From Panic To Power: Your Guide To Blood Sugar Balance

Introduction and Natalie Jillu2019s Background 0:00

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the reversing Type 2 Diabetes Summit. 2.0. It's my delight and honored to interview Natalie Jill, a fantastic expert for exercise, for nutrition, for mindset and midlife conversations. Natalie Jill is a powerhouse, a total badass. She's been at this for quite a while and is very much a person who makes a difference in a lot of people's lives. And I found out when I was on her podcast that my patients watch her and love her. So I'm thrilled to have her here on the summit.

I'm glad to know that they are following people who actually have wonderful value to share with them. So with that said, Natalie, welcome to the summit. Thanks so much for having me. And I have so much respect for you, Dr. Yates. In fact, you really helped me when I was having my own panic attack around blood sugar dysregulation several months ago. You urgently got me in. So thank you for that. You're welcome. It was my my honor to help you to help a colleague, because, you know, sometimes we need help, too, right?

Absolutely. So. So in this, I'd love if you give people just a brief overview of your wonderful background because, you know, I feel like you're a living legend, so go ahead. Oh, thank you. I've never been called a living legend, but I. So yes, I'm 52 years old, so I want to share that first and foremost. And I typically really, honestly share whatever I'm walking through and what I bear I found a solution to. So my journey began back when I was 36 years old, and I just had my daughter and I gained my own a lot of weight.

And I had hit my own rock bottom in a lot of different ways. Personally, I was going through a divorce financially. I was losing my house. That's a story for another time. But I was in this really bad position and I figured out how to get myself out of it. Primarily by focusing on changing my mindset and then focusing on my body. How can I improve my health? And I noticed that when you improve your health, you improve everything. And I happened to share that journey which drew a lot of women in at the time.

And I helped transform a lot of women back in those days into their body. As I evolved with that, I became sort of known as the AB expert at one time, so people would come to me to get that flat belly or the six pack abs, and I helped a lot of women with that. But as I aged and got older and embraced new challenges, new things, hormonal shifts, blood sugar changes, cortisol changes, metabolism hormones like all the things my own injuries, I really had to figure out how to master that. And as I walked in, step through that journey also brought my audience along with that and teach specifically.

Now, midlife women how to thrive. Right? Great. And I think, you know, welcoming people and letting them be a part of your journey and sharing with them with working things that are maybe a question mark, you know, it's such an inviting way and it just keeps it real. Yes. So I share a lot. I share a lot of what I'm walking through. And I've gotten out of that belief that people don't want to hear it because they do. Because other women are walking through the stuff, too. Yeah. You know, this brings up that a really important point.

Like there's no lab test for isolation or for loneliness or feeling like you're the only one. And when we. Look at. Issues and diabetes and things, there's literally tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people around the world struggling with this. But yet, you know what, Natalie? They all feel like they're the only one. That's right. Now, a big reason I wanted to I said yes to you. And I will always say yes to you. Here is what you stand for. And what you teach is so critical because blood sugar, dysregulation, type two diabetes is the cause of so much.

And I see it with my communities, I see it with my own family. I see it happening younger and younger now. And when we can learn to offset, prevent or even reverse that, we prevent all types of disease. Absolutely. It's a root cause issue, right? It really is. It's primary. So with that in mind, let's dive in. You know, so for our topic, you know, when we're talking about exercise, talking about mindset, midlife conversations, nutrition, let's start first with exercise and then we'll move to the other categories because they're all related here.

What is it you think that people get wrong? Yeah, I know. There's a lot there. There's a lot. Yeah. So let's start with number one. You can't act out exercise about diet. You just can't unless you are literally an Olympic athlete and you are training five, six, 7 hours a day at ultimate intensity. You're not going out exercise about diet. So that's a vicious yo yo to step into. And honestly, when you try to do that, you break yourself down for injury. You also really create issues with more hunger and then you're just trading calories for more hunger.

So so it is fully a it's something that needs to be worked into it. There's a lot of components to aging well. There's a lot of components to preventing and reversing diabetes. There's a lot of things that staying at a healthy weight. And it's not just about exercise. That's the first thing I want to show that people get wrong. The second thing people get wrong is how they exercise. And, you know, there tends to be this thought process of I have got to do three sets of 12 or I have to do this amount of time.

Exercise Mistakes: Progression, Intensity, and Function 4:54

And what I want to do is bust up those two things. I want to share two words progression and intensity, progression and intensity. So what does that mean, progression means we are continually changing what we're doing and progressing. We're working to get stronger and better. That means the same three sets of 12 you did 20 years ago. If you're wondering why it's not working, you think it's your age. It's not. It's because you've not progressed. We have to challenge ourselves more now. What does that mean?

That means if you walk a mile and you've walked that mile every day, progression is you work on walking two miles or you work on walking faster, or you work on doing it more frequently, or you're working on some weight bearing exercise, the gym, can you go a little heavier? Can you go a little faster, Can you go a little longer? But continually progressing is what changes our body. The second thing is intense sitting, and that means what's intense for you. That doesn't mean go be Michael Phelps, it doesn't mean go be a sprinter.

It means what's intense for you, What actually challenges you, gets your heart rates up, makes it feel hard. Just doing things where you can have a regular conversation during it is not challenging yourself when you do a workout that actually challenges you. I'm really about 20 minutes is all you need to go at full intensity for you. So give me just to give you an example of full intensity, let's say a Dr. Yates. I said, let's just go do a chin up and maybe you can do one. Maybe you can do non I don't know, maybe someone listening can do ten, maybe someone can do 20.

I don't know. But if someone that can, you can do three. Amazing. Okay, so. Let's give an example here. So listener can do zero, you can do three, another listener can do 30. Okay. Intensity would mean the person that can do zero is working towards one intensity for you would mean, can I do that three faster, Can I get to four? Can I get to five? Can I do it twice today? The person that does 30, can I do it faster? Can I do more? Can I go? You know, more intensity. So it's what's intense for you when you focus on those two things, progression and intensity, we tend to change our bodies a lot quicker.

So those are the main things that I see wrong. One more thing I'll throw in with exercise that we do wrong is we're not functionally training, meaning we're not using our whole body the way it's supposed to be used, and that's how we get injured. Or we start feeling pain like lower back pain. For instance, majority of women, especially if I were to do an MRI on you right now in midlife, you would have some type of degeneration in your back. Why do some of you feel it and others do not? It's all about functionality.

If we don't fully use our body the way it's designed, we're not activating our glutes, we're not engaging our core. We're going to feel it in our lower back. So it's not about just fixing the pain, it's about figuring out that functional training. That is great. Summary Thank you so much. That functionality is just such a theme and appears in so many areas of our lives, our health, our relationships, our wealth. Like it's about things that are functional and identifying where there's the dysfunction and doing something about it, right?

Absolutely. All right. So now where is it that people are making mistakes and need to have their attention brought to the world of nutrition with respect to exercise? I love that you pointed out that if people go super intense on exercise, that they can overdo it and then they might wind up seriously hungry. And having all these other yeah, they're going to break and not fix stuff because I think there's a lot of misconceptions. About, okay, so I'm going to break nutrition down really, really simple.

And it almost is going to sound too simple for some of you, but my challenge to you is to ask yourself if you're actually doing this, because sometimes when I teach this, people say, Well, I knew that, but you're not actually doing it. And so I really want to be clear there. So I'm going to give you some really, really basic things right now, because I think it's critical. And I want to share to you, my mom was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about ten years ago and she was told to be on metformin and we completely reversed her diet to what I'm about to share and we prolonged her being on metformin for nine years.

Nine years. So not till now. At age 77 is she now going on at for because it keeps elevating slightly, but that's a big difference to prolong for that long. So what I want to share with you works and the side effect of this is if you are on metformin or you are taking insulin, you'll probably need less insulin or less. But if you if you do these things. So number one is you need to unprocessed your diet. And what does that mean? That means eating real natural, unprocessed foods that you can want, you can actually define.

Now you might think that's a joke or a meme on social media, and that sounds too basic, but we're not doing it. Are we eating real foods? What does that mean? Are we eating chicken, fish steak? Are we eating seed butter? Nut butters. Are we having avocado, olive oil is our fats. Are we having a lot of leafy greens, a lot of vegetables, low glycemic fruits like berries? How are we actually doing those things? And that's that's number one. Just by replacing your diet with primarily unprocessed natural foods, you're going to regulate your body.

And your body is meant to eat these foods, not number one. Number two, this is what's really important, especially in it comes to blood sugar. Are you balancing your foods? Are you balancing them? You should be balancing protein, carbs and fats together. Never, ever, ever just eating starchy carbs alone, for example, you will spike your blood sugar. So just to give you an example, if I'm going to have a bowl of oatmeal and just my bowl of oatmeal, I'm going to add some milk, some like low fat milk.

This is like and then I'm going to put banana on it. Some of you might think that it's healthy. You are going to spike your blood sugar like crazy. That is all going to be turned. That's sugar in your body. It looks it's kind of like candy. You're going to spike your blood sugar. However, let's let's remake that meal. Let's do a little bit less oatmeal. Let's add some nut butter to that. Let's put a tablespoon of nut butter in there. Okay. Let's change that banana over to some low glycemic berries.

And then let's add an egg or two. So you now added some protein and some fat to your carbs. You're going to balance out. You're not going to have that same spike, same thing. If you know you're going to have that birthday cake, it's your birthday, you're going to celebrate. Can we have it after we've had a higher protein, fat, fibrous meal? Can we add it after? That's going to change your blood sugar right there. So that is really critical. So not only eating unprocessed natural foods, are we going to balance and eat the right combinations of foods like that?

The next thing is modified fasting, giving yourself a longer break between meals. Many of you have heard of intermittent fasting, which means you're eating all your food within 4 to 6 hours. I don't know that I necessarily recommend this for diabetics or pre diabetics. However, giving yourself a longer span between meals gives your body a chance to not have high blood sugars, to not be raising it and not creating issues. When we eat continuously throughout the day, we're continually secreting insulin, We're continually going to be hungry and we're not in fat burning mode.

So we're going to continue to have this issue going on.

Nutrition Basics for Blood Sugar Control 11:24

I want to add to that, if you are saying, okay, Natalie, I'm doing those things, I'm trying it, I'm wearing a glucose monitor, I know what's going on. Are you finger pricking in addition to your glucose monitor? Because those can be vastly off 20, 30, 40 points, even so, it's not a true. It's it gives you a guide, but you need something to be comparing notes to that. So those are some main things right there. All right. That's great. That's again, a beautiful summary. Thank you for that. So clear, compelling and accurate.

I think that people sometimes hear what they want to hear. Yeah, they have bad sources of information and they don't know enough themselves to understand that what that person had said maybe had a nugget, a kernel of truth or accuracy, but it wasn't the whole picture. It wasn't relevant to what they needed. Well, take care. I hear all the time. CARATS make me care. It's going to make me fat. I can't eat carrots. I'm a diabetic. Hey, Carrot. No. Nobody got obese eating carrots. No one became diabetic from a carrot.

However, are you eating bags of carrots by themselves without anything else that could spike your blood sugar or something? I guess you know. But carrots in itself are not bad for you. It's just. Are we combining them? Are we can we have it with some hummus and some olive oil? It makes a big difference on your impact. Absolutely right. You know, it's one of the things I don't know if it's a cultural phenomenon just here in the U.S. or maybe it's in other parts of the world, too, where people will obsess on one or two things.

Yeah, that's either the cure or it's evil. Yeah, like just out of all proportion. I don't know why somebody sent me a message the other day. I was sharing what I do, Pre-workout, and I happened to mention that was the one time I don't. It's a whole nother topic, but it was a one time a day that I don't eat fat. I'll have some protein and some simple carbs. And somebody said, when you combine protein and you should never combine protein and fruit, you'll eat your body. I'm like, What? Where do people get these things like these out?

These are really, listen, if something sounds whack a noodle, it is whack a noodle like tea. I believe in simple things that make sense. Like, doesn't it makes sense that you should eat foods that once grew? Doesn't it makes sense that you should eat unprocessed natural foods that are not made in a factory? Doesn't it makes sense that you would balance protein, carbs and fats? It makes sense. It makes sense. You know, sometimes we've just got to go with what makes sense. It doesn't have to be weird or exotic at all.

Also, I want to think about fruit for a minute because people villainized fruit and fruits. Amazing. However, think about just how fruit comes about, how it grows. It grows on a tree for example, this is back, I think, big, ancient times for a minute. You're on a walk, you're on a hike gathering and you're tired and are sweating and you're hungry. And so you grab that apple off that tree and you eat it. It's to give you that energy right then. It was never meant to be smushed into 20 apples and add high fructose corn sirup and and baked with flour and turned into a pie like that.

That's a whole nother level of sugar. You mean to say back in the day, thousands, thousands of years ago, people didn't have a handy oven? Well, for sure. Butter? Yeah, exactly. While they were trying to survive it. So it's like. It's like when people take an apple. Like an apple is great for you, but like, in what context and how are you eating this out? You know, there's a lot of things like I right before this session you recorded I was I want an apple. I had them on my counter. I was like, I want an apple. And I wanted it with pumpkin spice.

That's what I wanted. But I had a tablespoon of peanut butter with it because I know, like, that's going to what's going to work right in my body versus just having the apple. Absolutely. And just keeping it simple. Even if you travel, you know, friends, take those nut butters with your seed butters. Yeah, Yeah, no problem. It could be the seed butter and there's plenty of available. Read the. Label. So many things. Added sugars right now. Always the win. Okay, great. Thank you for counting that out.

Okay, so as we're looking at this, talking about exercise, all about nutrition, let us get to the core of I think we're many of us because, look, we're all human where we struggle, which is around mindset. Yes, people. Get wrong about mindset. Okay. My favorite topic, first of all, don't tune out because we lose that mindset. That's the first thing you do wrong because people go, Oh, I don't. It's not in my head. I have the mindset, so this is the most important thing. So I'm when women come through my programs, the number one they mentor when the number one thing that I make them do this is like not optional.

Working with me, we spend two weeks on this. This is like mission critical. This is kind of like a foundation. And let me explain it this way. If we were to build a house like your dream house on sand, what would happen to the house? It would collapse. It would collapse. The sooner there is a storm or, you know, whatever, it's not going to last. When we actually make a foundation and put the concrete in and build it right, the house could last forever one or two years. Okay. So what we what I teach with I call it state your scored a state plate wave state is your mindset plate is your food weight is what we talked about with the workouts.

Your mindset is the most critical piece. It is the foundation. So what does that look like? So I'm going to give you some really simple breakdowns on here. Number one, what are you deciding? Because we are making decisions every day, all day to what our future is. So what is your decision? Is your decision. Nothing works for me. I'm too old. I was just diagnosed with diabetes. Everything's falling apart. Nothing's going to. I shouldn't even bother. Is that your decision? Is your decision? Everything's hard. Everything.

It's just a kind of like anything. Everything's hard. My body is changing. Or is your decision? Hey, this is my age. This is who I am. And I'm going to be in the best possible shape my life. Are you deciding? I'm going to figure this out? Just quick story around this. The reason I reached out to Dr. Yates months ago was I had a crazy blood sugar dysregulation. I thought, this makes no sense. So my decision could have been my doctor said, go on that foreman. Okay, I'll go on metformin. But my decision was not that.

My decision was I'm fully knowledgeable. I understand food, I understand exercise. There's no way I'm a Type 2 diabetic. There's just something's not right. So I went on a mission because I decided that was not my reality. And I talked to Dr. Yates. I talked to and it what I didn't have a black I had I actually had a gut biome issue that is now resolved and that was creating my blood sugar dysregulation. I share that because if I had decided just to accept the other thing, I'd be in a very different space right now.

Okay, so are we deciding that we're in living in possibility? Are we deciding we're living in problem? Are we deciding we're going to look for solutions? Are we going to decide to be enrolled in circumstances and obstacles? So, number one, what are you deciding? Deciding comes first, all day long to deciding what to eat, deciding to listen to this entirety, deciding what you're going to spend your time, deciding if you're going to move your body, deciding that's number one. The next thing is being really, really clear on your vision that you want for yourself. So what's a vision?

A vision is not all the things you don't want. A vision is what you want to create for yourself. So maybe you're listening to this and your vision is you don't want to get Type 2 diabetes like the rest of your family. So you've been saying that, but what do you want? Well, you want to be healthy. You want to thrive into your seventies, your eighties, and beyond. You want to be fit. You want to be what is that? What is your vision? When people come to me for fat loss, they love to tell me how they don't want to be fat.

No. What's your vision, Natalie? I want to be a size eight. I want to feel confident. I want I want to feel strong. I want to be I'll play with my grandkids. What is your vision? Get really clear on your vision and then operate from that space. You see, most people operate from their current circumstance and they think their vision is so far away. And I say No, get really grounded on what your future vision is and start taking actions that that future version of yourself would. That makes all of the difference.

So decision and vision comes way before your action If you get those two things nailed, then everything else is easy. Amen. I agree with you 100%. I think that that has more power than it gets credit for. And I think because it's such an internal conversation, like there's no products to sell anybody, it's a belief system. Yeah. Then it anchors habits. Right? So then when you talk to us about the mindset, what are the other pieces that underpin this that people will have success with and what are the likely speed bumps or triggers or difficulties they might run into that are really false flags?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So so what just to add on to that, there's something I call fat and fat for me as false assume truth. So it's not just a fat on our body. That's false. The same truth. And I believe most people struggling with a diagnosis or struggling with their body, struggling with anything is holding onto false or sad truth. That's anytime you're holding onto a belief, it's not factual. So let me give you an example. A false or simple truth is you have a higher agency, you have a higher agency.

Therefore you are diabetic right now. Okay? And therefore you are going to be overweight and you need to be on metformin the rest of your life. Okay, That is that true or is that a false In truth, it's a bothersome truth because part of it's factual. Right now your agency is high right now. You might be overweight, but the rest of it is a story. The rest of it is not is subjective. You could change the rest of it. Now, if you believe this is doomsday, this zit, this is where I am, then you start living in that and that becomes your reality.

But if you decide, no, this is just something I've been told right now. But I can reverse this. I can change it. You can create new reality. Absolutely. It can make such a difference. And so one of the things to me that's always been so exciting about working with people who have type two diabetes and pre-diabetes because it is changeable, it is reversed. Absolutely. Has remission, regression, all of the you were. Yeah. Or at least very much prolonged like my mom. You can really prolong it. You can prolong it. Right.

And you know do you feel I'm certain I'm sure you feel a certain kind of weight. So we put the question out there when you run into people and thank you so much for stepping up and helping your mom. And I'm glad your mom listened to you, because sometimes the experience we have is that we go to reach to help people who literally change their diapers. They don't hear. Yes. Yeah. So she doesn't hear me on everything but that one she did. That was good. That was good. Right? You know, mother daughter is in a rich relationship, right? Yeah.

So. So in that journey, do you find that people sometimes stumble over the whole idea of taking that personal responsibility for things, even when life is behind a person? Yeah, this is this is a big this is a big problem. So, listen, if we don't stay, if we stay in the blame game, we're never going to change. It's not the first thing to accept is it's no one else's fault. Period. End of story. It doesn't matter what happened, Who said what? What you've been told? It doesn't matter. None of that doesn't matter.

Your genetics. It doesn't matter what you did. It doesn't matter that your husband made you a cake every night. Doesn't matter that your friends don't like to drink and eat sugar all the time, that none of that matters. What matters is what are you going to do about it? Who are you? What are you deciding? Where's your role in this? What are you going to do about it? So personal responsibility is everything. It's everything. If you don't decide to own it and change yourself, then no one else is going to care as much as you possibly do life.

If you don't care, why would it somebody else care about changing you? Absolutely. And then, you know, I think another piece to this other aspect is when you go to seek help from medical and health professionals and they don't take you seriously and they want to leave you trapped in managing a disease rather than caring for health, because those are different mindsets right there. My experience was horrible going to that. Before I had that call with you, I went to an education. I might have told you this. I went to an anthropologist, 5 minutes.

Mindset, Decision-Making, and Personal Responsibility 22:00

You know any of my background, I know who I was. He didn't care. He looked at my chart and he said, You need metformin. It's like 5 minutes, 5 minutes. And I didn't. Yeah, Yeah. I'm glad we were able to work together because, you know. Yeah. For so many reasons, right? Yeah. That wasn't the correct answer. And I by the way, I don't want to I brought up metformin a lot and it's, I don't want to, I don't want to make those bad things because I understand that it is necessary sometimes for people and it's but it's about how much are we taking responsibility and doing what we can naturally and adding conventional medicine as we need it, versus just jumping to it and using it as the excuse or the crutch?

Yeah, and completely ignoring or never supporting people around lifestyle. One of the things I think that's so interesting around medications, whether it's metformin or others, my opinion is when it comes to type two diabetes pre-diabetes is that it's buying you time to straighten out the lifestyle side, the mindset side, the nutrition side. It's not a replacement for those things. Absolutely. Positioned as if it were the thing. And even things like berberine, like natural things that were that people take.

I think I'm all for it, but it's not a license to just go eat gummy bears. So glad you said that because people sometimes they just trade, you know, the pharmaceutical thing for the sun. Yeah, I just take a bunch of berberine. But honestly, my gummy bears like that doesn't. Yeah, yeah. It's just, again, it's a mindset thing. What goes on between our ears is so powerful. And also blood sugar. Going a little high is not a big deal. If you think about like what? What we're using it for. Like, if you, if you need that energy, you need that.

But that's not some people get really into the nitty gritty, like, I can never, ever do that. Like, it's okay if you're timing things right by the way, one more thing we didn't mention with exercise is just walking after a meal is going to drastically lower your blood sugar, too. And it's a cultural habit in certain parts of the world. And those tend to be places that have better blood sugar situations, right? Fewer in the way of the incidence of diabetes. But the whole thing internationally for diabetes is running completely amuck right now with control everywhere.

This is a moment in time where we have got to figure this one out. Otherwise we're going to ruin human history going forward and our kids will be the ones who suffer because people are getting younger and younger and younger with these problems that you raised. And it happened in the 67. Now it's a we're seeing kids with this now. Yes. That as long as age eight, that's it doesn't never happen. You and I are so on the same page with this. Okay. So now we've talked about exercise, we talked about mindset, we talked about nutrition.

And for those of you who are going to purchase the premium package, this conversation will continue. Those of you who are not purchasing the premium package, we're going to hit pause and, you know, say bye for now and hope that you do decide to purchase a premium package here for the summit. This is an example of decision right here. Like how much do you want to take your health into the next hand, Like decide just to do it. Like exactly, Exactly. Okay. All right. So next question. Now, as we've talked about, those three things are what is it that people sometimes don't understand or perhaps get wrong income binding these things.

So these this is a powerful trio right here. Right? We're talking about mindset. You're actually taking the action and the nutrition fueling the activity. We're great questions. So it's kind of like a tripod if you think about it, like nothing is going to stand up without all three legs. Like you need the three, you need the triangle here. So none of this works by itself. You cannot just mindset yourself, yourselves, take actions. You cannot just work out. You've got to have the nutrition piece and you certainly can't do the nutrition and the workouts without believing it's possible for yourself.

You're going to. That's when I hear people say, Nothing works for me. I've tried everything. That's the problem. They literally have tried probably not everything, because you really haven't tried everything, but you've tried a lot. And the reason it's not working, as you haven't shifted your mindset, you have to believe it's possible. So you have to do all three. It's not an option. It's not negotiable. All three are critical. Yeah, all three are definitely critical. You know, I think about my family's health history on both sides, my mother's side and my father's side.

My father's side with such rampant type two diabetes, other kinds of diabetes, including type one pre-diabetes. You know, the genetic hand is such that I have to be ever mindful and I look at my mom side with heart disease and cancer and problems with obesity, and I'm just like, wow, yeah, I really have that metabolic trifecta, don't I? So I but. You could have gone down that whole story. You're a perfect example of is this going to be my my story? Is this going to be who I am or am I going to change this?

Am I going to learn about it? I'm going to fix it. And one thing that you do so well and I believe I do this too, is by teaching others, we solidify it for ourselves. It keeps us accountable. Absolutely right. And for me, it's been a delight to be able to figure out the pieces of the puzzle and help others put the pieces of the puzzle, because sometimes we get these unusual reactions. You tease at the beginning something about bile, individual responses to food, how sometimes there might be one or two foods you think of as healthy.

You then maybe aren't, and you use a glucometer or you use a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, or you might use to strip a little bit of blood. Yeah, a fingerstick. Right. And a glucometer to figure out if you're having an unusual reaction to an otherwise healthy food, because there are people who have unusual reactions to things like the cauliflower, etc.. Or sweet potatoes. Like for me it like they completely skyrocket and for some people they don't. Yeah. Okay. And for you with sweet potatoes, with the sweet potatoes, with the skin on a sweet potato, skin off.

You know, I don't think I observed if it was a difference on either. I don't know that I tried that, but that's a good choice. And but and I actually stopped wearing the monitor after I figured out what was going on with my situation for a while. Because that monitor can get a little it can make you a little nutty if you're doing it all the time. But yes, you're correct. Some people have no reaction to certain foods and some people it will trigger others. Another thing I want to bring up too, is just because you think you're eating healthy or you could be making your blood sugar worse, like, for example, the gluten free.

I happen to be a celiac, so I am gluten free. I have to be. A lot of people just choose to be gluten free or have a gluten intolerance. But typically gluten free processed foods are higher on the glycemic index. So you want to do your thinking, you're have rice noodles and you're going to do something healthier for yourself. You're going to spike your blood sugar away more. That's absolutely right. I'm glad you brought that up. Sometimes people will do one thing that they perceive as being healthy when actually it might not be the right move for them.

That's right. They test on guess. However, we're doing the testing. Also, you know, I wanted to share. I was on the airplane not too long ago and I was sitting in first class and I was I watched them bring the diabetic meal to somebody next to me. And I just want to share it was on this diabetic meal. Okay. It was a yogurt with sugar, like fruit yogurt with lots of sugar in it, like a fake one, like a Yoplait or something. It was a bowl of oatmeal. It was a banana and it was a piece of toast. Now, how is that diabetic friendly.

So I just want to share that. Like, this is so important to educate yourself because you can't just trust, you know, the airplane attendant. You can't just trust the chef at the restaurant. You can't just trust your friend that's making it. You've got to really understand food and how you're balancing it and making sense of it for yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. I last year, before one of my beloved aunts died from complications of Type 2 diabetes, I was visited in the hospital and the diabetic meal that they brought her was King Peaches.

So peaches and clinks here, Right. So people look in on them. Yeah. And you're bathed in is high for that fructose. Yeah. Right. They brought her the oatmeal. Yeah. They have nuts, seeds, anything. Now it's like, completely the opposite of a diabetic meal. Yeah. Yeah. So people love just plain white bread. And then what. Should you be having breakfast? Let's talk about it. Like, Okay, let me give you I'll give you some a couple examples. Like you could have eggs with some avocado and some strawberries.

That is a perfectly low glycemic, amazingly diabetic friendly meal. And you'd be amazed at how you're focusing your energy of the day, having that you could have you can make a smoothie, you could use low glycemic fruit like berries. You could add in a big scoop of nut butter. You can add in some vegetables to that and you can you can add in a really natural protein powder. That would be amazing. You could have turkey bacon and you could have some avocado with that and some low glycemic fruit. There's a lot of things you can do that are not going to spike that blood sugar.

You're going to feel very different all day long. Absolutely. Things that'll burn even in your stream and also leave your brain feeling great. You know, And for some people, I find they are tuned into the things around cravings and hunger pangs. Can you talk to us about that? Yeah. Okay. Fuse on this. So this is really so if I were to get up today and instead of having what I just describe for breakfast, I'm going to go make pancakes because I want pain. They're gluten free and I'm going to have them.

I'm going to be forever hungry the rest of the day. Why? Because as I'm eating no high carb, high sugar meal, I'm spiking more insulin and I'm going to create this up and down crash. So my body is going to constantly try to get back to the state of correction. The more you're eating those high carbs, high starchy meals, the more you're going to have cravings because of this insulin spike. Now, this is kind of where the low carb keto trend came from. It's like, okay, let's get rid of it. It's not so much low carb or keto that's working for you there.

I mean, somebody might argue that it is. To me, it's more that you're balancing the right proteins, carbs and fats, the right types of carbs. You're not having these high starchy, high glycemic carbs.

Putting It All Together: Team, Testing, and Takeaways 31:00

So that so cravings to me for the most part, most people, not everyone, most times the cravings are coming from that spike. Okay, What else causes cravings? Well, hormone changes. Hormone changes will create this. Like if you are not perimenopause or menopausal, then you have your cycle. You'll notice an upswing in cravings right before your body is craving those extra calories. It wants those things for a reason. However, it's dangerous just to keep to a craving because it's a l continue the cycle. You'll keep wanting more and more.

Another reason you can have cravings. Poor gut health. Now people might roll their eyes to something like parasites, but 40% of people have parasites. They don't know about that. That was a cause of my blood sugar, by the way, and those thrive off of sugar. So parasites will win. They will. They don't. They want to live. They don't want to kill you. They want you to live. They will hijack your brain and they will tell you to eat sugar. I'm telling you, I thought that was wackadoodle Until I experience that it will tell you to eat sugar.

That's. That's what happens. They're bad. Bacteria will crave sugar to survive. You've got yeast in your system. You've got to kill that stuff off. So you're not having those cravings. Those are the main reasons for cravings. Okay, super. Thank you for pointing that out. You know, it's interesting when when we are literally inhabited by other organisms, they kind of hijack the. Systems, right. To save it to their direction so that they can live at your expense. That's right. All right, cool. So as we look towards wrapping this up, Natalie, what is what are some take home take away things you want people to remember when they're looking to have better blood sugar control, to take responsibility for their outcomes, make sure their health professional team is really helping them being well and not sick.

You know all of that. What's your advice? So I'd say, number one, make a decision right now that you want to take this on. Like really have a talk with yourself. Like, is this important to you? Because that decision is where we have to lay our everything next start like map out your vision for this. Like who's on your team? Who's in your team? Like, I don't personally choose to go to just a general Western medicine doctor that just because they take my insurance like that's not. And by the way, insurance should never dictate your treatment.

I understand it's important. Like we want to you as insurance. I understand not everyone's in a position, but I just want to challenge you to think a little bit differently there. The cost of poor health is going to way outweigh paying out of pocket for a few really great practitioners in your pocket. So have your Western medicine insurance cover doctors for some things and make sure you are working with somebody that like Dr. Yates that is going to they are out of pocket for a reason. Like they're going to take more time with you.

They've got the knowledge they've got they're going to really hole in in customize for you, but that's super important. Make that part of your vision that you want those people in your on your team. And then next thing is when it comes to actions, that's after decision and vision. But don't really take a hard look at your diet. Are you eating unprocessed natural foods? Are you combining things? Are you really doing everything that you can and are you getting real with yourself, with your workouts?

Are you progressing? Are you do you have intensity? Like really have a talk with yourself about that? I find most people that life's not working for them. They're not doing all these things. They just aren't. That's the truth of it, really. You know, you have to find the combination is going to work for you. And while some of these things may sound simple, I challenge you. They're not necessarily easy now. They will fail 100% of the time. Yes. Yes. You got it. All right. Great. Thank you so much for sharing your insight and your wisdom, your own journey and the ways in which you inspire and help.

So many people reach for that. So much better quality of life and getting that zest and joy back, because I personally believe we're all meant to be well, and we just have to figure out how to do that. Thank you.