Balancing Blood Sugar During Menopause with Dr. Beverly Yates

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Foreign. Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Welcome and thanks so much for joining me. This is Ask the Health Expert. Here I put the power of health in your hands and give you access to the top people in health and wellness. In each episode, I share safe ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut, health detox and lots more. So if you want to get healthy and get off the dieting for life merry go round, I'll give you strategies that will help you look and feel better fast. All right, so we are going to do a tall order today.

We're going to transform your blood sugar.

To regain your mojo, boost your energy and rev up your metabolism. And and I'm bringing Dr. Beverly Yates to you and I know that she can do this. She is just an amazing expert in blood sugar and really how to control your morning blood sugar that will help you have it better all day long. Let me tell you a little bit about her. She started out as an MIT electrical engineer and systems engineer and then went off to naturopathic school because that's how one follows the other. But interesting because she has that MIT background. She's an engineer. She has a very systems process approach and she's used that to create the Yates protocol and that is a program for people who have blood sugar issues. And she is now like she is on a mission. Dr. Beverly is. She's on a mission to help 3 million people heal from type 2 diabetes and pre diabetes. She's now an internationally recognized speaker and expert in diabetes, menopause and metabolism. She is a published author both of the Heart Health for Black Women, A Natural Approach to Healing and Preventing Heart Disease and the co author of multiple books including one with my buddy Jack Canfield, the Soul of success. I love Dr. Beverly as a human being. As a woman she's amazing and as a practitioner she is really my go to in talking all things continuous glucose monitors. So super cool things she gave us is her book on how to interpret your CGM data and you can get that by going to jjvirgin.com cgmbook simple, simple. Okay. I'll be right back with Dr. Beverly. Stay with me.

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Doctor Beverly Yates, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here with you.

Well, so you wrote this thing about, like, what should we talk about on the podcast? And you go, let's take a deep dive into how to create an unfair advantage when menopause metabolism and blood sugar seem to conspire against we women as we age, right? And I'm like, all right, yeah, let's definitely talk about that. And I know you said we're also gonna just bust some myths. You are really, like, making huge waves in terms of blood sugar, diabetes, all of that out in the industry and especially around continuous glucose monitors, which we're going to dig into. So I'm excited about that. But I want to start first with blood sugar and why, like, and here's what I'll. I'll tell you what I start to notice and then you're going to tell us like, why this all happens. I started noticing in my women, 40 plus, 45 plus, eating great, you know, exercising, and yet all of a sudden their blood sugar is not like it used to be. They didn't have the blood sugar control. It was higher fasting than it should have been. What is going on with that?

Yeah, you know, it's fascinating, right? That age window really, for all of us. Things start to shift. Everyone ages 38 to 42, there's a few key dynamics we should be aware of that we're typically not taught. Right. So we' just taking a peek behind the curtain here during that age range is when all of your enzymatic reactions, all of them throughout the body, become a little bit less efficient. They drop off anywhere from 1 to 4% per year. This is why some of us appear to age more rapidly. This is why some of us start to notice that we don't recover. Like, let's say if we have, if we drink any alcohol, we might find we don't bounce back as quickly. Maybe if we're exercising, we find that if we're doing strength training or if we're doing aerobic training or really high intensity stuff, we can't do it as frequently as we used to. We have to put more time, more rest in there. All of those are clues that things are shifting. And so glycemic control or blood sugar regulation.

Yeah, that was actually my first sign that something was going on with me was I couldn't recover like I could before. And it was, it was real. I was like, what's going on here? Why not? Like, I just was kind of achy. So then as we talk about this, because we're really doing this trifecta now, talking metabolism, talking menopause, talking blood sugar, you know, you hear so often. It's funny because, you know, people talk about, oh, I'm going into menopause, like I'm just going to gain weight. You know, this is just the way it is. And then I was reading some news article written by a man. That's an important point. It was like, there's no difference as you go into menopause. I'm like, oh yeah, you get into this body for one, like one day as hormones are shifting, like, let's see how you, you last through this. Your sleep got disrupted and you're achy and yeah, I'm like, you know, guys should not be allowed to write about menopause. I don't know. Just thinking.

It's not a lived experience. Right, right.

So, I mean, menopause, metabolism, you're going through it, like, you just kind of have to say, this is. This is as good as gonna get for a while. What's. What do you think?

I think it's a transition period. Right. Like, think about what happens. What goes from childhood through puberty and adolescence to becoming a young adult. And then, you know, it's like the butterflies coming out of cocoon and revealed. Excuse me, revealed to the world. And when it comes to menopause, your reproductive window is what's shifting. It doesn't mean everything else has to change with it, though. But we have very little, I think, in the common dialogue, in the public discourse. There's not a lot of talk about what to expect other than doom and gloom. We don't have to have doom and gloom. We don't.

I know there's a lot of, like, evil jokes about it versus, you know, when you really start to go through it. What I view it as, and I'm hoping you can help with this. You know, this metaphor is, for me, it really felt like riding waves and riding waves, and the better you can get at your balance, right. And adjusting as the waves go, the easier it will get. So what are some of the things that someone can expect as they're going through menopause? What are some of those waves that they're going to have to ride?

That's a great metaphor. So let's use the waves metaphor. Right. You know, with that in mind, some things you can expect is that your energy, literally your energy, fundamentally your soul, is shifting. You're leaving that reproductive window, which means all energy and all of the variability that went with that reproductive ability is now, I would say, shifting and hopefully coalescing so that energy can come back into you. Because a ton has been going out, quite literally, whether it's through menstruation, maybe it's caring for others, whether it's kids, maybe your parents, a loved one or partner or spouse, Whatever your situation may be, there's just a ton of energy that goes out now. Menopause is a time to invite that energy to return so you can be about yourself, you know, make your self care, number one. But the reality is, in my experience, jj, is that for many of us, that's not quite our lived experience. Look at you.

Loud.

Yeah, right. It's not. We wish. Yeah, yeah.

But I do love that idea. And I think one of the important things for people to understand is, you know, when you make the shift. And I love the idea of all that energy going out once you make that shift. It is. It's actually. It's the. I think it's the easiest time of life.

It's simpler, for sure. Something I've loved about menopause is that I've gotten to this place my mother said I would get, which was, the things that used to bother me don't bother me anymore. And I am totally okay if people don't agree with me. Life is so much simpler.

That happened at 50. I was, like, going, how come that little button of, oh, you don't really like me or agree with what I say? That button. Why couldn't I have flipped that button at, like, 30? Maybe that's a legacy we can teach our kids because.

Wow.

Yeah. It's just kind of going, no, everyone's gonna like me. And, you know, I don't. I can. I could go outside. My hair doesn't look great today. It's totally fine. So that thing. So looking at menopause then, and kind of understanding that one of the first things that starts to go a little wonky is blood sugar. What can you do about that? Like what? I know we're gonna talk about continuous glucose monitoring, and I think that's just amazing, you know, but is this a point where we have an opportunity where if we do really double down on getting our blood sugar stable, it's going to help, and if we don't, we might end up kind of going down the diabetes route? What's happening here with that?

Yeah, there's a real shift. Right. So we have this hormonal dance that's going on. And for us as women, we're well aware of the dance and the detailed players. You know, you've got estrogen and progesterone, you've got testosterone, and they're all doing their thing. We've also got insulin, and that's shifting. And for whatever reason, estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone are not talked about in the same way that insulin is talked about. It's as if it's a whole other part of the body. I invite everyone listening to consider. Insulin is very much part of the hormonal team. Just like when you went into your puberty years, into your teen years, you may have had several months of maybe being a little more chubby. You see some kids, they almost look like little chipmunks. They have chubby little cheeks, and then boom, they usually grow. They literally grow right through it. Their body is transforming and changing. So similarly, when we go to menopause and we're on the other end of that bookend experience of our reproductive window, it's coming to a close. Our body has a shift in that energy. And for some of us, it can really make a change for our blood sugar management. The interesting thing is that for menopause specifically, different than the journey men go on with andropause, for women with menopause, as estrogen and progesterone start to drop and they need to, for menopause actually happens. What can happen then is that a stress hormone called cortisol can now start to take over the conversation and cause a rise in the release of blood sugar glucose, which means insulin now is going to come to try to catch it. And if those aren't well aligned, this is where you can get the insulin resistance. You can get the weight gain, you can get the mood shifts. Some women experience anxiety. This doesn't have to all be a problem. But if there are problems that show up, those are the ones that happen most commonly.

So what do you do about it?

Well, there are some key things to do. One is to make really sure as you go through your time approaching menopause, called perimenopause. And actual menopause when menstruation ends, is.

To make sure that time approaching menopause, how would someone know they were there?

Great question.

How much time could that take?

Sure. So perimenopause is that time window before it's truly menopause. So the definitions would be the time period for many women where their menstruation cycle shifts, usually pretty noticeably. So women who are regular become irregular. Women who are already irregular are really kind of in a longer time window between their menstrual cycle. So for many women, it will be either it will lengthen before it stops or it will get more frequent. So instead of having one menstrual cycle a month, they may have two. And for some of us, that's a terrifying thought. If it's a difficult moment, if your menstrual cycle is pretty easy, it's not a big deal. If your menstrual cycle is irregular, you just have to wait it out. But if you haven't had your menstrual cycle for at least 12 consecutive months, an entire year, that usually is medically defined as truly being in menopause.

Got it.

Just so we can recognize it.

So someone's in menopause and now they're pushing more on cortisol. And so their blood sugar's up, their insulin's up, they're starting to gain weight around their waist. I think the worst is all when you've got cortisol and insulin up. It's like a. You know, it's like your. Your waistline is just a target, a fat, fat, fat, like fat magnet.

It's a real problem. It happens.

So. So then what can someone do about that?

Well, a few things. One, as menopause approaches, or if you're already at menopause, be just like a hawk focused on sleep. You have got to rest. You have to have an opportunity for all these things to reset, in particular, your blood sugar, to reset your glucose levels along with insulin. You have to have contrast. So that's one making sure that you get the bed on.

Someone's sleep is just a disaster because they're having hot flashes and they're waking up. You know, it's like this is probably the most important time for sleep when you've got this adrenal, like you're pushing on these adrenals. But then they can't sleep. Now what?

Yeah, they're all buzzed up, right? So for some women, a great option would be bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to give them back the progesterone. Because progesterone is one of the key ways that women will be able to sleep and avoid insomnia and anxiety and a buzzy mind and all of that, so they get back that deep restorative quality of sleep. Another option could be herbs and supplements. They can be helpful during this journey. If cortisol really is running the show, then some particular herbs that are helpful have been shown to be ashwagandha, extracts from Magnolia rhodiola, particularly during the day, to help keep you from being too zipped up or too crashed. Because for some women, they just get so wired, but they're still exhausted, so they can't really function. And other women, they just crash. They never really get to the energy side of the equation. Right. They're exhausted. Everything, just the thought of doing anything, not actually doing it, the thought of it exhausts them.

Right now, are you helping people test or are you doing it based on how they're feeling?

Both. Both, depending on the severity of the symptoms. Most of the time we will run lab tests, but sometimes the symptoms are just really, really clear. I mean, really clear.

Look at me. And if you're having them test, what are you looking at specifically?

What are they? So we're looking at their balance of cortisol, where it is throughout their day and their nighttime. Right. Usually that's going to be a four point cortisol test. So morning, lunchtime, late afternoon, and then nighttime bedtime. Sometimes if someone has a big sleep disturbance, let's say they are having hot flashes, things like that, we could test cortisol during the night as well, so they're awake anyway, capture their saliva and also maybe do melatonin to see if their melatonin balance is right again. Most of these tests can be done conveniently, safely, sanely in your home. So you can collect your own saliva or your own urine in the comfort of your home. You don't have to go anywhere. It's very easy. The lab testing has gotten a lot more specific, I feel, and made more user friendly for sure. So anyone can be successful with these things. So we could test, not guess, have an objective measure. Listen carefully, make sure anyone you're working with is actually listening to you. I remember one of my professors in naturopathic medical school, this person said it so well, which is that anything can cause anything, anything. Listen to people with respect. Right? We have so much diversity in terms of our chemistry, our physiology. Like people are not identical, even twins, identical twins have variability in how they respond to things. Right. That's a big clue.

So one of the things that you do that I think is just fascinating is to help people get their morning blood sugar, their fasting blood sugar normalize, and to use a continuous glucose monitor, which it feels like is just really coming into more common usage. You know, it was really only used for people who had type 1 diabetes or were insulin dependent. And so I'd love to talk about them, how they're used, what you see is the role for them, and then how someone might be able to use this to really help get their hormones balanced, the blood sugar back on track, metabolism better, lose weight, all the great things. Dive in.

All right, cool. So continuous glucose monitors, also known as CGMs, are really a wonderful tool to use. They're simple and easy. You take your device, you just attach it very easily to your arm typically, and then you'll use an app and then you can look at your phone. You will have real time data about what's going on with your blood sugar.

Let's back up one sec. Because just even with that little piece of, you take a device, you attach it to your arm just so everybody understands there's a little tiny needle in your arm.

Right, right. Coming from the device, the CGM So now that's attached right here at the back, either arm. It's not magical. It doesn't have to be to the right or the left, either one. Right. And then now you have downloaded your app and then you're good to go. You have your smartphone there, put it by the device and you can read real time. What in the world is going on with your blood sugar? Everyone reports without fail that they have insights they would not have otherwise gotten. So even if you are otherwise a healthy person, or maybe you're someone who's more interested in just blood sugar for the sake of blood sugar or interested in metabolism. Right. It's a great way to know what's going on. People find out that things that they were eating and consuming that they thought were healthy that are on generic lists, this is healthier, this is anti inflammatory or blah, blah, blah. You find out your gut, your microbiome, your body is like, I don't like it, I'm spiking the blood sugar.

Yeah. Well, let's talk about how you would look at it then, because what really is a blood sugar spike? What about area under the curb? So someone wakes up in the morning. Walk us through what a good blood sugar would look like.

All right, sure. So when you first wake up, ideally your blood sugar levels should be, for a fasting morning, blood sugar number somewhere between 70 to 85. Now don't freak out if yours is 93. I just said it was ideal for it to be 70 to 85. Technically, anything under 99. So 70 to 99 would be under a concerning level, 100 or higher. For a fasting morning, blood sugar level is considered too high. And then we have degrees of that, like 120 or higher, 150 or higher. When people start to hit the 120s, 150s, certainly 200 higher. God forbid, at those levels, they're more likely to have type 2 diabetes. Perhaps it's maybe type 1 or pre diabetes. There are people who have paradoxically, somewhat higher fasting morning blood sugar numbers compared to their A1C, which might be lower. We're introducing a new term here, the A1C. So I want to be really clear. The fasting blood sugar is a snapshot in time of what your blood sugar is doing right in that moment when you awaken. It should have reset overnight and gone to that healthy range of 70 to 85. Let's say generally, liberally speaking, 70 to 99. Right. For whatever reason, if it doesn't do that and if it habitually consistently doesn't do that. Then you need to be concerned. If you're over at 100 or higher for fasting morning blood sugar because you know when you're asleep, you're not able to eat, you can't drink anything. Your blood sugar should reset and get to 70 to 85. There's no healthy reason why that wouldn't occur. That's a reasonable expectation. But for many people that's not what happens. So trouble can unfurl from there. With a cgm, you'll find out if your blood sugar is resetting. And yeah, you could use a glucometer with test strips, but then you have to keep doing the finger sticks and drop of blood. It hurts.

I used that to make sure that my CGM was working correctly. I'm like, well, this, this is not a fun situation.

It's not fun. It's hard. It's hard. Anyone with diabetes will tell you it's their least, least favorite thing. As much as it's life saving information, CGM is just way more convenient, right. It's easier.

And sometimes we have this morning, the morning fasting blood sugar and let's say it is, and you, then you thread a term. So let's define hemoglobin A1C so people understand what that is.

Sure. So A1C is the long term measure, the average of what your blood sugar has done over the past three to four months. Here's why it's that measure. Think about it. If you have a, if you, your bone marrow is what makes your red blood cells, and red blood cells is what the A1C is measuring is extra glucose. Extra blood sugar is literally on that red blood cell. So think about a plate. Let's say your, your bone marrow was putting out plates. And then as you have your plate come out of the bone marrow, it's shooting out, you know, millions of these things, right? If you have high levels of blood sugar, every single one of those new red blood cells gets coated with this extra blood sugar. So think of it as like powdered sugar on a donut and then you add sprinkles, right? Like that's the process. Now in a healthy situation, when these new red blood cells, so we're using this metaphor of plates are out, they're not getting sprinkled with the powdered sugar and sprinkles, right? It's not happening because it's healthy. In the unhealthy situation, it is getting hit with that extra blood sugar, that extra glucose, you know, the powdered sugar and sprinkles as My metaphor here. That's what's going on.

And what do you want your A1C to be?

Ideally, it's going to be under a 5.7. So somewhere from in the fours to a 5.6.

It's so interesting because I was taught early on, oh, you want it in the fours? And I go, I never see anyone in the fours.

Every once in a while I do.

It's like I see five, five point. And I've never been able to get a, like, mindset to 5.2 to 5.4.

It's interesting, right? I have a theory about that if you want to hear it.

I want to hear it.

Okay. So I feel like, jj, we're in a moment of some levels of human adaptation. And I think one of the reasons why we don't see people in the fore that most of us live in a life where there's just so much background stressors that our baseline blood sugar is higher than it has been historically true for humans.

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I would love. And so this thing happened. You didn't know about it, but I think I told about it. So stage at Mindshare this weekend when I started meditating, after about six months of meditating, I noticed I was like, this is weird. I dropped five pounds. And I was like, what the heck happened? And I was talking to Dr. Joe Dispenza and I said, you know, like, I haven't changed anything except I started to meditate. So what does that mean? I'm moving less, you know, like when you're right. And I go, and I lost five pounds. He goes, you know? Yeah, he made a joke because he always tells people to become nobody nowhere, no thing. He goes, it's the no thing diet. And. But it just shows you it is so important that our body's not a bank account. It's a chemistry lab. And my guess is, Beverly, is that if we were also monitoring blood sugar as people started to put something into their life, whether it's, you know, meditation or Tapping something that. That really helped their nervous system calm down, that their blood sugar would go down. Because one of the things I noticed early. Yes, love. Is I would have people come in and their triglycerides look good and like they're clearly in a metabolic syndrome.

Right.

But their blood sugar was elevated. Their diet was great, you know, but their blood sugar was up. And I'm like, okay, clearly there's something else at play here than just this. This wasn't a carb thing.

Definitely wasn't a thing.

It was a stress thing. And I'm so glad that you brought that up because it's. It's important for people to understand that you could be, you know, you're going to use the cgm, but you might see the CGM go up and you're like, wait a minute. What? What? Just why'd this happen?

Right.

So it doesn't mean how we might see stress there.

Yeah, yeah. So stress could be at play. It doesn't mean you're broken or the CGM is broken. I really want to make sure we get that message driven home. Because some of us are so much on high alert around our health. Understandably so. Today's world is a challenging health environment. Depending on your family's background and the environment in which you were raised. There's so many different factors to think about. And I don't think being obsessed or freaked out is helpful to health. I do think being focused and doing things that are relevant, though, are helpful to health. If you think about the role of stress, what does stress do? It helps you to fight, to flee, or to freeze. All three of which, yes, freezing includes the use of energy because you're ready to respond to something. Right. You're feeling perceiving a direct threat. Whether it's real or not, it almost doesn't matter. We are wired for survival. And as such, in order to respond to that threat is the release of the cortisol, the adrenaline, all those stress chemicals, and what's right with it? The release of your blood sugar. Your glucose is going to go up because your body's getting ready to put all that blood into your muscles to get you to safety. Even if it's hiding. That is freezing. Right. Okay. So with that scenario in mind, your insulin has to respond. If this is a chronic situation for you, it makes you primed to gain weight, because weight is an energy bank. It's a storage form of energy. Your fat bank is going to go up, not down in that situation. If people are having that perception, having the CGM you'll see that release of blood sugar when you're in a stress situation. Let's say you're stuck on a difficult work call. Maybe you have a difficult or challenging family moment. Whatever your situation may be in your life, whether it's personal things, things for business, stuff with family, neighbors, maybe you're watching the news, you know, a stressful.

TV show, don't do that, don't do that.

Right. That CGM is giving you great feedback. Similarly for blood sugar responses. And when you eat, you might see these big spikes on your cgm. Even though you're eating a food that's healthy, it could be reflection as well as a food intolerance. I know you talk about that a lot and what would it.

Let's get into some very specific numbers because I feel like, you know, the CGMs are out now and there's. But. And I'm so glad, by the way, everybody, you're getting a CGM book from Dr. Beverly. So yay. Because people need to understand how to unpack this data. No good having the data if you don't know what the heck to do with the data. So when you talk about a spike, what is that? What does that look like? What's about how long that goes on for? Like, let's now walk through some very specifics of what to look for.

For. Okay, so let's walk through it. Let's say you have your fasting morning. Blood sugar starts off in the healthy range, right? And then you eat your breakfast. Ideally, your blood sugar rises somewhere around up to no more than 20 or even no more than 30 points after a meal, within a half hour to an hour of the meal. So a gentle rise and then it should come back down to whatever it was right before you started your meal. So with a cgm, unlike the finger sticks with the glucometer test strip, you just look, you can export this data. It could not be easier. And it will tell you the number. So you'll see it right before you ate, you'll see it at the intervals that you would like to see it, or just keep looking at your phone, whatever makes you happy. So you can see it at 30 minutes later, an hour later. So let's say your blood sugar rose to 130 after you ate your meal. Then we would fully expect that if you started off with your blood sugar at 100 when you started your meal, that within two hours of completing the meal, you, it should be back to 100. That would be a healthy response. Now, some people that's not what happens. So go ahead.

Well, let's talk about some people. That's not what happened. And I'm going to like, we'll, we'll dig in a little bit more there and what.

Because you're important.

It's not just sugar. Go ahead.

It's not just sugar. So for some people, what will happen is they may have a delayed response. So a half hour later, it might be looking pretty good, even an hour later, but it might suddenly zip up at an hour and a half, two hours. They'll be like, whoa, hold on. I was just talking with a patient yesterday about this very phenomenon for him, and it's really interesting. He's learning to expand and work more broadly with his foods. And we've just gotten started, so this was our first call. And so I had him send pictures of what he was eating because I find that's the easiest path. And then it reflects back to people what they're doing. Right. So don't fill anything out. Just send me pictures. And so we go over it, you know, and so then he sends me his CGM. He's a type 2 diabetic in his case, along with some other health concerns. And one of his main go to things is tater tots. What? Exactly. We have got some work to do. But the good news is I've got him. Right? And so, you know, and we're trying to make. I'm making his nutrition culturally relevant because I want to be flavorful and put.

Ketchup on those tater tots.

No. Okay, well, the tater tots are going to be gone. That's got to be a food swap over the sweet potatoes and some other things.

You know, what's so great is you didn't even have to be the bad person. You just like the CGM told them. And I think what's important, it's interesting. I was at a trip, I was speaking and I was speaking at this in the Maldives, and they had this beautiful buffet, and on the beautiful buffet, they had these kiwi fruits that were peeled. You know, kiwi fruit's such a pain, but it was like peeled. It looked so pretty. And I love, love kiwi fruit. And I'm pretty like, you know, I'll eat maybe one or two servings of berries a day, like if that, you know. Well, I go to this buffet and I'm like, look at that. And I do this big old bowl of kiwi fruit and my blood sugar goes up to like 170 and I'm.

Like, oh, now you know, you got precious feedback.

No more of that one for me.

Yeah, yeah.

Another one that's going to happen is your blood sugar is going to come up with exercise as well. It can do that. So can you talk about that? Because I literally had a client just go, oh, my gosh, I'm doing my blood sugar monitor. And this happened with exercise. I'm like, well, yeah, so talk about exercise and blood sugar monitors and then let's talk about what you've seen. That can help keep it more balanced, too.

Sure. So sometimes people will notice that with exercise that their blood sugar goes up. This makes sense. Friends, here's why. Active working muscles are blood sugar sponges, as such.

That's such a good statement. Say it again.

Okay. Active working muscles are blood sugar sponges. There's no need to worry if your blood sugar goes up as it should appropriately when you exercise. When you're exercising, you're putting demand. You're doing work, your muscles are responding, your entire body is responding, releasing the extra blood sugar, the glucose, so that the muscles can keep doing their thing. You want that. You absolutely want that.

Yeah. That is so important. And it's a myth we have to bust. Because back when I started in the 80s, it was all about getting to your zone so you can use the most fat. I'm like, no, go lift heavy weights. It's going to use a lot of sugar and then you need to put more in there. So I think that's a really important thing for people to understand because you still have this whole long, slow distance and there's a role for that, too. But if you're wearing a cgm, you will see if you're doing intense exercise, yes, your blood sugar will go up.

And it's a healthy response. There is nothing pathological or bad about that. You want that, that's okay. And because you're using your muscles, you're putting demand on them, you're lifting those heavier weights. You know, that's just a better thing. Resistance and strength training are so important, especially as we age. If you want to live long, live well, go find some weights and start lifting them. Do that on a regular basis. Right.

Amen.

Your balance, like, and your physical balance, your mental balance and your blood sugar balance, all kinds of balance, friends, Right.

I am, I am on a mont. I'm like, on a, like, quest to get women to lift heavy weights.

Yes.

You know, right?

Absolutely.

For your hundreds.

It prevents so many problems, that's for sure. And so with this blood sugar thing, don't Freak out. If you CGM is reporting to you that you have blood sugar spikes, it's simply an increase. It is a natural physiological response to the fact you're putting demand on your body. Your muscles need that nutrient. They're getting it. Let it happen. We're good here.

So now you've. You're wearing a CGM and you're seeing that. Wow, this. This thing's like my kiwi experiment. But what about those people are just seeing it. You know, I'm. I think I'm eating healthy. It seems to be going up more. What are some strategies that you could be putting in place, you know, diet supplements, et cetera, that could help with restore some of that blood sugar balance along with.

Yeah, for most of us, you know, it's going to be about making sure you've got those quality proteins, those quality healthy fats, and you make friends with resistant starch because that is the complex, slow burning kind of carbohydrate that is your friend for some reason. Honestly, jj, it so annoys me. Carbs have gotten demonized. You remember how fat got demonized?

Yeah.

Well, now carbs have been demonized. I'm like, why are we demonizing?

It goes back and forth, goes back and forth and back and forth. The only one we seem to leave alone but we don't get enough of is protein. Protein just gets over in the corner and we don't eat enough of it. And then we go back and forth between, eat fat, don't eat fat, eat carbs, don't eat carbs.

It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So resistant starch, let's talk about your. Your favorite things there.

So for resistant starch, some of my favorites would be lentils, chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, and any of the. The bean family that you enjoy. It could be red beans, it could be pint beans, it could be black beans, it can be white beans, the navy beans, the Japanese adzuki beans, any of them. They all have their own flavor profile. Some taste more. More toasted or nutty. Some are pretty bland. But they're all very kind. And they already come packaged up with the slow burning resistant starch carbs. You've got your protein in those food families and you've got your fiber. Three for one. Wow.

Winner.

Absolutely.

When I wrote Sugar Impact diet, the, like, it looks like a, like, tribute to legumes, that book. But when I was digging into it, I'm like, oh, my gosh. These are. This is why I look at the paleo diet and I always think paleo plus, because I'm like legumes. You just. They're just such a great food. They're just incredible. And just a little bit each day can make a big, big difference. And then my buddy, Dr. Alan Christensen taught me that you can actually condition your gut and eat a tablespoon a day for a week, and then you won't have the big, you know, bean tooting situation.

Exactly. Those people sometimes are terrified of that. The other trick with that, in addition to that regular dose, like Dr. Alan Christensen talks about, is if you cook your own beans or not, if you buy them already cooked and they're in a can, is some people will say this to keep that liquid called aquafaba, you can, but we don't want to get too fancy here. Instead, rinse it out or, excuse me, pour it out, strain them, put regular water in, and soak them for another hour in just water, clean sauce of water. Right. Because that's essentially two rinses, effectively. Because when somebody else cooks them, you don't know if they did that. Some manufacturers, when they prepare their beans, put them through two rinses so that you get more of the fraction out of the beans. It makes it more likely that people will have flatulence or fart and toot and just be uncomfortable and be embarrassed. You know, they've got bloat, blah, blah, blah. Just get rid of all that drama and be able to eat the food.

And that aqua faba stuff turns.

Yeah, the bean juice.

Bean juice. The bean juice. We were at a mindshare mastermind retreat, and the chef, you know, it's always there, always take this on as a big challenge to try to feed us, feed all of us people. The chef made, using monk fruit and that bean juice, he made meringues delicious. And they were absolutely amazing. I was like, I can't believe you managed to make meringues from bean juice.

Who knew?

Incredible.

Who knew?

Wish I'd had a CGM on for that because it would be perfect. All right, so here's the cool thing is, again, we've looked at now, like, how to navigate menopause, really, by putting blood sugar at the forefront. That'll take care of your metabolism. And you are going to gift everyone a CGM book so that they can now. And this is really important because you've got to really understand these numbers, because otherwise there's no point in wearing one if you don't really get it. And so you'll have that available. And I'm going to put that@jjvirgin.com cgmbook Very obvious. Again, jjvirgin.com cgmbooks and Dr. Beverly Yates has got such great resources around blood sugar, blood sugar control, all the things you can do. So I totally recommend following her and getting involved with her information because she is just amazing. And the other thing that I gotta shout you out for, that I just love is the fact that, you know, if you look at most of the diet books, they don't take into account, like, people have different tastes and people have different cultures. And, you know, someone who's eating more of a Thai diet is gonna be very different than someone who maybe came over from Mexico and has more of a Hispanic flair. But most books never take any of that into account. And you've really been working hard on making foods that can be culturally appropriate. So all of a sudden you can go in and go, oh, like this. I totally love this. And you said it when you mentioned the tater tot. So I was like, okay, I just wanted to give you a shout out on that, because you're the only person I know who is doing this and not just doing it. So it's like, okay, it's appropriate for one culture, but you've really. You're empathetic to that in each culture because that alone could stop someone from being successful.

Absolutely. You know, a lot of us, our foods that we grew up with are our identity. It's part of our culture, part of our heritage. And for many people, if you ask them to make nutrition changes and you don't respect their cultural frame of reference, you will lose them. They will not be successful because it's just too hard to close the gap. Instead, show them how to eat those cultural foods in the healthiest ways possible. So, like a simple example for myself as an African American, for a lot of us, you know, in our cooking traditions, let's say we make something like collard greens. Collard greens historically may have been made with a lot of fat back. You know, so the fat, let's say, from a pig and a pork belly or bacon, things of that nature. Right. Ham hocks, et cetera. Instead, you could easily use turkey wings, or you could leave the meat out entirely and make it with water primarily, lots of spices to make it flavorful and rich to the tongue and the kinds of flavors that we culturally enjoy, minus the unhealthy oil.

And Dr. Beverly is an amazing chef, too, so you've got that. I remember you're telling me about using collard greens for lettuce wraps. I'm like, I would never think of this. You can so good, you know, you.

Know, just blanch them and you're good to go. And I'm so blessed. My husband and I, we met in college at mit. He's also our chef for our big family meals. And I do more of the day to day cooking and the recipes that are in my Heart health book and in my upcoming diabetes book. It's all flavorful. We tell people how to change the spice profile so you're comfortable. So if you're someone who doesn't like hot spicy peppers, you're okay.

Excuse me.

We won't use a flamethrower. Excuse me a sec. So we don't have spices that are flamethrower on there because you don't want to make people uncomfortable. By the same token, if your cultural reference is more spicy foods, whether it's the hot side of spice or just simply more flavors, we got you. So whoever you are, you're welcome. I try to be inclusive and invite people in and make it so that's one more way that they can succeed and not the primary reason they fail.

And you have recipes on your website too?

Yeah.

Awesome.

My ebooks, they're sprinkled throughout. Interestingly, now that I think about it, the CGM ebook, as much as it talks about and makes it real and shows practical user experiences and friends, please do download that ebook. There's no recipes in that. It's probably the one thing that does not have recipes.

Everything else, we will make sure they're led over to your website too. Because every time I talk to you, I'm like, you talk about going to the farmer's market and what you're cooking. And I'm like, I am coming over. I'm coming.

That'd be great. Love to have you come visit.

All right, well, thank you so much and everyone again, jjvirgin.com forward/cgmbook. All right, now you know how to use a cgm. And I gotta tell you, I've been playing around with a couple different CGMs out there and it has been so eye opening because again, you can spot food intolerances. You can see if something is stressing you out. You know, they're so amazing. So I highly recommend downloading Dr. Beverly's book. You can get that again at jjvirgin.com forward/cgmbook and checking out the CGMs out there. I've been doing a lot with Nutrisense and so check those out because this is a great thing for you to do. We'll put in the show notes too. How to access that Nutrisense CGM but such an easy thing to wear. I think makes a ton of sense to wear it for a month or two and really figure out what's going on with you. Especially if you are are in that, you know, topsy turvy time of menopause when things are all sort of making the big shift. All right, I'll see you next time. If you have not yet subscribed, it's so easy, just go to subscribetoj.com and you'll get all hooked up.

Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years, and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.