Transcript:
Good afternoon. Welcome to another episode of the TheDVCC.com podcast. I’m Mark Gray.
Stephen: And I’m Stephen. Hello.
Mark: So, good afternoon. It’s a lovely day here in Milton Keynes. It’s really nice and sunny. It’s quite warm. It’s going to be an early summer, I reckon.
Stephen: Hopefully. Hopefully, we’re going to get some nice warm weather.
Mark: Get outside and get the Vitamin D. Increase your Vitamin D3s. Good. So today, we wanted to talk about how to stabilize your blood sugar. So, what is blood sugar? Let’s go through this next one. What we’re going to try and do is we’re going to try and break it down into well, explaining what it is, why you want to stabilize it and what you can do right now to kind of help yourself, how it will help with fat loss and weight loss, and then whatever else we kind of go off on a tangent on which we’re prone to do.
So, first things first, what is blood sugar? What is stabilizing blood sugar?
Stephen: Well I think the way to explain it, we’ll probably talk about it in a way that most people know it, is a lot of people refer to it as their energy levels another time. If your blood sugar is low, then people tend to be low in energy. Your brain function goes down so you’re not able to function so well. You can’t think straight and your reaction is slower. So I’m sure everyone’s had the experience where say, for example, they have not eaten something for a while, or in fact, they’ve eaten something really, really sugary. And then maybe an hour later, they found that they’re not feeling particularly good. Their energy levels are low. They’re really normally quite hungry. Sometimes you get like a lightheaded type feeling. And that’s actually where your blood sugar has gone very low where basically, you don’t have enough glucose in your body to run itself effectively. We’ll try and break it down as simply as possible. So it’s when you don’t actually have enough energy to run correctly.
Mark: Okay. So, that is what it is. Apart from the energy thing, how does it affect losing weight, putting on weight and other things like that?
Stephen: Well, it affects everything, really. It affects health, it affects how you function throughout the day and how your energy levels are. So everyone’s probably experienced where they’ve had dips and rises in energy, and often, that can be blood sugar-related. It also helps with fat loss. If your blood sugar is not very well regulated, then you’re going to be struggling to lose fat. Also, obviously people have heard of Diabetes – Type 2 Diabetes – and that’s actually a blood sugar/insulin management issue. Along with blood sugar, insulin comes. They’re symbiotic, side by side. So it’s really, really vital for how you function throughout the day, and fat loss is one of the important things as well.
Mark: So looking at it simplistically, if you eat foods and foods that rise and drop your blood sugar continuously for a long period of time, that is going to make you more likely to get Type 2 Diabetes.
Stephen: Right. You’re going to create what’s insulin resistance and you’re going to basically be a lot more likely to, one, put on weight, particularly around your stomach, and two, end up with Diabetes. So yes. Basically, with fat loss, particularly if we’re talking fat loss specifically, your blood sugar regulation is probably the most key or one of the top keys to actually losing fat.
Mark: Okay. And if you don’t regulate it, then you’re not going to be able to lose fat.
Stephen: And just a point there, Type 2 can lead to Type 1 Diabetes.
Mark: Correct.
Stephen: Which is obviously not very good. In fact, I know I’m going to bring up a subject you probably might not even want to talk about, but you’ve spoken to someone who was Type 1 diabetic and actually thought that it was fine to be injecting with insulin and using that as their way of kind of sorting out their blood sugar.
Mark: Yes. Well, my issue was that they were saying that they could be…
Stephen: They knew about it.
Mark: They knew about it, but they’re saying that they use it as a way to eat whatever they wanted so that they could then know that they could just inject themselves with insulin. It doesn’t matter what they’re eating. But it wasn’t my issue with them. That was their choice. It was actually they were saying, they were teaching their child all these sorts of things. Actually, it was the child that was insulin-dependent, wasn’t it? That’s right. And it was just they’re teaching him that it doesn’t matter what they eat because they could just use the EpiPen, or whatever it’s called, to sort it out.
Stephen: I just didn’t like their attitude they’re so obviously putting on to their child.
Mark: They’re obviously putting on to their child. Fine, choose it for themselves, but not for their child. He was like a five year old child, I think. But anyway, that’s beside the point. So let’s go then. So, we’re kind of breaking it down to the fact that you want to stabilize your blood sugar.
Stephen: And talking of other things that are really blood sugar-important. Talking, which I’ve had experience of a lot recently, women with PCOS, which is Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. That’s very much affected by insulin management. Obviously, we spoke about Type 2 Diabetes.
Mark: Okay. To be fair, we are seeing more people with PCOS, more ladies with PCOS. Like you say, that’s more prevalent now perhaps because…
Stephen: It may be that it’s being more diagnosed, but I actually had a discussion with someone who had it. And they said, no. It’s just a lot of their friends actually have developed it as well. That directly can be affected by insulin management. Effectively, your blood sugar management as well.
Mark: So what we’re talking about now really can affect someone wanting to lose fat around their stomach. It can be affecting someone who actually wants to not develop Type 2 Diabetes or has PCOS. So blood sugar, literally every single person is affected in some way by, and the weight, if you learn to manage it, you’re going to be affected positively.
Stephen: Exactly. So every single person.
Mark: So if you’re listening to this, you could be really healthy and the weight you want to be, but you will definitely benefit from doing things that will stabilize your blood sugar, and like we always say, developing the habits that will keep your blood sugar stable.
Stephen: I don’t want particularly to talk about the most obvious things that affect blood sugar because we’ve spoken about them a lot. So, for example, increase the amount of lean protein you eat, increase the amount of vegetables you eat, increase the amount of – well, we’re cover healthy fat a little bit. But we’re going to talk about extra added things that we can…
Mark: And they’re quite easy things. Things that you can do really like straight away. They’re quite easy. They’re not hard and it’s not going to be too much of a change for you, but you will notice the difference with weight loss, but also energy levels.
Stephen: So, why don’t you start us off, Mark? What’s the first one that you found…
Mark: To stabilize…
Stephen: And personally as well, I know, to stabilize blood sugar.
Mark: So, the first one probably is I would say coconut oil in warm water. So?
Stephen: It sounds nice?
Mark: It doesn’t sound too great. However, you can buy an unflavored coconut oil, and simply – this is all you need to do. So the first thing you want to – or afterwards – but the first thing you’re going to be drinking before eating is a teaspoon of coconut oil in warm water. I personally have two tablespoons, but if you’re going to start…
Stephen: Two teaspoons.
Mark: Teaspoons. That’s what I meant. If you’re going to start, start with one, and then build up.
Stephen: One teaspoon.
Mark: One teaspoon. And then you’ll end up like me with two teaspoons in warm water. So you let it dissolve, and then just drink it.
Stephen: So coconut oil, when they sell it, it comes hard. At room temperature, it’s solid. You can buy it in pretty much every single supermarket now. Like I say, it comes in a tub and it’s solid. So all you need to do is take a teaspoon. You can take a generous teaspoon, put it into some warm water, mix it a little bit and it will dissolve. So all you then have to do is drink it down.
Mark: So basically, that is healthy fat. Good saturated fats. And that’s going to stabilize your blood sugar.
Stephen: Straight away.
Mark: Straight away. But also, for the whole of the day. By stabilizing it at the beginning of the day, you’re going to find that you will find it a lot easier to keep it stable throughout the whole day.
Stephen: That’s one of the reasons we always recommend a high protein, high healthy fat breakfast because that stabilizes your blood sugar from the very beginning of the day. So your food choices throughout the rest of the day, your energy levels throughout the rest of the day are a lot better.
Mark: So you can do that at the beginning of the day. I’d start with just doing it in the morning, but you can also do it in the evening. The same thing, stabilizing your blood sugar. And also, you want to be cooking with coconut oil throughout the whole of the day. So, basically, coconut oil is better to cook with than olive oil because it keeps its properties under high temperatures. So when you’re cooking your chicken or whatever it is you’re cooking in a pan, you use coconut oil. And a lot of people, particularly ladies – and this isn’t sexist, but this is just due to the advertising and what most of us see – believe that low fat is better. But that’s wrong. You want good fat. So you’re not going to put on weight, you’re not going to put on body fat from eating things like coconut oil. You’ll actually end up losing fat, looking better and being healthier. And so cook with coconut oil.
Stephen: I actually read a very interesting study how they looked at when the low fat kind of fat came into play and they correlated it with the rise in obesity and they actually very much go together. That people that try to shy away from calories – so in other words, try and drop their amount of fat, actually ended up with higher amounts of body fat.
Mark: Because it doesn’t take into account – which is a much bigger danger – sugar.
Stephen: Right.
Mark: Sugar. And the reason for sugar is it really messes up your insulin management and blood sugar management.
Stephen: So yes. Like Mark says, coconut oil, a teaspoon. And you can develop to two teaspoons in warm water on an empty stomach in the morning. And then, if you want to move it too, you can do it the last thing at night as well.
Mark: Yes. Exactly. The first time, that you would have it in the morning. You always want to have it in the morning. Sometimes you can get away with not having it in the evening, basically. But you always want to be having it in the morning.
Stephen: Where did we hear about that? Where did we first hear that?
Mark: That was actually we had to do a…
Stephen: Oh, that we were doing some fitness modeling.
Mark: It was fitness modeling and we needed to drop some body fat because when you get in naked, generally or most people need to watch their body fat.
Stephen: And we found that really effective.
Mark: Really effective, really effective. So, actually, I wanted to mention this. I was going to mention it maybe as the next thing, but one thing I found very recently is I like coffee. So I like to have a black, organic coffee. I don’t have any milk in it. And what…
Stephen: Perhaps you’re having Donna’s coffee.
Mark: Well I don’t put milk in Donna’s coffee.
Stephen: I sort of meant organic.
Mark: So what I found really nice, actually, is a tablespoon of coconut oil in black coffee. It sounds horrible, but I found it gives me really, really good energy, and it actually tastes good as well.
Stephen: Yes.
Mark: So all you have to do is make your normal coffee. I use a tablespoon. You can use less if you’d like. If you’re a lady, maybe a teaspoon, maybe two teaspoons. And you mix it in your black coffee. It tastes awesome. It gives you really loads of energy.
Stephen: On a side note, it’s kind of interesting. Sometimes when you sit – we’re in the car again, doing our podcast – you do see some unhealthy habits.
Mark: Very young people smoking cigarettes. They’ve got to be…
Stephen: I reckon they got to be 12?
Mark: 12 years old is my guess.
Stephen: Would it be wrong to say so? Would you say something or would you not? Because I feel that someone should say something.
Mark: On a side note or even more, I saw a brilliant advert. I think it’s for stopping smoking. It was children of about 4 to 6 years old. They’re going up to people that were smoking and asking them – they had a cigarette in their hand – asking for a light.
Stephen: Right.
Mark: It was amazing. The response obviously from these adults was, “No way! You don’t want to start smoking. It’s terrible. It’s all of this kind of things,” and basically telling the child, “Never start smoking. Don’t do this.” Then the child – I think it was handed over as he was saying, “So why are you doing this to yourself?” And then walked off. It was amazing, their looks, because they obviously filmed it like candid cam style. The looks on these adults was amazing.
Stephen: Yes. I’d like to say something, but I’m not going to because we’re in the middle of recording a podcast. But maybe it’s not my place to say. Discuss. Put in your comments below.
Mark: A good point there. What do you think on that?
Stephen: Obviously, they’re young enough to not develop the habit now, and adults are different because they can make a choice, an informed decision. But children are very influenced by others. So obviously, they’re not making that choice, I would imagine.
Mark: Well, apparently they – yes.
Stephen: Soon to be, but… Anyway, moving on, let’s move on. What’s another very good way of stabilizing your blood sugar, which is obviously going to help with fat loss, but helps with a lot of other stuff, Mark?
Mark: Cinnamon. Using cinnamon.
Stephen: Cinnamon.
Mark: So I often – I think we might have even said on a previous podcast about when someone has say oats for breakfast or whatever. Putting cinnamon on top helps increase their insulin sensitivity. Cinnamon used throughout the day, cooking-wise, is great.
Stephen: Yes. You can also – again, we spoke about coffee – put it into your coffee. A teaspoon, a tablespoon into your coffee can be very good. That helps stabilize your blood sugar.
Mark: Actually, Starbucks has a drink. Cinnamon Super Fat Latte or something [Laughs].
Stephen: Really?
Mark: Yes [Laughs]. I wonder if they’re trying to – or it’s just the taste.
Stephen: But yes, cinnamon is a very good way of stabilizing your blood sugar. Actually, one of the most effective natural ways of doing it.
Mark: And it tastes nice.
Stephen: Yes, it tastes nice. You can hide it in food if you don’t like the taste as well. But have it in every single meal somehow and you’ll find that your blood sugar is that much more stable, and which will help with fat loss.
Mark: Is it used in hot cross buns?
Stephen: [Laughs]
Mark: There’s a question. I don’t know that.
Stephen: Raisin.
Mark: Hot cross buns? Is cinnamon used in hot cross buns? If you can answer that, that will be great. I don’t know that that holds true though. I suppose if you’re going to have hot cross buns, probably it’s better to have cinnamon ones.
Stephen: Yes, true. But overall, if you can add it to your normal meal, then you’re going to find it’s better for better fat loss.
Mark: Okay. But I’d like to know that by Easter time, please, if you could help me. Help me out because we do get lots of comments.
Stephen: A response by Easter?
Mark: Yes.
Stephen: Okay.
Mark: Yes, I think they are. We do get lots of comments and emails and people basically educating us on these things. So I’d appreciate you letting me know, yes, on all of those points, and comment below.
Stephen: So what’s the next? So we’ve covered coconut oil in both taking it with warm water and also cooking with it and putting it in your coffee. Cinnamon, again as well, putting it in your food, and it can also go in your coffee if you’d like, or to tea if you’d like to. What’s the next thing, Mark?
Mark: You kind of touched on it right in the beginning, but it’s the same thing. It’s fibre. And fibre, clearly, we’ve talked about it a fair bit. I mean, in quite a few ways of losing body fat and ways you can lose body fat using fibre. So increase your vegetables.
Stephen: Fibre is key, isn’t it? Fibre is key. So whenever you’re at any of the DoubleVision Conditioning Centres and you’ll speak to someone maybe who has just become a client, who has just joined, and they’ll say, “Yes, I eat really healthily. I eat banana for breakfast or I eat a lot of fruit,” and then when you discover, that can be bananas and things like that because people tend to like bananas better, it seems. They’re easier to eat. But we have to explain to them that while yes, it is a fruit and it’s a healthy fruit, it contains very, very little fibre. And therefore, for fat loss, it’s not very good. So that’s something to mention actually, that bananas are not very good for fat loss. The reason being they don’t have much fibre. So the thin-skinned fruits such as blueberries…
Mark: Blackberries.
Stephen: Blackberries and things like that. Anything that ends in “berry,” actually, contains a lot more fibre, and therefore, is a lot better for fat loss. But anything you can do to increase the amount of fibre in your diet, in your normal eating day-to-day, will be good at stabilizing your blood sugar. So like Mark mentioned, increase the number of vegetables you have. Literally, you cannot overeat green, leafy vegetables. No one ever put on fat by eating too many vegetables. They have too much fibre and they’re really, really good for stabilizing your blood sugar.
Thus, when you’re talking about potatoes, white potatoes have got very little fibre and they’ve had a little bit taken out. That’s why they were white. So a sweet potato has a lot more fibre in it than a normal potato, for example.
Mark: It’s the fibre. Basically, when you’re looking on shop packets, you want to look at the fibre content of something. Something that’s processed generally has very little fibre in it.
Stephen: That’s why you say they’re white foods. Because they’ve had their color stripped out of them, and with that, they’ve had the fibre stripped.
Mark: Yes, because they’ve had a lot of stuff taken out, which is their natural thing. So, talking actually fibre, fruit juice. People go, “Fruit juice must be healthy for you because it’s fruit, right?” But, the healthy part, the stuff that really is good, which is the fibre, has been taken out. So it’s basically concentrated sugar. So that’s why we really don’t recommend you to drink fruit juices for fat loss. It’s not very good for weight loss at all. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’ll actually help you put on fat, particularly around your stomach.
So, I think we’ve – obviously, I can tell that it’s for all – would you know, the old…
Stephen: It’s the [iron, ironman].
Mark: The rag person comes by us with his bell. We thought it would be nice and quiet. But anyway. So, another way you can get fibre is actually to take it in supplement form. So this is actually…
Stephen: I – sorry.
Mark: I just ordered some more, actually. I ran out the other day. But I rotate, you rotate your fibre. So we’ve said this before, but you want to – there are so many different types of fibre. Apple Fibre Pectin…
Stephen: Psyllium husk.
Mark: Exactly. You can just rotate them. So you don’t want to be taking the same one all the time because you can develop an intolerance. So you just rotate them all. They’re all very cheap. I’ve just ordered some Apple Fibre Pectin I think from…
Stephen: MyProtein.com, yes.
Mark: MyProtein.com. Check it out. Search “MyProtein” and you’ll find it. It’s quite a big UK one. If not, Poliquin.com is the best one. But it’s from Europe so sometimes it can take a bit of time to…
Stephen: But the best time to take it is actually first thing in the morning, and then the last thing at night. Actually, a side note is it’s very, very good. The amount of fibre you intake is very important for how much fat you lose from your legs and lower body. So your bum, thighs.
Mark: Because it helps detoxify.
Stephen: And that goes back to I think Podcast 3 where you can eat certain foods and do certain things to lose fat from certain areas, and that’s estrogen.
Mark: So fiber is key to that. So you have to try and have as much fibre as you can have. Actually, one thing, if you do start taking fibre in powder form, is don’t go and take – we recommend eventually building up to 15 grams in the morning, 15 grams in the evening. Don’t go taking that straight away. Build it up. Half a teaspoon in the morning, maybe half a teaspoon at night, and build it up over time. Otherwise…
Stephen: It will not be pretty.
Mark: It’s a relatively painful experience if you do do it wrong. So like he says, just start off small. Like Steve says, start off small and you’ll gradually increase, and you’ll be at that amount before you know it, but feeling a lot better for it.
Stephen: But the lesson it’s the fibre that’s the key.
Mark: Yes, exactly. Fibre.
Stephen: To stabilizing your sugar, losing fat around your stomach, particularly.
Mark: Right. The last one, I think. Have we got time?
Stephen: Yes, we’ve got time.
Mark: Basically, fat. We talked about it a little bit with the coconut. Talk about it some more.
Stephen: Well, one of the best ways to stabilize your blood sugar is by having enough healthy fat. So, when I say healthy fat, we’re talking avocado, olive oil on cold food, cooking in coconut oil, nuts. They’re all examples of healthy fat. Now what happens is when people start to naturally lower their carbohydrate because maybe they’re cutting out processed foods, and a lot of those processed foods come in the form of carbohydrates, the fact that you like sugary things and pasta and stuff like that, they tend not to actually add any healthy fat to replace that. So what happens is that their blood sugar can still be up and down a little bit.
So what you need to do if you are lowering your carbohydrate is not to be scared of healthy fats. Your body will not lose fat if it doesn’t have enough healthy fat. That’s one of the biggest fears for particularly – again, not being sexist, but women and Weight Watchers and things like that, they do target women, obviously. And so a lot of that sort of education where you have to be scared of fat goes towards women, and it’s the worst thing you can do, is try and avoid fat, because you will not lose fat. Your body will not allow you to if you’re not able to regular your blood sugar and healthy fat is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do it. So don’t be scared. Don’t be scared of healthy fat.
Mark: No, exactly. You can do a lot of things. So for example, my girlfriend this morning, she likes bananas. I think she was going to buy one on the way to work or whatever it was and I suggested that she has a few nuts – 10 nuts, I think it is – with that banana. And that’s going to help her blood sugar. Okay? So simply having fat with some foods can actually reduce the impact it has on you.
Stephen: That’s true. Very true.
Mark: But ideally, she shouldn’t have had a banana. It’s bad for her. She should have some blueberries. Let’s hope she doesn’t listen to this. Otherwise, I’m going to be in trouble.
Stephen: You are in trouble. She’d cooked for me a very nice meal.
Mark: Right. So, I think we’ve given you enough workables now so that you can start integrating these into your day, and you’ll find that you’re going to start losing weight really quickly actually. You’ll feel a lot better straight away with the things like coconut oil in your water. But then you will start losing weight. It takes about a week, to be fair. Not very long at all.
Stephen: It really does. It can’t be underestimated how important stabilizing your blood sugar is for…
Mark: Yes, for, like you said, energy, but also hunger. You’ll feel a lot more hungry if your blood sugar suddenly drops and you’re low. So that’s why eating sugary foods, great! You feel on top of the world for the moment you’re eating them, and then you feel awful half an hour, an hour later because your blood sugar just drops. Because you’ve raised your blood sugar so high, insulin kicks in, and then it just falls. Your blood sugar just falls.
Stephen: Okay. So, workables for you to do now is choose one of the things we just talked about and start integrating it, whether it’s the coconut oil or increasing your fibre. Whatever it is, choose one and start doing it today. Let us know. Comment in the box below. Let us know which one you’re going to do and we can help with some tips or things. Think realistically how much fibre do you have in the day. Ask yourself that question throughout the day and just see how much fibre you have throughout the day.
Mark: Alright. Until next week. See you later. Bye-bye.
Stephen: Bye-bye.
