What to Eat, When to Eat and Why for Blood Sugar Balance

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It's so mission critical for your health to get your blood sugar under control. But how exactly do you do that? Well, no surprise, it starts with food. And there's so much you can do when you put food first. So today we're launching a new series on what to eat, when to eat, and why for a whole bunch of different conditions from gut health to stress and anxiety to making sure your bones are strong. And we're going to start with one of the most important, balancing your blood sugar. Hi, I'm jj. This channel is all about how to get healthy, and we all want that, so let's do this together. So blood sugar, getting your blood sugar under control is the single most important thing you can do to get healthy. And it can help you lose weight and keep it off, too. So if that's your goal, that usually happens as a bonus. So let's get into what to eat, when to eat, and why to balance your blood sugar. And I'm going to help you feel better fast just by improving what's at the end of your fork. Now, first, to drive the point home. You probably know that if your blood sugar is all over the place, it can have a serious impact on your risk of chronic disease. Your weight, your mood, your stress and anxiety levels, really, you name it, pretty much everything. So you have to know what your levels are and connect the dots to what happens to your blood sugar when you eat certain things. Now, if you don't know what a normal level is, normal is having a fasting blood sugar level less than 100mg per DL. But normal is not ideal. Right? I really like you to be more in the 75 to 85 range. And to get there, you can use a CGM for a month or two to really dial in your blood sugar regulation. And if you just went cgm, what, a continuous glucose monitor. More on that in a minute. So the goal is using what you eat and what you don't to balance your blood sugar. And to balance your blood sugar, you've got to lower your sugar impact. Now, I wrote the sugar impact diet specifically for this. It's a two week plan to help you lower the impact of sugar in your diet by moving from high sugar impact foods to lower sugar impact foods by making simple, easy, delicious, healthy swaps so all these good things happen and you don't feel like you're missing out. Foods are rated based on nutrient density and fiber, the good guys, versus the impact these foods have on your blood sugar and insulin and how much fructose they have. Those would be called the bad guys. And you'll be able to identify which foods to choose and which to lose for the best blood sugar balance. So check out the Sugar Impact diet if you'd like to get on my program to lower your sugar impact. Now, sugar is sneaky and food manufacturers use all different names for it on the label. So you really have to be careful. You have to be super aware when you're eating processed foods, the sugar and refined carbs in them spike your blood sugar. And part of the problem is that a lot of the times they don't have any fiber in them either. And that's what will slow down that sugar surge. So to lower your sugar impact, you not only have to manage your carb intake, you also need to eat more fiber. And you also want to focus on getting enough protein and healthy fats. I mean, they're really key for blood sugar and insulin control. So protein at every meal has got to be a priority. I like to say protein first. And here's why. Protein slows down digestion and prevents blood sugar spikes after you eat. And it helps you feel full. It's critical for satiety. Studies show that a high protein diet improves overall blood sugar control and lowers post meal blood sugar for people with type 2 diabetes. Now, the easiest way to make sure you get enough protein, fiber and fat and control your carbs is to eat by the plate. Or you can do a loaded smoothie and I'll explain what that is in a bit. But when you eat by the plate for blood sugar control, you'll get the right portions of what you need and you'll stay on the lower end with your carbs. So portions matter. So here's how you fill your plate. First of all is clean lean protein. You're going to fill your plate with 30 to 50 grams of that. Remember I said protein first. And this is going to be based on your ideal lean body mass. Here's the deal. Your body is fat and lean body mass. Most of us, we think we're over fat, but we really just don't have enough muscle. And muscle is our metabolic spanx that holds everything in tighter and helps us balance our blood sugar. It's super critical for that. So what you want to do is figure out your lean body mass by stepping out of body composition scale and, and then you want to have at least a gram of protein per lean body mass. That's your floor for protein. Now probably you're going to need more like a gram per pound of ideal weight where you want to be. But you might even need a little more than that. Like one and a half grams per ideal per pound of ideal weight if you're really trying to build muscle or if you're healing or if you're super stressed or recovering from an injury. All right, so that's protein number one. And let me give you a little bit more so you're clear on protein. That can be some of those clean protein powders like my all in One shake from Reignite Wellness. That can be grass fed and finished. Beef, bison, lamb, it can be pastured pork and chicken, wild seafood. And if you are not intolerant, it can also be pastured eggs. And then of course, there's also the vegetarian options. Remember, those will come with fat and carbohydrates too. So you got to count those in. So if you're switching over to nuts and seeds and lentils and grains, make sure you're counting those in next on your plate. After you've put down all the good clean protein, then the next thing that you're going to do is of course count from that protein and see how much healthy fat you have. You're going to want two to four servings of healthy fat in your meal, but most likely you, you've got some from your clean protein. Let's say that I had a piece of wild salmon. Well, I got a fat serving there. And then let's say I added in a big salad with some great greens, arugula and romaine and maybe some radicchio. And then I use some olive oil on that and some apple cider vinegar. Well, I got a fat serving there, maybe two. So quite often those fat servings get taken up in your clean protein and in your vegetables. And you're going to want two to three servings, maybe four healthy fats. So two to three if you're an average woman looking to lose some weight, if you're very athletic, bigger guy, then you can go up to four servings. And again, what is a healthy fat? I'm glad you asked. It would be things like nuts and seeds. I especially love chia and flax. It would be the healthier versions of oil. So coconut, avocado, extra virgin olive oil, and then of course, wild fish, grass fed and grass, finished beef and lamb. And again, you are what you eat ate. So make sure that you're getting the clean versions of these and then you'll get healthy fats from it. Oh, one other one is ghee. All right, you've done that. The next thing that you're going to do is pile on the non starchy vegetables. Here's the deal. Each day I want you to get at least five servings of non starchy vegetables. And ideally it's ten. Ten's the goal post. And by the way, you can keep running past the goal post, but you want to get at least five. So what's a non starchy vegetable? Look at, look like a serving of that is either a cup, half a cup cooked or a cup raw. So these are things, you know, it's Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, onions, all the different deep green leafies. Okay, so there's that. Now here's what's important. You gotta start with the protein. I want you to get the 5 to 10 servings of non starchy vegetables. You then add in fat where it's left. Like if you used a little bit of ghee on your broccoli, there's a fat serving. If you had threw some nuts into your salad, there's a fat serving. Okay, so fat servings are two to three, up to four if you're very athletic, a bigger guy. Then we've got slow, low carbs. Slow low carbs are things like my lower sugar impact fruits. They can be quinoa, so gluten free grains and grasses, wild rice, winter squashes, root vegetables. Basically for that it's a cup of fruit, it's a serving and I say one to two servings of fruit a day max. If you've got really elevated triglycerides, I'm going to tell you to cut it out for a while and then you get a half a cup a serving of the different tubers and grains and legumes and you get 3, 4 of a cup of some of the winter squashes. Up to four servings. I put zero to two servings at a meal. Now if you've had two servings of fruit, you've got up to four servings of the other. So when you really look at it, you've got zero to two servings of the low, low carbs at each meal. I find for most people we're better at having 1 to 2 at night and really keeping it down to 0 to 1 throughout the day. It's better for blood sugar balance. If you're looking to lose weight, that's where you're going to be playing around with and really dropping those carbs lower and focusing the majority of them in your non starchy vegetables. And then a little bit again, you can do a little bit of Fruit. One to two servings. Two, that's a cup. And then the rest would be those other slow, low carbs. So that is the plate. And eating by the plate gives you the right amount of protein. Remember we went protein first, then it's going to give you the fiber and the healthy ma, the healthy fats. And why is that important? When you eat that way, that fat, fiber, protein, trifecta, it is going to keep you feeling satisfied. It helps you feel full. It allows you to go four to six hours between meals. It helps you access stored body fat for fuel because your, your blood sugar's not spiking and your insulin's able to return to resting levels faster. So all of a sudden you get off that merry go round of spikes and crashes. And that feeling that you're always hungry, it's like you just ate and you're hungry. That's because you didn't eat by the plate. Now you have to put the right foods on your plate, of course. So to eat, to balance your blood sugar and lower your sugar impact, you're going to swap foods that are hurting you for foods that can heal you. And here are a few examples of what I mean. Now let me give you a few examples of some high sugar impact foods and I'll show you how easy it is to go to a low sugar impact food. So let's take a raisin. You can easily take a raisin, that's a high sugar impact food. Swap it for a blueberry, that is a low sugar impact food. Probably tastes even better, right? Easy peasy. You could take some pasta, that's a high sugar impact food. You can switch it out for some butternut or some spaghetti squash noodles, or you can make noodles out of butternut squash. That's a low sugar impact food. You can take a regular corn tortilla, switch it out for a coconut tortilla. See how easy these things are? And here's what's important. I'm not saying, hey, you know, take a burger and swap it out for some sprouts. No, I'm giving you the similar food, just a healthier version of that, that's lower sugar impact and helps you heal. Now how about for grains? You know what if you're doing say white flour, something like a white flour tortilla, and you switched it over to more of a cassava tortilla and you put some legumes in there. Or if you're doing say white rice and you switched it over to quinoa. So some easy ways, white rice to Quinoa is a great example of how we're going to get more protein and more fiber with an easy swap like that. Now here's one more, and this is one that makes me nutso. Can I just rant a bit on the fruit on the bottom yogurts? Because those fruit on the bottom yogurts that they'll say no sugar added. That is such a blatant lie. You know what they do? They put and look on the label and look at what it says for sugar and for carbohydrates. What happened was they sweetened sugar, they sweetened fruit with apple juice concentrate and then they can say no sugar added. But apple juice concentrate actually has more fructose than a soda, right? Apple juice is more fructose than a soda. So beware of those fruit on the bottom, by the way. They're more expensive anyway. All you do is you get yourself some great plain almond Greek style yogurt. I'm digging Kite Hill. And then I actually stir in some of my all in one protein powder. I love stirring in the vanilla. So now I've got this vanilla higher protein Greek yogurt. And then put berries on top and maybe put a couple nuts on top too. So see how easy that is? That was a simple swap. There you go. I hope you're salivating. Speaking of that last swap, swap out anything that says no fat or low fat, because I can guarantee you that those foods you're eating have way more sugar than you think. When it's low fat, pretty much it's code for high sugar. I mean that fat free raspberry vinaigrette that you just poured on your salad thinking that you were doing good, that just turned your salad into a sundae. Now if you need a little supplemental support, I highly recommend vitamin D3. Now, vitamin D3, you want to take it with K1 and 2, it is super critical. Most of us are deficient in it. I rarely see someone who's actually where they need to be on a vitamin D test. 25 hydroxy vitamin D test, you want to be between 50 and 80 ngs per milliliter. And I rarely ever see someone there. There's so many reasons vitamin D is important, but for this area, blood sugar control, it's super key critical because it helps with insulin sensitivity. Now the other one I love, and my new supplement I'm obsessed with is berberine. Berberine has been shown to lower blood sugar levels in people who have type 2 diabetes. And then of course, fish oil is super duper important. Omega 3 fish oil supplementation can help your insulin receptors. Hear insulin better, so it helps improve insulin sensitivity. It also, of course, helps lower inflammation. All right, we said it was the what, and then we said we'd talk when. So what about the when? What does meal timing look like when you're trying to balance your blood sugar? Well, one of the best tools ever for this is something I'm sure you've heard. It's intermittent fasting. It's amazing for controlling your blood sugar. And the reason is, is that it creates a food gap, gives your body a break from digesting. Because every time you eat, think about it, you eat what happens. Your body's blood sugar comes up and your body raises insulin. So we want to give your body a break from that. Now, there's different kinds of intermittent fasting, but they all focus on when you eat. So they limit meals to specific windows of time. Now, here's the first step. Because you're eating by the plate, this will now be easy. The first thing you want to do is go 12 to 14 hours between meals with no snacking snack. So when I have people eat by the plate, first thing I say is, all right, eat by the plate, cut the snacks out. What are you doing in between snacking? You're drinking. This is ice cream tea. So you're drinking water, sparkling water, coffee, ice cream tea. Tea in between meals. So first thing is no snacking. Next, stop eating at least three hours before bed. Four is better. No, don't go to bed early or late. Do not do that. So that's another thing we're doing. Then push your breakfast a little bit later. So let's think about it. You ate dinner, you went to bed at 10, you woke up at 6, you ate breakfast at 7, that's a 12 hour. You ate breakfast at 9, that's 14 hour overnight fast. Then maybe you push breakfast to brunch at 10 and maybe you dropped your dinner to 6, all of a sudden you've got a 16 hour fast. See how easy this is to do? But remember, when you're fasting, you're not eating, you're fasting, which means you can have water, you can have black tea, you can have sparkling water, but you can't have like fruit juice squeezed in your water. That kind of stuff. That's not fasting. So in that 12 to 14 to 16 hour overnight fast, we're not eating, but we can be having fluids. In fact, you want to be. Now, when it's time to break your fast and whether it's Morning, midday. I want you to do it with a loaded smoothie. I am a huge fan of loaded smoothies and here's why. Quite often I see that people, when they break their fast breakfast, they have dessert. So they're breaking their fast, they're sitting down, they're having a muffin and a latte. Well, put a muffin and a cupcake side by side, take the frosting off the cupcake. What do you have? Lo and behold, it's a muffin. So just think of that muffin as a cupcake without the icing. It's loaded with sugar, it's high sugar impact. Then you have that latte. Maybe you have the skinny latte because you're being good, but you had the non fat milk. Remember what we said about non fat, more sugar. So you just started the day, whenever you started the day with a big sugar hit and that activates the second meal phenomenon. And now you're on a roller coaster all day long where you're going to be hungry even though you just ate. So please, let's not have that. So we're going to do a loaded smoothie instead. Which means you're going to use my Reignite wellness all in one protein powder to start. So you get a good hit of clean protein, whether it's plant based or paleo. Then you add in an unsweetened nut milk for some healthy fats. Then you're going to throw in some fiber too. And I love avocado or some seeds so I get both fiber and fat. And then you might throw in a little bit of a, of non starchy vegetables, a little bit of fruit. But again we're doing this so we're getting a good protein, fat and fiber hit, right? Loaded smoothie. All right, let's just kind of walk through what your fasting day can look like. All right, you get up in the morning, you do a meditation, you do a little fasted workout. I'm talking this is my ideal, this is my dream for you. You do a little fasted workout. You had some black coffee before that, so you're really burning fat. Then you have kind of a late breakfast brunchy thing. And maybe you're doing that and you have that around 10, and then around 2 you have a big salad with some protein and, and 5:36 you have some salad and some vegetables and some more proteins like some salmon. Easy peasy. You know, let's say if you wake up at seven and you're on a 12 hour fast, you could have water Coffee or tea in the morning. Then eat breakfast at 8, lunch at 1:30 and dinner at 7. See how easy this is on a 14 hour fast? Just like that. All you do is eat dinner an hour earlier and push breakfast an hour later. It's really, really easy. Now I will tell you, I like you to start first with eating by the plate. Then I want you to make sure you kick out the snacks, start kicking in the water and the ice cream, tea and all of that. Remember, getting your fluid intake up. Proper hydration is key for metabolism and detox. Then make sure you stop eating three to four hours before bed. Then let's start pushing breakfast. And you can see how easy this is to get to that 12 to 14 hours. But 16 hours is really the biggest bang for your mout metabolic buck. And it really helps restore insulin sensitivity and good blood sugar balance. It does something called autophagy. Autophagy is where your body takes out the cellular trash. So it's like a deep cellular detox of getting rid of stuff that needs to go. So we ultimately want to get into some of these 16 hour fasts and I tend to do them like on the weekend. I'll sleep in a bit and then I'll have a brunch and an early dinner. It works out really well. So you see how easy this is. I mean that could be on the weekend. Maybe you have brunch, say you know, between 10 and 11, dinner is done by 6. Super easy peasy. So how about giving that a shot? That would be my why. Because we're talking what we're talking when we're talking why. I like here's my why on this one. Why not, why not just give this a shot? I mean the health risks of having elevated blood sugar are so big. There are now an estimated 34.2 million people in the United States with diabetes and 88 million have pre diabetic diabetes. But here's the thing. You don't get a diabetic overnight, you don't become pre diabetic overnight. It happens over time. And there's clues all along the way that this is where you're going. Poor blood sugar control, that elevated fasting blood sugar, those are some of the very first clues. A fasting blood sugar that's greater than 126 milligrams per DL on more than one occasion, well that's an indicator of diabetes. And then another clue is your triglyceride to HDL ratio. Now a raised triglyceride to HDL ratio is one of the markers for insulin resistance. And if you're insulin resistant, you will become diabetic over time. So if your triglyceride to HDL ratio is greater than 3.75, you're likely at least pre diabetic. So check your lab work and do that math. Okay? Now, when your blood sugar is constantly up, it leads to insulin resistance because you have to crank out insulin non stop to deal with that steady stream of blood sugar. Insulin is trying to pull all that sugar out of your blood, but eventually your cells are like, we are full. They have all they can handle, and then their insulin receptors start to reject the message from insul. So then your body pumps out more and more and more insulin to try to hey, get their attention. Now, eventually, and no surprise, you become diabetic because your pancreas can no longer pump out those high levels of insulin. But prior to becoming a full blown diabetic, your body sends you clues all along the way so you have a chance to fix it. Here they are. If you have belly fat, if you're constantly hangry and have cravings for carbs and sugar, or if you're tired or irritable, these are just a few of those clues. So balancing your blood sugar through what you eat and when is critical. But you'll also want to manage your stress because when your stress hormones are elevated, they shoot your blood sugar up too. So get regular exercise and incorporate some other stress relievers like meditation or other soothing things you like to do, like maybe petting your new puppy. Okay, thanks for joining me. I've done this a long time and literally helped hundreds of thousands of people get healthy with these strategies. But I gotta tell you, it's what I love and it's always a privilege. Be sure to check out my website@jjvirgin.com if you'd like more content like this and like and subscribe here so you can always get the latest and greatest info on ways to live your healthiest life. Hope to see you next time. For my next video in this series, we'll be talking about what to eat, when to eat, and why for bone health. See you there. For more info on this and other health topics I cover or to rate and review, find me on Instagram, Facebook and my website, jjvirgin.com and don't forget to subscribe to my show so you won't miss a single episode. Go to subscribetojay.com thanks again for being with me this week.

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