happening here? Tell me about the exercise you're doing, and tell me about the long, like how long the duration of the exercise you're doing. If you are doing a walk, you know, a moderate walk with your dog for an hour and a half, I don't know that that is the same thing that trainers and dietitians are talking about when they're making this recommendation for 30 to 60 grams per of carbs per hour. Now, if you're running a marathon, if you're training, here's the deal. Here's the deal, ladies. This is the thing. If you are training for a marathon, you're probably not insulin resistant, okay? If you're putting the time in and you're doing the training runs for a marathon, you're probably running somewhere around 5 hours, maybe 10 hours a week, somewhere in that range is not unusual to train for a marathon, and your cells are probably no longer insulin resistant when you're getting into that phase. Okay? And if that's the case, I guess doing 30 to 60 grams of carbs per hour of exercise, try it out and see what happens. I will tell you it is not required. Like, it's not like your body is going to stop working and shut down and you're not going to do anything. That's just not how our biology works.
[00:12:23] I think that a lot of times these recommendations are made for people who are elite athletes and trying to get their absolute best performance.
[00:12:35] And if you're not an elite athlete and looking for your best performance, these probably are not recommendations for you.
[00:12:42] So, again, if you're looking to, you know, get a world's record in your age group at your next event, maybe this is for you. But seriously, I doubt you're insulin resistant, if that's the case.
[00:12:58] So as far as I'm concerned, if you're exercising for more than an hour, if you do it once a week and you're starting out and you know you're insulin resistant, I don't know that you need to do 30 to 60 grams per carbs per hour. Of carbs per hour. Um, I don't know that you need any, any carbs per hour. But if you really do, if you're really worried that somehow you're going to starve to death, if you like exercise 65 minutes without some kind of snack, at that point, I would really lean on Whole Foods and I would lean on a smaller amount. So not 60 grams, but maybe 15 or 20 grams of carbs, and I would have it be whole foods so whether that be a small tangerine, um, a small apple, but that's still going to be 30 grams. Um, figuring out something along those lines for me again, I ran marathons. I've done, I'm not, I'm not an elite athlete by any stretch, but I've done some of these longer distance, um, events or, like, longer duration events, and I don't, I've never eaten through them. I don't like to have food on my belly. It doesn't make me feel good when I'm doing the event, so I avoid that. So it's not like you're going to keel over from not getting them. I think that these recommendations are primarily for people who are in an elite stage of their athletic career and are trying to really get the best gains that they can. Like, you know, these people are trying to improve their times, improve their performance by one, two, or 3%. And that's really what they're getting with these recommendations from dietitians and trainers. So that's my $0.10. About that next question I got was metformin and mitochondria. There is literature out there, literature out there that metformin is damaging to mitochondria. There's literature out there that metformin is amazing and will extend your life by decades. There's literature on both sides of the fence here. Um, my. Metformin is one of the main drugs that are prescribed by physicians for type two diabetes. I if I am pressed to prescribe something to a patient, that is what I would start with as a physician, that's what I would start with. And the reason that that is is because it does not work by increasing the amount of insulin that you have in your system. It utilizes an entirely different method for improving your blood sugars. So it's not working. You know, the meds that make you make more insulin are just making you more insulin resistant. The more insulin you throw on, too much insulin just makes more insulin. It just snowballs the problem.
[00:15:35] So, um, metformin is a great drug because it doesn't work in that way. It's not making more insulin. It's not working through insulin. It changes the way the glucose is produced in the liver. Okay, I'm just going to leave it at that.
[00:15:49] The literature out there about metformin and mitochondria is that mitochondria, the. There is a. Mitochondria make ATP. ATP is the energy, is cellular energy. Okay? So mitochondria take glucose. It passes through a chain of reactions, and it makes ATP.
[00:16:07] And so ATP is the fuel, right? When I say glucose is the fuel that gets burned, right? Glucose is, you know, the starting point, and ATP is the ending energy molecule that then is utilized by different cellular mechanisms. Um, metformin is known to block one of the main like pathways that are responsible for making ATP and producing cellular energy for us. Now, clearly, it's not entirely blocked. If it was, we would die. Our bodies rely on ATP to create, to, you know, fuel ourselves to do the things that we do. So your body still has the ability to have energy, but just one of the main mechanisms within the mitochondria is blocked by metformin. So, um, the question and that I received was, does this undo all of the exercise that I did? And clearly, that is not the answer.
[00:17:13] Clearly, the metformin does not block the benefits to your body from exercise or block even the benefits to your mitochondria that exercise or provides. It is very clear that some exercise is better than none. Exercise, whatever you can do, is the best, is way better than doing nothing. Okay? So don't believe that because your doctor has you on metformin, there's no point in exercising. Please don't do that. Give yourself the gift of exercise. It's a good thing for your body, it's a good thing for your biology. I always say it's great for your heart, it's great for your soul. Right? Like, it's. It's good for you as a human being to exercise. So don't believe that if you're on metformin that it's undoing that work. It's not.
[00:17:58] Um, but it does definitely block one of the pathways in the mitochondria. And again, it can't be a hundred percent blocked, or we'd die like it. Metformin would no longer be a drug that treats something. It'd be a poison that kills us. So it can't be 100% blocked. But definitely there is a clear effect on our mitochondria with metformin.
[00:18:17] The next question I got was, how much protein each day should we be eating? Um, yeah, we should be eating more. How about that? We should be eating more protein than we probably are.
[00:18:31] So I'm going to go over the recommendations. Um, the RDA recommendation is like .8 grams.
[00:18:40] I think it's 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of weight, if I remember correctly. And that's ideal body weight. So if you have 75, if you know you're 75 pounds overweight, and I'm not talking like, I'm 75 pounds over weight, and I have a bmi of 28, and my perfect weight would be 70 pounds less, 75 pounds less, and I would have a bmi of 13. I'm talking about getting you, like, around a bmi of 22 or 23, whatever that number would be.
[00:19:14] And if you're, you know, if that makes you 75 pounds overweight, then that's fine. Then you take that 75 pounds off, whatever that ideal weight that you're looking for. So that bmi of 22 or 23, whatever that ideal weight is, your goal really should be 1 gram of protein per pound of weight.
[00:19:38] There are variations. Like, there are different recommendations. Some people say 0.8, some people say 1.5, some people say 1.3. You know, some people go as high as 1.8 or 2 grams per pound.
[00:19:52] I think that the overall consensus is to shoot for 1 gram per pound of body weight and just do the best you can. Okay. This is challenging, right? Like, this is really hard when we are, um, working, you know, we're working on losing weight, maybe, and to get all of that protein and means we have to over eat, and that can be really hard.
[00:20:20] Recognize that eating protein should be the food that you focus on.
[00:20:26] Like, get your protein in first, and then get your veggies and your fibers in, and then maybe some fruit.
[00:20:33] And then if you're interested in some high quality carbohydrates, potatoes, quinoa, flaxseed, those sorts of things, like, that's the fourth important.
[00:20:46] And then junk food, a piece of chocolate, a bite of this, some other treat that is way down the line. You have to have all of these other nutrient dense foods consumed at goal before that's something you can look into. Okay. Because it really does become like a real estate issue. That's how I describe it in the group. I'm like, there's only so much room in your tummy for you to consume things. So this is a real estate issue. If you only have so much room before you get so full that you can't consume more, then you need to focus your energy on consuming the things that are most nutritious for you. And protein is numero unobserved. Okay? So protein is the most important thing for you to consume, because, again, you have to build muscle. If you can't have amino acids eaten in the form of proteins, you don't have the building blocks to build the muscle. And if you don't have the muscle mass, then you have nowhere to sink the glucose to put the glucose to store the glucose out of your bloodstream so you're not constantly producing insulin and keeping yourself diabetic. Okay? So numero uno is to watch your protein and shoot for getting that in. And then again, vegetables and fiber and the polyphenols and the phytochemicals and all the good things that come in. The minerals, the vitamins that come in on our vegetables is next. And then some fruit. And again, you get minerals, you get vitamins, polyphenols, all of those good things on those. And then there are some carbohydrates that bring in some good micronutrients also. So that's number four. And then number five are the goodies and the treats that have no nutritional value for you. Okay? So, um, I would shoot for 1 gram per day. I frequently struggle very hard to get to this point. Okay. For my own diet, I have to really, really work to get 1 gram of protein in per pound of body weight for me. Um, I can many times get to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight, which is certainly better than what I was doing before, which is probably somewhere around 30 or 40 grams of protein. And I will tell you right now, I'm not 30 or 40 pounds, and that's not an ideal way for me. So, um, more is better. Like, just understand, just do your best. Um, the recommendations are somewhere around one to 1.5, depending on what you're doing. Okay. Protein helps you feel full again. It gives you the building blocks that you need to build muscle, but it also helps you feel full. It also helps with soreness. If you're getting adequate, some adequate amounts of protein in your diet, you're going to find that you're less sore with all of this exercise that you have. So something to think about.
[00:23:32] Some of the other questions I got were about motivation.
[00:23:35] One of the women in the Facebook group was, I, you know, asked this question and her response was, ugh. Like, what do you mean, ugh? And she's like, that's. That's what I need help with. I need help with the ugh. Another, you know, woman was like, I just need to get at it. Like, I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. So there's a few things. Like, one, definitely, like, find something that you like enough. And if you don't like anything enough, find a way to do it on a machine and watch a television show that you like during it, listen to a podcast during it, listen to music that you like during it, listen to a book during it, whatever it is. Find something to give yourself the entertainment to get you out there and do it. I love running. I like being in nature. I hate running inside. I do it sometimes because I have to. But for me, I like being outside. I like being in the sun. I like smelling the dirt. I like smelling the trees. I love every bit of it. I like to be outside. I like to do the running. I'm blessed with that. I will tell you what I don't like. I hate, hate weight work. I hate building muscle. And after this research that I've done on exercise, I went to a conference that really kind of set some of this off. I was already planning on doing this month on exercise, but really, the conference that I went to, learning about the importance of muscle and how maybe our disease state in this country, in America, is really an issue of diseased muscle more than anything. And, you know, the thought that we can't be healthy humans without being exercising humans, all of this kind of blew it out of the water for me. I don't enjoy weight work at all. I would love to never lift another weight in my life. I would love to only run and never lift another weight in my life. And I've done that. Like, I've spent decades of my life doing that, and it led to injuries and a broken down body. And since I've been putting more effort into building muscle, my body has been stronger to tolerate the thing that I love to do, which is running. So, for me, um, it's not hard for me to get out and do the running. The thing that I need help motivating, quote unquote, myself to do is to get in and do the weight work. And really, it's just setting a requirement. So, a few things to do to help you. Again, if you can find a podcast, if you can find music that you like, if you can find a book that you can listen to while you're doing it, great. Put that on. The other things that I find are helpful. Make a list of the exercises you want to do for me when I'm doing. I thought my list was right here next to me. It's not. I think I moved it down into my journal, but I literally, I just get a post it note size pad, and it's a long post it. It's like a bigger. It's like a little notepad, but it is a post it note, and I just write my exercises down. So today, it was like, I wanted to do hamstring curls, I wanted to do squats. I wanted to do runners, lunges, I have a band routine that I do. So banded weight work that I do. Um, there were some other things that was legs. And then I wanted to do arms and core also, so I had. My arm exercise was just tricep dips. I had, um, a bicep curl into adult press. That's something I do. And I do it with a squat to kind of make it a multi joint movement. Um, and then the ab works that I've been doing has been planks. And then I've been doing planks to pikes, both moving my arms towards my ankles and then coming back to the plank position and then moving my feet towards my arms or my hands coming into a pike position, just doing that back and forth. I guess they're like inchworms, I guess, is probably, if you looked them up, that's the closest thing that they are. I wrote them down and this has been a huge thing for me, like writing them down. These are the things that I want to do. These are the, you know, muscles that I'm going to focus on. You know, this is how I'm going to do it. And I know I probably need to be doing it two times a week. And I know I need to be probably doing, you know, 25 to 30 sets on muscles. Okay? So I really focus on that, on legs because that's what I need to build. But even if I'm looking at my AB workout, so I'm doing three sets of twelve reps with my core workout. So that's planks. So I did three of twelve, so, um, that's three. And then I did three of the interims, so that's six. And then I'll do that again. So I'll get to twelve for my AB workout. I probably need to get it to 20 because they say you probably need 1220 sets in a week to build those muscles. I don't know that I really want to build my core, but I definitely want to keep it strong.
[00:28:17] Same thing with the arms you've got to do, you know, 20 sets to have those muscles built. I definitely make sure I'm doing the 20 sets with my legs because it's important to me, but I write them down. So I guess the thing that I'm encouraging you to do to help with the motivation is to write it down. Write down what it is that you want to get done and then start checking it off. Our brain likes to check things off. That's why to do lists are effective for us. We like to check things off. So write it down on a list and check it off.
[00:28:47] That's one thing to do. The other thing to do or to remember is that just like many things in our life, this is something that we do. We want a part of it, and we don't want part of it, right? Like, there's a part that we like, and there's a part that we don't like. I like having strong legs. I like having arms that aren't flabby. You know? I like having a strong core. I like that part. I do not like doing a plank. I hate doing points, but I do them right. There's a part that you like and a part you don't like. If it's cardio that you're doing or looking at doing. Like, the part that you like about cardio is better blood sugars and weight loss, right. The part you don't like is that part where you get sweaty and it sucks and it's work and it's hard.
[00:29:36] In my group, we talk about this a lot. We talk about how we have resistance and excitement, and naturally, when we feel excited, we're drawn to something. Naturally, when we feel resistant to something, we push away from it. We want to block it. We want to halt it and stop it. And I think the reality is we probably got those wrong.
[00:29:56] If you're feeling resistant to something, instead of it being a red light of something you should block, it's probably a green light of something you should do. Like, 99% of the time, this is probably the case. So the 1% of the time where it's not the case is important. And I always think, ask yourself a question. When you're feeling resistant to something, is that resistance the result of, like, bodily harm? Like, if I go into that burning building, there's going to be a problem. My brain resists that. That makes sense, right? If I go up on a tall building where I'm not protected or harnessed or, you know, in a secure situation, like, that's a dangerous situation you find yourself in, that resistance makes sense. You should probably do that. You probably should stop then. But most of the time, the resistance that we're talking about is not bodily harm. The resistance that we experience is we are resistant to doing something that's uncomfortable, not fun, or just something we don't want to do. We just don't enjoy it for whatever reason.
[00:31:01] And that resistance steals our goals from us. Right? Think about it. Like, if you got a degree, right? Like, there was a lot of time you didn't want to go to college classes. You wanted to sleep in late. Like, you were 19 years old and you'd stayed out too late the night before, and you wanted to sleep in late, and you were resisting. You're like, God, do I have to do this? I don't want to get up.
[00:31:20] The right answer was to do the thing that you were resistant to. That resistance was a green light, not a stop light. When you felt resistance, you're like, yeah, I got to get up. I got to do this. This is what has to be done. Every day you go into the work, it's the same thing. Like, I don't know about you, but most days the morning comes around, the alarm goes off. I'm like, I would really love to sleep another 3 hours and not get out of bed. And then even when the 3 hours go by, I'd like to sit and relax for a little bit. All day long, I'd like to not go to work. We're resistant to going to work. And usually we're resistant to something because it's, like, uncomfortable or boring or less fun than something else. Not burning. Like, it's not a burning building. It's not a dangerous situation. We're just resistant to doing something that's not fun.
[00:32:06] We know when we're resistant to going into work, it's a green light. You get up and you do it anyway. Okay, so same thing with the exercise. When you feel that resistance, you're going to feel the resistance. Your body is going to like, your primitive brain is going to drive you to take the easy route. That's what it's supposed to do. It's not broken. It's not that you just don't like exercise, and that's what your brain is. We like, we're just not those people that like exercise. I'm just not one of those people like going to work. I'm just not one of those people like getting up and going to classes. I mean, like, that's fine, but the fact of the matter is you want what's on the other side of getting up and going classes, of getting up and going to work and getting your paycheck.
[00:32:50] And you also want what's on the other side of doing the exercise. And that's when you should look at resistance as a green light, not a red light.
[00:33:00] On the other side of that, when you're feeling excited about something, like it's a joy eat. And you're going to have a Sunday, and it's summer, and there's going to be sprinkles and all sorts of deliciousness and you start to feel that excitement coming in through you, pulsing through you.
[00:33:19] Excitement is one of those things that very quickly turns to out of controlness really easily.
[00:33:26] And so whereas excitement, naturally, it feels like a green light. It's almost like a magnetic attraction. Like, yes, go do it. If you're feeling excitement, probably you need to pause a minute. I don't know that it's a red light, but it's definitely a pause button. You probably need to pause and seriously consider what's happening. Do I want to feel this much anticipation about this food? Do I want, do I, do I see this moving to being out of control?
[00:33:56] Do I want that in this scenario? Okay, so a lot of times this motivation issue comes down to this resistance.
[00:34:06] We're like, I want to feel attracted and magnetized and energized and excited and motivated to exercise. And that's awesome. Like, there's nothing wrong with that.
[00:34:20] But pausing for a moment and realizing I cannot rely on this being the sole reason that I exercise whenever I exercise, because it will not be here all the time, because I'm a human being and there's a foundational drive for me to relax and take it easy. And exercise is the opposite of that. And so there are going to be times when I'm resistant to doing the hard thing and I've got to do it anyway.
[00:34:46] Okay? And I think that that's what we have to realize with motivation. We're all waiting for the time that we want to do it. We do the same thing with food. Like, we're waiting for the time that we don't want Oreos. Listen, your brain has never been exposed to that macronutrient mix in nature. The human's brain has never been exposed to the mixture of fat, carbohydrates, and salt that are in the Oreo cookie. There is no natural source of that. Your brain does not know how to handle that scenario without overindulging in it. It will always want to go back to it. There's not going to be a time you don't want the Oreo. So you're going to have to find out how to not eat it even when you want it. There's probably never going to be a time where you would prefer to go out and exercise where I would prefer to go and lift weights rather than get started with my day. That's exactly what it comes down to. I'm like, I don't want to lift. I'd rather just go ahead and get started. I got things to do. I'm busy. Rather do that. And that seems so legitimate, right? Like, so reasonable. The fact of the matter is there's probably never going to be a time where I'm like, let's lift. That sounds so amazing. It's that that time exists in the same universe where I'm like, I don't want oreos. It's just never going to happen. It's not the reality of our brain. It's just not how we're built, it's not how we're wired. And if we can stop expecting to be motivated to exercise, stop expecting to not want the Oreos and just do the thing, right, I'm resistant to it, but I just do it anyway. That's where we start to really see gains. So I did a post this week on the shit sandwich. I always joke that my mom thinks I'm such a classy lady because I say things like this. But the fact of the matter is, there is always going to be something that our brain doesn't want to do.
[00:36:39] Our brain is always going to see something that sounds better than the thing that we've already decided we would do, right? Like, I've decided I'm going to have chicken and salad for lunch, but they're going out for pizza. Your brain is going to be like, pizza is better.
[00:36:53] You've decided you're going to do a run tomorrow morning for exercise. And when the alarm goes off, your brain's like, get in a shower. My brain does this, right? Like, going to work instead of doing the weight work. Sounds better. Your brain is always going to see something better. Your brain is always going to want to not do the thing you've planned. It's just how it works. And you're in the moment. Your brain is going to tell you like, hey, this sucks. We don't want to do this. This is, this is horrible, right? This is a shit sandwich. I don't want to do this.
[00:37:23] I'm not doing this right now. I'm not choking this down right now. I'm not doing it. And my answer is always to remind women, like, you're going to choke down a shit sandwich one way or another. You get to decide on the flavor of the sandwich. You either get to decide on the flavor of the sandwich that is getting up and doing your workout because it's what you decided. You get to decide the flavor of the sandwich is not going out for pizza and instead eating the chicken and the salad that you planned or the flavor of the sandwiches, you stay sick with diabetes. That's its own version of a shit sandwich. You get to decide on which flavor. That's all that's happening. We believe that we're going to find somewhere. We were like, everything, and that's just not the truth of it. And when we can just lean into that and accept that, the motivation becomes less important. So that's what I have for you. It's not as sexy and flashy as like, we're going to be so jazzed and, you know, there's no crazy theme song going on in the background. But the reality of it, this is how it works. Sometimes we just have to do the things that we need to do, even when we're not motivated to do it. And the more you do it, the more you practice doing the things that you're not wanting to do, the easier it gets to do it. That's kind of the magical thing that nobody tells you about. It's not that you're never going to want to like, oh, I never want to stay in bed. I only want to exercise. That's probably not going to be a reality. But the more times you practice getting up and doing the exercise, the easier it gets to get up and do the exercise. So start practicing that. That is what I have for you. As far as questions go today, I do want to remind anybody who's listening, if you are on medications for your type two diabetes, please be careful making the changes that I recommend in these podcast episodes with your diet. If you've been medicated, you have been medicated because the way you've eaten in the past, if you change the way you eat, you need to change the medications. If you don't do that, you can get quite sick. The kind of sickness that looks like an ER visit, a hospitalization, and possibly even death, it can be very dangerous. So as you're looking at making these dietary changes, you need to be calling your primary or doctor, whoever the provider is that prescribed these medications to you and let them know. I'm going to be making some dietary changes. I'm going to be monitoring my blood sugars really carefully. How can I send you my logs and how should I expect to hear back from you about how you want me to change my meds? If you don't do this, you can get very sick. So open up that line of communication with your provider.
[00:39:49] I also want to remind you that there is help. If you're not sure what to eat, I help. I have a. I've developed a 14 day guide for you for this. So there is a 14 day guide its menus, breakfast, lunch and dinner for things to eat so that you can start seeing better blood sugars. A lot of women believe they're like, oh, no matter what I eat, my blood sugars are dump. They're never figured out. I can't figure it out. No matter what I do, it doesn't work. This 14 day guide is incredibly powerful. You will see your blood sugars drop. Most women within seven to ten days see their fasting blood sugar drop below 100 in these four. In this 14 day guide, you can find
[email protected] forward slash better that will get you to that guide. If for some reason you can't find it, you let me know. Send me an email delanemd.com. i'm happy to answer any questions and to get that to you. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook at delanemd. And again, there is the better blood sugars with Delane MD Facebook group. Go find it and join it. It's a blast. If you have any questions, if you have questions about the questions that I answered here, or if you have questions that I haven't answered here, please send me a message. Delane at Delanemd lastly, if you're finding benefit from this podcast, like it and rate it on your podcast player. Share it on your social medias. The more ratings and reviews, the more shares this gets, the more people see this. The statistics say that nine out of ten americans are insulin resistance resistant. They are on the path to type two diabetes. So that means nine out of ten of the people that you know are on this path to, even if they don't know it yet, people need to hear that there is a way to live healthy that you do not need to be tied to the healthcare, quote unquote, healthcare system in America for the rest of your life on medications. There is another way, and people need to know this. So if you're getting help from this, please like this podcast, please rate it, please review it, please share it. Other people need to know this too. So keep listening. Keep avoiding the foods that are making you sick, and keep making choices for your vitality, your health, and your longevity. I'll be back next week. Bye.
