267: Your Brain & Your Blood Sugars
This episode focuses on how our thoughts directly impact actions and results, particularly for those dealing with diabetes, prediabetes, or challenges with weight loss. It explains how negative thoughts about eating to reverse your diabetes or improve your blood sugars can sabotage health goals. Women struggle with cravings and unhealthy food choices, but it’s the way you think about food that keeps you stuck and sick. By challenging those automatic thoughts, especially around unhealthy eating habits, women with diabetes can gain control over their health. The key to reversing diabetes is to understand and manage your mind, allowing cravings to pass, and managing healthier thought patterns.
266: Sleep for Better Blood Sugars & Your Diabetes!
In this episode, we explore the crucial connection between sleep and diabetes management. We’ll clear up common misconceptions about sleep, discuss its impact on insulin resistance, and share practical tips to enhance sleep quality. Drawing on the work of top sleep scientists like Dr. Matt Walker and Dr. Satchidananda Panda, we’ll break down how sleep cycles work and why at least seven hours of sleep is essential. We’ll also cover how poor sleep leads to bad food choices and increases health risks. Plus, we’ll discuss the effects of sleep aids, caffeine, and alcohol on your sleep cycles and overall health.
EP265: Stress Management with Licensed Professional Counselor, Eva Whitmer
This episode is a conversation between me and trauma therapist, Eva Whitmer, LPC. We discuss the Polyvagal Theory, the Window of Tolerance, and a strategy for determining why you emotionally eat. Eva also uses a great analogy for explaining why managing stress is so important if you are going to fix your diabetes and start seeing better blood sugars! Check the podcast out and let me know what you think!
EP264: 14 Day Guide as a Fix for Your Diabetes
This episode reviews the 14-day guide, along with tips on adjusting the meals in the guide and where to find additional resources for fasting, exercise, meditation, and sleep to support your journey to better health.
This episode also dives into why planning is key to managing type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. Unlike typical diet programs, making and implementing a plan works on re-wiring the brain. Making decisions from the prefrontal cortex, which prioritizes long-term health goals over immediate gratification. The episode highlights the importance of using a plan to avoid allowing your primitive brain to make decisions that will derail your progress.
Check it out! Tell me what you think!
EP263: Buffering Stressful Emotions & Diabetes
This episode discusses the concept of “buffering,” where women use food or other activities to avoid negative emotions or situations. If you have type 2 diabetes, this often means eating unhealthy foods when feeling stressed or overwhelmed, leading to insulin resistance and a sense of being out of control. The episode differentiates between “true” pleasures, like spending time with loved ones, which bring slow, long-lasting joy, and “artificial” pleasures, like processed foods or social media, which offer quick but temporary satisfaction and often lead to negative consequences. Understanding and managing these behaviors is key to better health.
EP262: Impact of Stress on Diabetes, Blood Sugars, and Insulin Resistance
In this podcast episode, we explore the impact of stress on insulin resistance and diabetes. While diet and exercise are crucial for managing blood sugar, stress plays a significant role too. Stress can lead to insulin resistance by affecting beta cell function, lipid metabolism, inflammation, and the autonomic nervous system. High stress levels increase cortisol and disrupt the balance of our fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest systems. Managing stress through deep breathing, meditation, exercise, and other techniques can help reduce its negative effects. Learning to control stress and rewire our thoughts can significantly improve long-term health outcomes. Check it out. Let me know what you think!
EP261: Fiber & Diabetes
This was such a fun podcast to record with such cool information and science!! Some of my favorite things! I dive deep into the importance of fiber. If you haven’t already, download the 14 Days to Better Blood Sugars guide from www.delanemd.com/better! Fiber is crucial as it feeds your gut microbiome, which plays a significant role in metabolic health, including diabetes management. Both soluble and insoluble fibers are essential, found in seeds, nuts, and whole grains. Fiber not only aids digestion but also protects the gut lining, produces vital chemicals like GABA and serotonin, and helps manage your mood. Improve your gut health by eating a variety of fiber-rich foods and avoiding processed items. I discuss strategies and recommendations! Check it out. Try it out. Tell me how it goes!
EP260: Decide What to Think for Better Blood Sugars
In this episode, I discuss how to make decisions ahead of time, especially with food choices. Your primitive brain craves instant gratification, while your prefrontal cortex makes decisions in your best interest. Planning ahead engages the prefrontal cortex, helping you avoid impulsive choices.
For example, it’s possible to NOT think, “This salad isn’t satisfying,” and instead decide to think, “This salad provides necessary nutrients.” This shift can help you feel more satisfied and improve your health.
Use this strategy not just for what you eat but also for how you feel about it. Plan how you’ll think and react to different situations to support your health goals. Check it out. Try it out. Let me know how it goes!
EP259: Joy-filled, Diabetes-free Vacations
This episode explores the concept of joy and how to cultivate it in life and vacations. Joy is subjective; it could be running or paddling with family, or simply enjoying a movie or time with friends. To maximize joy, identify what brings it to you and explore new experiences. While food can be joyful, it’s important not to rely on it alone. Create joy through adventures, deep conversations, music, and nature. Personal examples include family car rides, bonding with children, and cherishing time with friends and parents. Ultimately, true joy comes from meaningful moments and connections rather than just food or drinks.
Check it out!
EP258: Better Blood Sugars on Summer Vacation!
In this episode, I focus on managing a healthy vacation effectively. I emphasize the importance of envisioning what a naturally healthy vacation means to you and then I dive into tools to use for a healthy vacation. I discuss planning as the foundation. Tools for achieving a healthy vacation include fasting, exercise, low carb/keto diets, stress management, adequate sleep, and how apple cider vinegar and lemon water can help. This podcast stresses making deliberate choices and staying in control, especially when faced with unfamiliar food choices while traveling. It encourages mindful eating and staying calm to maintain control over blood sugar levels and overall health during vacations.
