What Are Your Thoughts on Hypoglycemia?

Hey, J.J. here. Can you believe how fast the holidays are knocking at the door this year? One minute it's pumpkin spice season, the next you're getting your guest room ready and wondering where their wrapping paper went. And that's when I turned to Wayfair. From bedding and towels to holiday decor and last minute stocking stuffers, Wayfair has everything you need to get your home and holidays together fast. And for way less. With Wayfair, I know I can refresh my guest room in no time. Maybe I'll add a soft new comforter or a few holiday throw pillows. With Wayfair, it's so easy and everything arrives super fast. Plus, there's free shipping for any order over $35 easy and total peace of mind. So whether you're hosting, gifting, or just adding those final festive touches, Wayfair has your back. And when the holidays wind down, Wayfair has everything you need to tuck it all neatly away. Smart storage solutions for every room from the kitchen to the closet. Get organized, refreshed and ready for the holidays. For way less head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair Every style, every home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I R.com hey, it's JJ here. You know, I've been talking about environmental toxins forever, and laundry detergent is a sneaky one. A lot of them contain harsh chemicals like dyes, preservatives, and even UV brighteners. Those brighteners don't actually clean anything. They just coat fabric so your eyes think things look whiter or brighter. That's more chemicals I don't want on my family's sheets or skin. And if you've got sensitive skin or allergies around the house, this can be a big problem. That's what got my attention about Earth Breeze. It looks like a dryer sheet, but it's actually laundry detergent. You toss one in the washer and that's it. No pouring, no mess, and no heavy plastic jug. Their packaging is lightweight cardboard, which helps reduce plastic waste. And if you choose the fragrance free option, it's gentle, hypoallergenic, non irritating and non sensitizing. I really like how simple it is and how fresh and clean everything comes out without those unnecessary chemicals. Right now you can try Earth Breeze for up to 40% off with free gifts@earthbreeze.com virgin that's earthbreeze.com virgin for up to 40% off plus free gifts on.

Your first order this episode is brought to you by Pacifico Here's a story you've probably never heard. Legend has it, decades ago, a couple surfers went down to Mexico in search of epic swells. But they found something unexpected instead. It it was still crisp, lively and smooth, but it had nothing to do with waves. It was Pacifico, a delicious Mexican lager. It's like it was brewed to be discovered. Pacifico find your own way 21 Discover responsibly Pacifico Clara Beer imported by Crown.

Import, Chicago, IL what are your thoughts on hypoglycemia? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and Fitness hall of Famer. Summer 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. Ant Deflip from Instagram asks, what are your thoughts on hypoglycemia? I've had Hashimoto's for 10 years. I've reduced my TPO antibodies from 600 to 67 since starting the Paleo Shakespeare and going dairy free two years ago. I love that. Yeah, you my doctor said my lab work repeatedly shows me being hypoglycemic. I follow the sugar impact diet, so just curious how I can be more successful while fighting off these frequent urges to eat something. Great question, lots of thoughts there. I will be right back to answer the questions. Stay with me.

Hey, it's J.J. here. Now let's be honest. The holidays are basically a financial ambush. Travel, hosting gifts, surprise holiday school things. Suddenly you're wondering how December turned into a spending spree. If you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, you need to be using Monarch. It's rated the Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or your phone. What really grabbed my attention is how fast those little holiday expenses pile up with Monarch. Seeing everything in one place makes it a lot harder to accidentally overspend. And honestly, I appreciate anything that keeps me from starting January with a money hangover. You'll love exploring the holiday spending category. Imagine how good it will feel to actually see what's happening before your credit card statement does that whole dramatic reveal thing. Monarch basically shows you exactly where the money is going in real time, and that level of clarity could change everything, right? Don't let financial opportunity slip through the cracks. Use the code virgin@monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year. @monarch.com with Code Virgin.

This episode is brought to you by McAfee.

I got a message that our flight was canceled, but they can put us on another flight and we just need to confirm our credit card info.

Wait, I got a security alert from McAfee. It flagged that message as a scam.

McAfee's scam detector automatically spots and alerts.

You to suspicious texts, emails, and deep fake videos. Learn more@mcafee.com online protection. All right, so hypoglycemia. So first of all, let's define hypoglycemia so you know what the heck it is. It's low blood sugar, and it occurs when the level of sugar glucose in your blood drops below normal. So that's generally considered if it goes below 70. However, it's interesting. I have a girlfriend, Dr. Rita Marie Loscalzo. I love the way she talks about blood sugar. You might want to check her out. I did a podcast with her about this. It's just incredible. She talks about functional blood sugar testing. She finds that she feels fine at 65. So first off, I love the way she does functional blood sugar testing. Where you get. And now you can get this. Get yourself a continuous blood sugar monitor and start to watch yourself and see how you feel. Because the first thing I want to know ant is, are you really hungry or is it Pavlovian? Have you trained yourself to be hungry? So that's the first thing. Now, if you have elevated blood sugar and elevated insulin and you cannot access stored fat for fuel, then you may legitimately be hungry. If you're having any of those symptoms of hypoglycemia. Irritated, clammy, shaky, et cetera, same thing. But what we can do is watch your functional blood sugar and start to see how your body responds to the different foods you're eating. I mean, that's the ultimate sugar impact diet, right? Checking that and where you tend to be at fasting. There's another great test that you can do, and that's the glucose and insulin tolerance test. And that is where you take a bolus of glucose and then your body. First you do a blood sugar and insulin test, then you drink this glucose mix, and then you get tested every hour for two to three hours to see how your body reacts to that, what's going on both with blood sugar and insulin, because they should track together. So that's the other thing that you can do to look at this to see what is going on and where your issues are. But again, functionally, if you're watching through a continuous blood sugar monitor and you can start to see if different foods are impacting you and what you need to do, that could be super helpful too. Here's a couple important things that help. Number one, make sure fiber is your super duper friend here. Because it slows down the blood sugar response to a meal. So we want to make sure that a meal is low sugar impact in terms of carbs. So that's things that are more non starchy vegetables, wild rice, squashes for your carbohydrates with some protein and some healthy fats and loads of fiber that will slow down the blood sugar response. Other things that can help with that. Vinegar is super helpful here. In fact, vinegar can operate like the drug metformin to sensitize your insulin receptors. So this is pretty amazing. So vinegar with your meal, lemon juice before your meal lowers the blood sugar response to meal. Cinnamon with your meal can help with balancing blood sugar as well. And none of these things are icky things. I mean like use more vinegar on your salad. You can even just throw a little apple cider vinegar and water and drink it before the meal or lemon juice. That's my preferred way to do it. A little lemon juice before a meal and then using some vinegar with olive oil for your meal and then adding a little cinnamon on. Whatever you like to put your cinnamon on, maybe a little blueberries or something. So that's the first thing that you can do. The next thing that you can do is make sure that you've got the nutrients on board that are really important for blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity. What are those you ask? I'm glad you did. Magnesium, zinc, vanadium, chromium are all super important here. Other things that can help stabilize are lipoic acid and fish oil. Fish oil can help re sensitize your insulin receptors. And super key critical here. Vitamin D. I know I talk a ton about vitamin D and its importance in the immune system. Vitamin D3 taken with K1 and K2, really important here for improving insulin sensitivity. Now lifestyle things that are critical here. Sleep. One poor night of sleep and you're more insulin resistant the next day. So getting a good quality sleep night after night is super important. The next thing beyond sleep is stress. Stress is going to raise your blood sugar. So I know you know it's one of those things. It's like don't stress. It's like ha ha ha. You know, we're, we're living in a world crazy right now with stress. So what you're going to have to do is, is change your ability to handle stress. So I'm gonna do a couple shout outs. One is to my buddy Nick Ortner. He has in the app store the Tapping solution app. It is free, so you can use that. Tapping lowers stress hormones by 27%. There's not a drug or medication that does that and it's free. And then the other one is Ziva meditation with my girlfriend, Emily Fletcher. That is another great things. And then of course, some high intensity interval training can train your sympathetic nervous system to handle stress better. So dealing with stress, getting good sleep, next one there that is really important is doing resistance exercise. That's one of the easiest ways to improve insulin sensitivity quickly is at the level of the muscle. And you can do that with resistance exercise. And then you'll also get the benefit of looking better too. How much do we like that? Let me just make sure I've covered everything. Oh, one other thing here, and kind of you can tell if you have an issue with blood sugar is are you able to go four to six hours between meals with steady sustained energy, or do you all of a sudden, two hours after eating, you get shaky and irritable, et cetera? You should literally be able to go, huh, did I eat today? That's where you want to be. That shows that you're able to be a fat burner and not a sugar burner. And then the other thing that you want to look at is can you do a 12 hour overnight fast, stop eating, you know, at least three hours before bed, wake up and go an hour before you need to eat in the morning or so. And then are you able to drop belly fat? If you can't lose belly fat, if you're hungry, every two to three hours, if you can't go to bed without having a snack and waking up first thing and eating, then you. That's another sign that there's an issue here. You're not able to use stored fat for fuel. You're more of a sugar burner. And all these things I just talked about will help you make that shift. That's all within the Sugar Impact diet. 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.

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 check 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.