Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 264 of Better Blood Sugars with Delane 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 pops podcast is for you. Let's talk.
[00:00:28] Hey there, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm glad you're taking some time for you and your health today, and I'm glad you're trusting me with that time. So today I want to talk about the 14 days to better blood sugars food guide. So this is a guide that I have put together and you can find the guide at www.dlanemd.com better that will get you to the guide. It is 14 days of menus that are put together to help you start seeing better blood sugars very, very quickly. So in the 14 days you will see your blood sugars drop, you'll probably see your weight drop. Hopefully you start to feel better. Hopefully. There's all sorts of amazing things that happen during these 14 days. But partly this guide is put together to help you understand what it takes. Like like how do I eat in order to start seeing better blood sugars? But also I really want to build in you the belief that your diet really, really, really does matter. And if you start changing your diet consistently, you can really change your health and your life long term. I do want to tell you, and I'll say it again at the end, if you are medicated for your type two diabetes, you're going to have to be very careful using this 14 day guide because your medications have been started because of the way that you ate. And if you change the way you eat, you're going to have to change your medications. And if you don't do that, you can get very sick. That is one warning that I want to give you about the guide. So today I want to go through the guide briefly.
[00:02:03] I'm not going to do day by day because I think that gets real boring real quick. But I am going to talk about some features of the guide so that you can understand and know what you're getting into. Before I do that, I want to discuss why the guide works. And this really comes down to plans. This is something we work on in the group in the Delane Md group, we work on making plans so that you can see better blood sugars. And what this means is that you make a plan for the food that you're going to eat, and you do it the day before. And then you execute the plan, and your brain does all the things the brain will do, will tell you it's not going to be enough. You're gonna be hungry. It might not work. You might not be satisfied. The end of the world might come, and everything might fall apart, and it might all revolve around your chicken salad or whether you have a burger or not. Your brain is gonna create this.
[00:02:57] I wanna talk about why this happens and why making a plan. And the 14 day plan works to combat these issues. So a lot of times you will hear in diet programs that you can't be constrained. Like, you don't want to be deprived. You don't want to be constrained. If you do, you're going to lose your marbles and eat all the junk, and you should avoid being uncomfortable. And that shouldn't have to be the case.
[00:03:21] And I'm not saying that you need to feel deprived, constrained, or uncomfortable. What I am saying is it's optional.
[00:03:29] What makes me deprived, constrained, and uncomfortable, and what makes you deprived and constrained and uncomfortable are different things, which means we have some agency over that.
[00:03:40] Learning to use that agency to work that agency in a way that serves our health is imperative, and that's what we do in coaching.
[00:03:50] This is why diet programs do not create long term results, because they tell you the story. They literally feed it to you. If you could feel constrained, it won't work for you. If you feel constrained or deprived, you're going to lose your marbles and eat all the junk. Okay, I don't. In the program, you have the 14 day guide. If you start with me, you have the 14 day guide, and a lot of women will build on that, and that's great and grand. However, I don't give you a diet program. By the end of our time working together, you'll have a very clear understanding about what to eat, what doesn't work, and what does work for you. However, I don't give you a diet program. But what I do help you do is rewire your brain.
[00:04:32] I help you rewire your brain so you don't think, gosh, when I eat chicken and salad, I'm so deprived, it's horrible. I'd really rather have a burger. Well, I better not tell myself I'd rather have a burger without having the burger. If I do, I'm going to eat all the burgers, so I better just have a burger. This keeps you stuck, and it keeps you sick.
[00:04:51] So a plan helps combat this. This is the primary tool that I teach women to kind of combat. This part of the diet mentality plans keep your actions being made from a part of your brain that has weighed the pros and the cons and is working towards your goals.
[00:05:11] Plans keep you from making your actions from a part of your brain that wants to seek out pleasure, avoid pain, and expend the least amount of energy possible. These two parts of our brain work against each other.
[00:05:22] One part is the primitive brain. One part is the prefrontal cortex. The primitive brain wants to avoid pain, it wants to seek out pleasure, and it wants to expend the least amount of energy possible.
[00:05:33] The prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain that looks at the pros and the cons, the long term goals, consequences. What is all happening with this? And it's not afraid of a little work. Okay? We want our actions where food comes into play, where we are making decisions about our food. We want those actions to come from the prefrontal cortex, not from the primitive brain. The primitive brain, left to its own devices, you'd have a bag of oreos, you'd have the remote control. You would netflix and chill on your couch. That meets all of them. You avoid pain, you're getting pleasure, and you're expending the least amount of energy possible. That is everything for the primitive brain. Those decisions are going to keep you sick.
[00:06:14] In fact, I would offer, if you have type two diabetes and, you know, chocolate cake is the issue, your food decisions are coming from that primitive brain. They are not coming from the prefrontal cortex. If they were, you would not be choosing the chocolate cake or whatever the food is that, you know is keeping you sick, and you keep choosing it anyway. Think about this. In a non food situation, if the military, if our army went into battle and allowed, like, didn't use a plan, their primitive brain would kick in. When the troops got there, their primitive brain would kick in, and they would say, hell no, we won't go because it's scary and there's, like, danger. Like, there might be pain, and I want to avoid pain. If I'm the primitive brain, there is, like, lack of comfort. I'm sleeping outside on the ground in the rain. There is no pleasure, and it's a lot of energy to lug all of their gear around in order for them to go into battle.
[00:07:10] If a military troop, a military platoon did not have a plan.
[00:07:16] They would not go into battle, because if they didn't have a plan to execute that was made by the primitive or the prefrontal cortex, weighing the pros and the cons and what they want to achieve in that battle, they'd never go because the primitive brain would take over and be like, no, hell no, we won't go. This is the same thing that's happening with our food. So, again, the primitive brain is this part of our brain that wants to make decisions based on what feels good, how to avoid pain and risks, and how to expend the least amount of energy possible.
[00:07:47] This part of our brain does not take into consideration long term consequences or what your bigger goals are. The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is the part of our brain that weighs the pros and the cons. It looks at our goals, it looks at the consequences of our actions, and it makes a plan based on those.
[00:08:06] When you make a plan for your food, it is made from this prefrontal cortex. It is not made from the primitive brain.
[00:08:14] So here's how it looks when it comes to executing the amazing plan that your prefrontal cortex made the night before. It's like, we need chicken. We need all the veggies. Want many, many veggies. We want a little bit of fiber in there. We want all the healthy fat in there. We want all of these things. These things are so good for our body and our health and our biology. That's what we want. And when noon the next day comes along and it's time to execute that plan, your primitive brain will take over. I'm going to say that again because I want you to understand nothing has gone wrong.
[00:08:48] Your primitive brain will take over when it's time to execute the plan that you have put together.
[00:08:55] And again, I'm going to offer to you, if you have eaten in a way that has created a disease in your body and, you know, like, certain foods, like, I know all that chocolate cake is not great for me. I know the soda is not good for me. I know the fries and the pizza. Like, nobody needs to tell me that that is not health food. I know that's a problem if you've eaten it anyway. That is because you're eating from the primitive brain, not from the prefrontal cortex.
[00:09:23] So when you go to start eating from the prefrontal cortex, the plan that you have made and you start to execute that, that's going to feel really unfamiliar, and your brain is going to think there's a problem. Danger, danger, danger. Stop. Your brain is going to make this be an issue. And then, of course, because you want to avoid risk and you want to seek out pleasure and you want to expend the least amount of energy possible, you're going to let your primitive brain take over, and you're going to go back to eating whatever it was.
[00:09:52] And this is the crux of a plan.
[00:09:55] A plan should be made 24 hours in advance.
[00:09:58] And when you do that, you are pulling that prefrontal cortex, that part of your brain that weighs the pros and the cons. You are pulling that onto the playing field, and you are letting it make the decisions when you make the plan, and then the job after that is just when it is time to execute the plan, that there are no questions asked, and you execute the plan.
[00:10:25] You do not let that primitive brain take over and talk you out of it.
[00:10:30] I like to think of this as I've already spent the energy to make the plan. I'm not wasting that energy. So I'm going to go ahead and do the thing I said I was going to do.
[00:10:39] So that is the power of a plan, and that is why the 14 day guide works so effectively. Yes, I have gone through and I have measured all of the macronutrients, and I've put it on the guide. So you have it right there. You know, when I eat this many ounces of this, I get that, you know it. That's easy. I've done the legwork for you. All you have to do is start doing that brain work, that mind component of it. You have to start engaging the prefrontal cortex the night before to make sure you have all the food that's on the plan for the next day available to you at the right eating hours. And then on the day that it's time to execute the plan, you have to put the primitive brain in the backseat and let the prefrontal cortex drive and do the thing. You just have to execute the plan. I've done all the legwork for you.
[00:11:25] So let's talk a little bit about the 14 day guide. So, it's 14 days to better blood sugars, and you can, again, find it at www.elainmd.com. forward slash better.
[00:11:37] So there's a couple of general rules I want to go, or guidelines that I kind of want to go through to make sure that you understand, like, how to use this for yourself, how to make this for you. I have made the guide, and I've tried to make it as varied as possible. So people don't get bored.
[00:11:55] I've tried to make it as varied as possible to show the variety of different things that you can eat. But understand, like, if you only have chicken at the house and that's the only protein, you don't have salmon, you don't have steak, you don't have ground beef, that's totally fine. Just eat chicken. It's a protein source. That's what's really important here. This guide is really primarily based about around high quality protein, high quality fats and vegetables.
[00:12:21] So I always tell the women I work with, like, if you're going to a restaurant, you don't know what they're going to have. Those are the things you need to focus on. I need a protein. I need a high quality fat. I need veggies. That's all I need. I don't need anything else. Can I get this at this restaurant? And if the answer is yes, you can get it. That's just what you do. That's what you do to create health in your body. That's that simple. So if you don't like the source of something, if you don't like the vegetable mix, if you don't like squash, that's totally fine. You're not the only one. Find a veggie you do like. Do not. I would. Again, caveats here. Do not replace carrots or broccoli with potatoes. Try to stick with non starchy vegetables. I always tell the women I work with, nobody got sick because their potato problem. Like, it's not digging a potato out of the ground and chunking up a potato and roasting it. That got anybody diabetic. It's the tater tots, it's the hash browns, it's the french fries. Those things are what really lead to potato chips. Those things are really the problem, the processed version of that. And that's what gets us into trouble. But they are pretty starchy. And as you're thinking about where your biology is right now, your biology probably needs to heal up. If you are currently type two diabetic with high blood sugars, pre diabetic, or in any other way insulin resistant, if that's happening, your biology is not on par yet. You're going to have to do some healing. And sometimes that healing involves staying away from some of those higher carb items, like potatoes. So don't trade out the zucchini for a potato. Trade it out for carrots or cauliflower or broccoli or whatever it is that you might like.
[00:13:59] Um, again, on the protein sources. If you don't like the protein source, if you don't have salmon available, steak is fine, chicken's fine, turkey's fine. If you. For me, I tried to put steak and beef in there, although I can't eat it. Like, I don't eat steak and beef. I got bit by that silly tick and so I have an allergy to those meats. So I have to stick with salmon and chicken and turkey. But pork works fine. Like pork chops, whatever it is, any protein source, they are fine. I'm in general, I do feel like salmon is probably higher in nutrient than steak or chicken, and that's probably why I choose it. Maybe it's also because I can eat it, but, um, whatever it is, that's really splitting hairs. That's really, really a micro detail. Focus on the big details at this point.
[00:14:46] There is a lot of menu items that have chia and flaxseed on them, and part of that is to add fiber. So this guide is really meant to hit all of your macronutrient goals. You're going to meet your protein goal with this, or you're going to get close to it and then your fiber goal with them. And then you're going to keep your carbohydrates limited by using this, um, guide recognize, and I've talked about this before, but I do want to point this out. If you're meeting your protein needs, if you're meeting your fiber needs in a day, you have very little room in your tummy to mess around with carbohydrates that are not high quality carbs. So you're probably right there going to limit how much of food that makes you sick. How much you eat of the food that makes you sick is going to be limited by you meeting the protein goals and the fiber goals each day.
[00:15:41] I do want to also point out that there are vegetarian days. So there are some days or some meals, they aren't entire days, but you can mix and match the meals however you want. Just make sure that you are changing the micro or the macronutrient count. So however many protein grams are on that meal, if you change it from one day to another, just make sure you're recording your daily counts appropriately.
[00:16:08] There are like, there's taco salad and it will tell you a page number. I think it's page 32. Page 32. If you go to the back of the guide, there's page 32. And it tells you everything that I included when I was building the taco salad. What I included that makes the macronutrient count, the protein count, the fiber count, the, um, carbohydrate count that is included on that page 32 with almost like, a recipe for it. There's also one for our garden salad. There's one for a mediterranean salad. On the very last day, there's a yogurt parfait, which is one of my favorite things that I have. Um, but it's on page 33, and it is included on the last day. It's got, like, 37 grams of carbs in it, but it's got 24 grams of protein. It's healthy for you, and it's just very, um. There's a lot of different flavors. It's just robust. I really enjoy it. So that parfait is listed on page 33. So throughout the guide, you'll see, like, an omelet. On page 30, you'll see, you know, these page numbers listed. If you go to the back of the guide, there is a glossary that has these recipes essentially on there. In addition to the food guide, there is also a page that has additional help, so additional tools that you can use. You know, I teach cleaning up your diet, intermittent fasting. I also teach the importance of exercise and then stress management and sleep. Okay? Those are the pillars of fixing your health, of getting healthy, of living a naturally healthy life. Those things are the pillars of that. This 14 day program is really focused on the cleaning up your diet component of it. In addition to that, though, I have put resources in this guide for fasting, for exercise, for meditation, for sleep. I've included resources that you can access through the guide, some of its podcasts, some of its webinars, but information so that you can start to dabble into those other things. If you find after 14 days, your blood sugars are 60% better, but you still have some work to do, you may want to look at some of these other tools to start improving more to get you to the goal that you have.
[00:18:23] There's also a page that has add ons. They are just examples of add ons. It's not an all inclusive or exhaustive list of add ons, but if you want a little extra, this page has fruit on it and has how much fruit and how many carbs and how many, you know, how much fiber, how much protein is in it. Has protein that would come from the form of, like, peanut butter. If you wanted to have peanut butter on an apple, like, what would that look like? And then I also include ranch dressing on there. If you are just looking for a little something to boost some of these veggies. Ranch dressing I think is a nice add on and I think it's absolutely something that's within the realm of you being able to eat it and not being sick. So I would encourage you to check out that page as well.
[00:19:06] So that is the 14 day guide. If you've been doing it, oh, I want to hear about it. I want to hear what results you're getting. If you are rocking the face off your blood sugars, if they are dropping, please send me a message. Delanemd.com I want to hear about it. If you have questions, I want to hear about that. If you are ready to take this farther, I can help you figure out what the next step is there we can figure out a time to get on the on a phone call and how do we go forward together on this. So if that's something you're interested in, just send me a message. Delanemg.com dot I'm happy to help in any way and to answer any questions. Before we sign off, I do want to give you my reminder that if you have been medicated for your diabetes in the past, recognize you've been medicated because of the way you've eaten in the past. If you change the way you eat and make the changes that I recommend in this podcast, you are going to need to change your meds. And if you don't, you can get very sick.
[00:20:01] You need to contact your medical provider who's prescribed those meds. You need to find out how they want you to share your blood sugar readings with them and then how you should expect to hear about medication changes from them. If you don't do this, you can end up quite sick and it can be dangerous. So I want you to make sure you're opening that line of communication with your provider. I would like to also ask you if you've been getting benefits from this podcast. Please rate and review it on your podcast player. The more ratings and reviews this podcast gets, the more the podcast players put it up for others to see and the more people can get this help. Nine out of ten americans are sick with insulin resistance and either diabetic or on their way to diabetes. More people need to hear this information so they know they don't need to be sick for the rest of their lives.
[00:20:48] And the last thing I have to tell you is keep listening, keep avoiding the foods that make you sick, and keep making the choices for your vitality, your health, and your longevity. I'll talk to you next week. Bye.
