Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] You are listening to a special question and answer session of Better Blood Sugars with Delaine md. Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with Delaine MD where you can learn strategies to lower your blood sugars and improve your overall health. I'm your host, Dr. Delaine 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 and welcome to the podcast. I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you're taking some time to spend on you and your health.
[00:00:40] Today I'm going to do some question and answers. This is going to be the second to the last episode of Better Blood Sugars with Delane md. I've got things in my personal life that are changing, all for the better, all are good and great, but time resources are such that I've got to make some hard decisions. And one of those decisions was to move away from doing the podcast. So today I'm going to answer some questions that have been sent to me via email, delanemd.com and then I will be doing one more podcast that I've prepared, um, that'll be coming out sometime in the next few weeks. And it's about kind of general how to be healthy and some of the most basic approaches to that. Not necessarily strategies, but really a discussion that was prompted after reading an article in one of the national journals. So today, let's talk question and answers.
[00:01:48] The first questions that I'm going to talk about have to do with a number of general topics. So I'll talk about that. And then the last, it was an email. Again, email that I'm going to address is related to electrolyte and electrolyte drinks. Before we get started, I do want to give you a warning. If you are medicated for your type 2 diabetes and you follow the dietary and exercise recommendations that are made in this podcast episodes, you will need to watch your meds carefully. You have been medicated because of the way you have lived your life, eaten and exercised in the past. And if you change that, you're going to need to change those meds. If you don't change your meds, you can end up quite sick. The kind of sick that looks like an ER visit, hospitalization, possibly even death. And that's not why you're making these changes. So what I need you to do, I need you to call your primary care provider or whomever you gave you those prescriptions. And I need you to ask them how they want you to share your blood sugar readings with them and then how you can expect to hear medication changes back from them. This is to keep you safe.
[00:02:58] So make sure you're making that phone call, getting that line of communication open with your medical provider, and figuring out how to start to come down off of these meds because you're making changes and living more aligned with your biology.
[00:03:10] All right? And if you ever have any questions about that, send me a message. Delanemd.com I'm happy to answer anything.
[00:03:17] So the first question, I received a number of questions from a reader or a listener named Aaron. And so I want to dive in and make sure that I answer all of those questions. There's a number of them, and then there's kind of some broad topics beyond those basic questions.
[00:03:35] So one of them is very appropriate for the time. It's maintaining a healthy lifestyle while you're on vacation.
[00:03:42] So this is very nuanced. It can be a number of different things.
[00:03:47] One, what is your vacation revolved around? Is your vacation revolved around food? Lots of people do this with vacation. They revolve their vacations around food.
[00:03:57] I know that I'm looking at taking a strict break from flour and sugar.
[00:04:04] And I have a vacation coming up. I want to do it for a month. And I have a vacation coming up here in the end of July. And I'm like, oh, I'm definitely going to want to indulge a little bit on vacation.
[00:04:15] I don't want my entire vacation. Like, I'm not going to some town that's known for food. Like, my vacation is not entirely wrapped around food. However, I'm going to want to enjoy ice cream with my kids or pizza with my kids.
[00:04:29] So if that's the case, me going an entire month without flour and sugar in July is probably not a great month for me to do it.
[00:04:40] So, One, what is your vacation revolved around? Okay, that is the first thing. If you're going somewhere where you're going there because of the food, you're gonna need to. One, I would, I don't know that I would schedule a vacation based on that, but certainly, like healthy lifestyle, when you're going to some place that's revolving around food is going to be a little different than how you maintain a healthy lifestyle on vacation. When you're not going somewhere revolving around.
[00:05:11] I would not schedule a vacation that is entirely revolved around food. My vacations, many people know, are revolved around 14ers in Colorado. That is what I do. And, yeah, it helps me stay healthy because there's clearly exercise associated with it and there's not this focus on food.
[00:05:28] So first things first. What is your vacation really focused on? And if it is food, then how are you going to put boundaries on that experience so that you can maintain a healthy lifestyle? So that may mean that you're going to Italy. Italy, for whatever reason. And maybe it's the person inside of me that really loves pizza and pasta is like, oh, Italy would be really, really hard because, I mean, there would be challenges. I would have to have a clear strategy set up in order to live a healthy lifestyle on a vacation in Italy, because I would want pasta, I would want bread, I would want pizza. You know, I would want all of these foods that just are not typical foods that I eat. I would have to clearly define how much I was going to eat of that. When I go to Chicago, when I go back to see my family in Chicago, we always go for deep dish because it's my very favorite. And there are very. I mean, like, one we go to. Like, last time I was there, we went to three different. We tried three different. I think we only actually got to two of them. And then we were so sick of beauty that we didn't go to the. The third one. But we wanted to try three different restaurants. Deep dish pizza. And so that was like, oh, okay, I'm gonna have a personal pan pizza one. And if I only can get down one or two pieces, then that's all I can get down. But it's not going to be a free for all. It's not going to be all the pizza under the sun. It's not going to be all the pasta under the sun. It's not going to be all the bread under the sun. It might be the boundary you might put on your food is, I'm going to have one piece of bread at my dinner. Not at lunch, not at breakfast. One piece of bread at dinner. Now that may be on the first day of your vacation. On the second day of your vacation, you may want to try some exquisite Danish or pastry at breakfast. Cool. I'm going to have one exquisite Danish or pastry at breakfast, and I'm going to eat salads and healthy protein at lunch and dinner.
[00:07:30] Okay. So you just need to clearly identify boundaries. That is the biggest thing to maintaining a healthy lifestyle while on vacation.
[00:07:39] Vacation is going to be a series of unexpected events. That's why we go. It's living outside of the normal. That's why vacation spots. Every time I go to Colorado, I'm like, I want to move here. I want to live here forever. That's true no matter where I go. Like, I want to live here forever. The reason I want to live there forever is because it's not burdened with the boredom of daily in and outs. Right?
[00:08:01] The daily boring routine that we have at home is what we're vacationing from. But it's also that daily routine is what keeps us in the limits, in the boundaries. We don't have to specifically identify what we're going to do to maintain our health every day when we're at home, because everything isn't unexpected. Vacation is when everything's unexpected.
[00:08:24] And that's where you just have to very clearly set boundaries for how you're going to live healthy.
[00:08:30] Exercise is another thing.
[00:08:31] I find exercise, like, I don't struggle as much with exercise as I do with the food component. And I don't know that I would ever define my food experience as a struggle anymore, but there was a time where I definitely would have defined it that way.
[00:08:43] I also, on the food side, there is nothing wrong with eating one or two bites of something and being done with it, Even if that means that you're throwing out or quote unquote, wasting the rest of it.
[00:08:58] I always offer that food is wasted whether you throw it in the trash can or whether it's inside your body wreaking havoc, creating adipose, being like somebody described it, it's wasted in the trash can or it's wasted as fat on my ass. It doesn't matter. It's wasted. It's just wasted food. If you don't need the food, consuming it is a wasteful procedure as well as throwing it in the trash can. So if you're wanting the taste of the Danish, the taste of the pastry, cool, have a couple bites of it. You don't need to eat the whole thing. That's another boundary that you can give to yourself to really maximize the health that you maintain on your vacation.
[00:09:37] As far as exercise goes, you know, set your. I mean, I like. Again, I mean, I set up most of my vacations.
[00:09:44] They do center around adventures, and they're usually hiking adventures.
[00:09:49] Um, sometimes it's surfing adventures or, you know, beach adventures. But that is the primary experience that I'm going for. Other things that I like to do on vacations are like ghost tours.
[00:10:04] So again, that's like an adventure. That's not going to be a food thing. So my vacations Typically are set up around adventures that keep me moving when I'm not set up or when like sometimes we'll go to the beach and I'll, you know, take my kids, we run a beach house and we spend a week on the beach. When that happens, like, clearly, like laying out on the beach is not really exercise. So that means that I have to plan to do my daily runs where I would typically do them at home. And that's all I make sure that I do is I just get out for a run. Sometimes that means I need to find a park because there's not an easy area for me to run a lot of times. And this is really like not fun. I don't enjoy this, but I have to run these like short laps around something, around a block because there's not enough room to run or if, you know, you go to a city or something. So sometimes you have to make some plans. But usually the biggest thing you're going to do, it's going to be a planning experience.
[00:11:02] So planning for your food, placing boundaries on your food and planning for your exercise. And again, like maybe you can't get to a gym. Although most gyms I will offer, most gyms will allow you to do day passes. You just have to go in and sign a waiver. So if you can find a gym local to where you're going to be on vacation, that's kind of nice. But even if you can't doing body weight weight exercises. There is a book, it's called the Naked Warrior and it talks about body weight exercises.
[00:11:38] I want to make sure I have the right name of the book and the author it about talks.
[00:11:44] Talks about body weight exercises that allow you to change your body position to intensify the exercise or detensify the exercise. So for example, a push up, you know, a typical planked chest to ground backup push up can be de intensified by putting knees down or it can be intensified by putting your feet on a block or a sofa or a chair. Okay, so there are body weight exercises that you can do to maintain your muscle mass while you're on vacation.
[00:12:18] And it is the Naked Warrior and it's by Pavel and I can't spell his last name. It's T S A T S O U L I N E.
[00:12:28] He I mean all sorts of exercises that he has in that book that are body weight. The Naked Warrior. Right. Just body weight and how to intensify or de Intensify them to build an appropriate amount of muscle. Because remember, it's not just cardio that's important.
[00:12:43] I would offer cardio is less important in improving your metabolic health and your blood sugars and your insulin resistance. Having more muscle on your body is more important than any of those things.
[00:12:57] So, Aaron, I hope that answers your question. That's really, really long winded. I apologize. We'll see how I do with the rest of these. Hopefully they're not all this long winded.
[00:13:06] The next question, how poor metabolic health affects skin. Hair loss, skin tags, longer healing times, dental, all of those things. So metabolic health is definitely associated with this.
[00:13:21] Hair loss can be twofold. It can be just general metabolic health. It can also be like insulin resistance is metabolic disease. Like, it is probably the base, the foundation of all metabolic disease. So, I. E. It is the foundation. Insulin resistance is the foundation of poor metabolic health.
[00:13:43] And insulin resistance affects the hormonal system in women. Polycystic ovarian syndrome is. The disease is a syndrome. It's a diagnosis we give in that situation.
[00:13:56] So polycystic ovarian syndrome, you have higher levels of active testosterone in your system and it's partly because of how insulin resistance impacts our liver. So what that means is you get hair changes, like male pattern hair loss. Those sorts of things happen for women kind of at the extreme end of polycystic ovarian syndrome. Okay, so hair loss can happen that way. And then it's just your body has to. When there is a stressor on your body, your body has to decide what's important.
[00:14:31] Is growing hair more important or dealing with this disease state of poor metabolic health. So sometimes there is just hair thinning and hair loss, but sometimes it is a hormonal, it is an effect of a hormonal change.
[00:14:45] So that's as far as hair loss goes. How poor metabolic health affects that. Skin tags are associated with insulin resistance, probably the root cause of insulin resistance. So if you're seeing a lot of skin tags, if you're seeing the other condition on the skin that we see with insulin resistance is nigracans. I can't remember the world, but it's this velvety darkening of the skin that happens on the necks, on your neck, on your axilla, your armpits.
[00:15:15] It skin folds and there are.
[00:15:19] I wish I could remember the name. I can't stand it when I have minor strokes, but there's this velvety covering of the skin.
[00:15:34] I'm going to find the name acanthosis. Who. That was the word, acanthosis. Nigricans. And it's the condition that we call it when we see it. Clinically but that is a skin change. And usually those skin tags that you get will be associated with that velvety, that acanthosis nigricans on the skin. And again, it's going to be in your neck, on the back of the neck. I see this at the grocery store. Sometimes this is a cult, like an ethnic thing. Like, sometimes it's just a genetic thing.
[00:16:01] But if you're Caucasian, it's not.
[00:16:04] It's almost always an element of insulin resistance. And I will see it at the grocery store. I'll see it at the gas station when I see somebody getting a fountain drink. I've seen this, and I'm like, I know that there is metabolic disease there. They have poor metabolic health because of that. Skin tags are usually associated with those same areas.
[00:16:23] Longer healing time. We know that this occurs with poor metabolic health and high blood sugars. In fact, most of the time, a surgeon will not take you, and they will tell you they won't take you to surgery if your blood sugars are not normal in the preoperative area.
[00:16:39] So they'll tell you to keep your insulin, make sure you're taking your meds, those sorts of things. Watch what you're eating leading up to that surgery. Because we know there is poor healing time.
[00:16:48] That surgical incision will not heal as well because of your blood sugars being elevated. Part of this is due to the toxicity of the elevated blood sugars. Part of it is due to poor function of white blood cells. So the cells that fight off infection, the kind of the healing cells, all of those function poorly when your blood sugars are high, when there's metabolic health that's. Or metabolic disease going on.
[00:17:18] So other places you're going to see this is when you have bug bites, although I think part of this is age. You'll have bug bites that just take longer to heal. You'll have cuts, tears on your skin, all of those things taking longer to heal.
[00:17:31] So that is definitely a known aspect of poor metabolic health is having these longer healing times. And then dental. Dental is shocking. Like, Dennis, I've had more than one patient come into me clinically and say, hey, my dentist thinks I have diabetes.
[00:17:49] The dentist can see evidence of this in your teeth, in your gums, in the oral health.
[00:17:55] So definitely poor metabolic health affects all of these things, without doubt.
[00:18:01] It's interesting.
[00:18:02] You know, I always am shocked when medical providers don't spend more time pointing out how to live a healthy life and how to eat food that aligns with human biology.
[00:18:15] That food fuels every cell in Your human body.
[00:18:20] It makes tons of sense that if that food is not correct, that every system in our body has a negative from not aligning with our biology.
[00:18:33] And so when we talk about how poor metabolic health affects things, it affects every system. Not just the skin, not just the liver, not just your heart, not just your brain, not just, you know, your cardiovascular system. I mean, not just those things, it affects all of it.
[00:18:50] And it's because the food you eat fuels everything in your body.
[00:18:55] Third question, non traditional methods to manage stress.
[00:19:00] So I'm going to offer, I don't know what the traditional. And I hope I answer this well, because I'm like, I don't know what the traditional methods are.
[00:19:08] And maybe the traditional methods that I am thinking of are what you can. Or maybe I think they're non traditional and you think they're traditional. But I will tell you what the evidence talks about. The evidence talks about, certainly counseling helps manage stress. That's what medical literature will say.
[00:19:25] Journaling helps manage stress. And I love to think of this. When you look for information on journaling and why it helps, part of it is because it takes a thought and experience that you're having, a cognitive experience that you're having that maybe other people can or cannot see, right? Like maybe if you have a frown on your face, people can see you're sad and you're having a cognitive experience that is defined as sad. Okay, fine. But you have an experience, a thought that's creating a feeling of sadness. And that thought is an entirely encapsulated in your brain until you write it down on paper and then it becomes real.
[00:20:03] And that realness, that thing that you just created now because, becomes something that you can look at, you can deconstruct, you can reconstruct, you can manipulate it into something else.
[00:20:15] And this is part of the reason that journaling is so powerful. It takes your thoughts and it puts it on paper and then you can look at it, decide, is that even true? Is this the only truth?
[00:20:27] You can deconstruct it, reconstruct it. You can manipulate it so that you then have agency over your experience, over your stress.
[00:20:35] So journaling is one way that is, you know, there's a lot of evidence about journaling helping with stress.
[00:20:42] Then of course, exercise. Exercise burns off stress hormones. Cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine, those things, adrenaline, noradrenaline, depending on the word that you want to use.
[00:20:53] Exercise is a strategy for managing stress that again, the literature talks about.
[00:21:00] And then there's breathing. There's breath work as they call it.
[00:21:05] This may be a moving breath work, a moving meditation like Tai chi, like yoga. Both of those are again breath based movement exercises that that breathing helps to normalize your stress, your fight or flight system with your relaxed system, it helps to equalize those. And then meditation is another one. And then there are like actual just breathing classes you can go to that they will teach you how to breathe. They don't really call it yoga, they don't really call it meditation. But you can do breath work classes that will teach you how to normalize your again, your stress, your, your sympathetic system, nervous system with your parasympathetic which is the relax part of that system.
[00:21:55] So I do want to offer that. I have always taught that the reason that breath work helps with stress and helps kind of equalize out that sympathetic, that stress response with the relaxed response on the parasympathetic side is because the, the diaphragm lowering when you take a deep breath actually physically stimulates the vagus nerve. And I do believe that happens.
[00:22:27] But in addition to that it changes the pressures in your chest, in your heart and that changes that sympathetic or that vagal tone. So how much that vagus nerve is firing is changed based on how you breathe. And you increase the room in your heart which decreases the pressure in your heart and that changes that vagal stimulation. So there is an. I may, I may be teaching that wrong and I just want to offer that and acknowledge that. But certainly the breathing, the effect of breathing on stress is to decrease stress, to increase relaxation and to kind of normalize the balance between those two.
[00:23:16] So those are the ways that I know I'm trying to think of other non traditional methods of managing stress and I guess I feel like the Tai Chi and the yoga, those are all non traditional. Like the meditation, that's all non traditional. I think typical medical management of stress would be starting a med. That's what we do in medicine. So I hope that helps. If not, make sure that you email me back and let me know if that's not helpful. If you are looking for something else.
[00:23:50] And then resistant training, resistance training workouts in 15 minutes or less again using that naked warrior. I think that that is going to be a helpful.
[00:24:03] You can definitely, you can make it 15 minutes, you can do however you want. I also like there's a, there's a YouTuber, she's on Instagram is actually where I came across her, but her name is Cheryl. C H E R Y L Coulomb C O U L O, M B, E. M as in Michael, B as in boy. E.
[00:24:28] She's Canadian, I think. And it's, I think it's weights. Lift with cc, I think is her Instagram handle.
[00:24:39] Yeah. Lift with C Cee.
[00:24:41] So she does a lot of, again, how to do it at home. You don't need a gym.
[00:24:50] So those are some things. Outside of that. I think starting basic resistance workouts with body weight is everything that you need.
[00:25:03] And I think you do upper body, lower body and core. I think you break it down into those three and you get real good at doing things with those three.
[00:25:13] So upper body is going to be push ups, it's going to be maybe lifting weights above your head. It's going to be bicep curls, it's going to be tricep extension. So bicep curls can happen with weights.
[00:25:26] Tricep extensions can happen with a bench or a couch behind you.
[00:25:31] And you can look up how to do this and you just, you know, press off of that couch, extending out on your triceps.
[00:25:40] Push ups are probably going to be the most like, it's going to be all of it. Right? Like there's some tricep work, there's some pectoralis, some chest work, there's bicep work, you get all, there's some delt work in a pushup. A push up is, is probably the greatest place for you to start. And you do 15 sets, do them three times and you want to be sore, you want to work for it, you want to feel like you can't do it. You should be getting your chest to the ground.
[00:26:09] If you have to do knees down to get chest to the ground, start there. That's fine.
[00:26:14] That is like going to be everything for upper body, I think, until you master that. Cool. Do it for five minutes, then move on to doing core. Core is going to be. Planks might be elbow down, planks might be full extended planks. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, you can always Google it and look for that.
[00:26:32] Sit ups, that's going to be another core workout.
[00:26:36] Boats in yoga. So if you do a boat and yoga where you have your heels, your, your pivoted at your pelvis at your bottom and your legs are up and your body is, your upper body is up and you hold that position, crunches are okay.
[00:26:54] Leg lifts, again, these are not like, oh, the best workout, but if you're doing nothing, this is great.
[00:27:03] And then lower extremities, squats, squats, you know, air squats. Just pulling your rump down to the ground, making sure your rump breaks the 90 degree plane with your knees. So your knees are not just in a 90 degree, but they're lower than that. Your knees to your legs are less than a 90 degree. That brings your rump below your knees. And then stand up. Air squats again. 15 repetitions. 3 sets. Should do everything that you need it to do to start.
[00:27:38] Now. If you're doing those things and you've been doing it for six months and you're like, I don't get sore with it anymore, how do I, how do I increase Again, going to that naked warrior and seeing what's available there. If you're doing full plank extended push ups and you're like, you could do them forever, Cool. You need to put your feet up on a box. You need to put your feet up on a chair. You need to get your feet elevated. So now there's a more intense workout on that push up.
[00:28:06] If you're doing sit ups and you could do them forever, you need to add a weight.
[00:28:10] Okay. If you're doing those squats, those air squats, and you can do them forever, you need to start jumping with the air squats. And jumping actually has a lot of benefit for bone health too.
[00:28:21] So probably should be doing that. No matter. You should be working. That should be the goal.
[00:28:27] The other thing you can do is there's. Gosh, YouTube opens the world to us. If you want a resistance training workout in 15 minutes or less, put that into YouTube and see what comes up. Find one you love.
[00:28:40] Also, you can find things on Netflix for free. Find one that you love. Certainly going to a gym and I didn't like this. I recently got involved with a gym that I actually really love and they're all.
[00:28:50] It's like class workouts. It's like group workouts the whole time. And I never thought I would love this. I've never been interested in that. But I've gotten involved with what's called level method workouts.
[00:29:01] I love them. They're great. If you are interested, if you have questions, email me delanedelainemd.com I'm happy to answer anything.
[00:29:09] All right, that is all of those questions. If I didn't answer those questions or you have more, let me know.
[00:29:15] So Tom from California. I love messages from Tom. He's great. He regularly emails me and he always encourages me to climb Mount Sunflower in western Kansas, which is just the highest point, the highest point of the plains of western Kansas, which is hilarious.
[00:29:32] He always Wants me to summit that when I'm doing my 14 summit or summit. So I think that's always funny. But he had a question that he sent me recently about electrolytes and flavored, flavored sodas. He was asking about what electrolyte powders I would recommend.
[00:29:48] I have not found any electrolyte powders that don't have some sweetener in them. Sucralose. And it's probably because electrolytes tastes awful if they're not sweetened. So it makes sense. But I haven't found anything.
[00:30:03] So what I actually do and I don't use electrolytes a lot. If I were, maybe if I were doing like some crazy. I did have a 10 mile run the other day and I did it a little late on a Sunday morning and it was very hot, probably could have used some electrolytes for that run. But I didn't, I really very rarely do. I didn't even bring water for that run. Also a bad decision on my part. I don't use a lot of electrolytes. When I do use them, I use them. When I did the Grand Canyon, I did the rim to rim, the north rim to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It was like a 27 mile hike. And of course it's very hot down there on the floor. Although it was in October, it wasn't horrible.
[00:30:39] But if I were doing something like that, I did actually bring and take electrolytes for that trip. So I don't use a lot of electrolytes. When I do though, I use capsules, I just use pills. I don't put it in my water. I don't sweeten my water. I don't, I don't sweeten my water. Maybe it's because I just don't like the sweeteners in my water. If I want taste in my water, when I do is I use lemon or lime in my water. Just a tablespoon and that's what I use.
[00:31:09] Most people kind of fall out into two different areas. One, they want the electrolytes to avoid cramping in their muscles for a long workout or two, they like the taste and they think electrolytes are healthy. So depending on what you're looking at when you're asking me this question, how do I add electrolytes to my water?
[00:31:33] Really depends on my answer for you. If you're looking for electrolytes because you're going to be exercising hard in the heat and losing electrolytes, use electrolyte tabs.
[00:31:42] That would be my recommendation. Again, in the end of things, nobody got diabetic because they're using element water electrolyte rehydration packets. I mean, like, they're probably not the most egregious thing that's creating disease in human beings, but I don't use them.
[00:31:59] I just, I don't know. Again, maybe I don't like the way they taste, but I just don't use them. If I need electrolytes, I use electrolyte tabs and they're really capsules, they're not tabs, but that's what I use. If you're looking for something to make your water taste differently, taste better than water tastes, that's when I would use lime or lemon water or lemon juice and just add a tablespoon in the end. Again, if you like your electrolyte water and you're doing everything else great, like your food is really dialed in and your exercise is really dialed in and you've gone and had a body mass evaluation with a DEXA scan or something and you feel like you're, you know, where you want to be. You're at 15 body fat and you know you got plenty of lean mass on you and your weight's in normal range and all of that is going great and you're using these electrolyte waters and your A1C is still 5.7, 5.8, I guess. Then try it without that electrolyte water for three months and see if your A1C doesn't come down. I'm hard pressed to believe that that's going to be the one thing, the single thing that's causing a problem. So I don't use them.
[00:33:09] Maybe it's because I'm cheap, I don't know. I just. And maybe it's again, maybe I just don't like the way they taste. I use electrolyte tabs if I need them and I flavor my water with lemon or lime.
[00:33:21] And I was not a fan of drinking water. The other thing that I've started doing recently is if I am wanting something like a sweet drink, something jazzy more than water, I'll drink a glass, a small like 4 ounce glass of orange juice. I love a good mimosa. I try not to drink them because the alcohol just doesn't do well with me. So the other like I'll add like fizzy water, just like soda water to kind of give it that, that jazz hands that you get with a typical mimosa. So orange juice is the other thing that I do. But again, not a lot. Maybe once a week. I do have a gallon of orange juice in my fridge.
[00:34:00] It probably needs to be replaced, but either way, that's another thing that I'll do. And so a little bit of juice, 4 ounces once a week is probably not the end of the world. But if you're just talking about day to day, how to jazz up your water, lime juice, lemon juice, I like those. And I go from there.
[00:34:18] The last question, flavored sodas, are they, you know, a problem? Are they okay?
[00:34:24] Again, this is one of those things. This is very nuanced.
[00:34:27] Like, this is. I don't know that it's nuanced. It's a very. It's a subtle thing. It's not. You're not gonna get big changes in your A1C and your insulin resistance by cutting out flavored sodas.
[00:34:38] And this is. I'm not talking about squirts or what's the other one like, Fantas. Like, I'm not talking about frankly sweetened flavored sodas. I'm talking about the sodas that are. They're like a hint bubble, I think is. Or bubbly is one of them. There's another. Lacroix is another big one brand.
[00:35:00] And they, you know, the joke is they don't taste like oranges. They taste like they drove next to a box of oranges when they came, you know, to the store.
[00:35:08] So they're a flavor. They're a hint of the flavoring.
[00:35:14] Those are not probably a huge problem. Again, if you're drinking like a case of them a day, you probably need to look into that. Certainly there are some things that are covered up. They will. Like, if you look at the ingredient list, there's going to be artificial flavors or natural flavors.
[00:35:30] They don't have to say what that means. The food manufacturers do not have to identify what they mean by artificial flavors or natural flavors. It could be anything. And that's where it's just like. I mean, there could be something in there. I think it would be very, very low on the list of things that are going to create big changes in your metabolic health.
[00:35:53] So again, you probably shouldn't be drinking a case of them a day. One or two a day is probably not the end of the world.
[00:35:59] So that's what I have for you. Those are my answers. The answer. These are great questions that people sent in. So I'm happy that you guys sent them in. If I didn't answer them to your needs or if I was confusing because sometimes I start rambling. Cool, send me an email delanedelanemd.com I will be back in the next few weeks with the last podcast for Better Blood Sugars with Delane md.
[00:36:23] Stay tuned for that and if you need anything between here and there, send me an email delane delain md.com until then, keep making the choices for your health, your longevity and your vitality and I will talk to you next time. Bye bye.
