I'm a Type 2 Diabetic. Any Suggestions for Healthy Snacks?

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I'm a type 2 diabetic and I'm really struggling to feel full and not overeat. This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert Karen from my Superimmune Secrets Masterclass Asked I'm a type 2 diabetic. I'm on Lantus. I'm having a difficult time feeling full and because of that I'm eating way too many carbs. Any suggestions about healthy snacks? I have some suggestions, and healthy snacks are probably the tail end of that, so I'll fill you in on all that after the break.

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All right, so what we really want to do is get you as blood sugar stable as possible and needing as little of your medication as possible and ideally over time. And this is really where you want to work with your functional medicine doctor to help you get as low or no on the medication as possible and will just depend on what's going on with your beta cells, your, your, your islet cells in your pancreas and how, well, how healthy they can get. So what we want to do is we want to get first of all your blood sugar super stable and we want to get your insulin receptors that hear the message of insulin as sensitive to that message as possible. So let's talk about how we can do all that. First of all, how do we help support good blood sugar control? All right, first it's going to start with diet. And what's nice is everything that supports good blood sugar control also supports good insulin sensitivity, pretty much. So it starts first, of course, with diet. What we want to really think of with each meal that you eat, or what I would call a mini meal, because ideally you really aren't snacking because your blood sugar is balanced. And one of the challenges when you are taking something like Lantus is that it just makes it really hard to access stored fat for fuel, which is why you're hungry. So you want to think of at each meal having some clean protein. What is that? Wild wild fish, grass fed beef, pastured chicken, some healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds and a little bit of slow low carbs and lots of non starchy veggies to get your fiber in. Now the fiber and the protein are going to slow stomach emptying, helping you feel fuller, longer. And the fat is going to trigger the release of certain chemicals in the small intestine to tell your brain you're full. So they all work together. Big shout out here. The thing I'd really like you to really avoid is fructose and I would even so Much as stay away from most fruit, really limit it down to things like berries and one or two, one or two servings and really make sure that you're getting lots of fiber. Super important. And in fact, if you were going to do any kind of snack, I have a little dark chocolate fiber bar that I love with only 1 gram of sugar, 11 grams of of fiber from coconut. Yum. And you could carry those around. The big thing that we want to do is really try to eat, eat that way. Eat by what I call the virgin diet or sugar impact diet plate. I'd really say sugar impact diet for what you've got going on and stabilize that blood sugar. Okay, what else can help stabilize that blood sugar? Having lemon juice, couple tablespoons of lemon juice and water with maybe a little stevia or some of my sprinkles before a meal and adding in some fiber there like some chia seeds or my extra fiber can help lower your blood sugar response to the meal. Adding cinnamon wherever possible can lower your blood sugar response to a meal. And vinegar can act like metformin. It's incredible for helping with insulin sensitivity. And so having a vinegar, you know, olive oil and vinegar salad, but lots of vinegar, a little bit of olive oil is another great one. So there's some great food things. What about supplements? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. So the key player here is going to be vitamin D, of course with K, unless you're on blood thinners. And vitamin D can help with insulin sensitivity, as can fish oil, omega 3s, specifically EPA and DHA from fish oil. So vitamin D with K, you're going to want to DO A vitamin 25 hydroxy vitamin D test and dose your vitamin D to get you optimized up to, to a 50 to 80 ngs per ML omegas. You'll probably want to take 2 grams of a triglyceride bound fish oil a day to support this. And then I want you to look at some other nutrients that are really key players. Chromium, vanadium, zinc and magnesium. These act like. I had someone describe this as the four horsemen for blood sugar control. And I love that. So these are super important minerals for blood sugar control. Couple that with berberine and lipoic acid. These are two other things that are super important. Berberine and lipoic acid. And then we got a couple lifestyle things that make a big difference too. Number one, getting good sleep. Even one poor night of sleep and you're more insulin resistant the next day and your ghrelins up and you're hungrier. So one poor night of sleep can do you in. Think about what happens when it becomes chronic. And then exercise. When you do resistance exercise, you start restoring insulin sensitivity into the muscles. And so this is another really important thing to make sure you're adding in. We want you moving more and walking once you're doing some high intensity interval training for growth hormone. But think of resistance training is so key for helping to restore insulin sensitivity quickly into the muscles. And so that's what I would look at is how can we get you more insulin sensitive, maybe able to lower that medication some with some of these supportive nutrients, food changes, lifestyle changes, and with that better balanced blood sugar, are you less hungry in between meals? And if you do need a snack, think of a snack like that mini meal of clean, lean protein, healthy fat and fiber from non starchy vegetables and slow low carbs. I just honestly carry one of my bars around so that I'm never stuck somewhere if I get trapped and I make a bad decision. All right, there you go. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.

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