Losing the Sugar ... Are There Any Herbs or Supplements You Recommend?

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Sugar Any herbs or supplements you recommend? 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. Kay from Instagram asks losing the Sugar Any herbs or supplements you recommend? Oh my gosh, I love this question. In fact, I wrote the book about it. So yes, Kay, I got some things to recommend and I'll be right back with that answer. Stay with me.

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Okay, Kay. I'm so excited you're losing the sugar and I want to support you in any way that I can. So here's the deal. When I wrote the Virgin Diet, which is about food intolerance and how quite often that foods you're eating every day trying to be healthy are actually hurting you and causing you to gain weight. And when you pull them out and figure out which foods work for you and which foods don't, you lose the weight and feel better fast. And when I wrote that book, oh my gosh, the biggest question I got asked about was sugar. Because one of the things I was pulling out of the diet was of course, sugar and artificial sweeteners, because even though they weren't triggering a food intolerance, they were actually creating the food intolerance because of what they were doing to the gut. And adding sugar into your diet, there's no place in a healthy diet. Now, having said that, it's really about knowing which sugars to choose and which to lose. I'm not saying about no sugar. There's places I want you to get it, like in, say, berries, sweet potato, and not in, you know, a donut or juice. And I'm really thrilled that you are starting to lose the sugar. The first thing I have people do, and this is in the sugar impact diet, is I have them first find all the places sugar is sneaking in. And when I think of sugar, I think of sugar in terms of sugar impact rather than just straight sugar. Because your body, all things are going to turn, all carbs are going to turn to sugar. It's just whether you're making them slowly from the food you eat or mainlining them. So you still have to look at carbohydrates in general. And that is where things like white flour, which converts very quickly, and you know, corn starch can be problematic. So again, it's not just about sugar per se. We gotta look beyond the sugar and we gotta look to artificial sweeteners. We have to look at things that are high sugar impact. Now the next important thing here is that we really have to look at not quitting cold turkey. So one of the things I talk about in the book is that when you've been when sugar has been sneaking into your life and you probably haven't realized it, and sneaking in all over the place, right, you get used to fueling your body on it, and your body then starts to use that as its preferential fuel source. You're a sugar burner rather than a fat burner. And so if you just pull that out, you pull your fuel out, your body goes, what the heck happened? And all of a sudden you can't right away access fat and you're hungry and cranky. So what I do instead is I do a tapering process where first you identify where the sugar's sneaking in. And I identify sugar impact as, you know, the foods that raise blood sugar and insulin versus the foods that are high versus how much of the food has fiber and nutrient density. So how much one specific food raises either blood sugar and or insulin, because sometimes they don't play together. And how much fiber and nutrient density does that food have? And we're looking at first identifying high and medium sugar impact foods and then over the first week tapering off the high sugar impact foods immediately, and then tapering down off the medium sugar impact so that you can then over the course of a week or two, depending on how much sugar's been sneaking in, start to really stabilize your blood sugar so that you can really get the sugar all the way down to low sugar impact. One of the ways you do that is by making sure that you're eating healthy, clean protein like grass fed beef, wild salmon, pastured pork, pastured chicken, healthy fats, avocado, nuts and seeds again, fish, coconut, and then lots of fiber from non starchy veggies and some slow low carbs, things like wild rice or butternut squash or berries. So that's the first piece. Now here are a couple other things that can help you, because you start with food here first. You always start with food and then what you want to start to look at is number one, getting rid of your snacking. As your blood sugar gets more balanced, starting to increase the time between meals, especially between your dinner and your next morning. Hopefully it turns more into a brunch than a breakfast and not snacking in between, which keeps your blood sugar getting hit and your insulin up, which basically locks the doors to fat cells and tells your body to store fat, not burn it. So that is super important. And ideally you move into a process of having at least a 12 hour overnight fast, but then really starting to focus on getting it even further, like a 10, 8 to 10 hour eating window, because that can help improve insulin sensitivity and help you burn more fat. So you're not a sugar burner, you're a fat burner. Now a couple things that will help. Since you asked, on herbs or supplements, there are some things that are helpful. First of all, I always like to go with the things your body uses needs to survive first. And then we can talk about a couple other things that are helpful. Chromium, magnesium, vanadium and zinc. Chromium, magnesium, vanadium, zinc are known as the four horsemen for blood sugar control. So love to have you looking at those as really important and they should be in your good multi. So and you want to have really well chelated forms of those because they're little rocks and your body needs to be able to break them down and you probably will need additional magnesium. Next up, vitamin D3 with K1 and 2 and you want to dose that per labs ideally and optimize your vitamin D3 level somewhere around 50 to 80 ngs per milliliter if you're in the U.S. next up, supplemental fish oil. Now, unless you're eating like fish four to five times a week, and even then you'll probably want to do some supplemental fish oil. It helps with resensitizing your insulin receptors and so it's super important here. And generally I like the triglyceride form probably are going to want to do like 2 grams unless you're eating fish more often. You could take it down to one. Couple other herbal products that can be helpful here is something called Banaba and another thing called Himini. Sylvester can help with blood sugar control as well. So I always love to look at what things will work well with, with doing that. And I'm looking through, I'm like, I'm looking through my notes here, see if there's any other blood sugar ones that I really love. I do also. Oh, forgot another one. Cheese. Alpha lipoic acid is also one that can be super important for helping improve insulin sensitivity as well. And same with berberine. And we don't often think about berberine, but it can be amazing. And then I'll give you just a couple other things. Number one, lemon juice in your diet, a couple tablespoons of lemon juice before you eat can lower your blood sugar response to a meal. So can cinnamon. And I mean who doesn't love cinnamon? And then beyond Jimene Sylvestre, I always think I'm blowing that one. And banaba. The other ones are kudzu and fenugreek and of course American ginseng. So there's some other mineral ones that work. Again, I start with. Or, I'm sorry, herbal ones that work. I start with the minerals and I like lipoic acid and then berberine and then vitamin D with K and fish oil. All right, hope that helps. I'd love to hear a success story from you, Kate. 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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