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How to Get Your Blood Sugar Back Down · Doctor Turned Health Coach

• 0:00
  Welcome to doctor-turned-health-coach podcast. My name is Dr. Ashuri.
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  I'm a family medicine physician, and today, let's talk about your blood sugar.
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  So you just found out, your doctor just told you after looking at your lab results,
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  that your hemoglobin A1C is elevated, or your fasting blood sugar is elevated,
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  or your fructosamine is elevated, whatever.
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  Whatever the scenario might be, you were told that, listen, bub,
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  your blood sugars are high and we got problems.
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  What do we do? And what can you do?
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  First of all, understand why blood sugar elevation is a problem.
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  Because the majority of people who have high blood sugar are going to eventually develop diabetes.
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  And even if they don't develop diabetes, the higher blood sugar is going to
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  lead to a lot of damage to other parts of their body.
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  It can cause early dementia, inflammation of the joints, arthritis,
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  erectile dysfunction, vaginal problems for women with vaginal atrophy.
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  It can make menopause a more difficult transition. It can cause problems with sleep, energy.
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  Okay, the list goes on and on. It's just one of those things in the human body
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  that is really, really critical. that little tiny molecule called the glucose,
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  the blood sugar, and we just can't have it go high.
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  But now you were told that your blood sugar is high. What are the things that you can do?
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  I try to divide this concept up into three major interventions.
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  The first one is going to be a calorie and nutrient balance.
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  So keep that in mind. That's number one.
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  The second one is exercise, exercise movement and basically expending energy. That's number two.
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  And the third one has a lot to do with the damage that blood sugar can do.
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  So it's really preventing the inflammation, part of the glucose molecule,
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  and it has a lot to do with stress and good sleep.
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  So we got the nutrition side of it, we got the exercise side of it,
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  and we have the stress side of glucose and blood sugar. And now,
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  does it mean you have to go.
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  Follow a very strict diet and do hardcore exercises and, you know,
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  get nine and a half hours of sleep.
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  Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that drastic. In fact, most people who try
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  to adopt something that drastic tend to burn out from that.
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  So again, going back to the basics, we always want to introduce things very
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  slowly, very gently, and make only tiny changes.
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  Now, you might have heard a lot about the new medications that are on the scene,
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  the glp1s the gips and the
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  glucagon receptor agonists and
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  these medications can potentially help you lose extra
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  weight and they can help with metabolic health but they're not going to magically
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  transform you either right i mean once you start these things you kind of have
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  to go on these medicines for life and you also have to change your diet your
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  habit your lifestyle because they come with a few side effects.
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  We've talked about that in a previous podcast episode.
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  When it comes to nutrition, the food you're eating that often leads somebody
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  to develop diabetes is food that is a little bit more calorie dense and food
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  that is lacking enough nutrients.
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  So for example, if I have a bowl of homemade quinoa, homemade beans.
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  Homemade sweet potatoes and some homemade sautéed vegetables,
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  it's pretty much impossible to develop
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  any obesity or diabetes from that because the more of that you eat,
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  you would get so much fiber that your body would actually develop a bit of diarrhea.
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  So you would lose a lot of that content in your gut and so you wouldn't absorb
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  all the excess calories.
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  But you will absorb a lot of nutrients. In fact, you'll probably max out at
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  nutrients. There's only so much omega-3s and magnesium and manganese and zinc
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  that you can absorb from your food after some time.
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  It's just going to be too much for your body and the vitamin complexes.
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  So we want the food to be more nutritious and we don't want it to be very calorie dense.
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  So white bread, white rice, crackers, anything pretty much in a can,
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  well, some things in a can are fine, those things tend to just be so calorie
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  dense that in general, they're going to be problematic. Hamburger is a classic problem.
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  If it's done the right way, it can be very good. But most of the things you
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  get out in a store or a restaurant, well, not so good.
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  The good news is you can turn any of your favorite dishes from lasagna to pasta
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  to pizza to burgers into a healthy, low-calorie, high-nutrient, right?
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  Nutrient-dense, calorie-low. Low on the calories, high on the density of nutrients.
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  It still tastes good, feels good in your body, but it's healthier for you.
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  The movement activity part is sort of self-explanatory, but you need regular
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  daily movement in order to expend enough energy and to increase the blood flow
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  through your muscles which absorb the excess blood sugar to prevent you from
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  developing high blood sugar in the blood.
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  The muscles actually absorb this blood sugar. The first two,
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  which is exercise and nutrition, will actually help you lose weight.
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  Most people who develop blood sugar problems tend to have either an excess weight
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  problem or they have weight in the wrong places, which means they're super,
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  super skinny, but they got tons of fat around their pancreas, their liver,
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  their heart, and their intestine. So we want to get rid of that.
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  If anything, we want to take that and put it under the skin.
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  Subcutaneous fat is good fat. It's not as problematic.
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  So now we get to the third one, which is stress and sleep.
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  So if you're somebody who gets bad sleep whether you have sleep apnea whether
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  you sleep very heavy whether you drink a lot of coffee or alcohol right before
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  sleep or eat very heavy those things are all going to throw off your sleep.
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  And if your sleep is disrupted unfortunately that little bit of blood sugar
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  elevation is going to cause a lot of damage to the brain, to the cells,
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  to the blood vessels, to everything.
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  So we want to minimize that damage so that we can prevent this elevated blood
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  sugar from developing into full-on diabetes.
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  Now, stress comes in many forms.
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  Maybe you're worried about finances. Maybe you're constantly getting into fights with your partner.
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  Maybe you're constantly online in these political discussions and getting agitated and angry.
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  It's better to take a break from that. Go walk in nature.
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  Go read a book. Go do something that generally inspires a lot of positivity
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  in you as opposed to the negative emotions of stress.
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  If you can balance this stress and sleep part really well, it's much less likely
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  for even a little bit of elevated blood sugar to cause problems in the future.
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  So that is the trifecta method of preventing diabetes if you've been told that
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  your blood sugar is high and it's the way that we end up bringing your blood sugar low.
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  Thank you guys for listening. I hope this is of value to you.
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  Click in the show descriptions to find out more if you want to work with me
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  one-on-one to get your blood sugars back down to normal. And thank you for listening.