Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 267 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 podcast is for you. Let's talk. Hey there. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for taking some time for your health and for what's important to you. And I feel honored that you're spending it with me today. I want to talk about just that. I want to talk about what it is that you want, what it is about you that makes you want that, why it's important to you, what's getting in the way of it. And then at the end, I want to give you a strategy for how to navigate beyond that, how to move beyond those obstacles. Some of this is going to bleed over into episode number 267 from last week where I talked about the thought model, and the brain is a prediction machine. So if you haven't listened to that, you might want to either finish this one and go back and listen to it, or even go and listen to it right now and then come back to this podcast because it's going to help some of the strategy that I give you make a little more sense.
[00:01:36] So I want to ask you today what it is about you that makes fixing your diabetes so important.
[00:01:47] This is something you're investing a lot of time into. The time to learn more about what causes your diabetes, the time to listen to this podcast and others. The time to go grocery shopping, the time to prep and prepare lunches and food and those sorts of things. The time for exercise.
[00:02:05] You're exchanging the most valuable resource that there is into fixing your type two diabetes. Okay. Time is the most valuable resource you have. As a resource, you get to choose where you spend it, but it is the most valuable resource because once it's spent, you can't get it back. There's no amount of money that you can spend that's going to get time back.
[00:02:35] That is why it is the most expensive, the most valuable of all of our resources, because there's no amount of money. There's no way to get it back once it's spent.
[00:02:46] So you're spending this valuable resource of time working on fixing your diabetes. And I want you to get real clear on what it is that you're actually trying to do.
[00:03:00] Like you want to fix your diabetes. So does that mean you want to see better blood sugars?
[00:03:06] Do you want to be on less medicines? Dare I say no medications?
[00:03:12] Do you have dreams of going to your next doctor's appointment and knocking their socks off and shocking them with your amazing numbers?
[00:03:22] Do you want to feel proud in front of your doctor? Do you want to feel proud in front of your kid? The next kid functions. Do you want to feel proud in front of your spouse? Do you want to inspire your friends?
[00:03:33] Do you want to show up and wow your classmates at your next high school reunion?
[00:03:39] Maybe it's that you want to look in the mirror every day and feel proud.
[00:03:45] Not a few times a week. Not after you get your brain into the right headspace, not after you do something amazing. Not once in a while, not every few months, not once a decade, but every damn day.
[00:03:55] Do you want to look in the mirror and feel proud of what you see looking back at you?
[00:04:02] Is this what you're actually wanting?
[00:04:04] Is this what makes fixing your diabetes so important to you?
[00:04:11] Determine what that is? Partly, there are varying strategies to get you there. But secondly, there's also the anchor of being very clear why you want this and what you really want. Anchoring into what you actually want is going to get you there faster.
[00:04:31] Instead of jumping between this, that you know this on Monday. On Monday, I want to feel like I can be proud of myself, like I'm in control. But on Friday, I just want to feel good about who I am. You're going to have to anchor in to what it is you actually want that overarches all Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. All of it. What is it you actually want?
[00:04:54] And then, once you determine what you want that makes fixing your type two diabetes so engaging to you, then determining why do you want it?
[00:05:07] Maybe you want a surety in your health.
[00:05:10] Or maybe you want your body and your health to represent the version of you that you see inside your brain, your image of who you are. Maybe there's a mismatch between what your body and your lab numbers and your medication list and your doctor's visits. Maybe there's a mismatch between that version of you and who you are and your brain.
[00:05:35] In your brain, in your brain, you're like, I'm an active fit mom.
[00:05:41] Maybe in your brain you're a woman who still turns the head of her partner after decades together.
[00:05:48] Maybe in your brain you're a woman with the discipline and self control who's able to do the things that are necessary to have the life you've always wanted.
[00:05:57] Maybe in your brain you're the strong, successful woman that your friends admire.
[00:06:02] Maybe in your brain you're the woman who you always dreamed you'd be at your 30 year reunion, right? Like you're healthy, you're living life to the fullest. You're successful in all of the endeavors, and all of your dreams, you acquire them. That's who you always thought you were. And in your brain, that's who you still are.
[00:06:22] Maybe in your brain there is a woman, and she doesn't match the woman you see in the mirror every day. You want to recognize the woman that you see every day in the mirror, looking back at you as the woman that's in your brain, the way you see yourself, the women you know you are.
[00:06:42] Maybe that is driving you to fix your diabetes. And maybe it's that you're sick of feeling out of control around food.
[00:06:50] Maybe you're sick of feeling like you can't trust yourself around food.
[00:06:54] Maybe you're feeling disoriented around the woman you become when you're surrounded with food that entices you.
[00:07:03] So what does this woman, this version of yourself self, the healthy, the well, the non diabetic woman, mean to you?
[00:07:11] Why is it important for you to do this work? All of these questions would be a great journaling prompt. Sitting down with a pen and paper and answering these questions, starting the podcast, playing it, getting the question, answering it, or pausing the podcast so that you can answer it. Because really determining why these things are important for you, why is it important for you to do this work? Many women, many of us know life as a gift.
[00:07:40] We know life is short.
[00:07:42] And somewhere deep down, even though maybe our brain will tell us the story, that it's going to be easier when I'm retired, it's going to be easier when the kids aren't here. It's going to be easier when the kids aren't little and I need to chase after them. It's going to be easier when the kids are graduating in college cause they don't need to take them to all their sporting events. There's a story sometimes that it's going to be easier. But deep down, not only are you aware that life is a gift and life is short, but you're also aware it's not going to be any easier.
[00:08:11] You know that every week, every month, and every year that you spend diabetic is time that you are not living your life to the fullest. And again, you come back to that issue of time.
[00:08:21] Once it's spent, you can't go back and get that time, those days, weeks, months and years.
[00:08:29] Maybe, you know, in the words of my incredibly amazing grandmother, that it's time to shit or get off the pot.
[00:08:38] My grandmother was southern. She has a number of really fun southern stains that she used. My grandmother has been passed away for 20 some years, but I hear her still so clearly in my brain on a regular basis, and this it's time to shit or get off the pot. As a southern stay saying from my grandmother, maybe, you know, life's not getting longer. It's a gift, it's short, it's not going to get easier. And it's now is the best time. It is time to get it done.
[00:09:09] Maybe it's that you've started to see that the healthcare industry is never going to actually make you healthy.
[00:09:15] Maybe you've started to realize that you shouldn't have to rely on the healthcare industry to make you healthy. You shouldn't have to rely on continuously investing time, energy and money into the healthcare system so that you can be, quote unquote healthy.
[00:09:29] So figure out what it is about you that makes you want this.
[00:09:37] Why is it important to you? Why do you want this? Who are you going to be when you become this version of yourself?
[00:09:46] And then I want you to sit and really investigate for you what is keeping you from this version of yourself?
[00:09:56] Like, what holds you back? Why haven't you done it?
[00:10:00] A lot of times women say it's uncomfortable, it's hard.
[00:10:05] I want food.
[00:10:07] I have desire, I have fear of missing out. I don't want to be deprived. It's hard to take the time to pack and prep. It's hard.
[00:10:16] Sometimes it's not knowing how. Like, I don't know what to do. I did what the doctor said, and that didn't work. I did what the nutritionist and the diabetic educator said. Matt didn't work.
[00:10:26] Sometimes it's not knowing how.
[00:10:28] Sometimes it's not being clear. And that's what this podcast is really meant to create for you is some clarity.
[00:10:35] Sometimes we feel busy. Sometimes we're overwhelmed. Sometimes our job has requirements. Sometimes our family has needs, and that gets in the way.
[00:10:43] Sometimes we find ourselves making excuses. I'll start again tomorrow. Just this one time. Now is not the right time.
[00:10:51] So are you ready to do this? Are you going to do this?
[00:10:57] What if you realize the time right now is the, it's never going to be the right time. So I'd better just get it done now. Time.
[00:11:04] What if that's the time you are in right now? Like, it's never going to be perfect. There's always going to be a reason not to do it. If there wasn't, you'd already have done it. You wouldn't be struggling with this.
[00:11:17] So, again, last week on the podcast, I talked about how our brain has thoughts that are sometimes not real, not true. They're always real. They're just not the whole truth, and sometimes they're just a lie.
[00:11:32] I talked about how our thoughts drive our feelings and our feelings drive our actions, and our actions give us our results.
[00:11:38] And so if we're wanting to fix the results that we're getting. I'm diabetic. We got to fix our thoughts.
[00:11:44] Our thoughts are the start of all of it.
[00:11:47] Last week, again, I spoke about how frequently they tell us things that are not true and the recognition that our brains are not intentionally. Like, we're not liars. Don't go getting all huffy about this. And I'm not a liar. Why is she calling me a liar? I'm not calling you a liar. I'm saying that our brains misrepresent and misinterpret things. Our brain is not intentionally lying to us. Our brain is trying to determine what a situation means. It's trying to make a prediction about what a situation that we come into means, about what our senses are telling us. It gives us many different interpretations for what a situation might mean. These potential interpretations are sometimes just wrong at best. Sometimes they're partial truths, not the entire truth.
[00:12:35] The example that I like to use is like loving a food. I love a food. Those foods that we all wish. That we all love and we wish we didn't. The cookies, the donuts, the ice cream, the pizza, pick your poison, whatever it is that you're struggling Eating, that's your Food.
[00:12:50] The interpretation that your brain gives you about that Food is, I love it. I love that Food.
[00:12:56] It's not a wrong interpretation. It's not a lie, but it is only a partially correct interpretation.
[00:13:06] The fact of the matter is, is that you don't only love that Food. That is not the only true part about that Food. The other part of that story is that that Food is making you sick.
[00:13:19] That's also true.
[00:13:21] And the other part about that Food, you look at the doughnut, your brain's like, oh, my God, we love this.
[00:13:29] And that is all you hear. But the other truth is that Food is making you sick. That donut makes you sick. And 2 hours after you eat that donut, you're not loving the Food. You're overcome with the feelings of the heaviness of DisaPpointment and guilt.
[00:13:46] The thought or the interpretation of the situation where your eyes sense and interpret a doughnut.
[00:13:53] Your thought, your interpretation is, I love that. But it's only part of the truth.
[00:14:00] We've believed that part of the truth and only that part of the truth enough to make the decision to eat it.
[00:14:08] And unfortunately, we believe it a lot.
[00:14:13] So when you look at the things that are standing between you and your health, the health that you want your life, diabetes free, your better blood sugars, you need to question them, right? So if your brain is telling you discomfort, like it's uncomfortable, I don't want to feel hungry. I don't want to feel deprived. It's uncomfortable if this is what your brain is telling you. This is a common obstacle women bring up.
[00:14:40] I'm afraid to feel hungry. I don't want to feel awkward in a situation while everybody's eating. And I'm not. I don't want to miss out. I don't want to feel deprived. All of these are stories of that our brain brings up.
[00:14:53] And this is. I mean, this is very common. And again, the root of this is, I don't want to be uncomfortable.
[00:14:58] Long lasting change in your life and your health. These changes are built on responding to that feeling of discomfort differently.
[00:15:12] In the moment. You believe that hunger is bad and you want to avoid it. It's either good or bad. Awkward is bad and you want to avoid it. Missing out is bad, and I want to avoid it. Deprivation is bad. I don't want to go there.
[00:15:24] You believe that those feelings are bad and you need to avoid it. And avoiding it is good. It's either good or it's bad.
[00:15:32] I want to offer that both. It's a both situation. It's not either or. You will feel bad and you will feel good. You won't feel good or bad. You will feel good and bad.
[00:15:45] If you look at deprived, whether you eat the food or you do not eat the food, you're going to feel both good and bad.
[00:15:54] If you eat the food, you feel good in the moment and bad in the aftermath with guilt and disappointment.
[00:16:00] If you don't eat the food, you feel bad in the moment and deprivation and good in the long term. You feel pride because your blood sugars are better. You feel calm and in control over your life and your desires and your food.
[00:16:13] For some women, they believe that boredom, me on some women, boredom is the thing that they can't tolerate, and it's what keeps them from making the changes.
[00:16:24] This was definitely my work. It was the feeling of deprivation and boredom. For me, it was the feeling of boredom. My thought, I'm bored and I need this to get me through.
[00:16:37] And I believed it.
[00:16:40] But when I stopped eating the foods, I realized the food did not make me less bored.
[00:16:46] And it did make whatever task that I found boring last longer.
[00:16:52] It was not bored or not bored. It was not good or bad. It was both. No matter how I did it, I felt good eating the food, but bad that the task took 30 minutes longer. And if I didn't eat the candy, I felt bad in the moment, but I felt good when the task was done. It's good and bad. It's both.
[00:17:12] So what drives you to eat the food that's making you and keeping you sick and stuck is that you're believing that there's either good or there's bad.
[00:17:22] You're believing that story in the moment when I realized that I wanted more, that my overarching desire for the life that I envisioned in my head, my health, my surety, my longevity, right? Like, that was something that I. I work in the healthcare arena. I see people all day long that are sick. Literally, it's what they're, I'm paid to do.
[00:17:49] They come to the places that I'm at all day long, and they're sick, and they're the sickest of the sick.
[00:17:55] And I knew I didn't want that for myself. So assurity was a big thing for me. Like, what do I need to assure myself that I'm not going to end up in that situation? What do I need to be doing?
[00:18:09] I wanted that. And I also wanted to stop fighting the battle of not being in control of my food. I did not want to have that battle for the rest of my life. When I realized that I wanted more and what it was that I wanted, I decided that I was not going to let something as petty as boredom get in the way from what I wanted most. And I took that leap. I sought out the help that I needed to get on top of that. Learning to overcome these specific obstacles puts you into control. And the controller seat of your health puts you in control of your vitality and your longevity.
[00:18:45] It saves you money in the long term. Right? You don't spend money on foods that are making you sick, that you then need to spend money on meds to fix what you just did.
[00:18:53] That doesn't even make sense.
[00:18:57] In the end, investing in fixing this will save you money.
[00:19:02] It will save you time. And we've already discussed and said that time is the most valuable of the resources, right? Like, you spend money, you can make money, right? Like, you spend money, you're like, okay, I spent that. I shouldn't have spent that. I'm going to go work a little harder. I'm going to get a second job, do something more. I'm going to make more money. You can make money back. Time isn't like that. Once you've spent it, you can't get it back. It is the most valuable resource we have. Once you spend your time, you can't get it back. So fixing this business with your diabetes, investing in what's necessary to fix this, not only can you start spending the time that you have, that you currently have already doing the things that are really important to you, instead of being sick, feeling, blah, not having the energy, being so consumed with worry that something horrible is going to happen that you're not enjoying, instead of spending all of your energy and your time doing that, you can start doing the things that are really important to you.
[00:19:59] And it will likely give you more time in the long run because you avoid the complications of diabetes, which will cut your life short.
[00:20:08] So dive into what makes you want to fix your diabetes? What is it about you that makes you want to fix your diabetes? Why do you want to fix this part of your life?
[00:20:19] What will you gain from fixing this? And probably a heavier question. What will you lose if you don't?
[00:20:26] Are you really willing to exchange those things? The things that you're going to gain or the things that you'll lose for these obstacles? Boredom in my case. Right? Like, boredom was the thing that I was like, why am I exchanging all of these things that I want? Because I can't tolerate being bored a little bit. Because I can't tolerate feeling awkward a little bit. Because I can't tolerate a little bit of deprivation. Why am I exchanging all of these important things to me for that?
[00:20:53] Are you really willing to exchange these things for the obstacles that are keeping you from your better blood sugars?
[00:20:59] Allow yourself to approach this in a calm mind. And then I want you to use a very simple question, a very, very simple question to decide what to do next.
[00:21:10] Use this all day, every day, day in, day out. Use it in the mornings, middays, night times. Have this question on the tip of your tongue. Stick it on a post it note, and have it on every surface that you come into contact on a regular basis during the day. This is a simple question I want you to ask yourself. And again, all day, every day, in the midst of chaos, in the midst of calm, I don't care which it is, ask yourself the question. What do I know for sure?
[00:21:38] This question will bring you a little bit of peace, a little bit of calm, and a clear path for what you need to do next. What do I know for sure? So when you're out with the girls and all the girls are eating the nachos, the chips, the salsa, the queso, or maybe they're at the italian restaurant and they're all just shut, like, piling on all. Everybody's got their own damn loaf of bread, and they're piling it in their face, right? Like the warm bread, the butter, all of it.
[00:22:03] You're out with the girls, and they're eating all the things, and your brain has all the desires. You feel awkward because you're not doing it. You feel a discomfort. You feel edgy. There's a little bit of chaos.
[00:22:13] And your brain starts to tell you the only way to resolve the situation. Just have bread.
[00:22:20] And then your brain starts to rationalize it, right? Like, it's okay. A little won't hurt. One bite won't hurt. You can start again tomorrow. Everything's okay. I want you to ask yourself, what do you know for sure? For sure. Do you know that one bite is okay?
[00:22:34] Yes. One bite of bread never made anybody diabetic. One bite of bread is okay. It did not create the problem. Ever. Not one bite of bread.
[00:22:45] But give yourself the alternative answer to that. What if no one bite leads to another bite and another bite? And another bite and another bite and an effort? Dinner with the girls?
[00:22:58] That inevitably leads me to feel disappointed and guilty. It leads me to worry. It leads me to frustration.
[00:23:06] One bite leads to more bites.
[00:23:09] So in the moment, what do I know for sure?
[00:23:13] One bite for me, right now is not the right answer.
[00:23:19] Let this guiding question lead you throughout this week. Again, shove it on a post it note and put it on every surface that you run into as a reminder. Put it on your pantry, put it on the candy drawer, put it on your office door, put. Put it on your office monitor, put it in your car, put it on your keys, put it on your fridge, put it where your toothbrushes. Put it everywhere. What do I know for sure?
[00:23:47] And let that guide you through this week and see what you come up with.
[00:23:53] See what lifts up for you, what effervesces, what information you gain from this.
[00:24:01] Certainly, if you know, like I am ready. I do not want boredom. I do not want deprivation. I do not want fear missing out. I do not want all those petty little meaningless emotions to keep me from having the big emotions of my life. The love, the fun, the interaction, the engagement and the memories of the people I love. I don't want those petty things getting in the way of those big things. If you're ready to get help for that, know that there is help for you. You can always contact me. Sign up for a better blood sugars assessment call. We'll figure out where you're at, where there are some big levers for you to make changes and how to get started on that. And you can always email me delanemd.com to get set up for that.
[00:24:48] So I do have a coaching program coming up in the month of October that is directly aimed at why you keeps coming to food chatter and how to stop doing this.
[00:25:03] This is going to be a session where there are four weeks of weekly coaching. They're going to be group coaching sessions and it's just in time for the holidays because that's what we all need. This is really going to be a steal of a deal. Four weeks of coaching. It'll be $199. This is the first time I have offered a shorter coaching session like this. I'm not sure what it's going to evolve into, but if you want to be sure you get this help, make sure that you get registered for this.
[00:25:35] Recognize guys, I don't know if you know this. It's October. Like it's middle of September when I'm recording this, but it's October. By October, if you start getting serious about fixing your a one c by the time you go in in January to get your next lab draw and draw done at the beginning of the year, you could have a normal a one c so recognize if fixing your diabetes was on your 2024 New Year's resolution list. That's awesome. There's still time. Let's do it. This four week coaching program is aimed at helping you get started on that. You can find out more information at www.dillainmd.com. forward slash tame t a m e tame. Your chatter is the name of the program. It's going to be that four weeks coaching and be able to figure out why you do this and how to stop. Go find that information ww dot dalenemd.com forward slash tame t a m e all right, you know, if you are medicated for your type two diabetes, you have been medicated because of the way that you've eaten in the past. If you do the things that I just talked about today, like you're not eating the cookies, you're not eating the muffins, you're not eating the candy, you're not eating the donuts, you're not eating the pizza, if you cut those things out, your meds are going to need to change because the meds were started because you were eating those things. You need to get a line of communication open with your doctor. You need to give them a call. You need to say, hey, listen, I'm making some dietary changes. I need to know how to share my blood sugar logs with you and how I should expect to hear back from you about what meds I need to change.
[00:27:16] If you don't do this, you can get very sick, the kind of sick that ends up in the ER, in the hospital, and possibly even death. So it's really important that you make that phone call to your provider before you start making these dietary changes. So I hope that you will do that. I want to encourage you strongly to do that. If you have any questions, send them to me delanemd.com dot I'm happy to answer anything. If you are getting benefit from this podcast, please rate it on your podcast player. The more people, the more ratings and reviews that this podcast gets, the more it gets put in front of people to listen to. When you know the stats of nine out of ten americans have insulin resistance, when we look at their labs, you understand that nine out of ten americans are on their way to diabetes, if not already there. It is important for everybody to hear that they don't need to be sick living on meds for the rest of their life. There is a way to live healthy. That's what this podcast is dedicated to. If you write and review it, more people will hear that message. Lastly, I want to encourage you. Keep listening. Keep avoiding the foods that are making you sick, and keep making the choices for your health, your longevity and your vitality. I will talk with you next week. Bye.
