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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

Use These FOOD HACKS To Boost Energy, END CRAVINGS & Reduce Inflammation | Jessie Inchauspé

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Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostJessie Inchauspéguest
May 3, 20231h 55mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 4:10

    Why Food Order Matters: Veggies First, Carbs Last

    1. RC

      A lot of us, when thinking about improving our health, we are thinking about what foods we should be eating or avoiding. Very few of us are paying attention to how we should be eating. And I know one of the hacks that you recommend to people is to think about the order in which you eat certain foods. I wonder if you could explain to us, why is food order so important?

    2. JI

      Absolutely, and this is probably the easiest hack to start with because it doesn't require people to change, as you said, what they're eating. So when you're faced with a meal, the meal will have a very different impact on your blood-sugar level, also called your glucose level, depending on the order in which you eat the constituents of that meal. And the studies show that you can reduce the glucose spike of your meal by up to 75% by just changing the order of the foods in it, which means fewer cravings, less inflammation, less inching towards diabetes, et cetera. The correct order is vegetables first, proteins and fats second, and starches and sugars last. And the main reason this is so effective is because vegetables contain fiber, and fiber, when it arrives first in your digestive system, it has time to do something amazing, to do sort of like Transformers vibe. Fiber deploys itself onto the wall of your upper intestine, forming a protective gooey mesh that stays there for a few hours. That mesh then prevents your body from absorbing too much glucose too quickly from any of the food coming down afterwards. So very simple place to start, and for anybody listening, at your next meal, try this. Veggies first, carbs last, and see how you feel. You might have a completely different experience of the rest of your day.

    3. RC

      It, it's a, it's a very simple tip, and what I love about it is that it doesn't require anyone to change what they eat. That's a tip that you can utilize whatever diet you follow.

    4. JI

      Whether you're vegan, whether you're paleo, whatever you are, you can use that, yeah.

    5. RC

      Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. I've been a father now for, uh, 12, 12 and a half years.

    6. JI

      Congrats.

    7. RC

      And for several years, one of the things I do with my kids if I'm feeding them dinner is I will actually do that, right? I will-- I remember with my daughter a few years ago, I figured out that if I give her, let's say, the broccoli first-

    8. JI

      Yeah

    9. RC

      ... then the salmon, and then the sweet potato wedges, actually, often she's so full she doesn't even eat that many of the sweet potato wedges. But if you serve them all together, the kids will automatically finish off those sweet potato wedges first-

    10. JI

      Mm-hmm

    11. RC

      ... and sometimes they'll leave the salmon.

    12. JI

      Often people will say that. They'll say, "Oh, if I start with my veggies, I actually end up eating fewer of the carbs at the end." But while that's often a consequence, that's not the goal.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. JI

      And that's not needed. Even if you eat the exact same meal, same quantity, same amount, just by switching the order, the food will have a vastly different impact on your body, you know? And you'll help your body process the meal in an easier fashion.

    15. RC

      Yeah. Very, very practical. Now, one of the things that's really drawn me to your work, Jessie, is the approach.

    16. JI

      Mm.

    17. RC

      So as a medical doctor, what I've always tried to do with patients is to figure out or help them figure out what is the root cause of your symptoms? Don't get too sidetracked with the symptoms. They're important, but really trying to understand what's behind this-

    18. JI

      Yeah

    19. RC

      ... what's driving this.

    20. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    21. RC

      And I think one of the reasons I think you've blown up so quickly is y- you have hit on something that is very, very important. By focusing on one metric, blood sugar, you're able to help people with all kinds of things. Yes, weight loss, their immune system function, their hormones, their energy, their fatigue, their sleep, their skin-

    22. JI

      Yeah

    23. RC

      ... their aging, right? All these kind of downstream consequences simply from focusing on one thing.

    24. JI

      Yes.

    25. RC

      Right?

  2. 4:10 – 9:44

    Jessie's Story: From a Broken Back to Glucose Monitoring

    1. RC

      So, so tell us the story. How did that come about, and when did you figure out that actually blood sugar and a stable blood sugar matters to all of us, not just for those of us with type 2 diabetes?

    2. JI

      Yes. So my health journey started when I was 19. Before that, I had a very, you know, healthy, happy childhood, no big issues physical and mental. 19 years old, I go on vacation. I decide to jump off a waterfall with my friends. Spoiler alert, it was not a good idea. I break my back. One of my vertebras explodes. I have intense surgery, and I have a bunch of metal in my spine, and physically I recover quite quickly 'cause I was r- rather young. But then mental health issues start popping up for me, so anxiety, depression, feelings of being dissociated from myself, not feeling in my body anymore, just a lot of suffering. And I remember so clearly I was... I told my mom one day, I was like, "Mom, nothing matters more than health. If you don't have your health, it doesn't matter what job you have, it doesn't matter what you're studying in school. Like, you just can't live your life fully if your health is not okay." And I was so broken. I was just... I didn't even wanna live anymore. I mean, I was really not okay. So I decided sort of out of this anguish to go figure out how my body worked and how to reconnect with it and how to heal and how to-

    3. RC

      Mm

    4. JI

      ... feel good and happy in the morning when I woke up. So I went on a quest. I put my big girl pants on, and I went after the end of my undergrad in London, uh, at King's. I was studying mathematics. I moved to the US to go study biochemistry in grad school. Did that, was very interesting, but still I had not figured out how to talk with my body. I still felt a bit lost. I felt like-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. JI

      ... I didn't understand what to do to feel good. Then I moved to Silicon Valley to work in the field of genetics. Again, fascinating topic, but I learned that your DNA is actually not- ... that predictive. And you can't ask your DNA what you need to do in order to feel good in the morning. It can tell you your risk of, you know, long-term disease, but it's not great if you're trying to figure out-

    7. RC

      Mm-hmm

    8. JI

      ... today, how do I feel better? How do I avoid this fatigue, this mental health problem? But what happened was amazing. While I was there in Silicon Valley, I had the opportunity to try on a continuous glucose monitor, which I know you're wearing one on your arm right now. [laughs] And doing that completely transformed things for me. So that little device is measuring in real time your blood sugar level, your glucose level, and sending that data to your phone.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. JI

      And it's a device that was made for people with diabetes who need it. It's a matter of life or death, basically. But for me, as a non-diabetic, I didn't think I would really learn anything from it, but actually it completely changed my life.

    11. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    12. JI

      I was finally able to communicate with my body that had become such a black box since my accident. I was able to see, oh, wow, when I eat this, there's a big spike that happens underneath my skin. And actually, the days where I feel my best are when my glucose levels are steady. And then something else that was amazing happened. One day I felt one of these mental health episodes coming on of like the sort of dissociation, um, anxiety, depression thing that I had been dealing with since my accident. And I scan my glucose monitor, and I see one of the biggest spikes I had ever seen, and I started linking the two. I was like, oh, these glucose spikes could be one of the triggers for these really challenging episodes happening in my brain. All this to say that I became fascinated with the topic.

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    14. JI

      And as a scientist, my first inspiration was to go on Google Scholar and try to read everything I could, all the scientific studies I could. So I was sitting on my couch, and I had like a thousand tabs-

    15. RC

      Mm

    16. JI

      ... open on my computer, just like learning everything I could. And I discovered some very key important things. First, that I wasn't alone, that even if you don't have diabetes, you can still be experiencing these big glucose spikes on a daily basis. Second, that these spikes have consequences.

    17. RC

      Hmm.

    18. JI

      And it kinda depends on your health history, your body, who you are, but these consequences can range from cravings and fatigue to infertility to mental health getting worse, et cetera. So I was like, okay, I gotta avoid these spikes, right? The problem is I love sugar, and I love pasta, and I did not wanna give those up at all. So I had to figure out how do I still eat all these glucose-containing foods-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. JI

      ... in a way that doesn't create the spikes? And then by looking at even more research done by amazing scientists across the world, I synthesized all the research into these hacks that I started applying to myself, that I started sharing with my friends and my family, and that I ended up putting on Instagram. And now they've helped millions of people-

    21. RC

      Yeah

    22. JI

      ... across the world. And I'm so freaking proud of that because this information, this science, it needs to become a knowledge. People need to know this because it can really transform your life and avoid a lot of suffering.

    23. RC

      Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that and going through your story. There were so many little bits there, um, f- for me just to pick up on. One was how you, you could see the correlation between your blood sugar level and how you were feeling.

    24. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RC

      I think it's a bit in your book actually. Um, yeah, early on in the book, I wrote it down. I ha- You know, this is what you say, "Early, early on in my journey, I had the profound realization that how I feel right now is intimately linked to the spikes and dips" of your glucose.

    26. JI

      Yeah.

    27. RC

      Right?

  3. 9:44 – 16:21

    What Glucose Spikes Are and How Common They Are

    1. RC

      Now, I think let's just pause on that for a minute because unless someone has been paying attention to their blood sugar, people listening now, people watching now, it is likely that they are having or have had blood sugar spikes, right? So let's, maybe 'cause you're so good at communicating, maybe let's just go back to, you know, what is glucose, what goes on in the body, and what is a blood glucose spike?

    2. JI

      Yes. So glucose is a wonderful molecule. It is your body's favorite source of energy.

    3. RC

      Yeah.

    4. JI

      So every single cell in your body uses glucose for energy. So you know, our heart cells use glucose to pump blood. My finger cells right now are using glucose to contract my muscles. My liver cells use-

    5. RC

      Yeah

    6. JI

      ... glucose to perform other functions. Anyway, it's very, very, very important. And as human beings, the main way that we give glucose to our body is through eating foods, specifically through eating starchy foods, so that's pasta, bread, potatoes, et cetera, or sweet foods, so anything that tastes sweet from chocolate ice cream to a banana, okay? And you might think if glucose is my body's favorite source of energy and I wanna have a lot of energy, maybe I should eat as many starchy and sweet foods as I possibly can, and that's actually where the logic breaks down. So your body needs some glucose, but if you give it too much glucose-

    7. RC

      Mm

    8. JI

      ... symptoms start happening. I like to take the image of the houseplant. So if I went on vacation and I gave you my houseplant and I asked you to take care of it, you would know to give the plant some water.

    9. RC

      Mm.

    10. JI

      But if you gave the plant too much water, the plant would die. And I would come back from vacation and be like, "What the heck?"

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. JI

      "My plant's dead." So your body is the same. You need some glucose, but too much glucose causes problems. And specifically, so this idea of glucose spikes. If during a meal you deliver to your body too much glucose too quickly, that creates what we call a glucose spike. Now, if you're wearing a glucose monitor, you can see that on the graph. But you don't need to wear a glucose monitor-

    13. RC

      Mm

    14. JI

      ... to be able to understand you're having a spike. The most common symptoms of glucose spikes are, number one- Unsteady energy levels. So maybe it's 10:00 AM and you're just tired, or it's 3:00 PM and you need a third coffee because your energy is completely unsteady. Second most common symptom, cravings.

    15. RC

      Mm.

    16. JI

      So scientists at Yale found out that during the drop that happens after a spike, the craving center in your brain activates and tells you, "Find some cookies, find something sweet." So if you're having cravings during the day, it's very possible that they are due to being on this glucose rollercoaster. And as I mentioned, the majority of the population is on this rollercoaster.

    17. RC

      Yeah. How many people do you think across society, let's say Western society, how many people do you think are having unhelpful spikes on a daily basis?

    18. JI

      Well, we know that one billion people in the world have either pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes. So, you know, that's the condition that is the most commonly, um, associated with glucose levels. Those people are having spikes on a daily basis. For everybody else, the studies seem to point to the fact that 60 to 80% of people without diabetes are still probably having glucose spikes. So it's very common. It's very, very common. Essentially, if you think that you could feel better than you currently do, it's gonna be helpful for you to start balancing your glucose levels, to start reducing any symptoms you might be experiencing. It's k- it's kind of like the foundation of health, you know?

    19. RC

      Yeah.

    20. JI

      If you have unsteady glucose levels, like, your body's gonna have a hard time functioning.

    21. RC

      Yeah. I think, you know, one of the approaches I've been taking with patients for many years now is helping them to see how impactful changing their diet can be. And what I mean by that is really for most chronic conditions that I've seen for a number of years, one of the things I'll help patients do is change their diets.

    22. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    23. RC

      Because until someone has gone two or three weeks with a whole food based diet, a diet where actually their blood sugar is staying relatively stable, number one, they don't know how good they could feel, and number two, they don't know yet, and I don't know as a doctor, how many of their symptoms I can put down to the food and the blood sugar.

    24. JI

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      So instead of dancing around what I call downstream, trying to manage this symptom, "Oh, you're getting cravings. Oh, you've got a skin problem," right? And trying to k- think about medications and solutions-

    26. JI

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... there, it's like, well, hold on a minute. Why don't we just go back to basics first? If we can get that foundational pillar right with your food intake, what kind of goes away, right?

    28. JI

      Yes, because symptoms, I discovered this, symptoms are messages, right?

    29. RC

      Mm.

    30. JI

      Your breakouts, your infertility, your, you know, tiredness, they're actually symptoms, your body speaking to you and potentially telling you, "Hey, there's glucose spikes happening within." So I completely agree with you. Often, for example, if people have cravings, one of- one common reaction to having a craving is a feeling of guilt or shame or, like, feeling like you don't have enough willpower.

  4. 16:21 – 21:43

    The Glucose Goddess Method and the 2,000-Person Pilot

    1. RC

      Now, your first book, Glucose Revolution, was a, was a big worldwide smash hit. The new one I think is, is probably gonna do the same, right? It's really good. And you did this trial, you know, this... Is it 2,700 people?

    2. JI

      Yes.

    3. RC

      Right? Well, I'd love you to talk to us a little bit about that. But I seem to recall that, was it 70% of people report better energy?

    4. JI

      Yep.

    5. RC

      Right? So this is, this is really big and really important because I would say over the past 20 years, I would say low energy is one of the commonest reasons why people go to see their doctor, yet you're showing, right, if people follow your plan, the plan in the new book, that the majority of people are going to improve their energy within just a few weeks.

    6. JI

      Yes. So the new book is called The Glucose Goddess Method, and I wrote it because after the first book, people started DM'ing me, and they were like, "Jessie, can you please move in with me and help me actually do the hacks?" [laughs] So people wanted a plan to put all this science into action. So The Glucose Goddess Method is a four-week plan to turn the most important glucose hacks into habits, and we look at breakfast, we look at vinegar, we look at veggie starters, and we look at some movement. And as a scientist, I couldn't resist-

    7. RC

      [laughs]

    8. JI

      ... the idea of actually, you know, running an experiment, a pilot experiment, on people to actually measure their results. So in October, uh, 2022, I recruited 2,000 people off my Instagram, which is a huge amount of people. I thought I would get 50 or 100 people. Anyway, shows the power of that community. And they went through the method, and they reported back all of their improvements to me. So we have 90% of people reduced their cravings, okay? We have 70% of people have more energy. We have 40% of people with diabetes improved their diabetes markers. In four weeks, okay. And I think my favorite stat of all, 99% of people said they're gonna continue doing this for life. They've picked up these really, really, really easy habits that are not restrictive, don't ask you to give up any foods or count calories, but are now part of their lives and are gonna help them thrive and feel amazing and be connected to their bodies.

    9. RC

      Yeah, just, just incredible. Because all this is being done without them having to see a doctor-

    10. JI

      Yeah

    11. RC

      ... without them having to, um, you know, take time out of their days to go and try and find solutions. You're giving them some... That, you know, as we've mentioned, we've only mentioned one hack so far, the, the kind of order of foods.

    12. JI

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      But I agree with you that these things that you're teaching people, they need to be commonplace. They need to just be-

    14. JI

      Like brush your teeth or drink water.

    15. RC

      Exactly.

    16. JI

      Yeah.

    17. RC

      And I think as a, as a father, I think these are great things that we could teach our kids-

    18. JI

      Yes

    19. RC

      ... right? We could teach parents when their kids want a snack after school, right? There's, th- they... Imagine if all the children grew up knowing-

    20. JI

      Ah

    21. RC

      ... that I could change the way this food impacts my body simply by, you know, changing the order, or we can talk-

    22. JI

      Combining or doing some- I, I completely agree with you. And what's important to also note is that this, these hacks, I didn't invent them, right? They're all just based on these scientific studies that I translated into easy tips, right? So you can look in my books, I have over 300 scientific studies that I mention, but this is all science-based. And what's even cooler is that a lot of these hacks, you find parallels between them and things that we've been doing culturally for generations.

    23. RC

      Yeah. I mean, that I definitely wanna talk about-

    24. JI

      Yeah

    25. RC

      ... 'cause I am incredibly fascinated by modern science and how it fits alongside ancient practices.

    26. JI

      Completely.

    27. RC

      And I've been thinking about this for a number of years, but I, I remember, um, Jessie, just before my first book was published in, in the end of 2017, my mum was reading a copy and she said, "I wish you'd met my grandad, because a lot of the things that you're writing about is how he actually lived." Right? Which I found really fascinating. And I've, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of us, a lot of modern humans, I think there's a bit of a... Is arrogance too harsh a term? There, there's, there's a real feeling that, oh, we now know things for the first time on how to look after ourselves. But actually if you go to a lot of these cultures, the practices that we're now finding science to support, they've kind of been there in a lot [laughs] of cultures for thousands of years.

    28. JI

      Yeah. I think what happened is that we knew these things, you know, we had the wisdom, but then industrialization happened-

    29. RC

      Yeah

    30. JI

      ... the food industry happened, and so we lost touch.

  5. 21:43 – 26:32

    Why Rate of Rise Matters, and Weight Loss as a Side Effect

    1. RC

      Now let's talk about blood sugar for a minute, okay? 'Cause I think this is a really important point to get across. As we've said, most people when they think of that, think about type 2 diabetes, "Unless I have type 2 diabetes, I don't need to worry about it." But you're beautifully explaining why it's relevant for all of us. Now, if we're taking in the same volume of food, right? So our meal or snack is not changing. The same amount of, let's say, sugar is coming into our body. You're saying to us that actually by doing various things, we can stabilize the sugar. So instead of it going rapidly up and rapidly down, it can be stable for, for a lot longer.

    2. JI

      Yes. You can have maximum pleasure from the sugar with minimal impact on your health.

    3. RC

      So someone's gonna be thinking, "Okay, Jessie, but if the same volume of sugar is coming into my body, does it matter if it's coming in slowly or it's coming in rapidly?"

    4. JI

      Yes. Bingo. That's a wonderful question. Yes. We know from the studies that it's the increase in your blood sugar levels, the rapid increase and the variability, which is more damaging to your cells than a sort of steadier, more stable-

    5. RC

      Mm-hmm

    6. JI

      ... glucose level. So yes, it does matter. Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      Yeah. I guess, I don't know if this analogy makes sense to you, but let's say, um, I don't know, let's say you have a roof on your house with a, you know, very, very tiny hole, right? And if it rains a little bit every day, not too hard-

    8. JI

      Mm-hmm

    9. RC

      ... you know, for a week or so, you're probably gonna manage, you know? You're probably gonna be able to keep a bucket under the place, so you're gonna be able to catch it, dispose of it, get rid of it. But actually if you have that same volume of water suddenly coming in at the downpour of one day, you're probably gonna have a flood within your house.

    10. JI

      Yep.

    11. RC

      Does that analogy work when we think of the human body?

    12. JI

      I think it does. Another one I like is the analogy of Tetris.

    13. RC

      Okay.

    14. JI

      So imagine you're playing Tetris, and I give you two ways of playing Tetris. Ei- either everything, all the little blocks come down super quickly, or the same amount of blocks come down, but over, like, five times the time.

    15. RC

      Mm.

    16. JI

      Which one do you think you're gonna be able to manage better? The second one, same amount of blocks, but you have more time to organize them, put them away, deal with them. If everything comes down too quickly, you're overwhelmed, and you lose the level. You know, it's kind of that idea.

    17. RC

      Yeah.

    18. JI

      It's the same stuff, but your body has a much better time dealing with glucose when it arrives more slowly.

    19. RC

      So blood sugar spikes are related to- All kinds of different problems. And y- in both of your books, actually, I think you've beautifully outlined why this approach is relevant for everyone, and I mean everyone. [laughs] Now, I know your approach is not focused on weight loss, yet I think what's gonna happen with most [laughs] people is if they stabilize their blood sugar, excess weight is going to start coming off as a side effect rather than as the primary focus. And the reason I bring weight loss up is because I know that's not what you're... I know your approach is not about weight loss. But of course, many people do want to lose weight.

    20. JI

      Of course.

    21. RC

      And so I think it's important to address that. The, the... I guess where I'm trying to get to, Jessie, 'cause I, I really want people to hear this conversation and start making changes in their life, right? And we can talk about risk of type 2 diabetes in the future, risk of cancer, risk of dementia, but, you know, for many of us, that's a... doesn't land. We want something that's gonna make us feel good.

    22. JI

      We wanna have more energy, fewer cravings-

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. JI

      ... feel good, sleep better, have better skin. And, uh, what's cool about the glucose hacks is that they affect you both right now, and they help you feel good today, and-

    25. RC

      Yeah

    26. JI

      ... they prevent long-term disease. They're the same thing. But listen, I completely agree. If you tell somebody, "Do this to prevent type 2 diabetes," pfft, nobody's gonna do it. I wouldn't do it.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. JI

      It's just your, your human brain is not wired to comprehend that. And so it's easier to think about, "I'm gonna feel way better this afternoon if I eat my breakfast this way." And on the topic of weight loss, so yes, you know, I just wanna differentiate my work from, like, the big diet industry telling you, you know, "Just eat cabbage for a week and lose 20 pounds." W- what I'm talking about here is health, but as you mentioned, weight loss is often a consequence because when we steady our glucose levels, three things happen. Number one, our cravings go away.

    29. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    30. JI

      Number two, hunger reduces. Number three, our insulin levels reduce as well, which allows us to be in fat-burning mode more often. And to give you a statistic, in my pilot experiment for my second book, 40% of people who wanted to lose weight did in fact lose weight in these four weeks without restricting anything-

  6. 26:32 – 40:27

    Glycation, Mitochondria and Insulin: The Three Consequences of Spikes

    1. RC

      You mentioned insulin there.

    2. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      And I know when you explain why this matters to people, you often talk about mitochondria, glycation, and insulin.

    4. JI

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      And I think just getting that scientific understanding for people, I think would really help ground them and really help them understand why this is important. So could you explain w- how these three things get affected? I particularly like glycation-

    6. JI

      [laughs]

    7. RC

      ... 'cause I think when people hear that, they g- In fact, maybe let's start with glycation.

    8. JI

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      What is it? Because this is gonna move the needle for people straight away.

    10. JI

      For sure. So I explained h- what glucose is and what a glucose spike is, which is a rapid increase in blood sugar after eating. And the spikes have three main consequences that then lead to symptoms. So consequence one, glycation. Glycation is a process that happens in your body from the moment you are born, and it's kind of like cooking. So when you put a chicken-

    11. RC

      Yeah

    12. JI

      ... in the oven and it goes from being pink to being cooked, it has glycated.

    13. RC

      Mm.

    14. JI

      A human being cooks from the moment they're born until they die. And in fact, when they're fully cooked, that's when they die. So you're cooking, okay? And this cooking is also leading to aging. Cooking is like aging. Glycation is like aging. You can't stop aging, but you can slow it down or speed it up. Now, the more glucose spikes you have in your body, especially if they come from sweet foods, the faster glycation happens, the faster you age. And this shows externally, like the more wrinkles you get, but also internally. Your organs are slowly gonna start to deteriorate and become less healthy. So glycation is so connected to glucose that there's actually a very well-known test among people with type 2 diabetes called the HbA1c test, which actually measures the glycation of your red blood cells.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. JI

      So glucose causes glycation. Glycation is aging. Glucose spikes increase... well, speed up this process. That's one of the [laughs] one of the things that happens.

    17. RC

      Yeah, but that, this is a really important one because we get it when you talk about chicken browning or, I don't know, making a crème brûlée.

    18. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RC

      Right? You know, we, we, we know what that-

    20. JI

      Yeah

    21. RC

      ... looks like, but that's kind of what's happening-

    22. JI

      It actually happens-

    23. RC

      ... to us

    24. JI

      ... inside. So when scientists look at the cartilage of babies, like on the inside of their body, it's white. And by the time you're 90 years old, the cartilage is brown. Like, you're actually cooking. I know that sounds a bit crazy, but scientifically, it's completely true. You're glycating.

    25. RC

      Yeah. And this whole glycation piece is that we could be going on our life with a bit of low-grade fatigue, having a bit of sugar at 11 and at 3 PM to get us through, a bit more caffeine, not realizing that actually those are likely to be symptoms of blood sugar dysregulation.

    26. JI

      Yep.

    27. RC

      And by doing that, by having that blood sugar dysregulation, we're probably aging inside.

    28. JI

      Or we feel like it's normal.

    29. RC

      We think it's normal.

    30. JI

      I used to think it's, it was totally normal to be famished at 11:30 AM and exhausted at 3 PM. I just thought, you know, 'cause everybody around us feels that way.

  7. 40:27 – 47:07

    Hormones, Stress, Sleep and the Glucose Rollercoaster

    1. RC

      Right? The menopause is something that is talked about a lot these days. It's one of the hot topics in health, and I understand why, 'cause for many years, um, a lot of-

    2. JI

      Nobody was talking about it

    3. RC

      ... a lot of women don't feel it was taken seriously. A lot of women feel as though they were ignored by their doctors perhaps.

    4. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RC

      But you're also showing how stabilizing your blood sugar can lead to an improvement in menopausal symptoms.

    6. JI

      Listen, the scientific studies are very clear.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. JI

      The more glucose spikes you have, the more insulin you have, the worse your menopause symptoms, whether it's hot flashes, insomnia, et cetera. Like, your hormonal system cannot function properly if your glucose and your insulin are out of whack. It's just the hormonal axis is not gonna work if you're on a glucose rollercoaster, and this is true for menopause symptoms, for PCOS, for PMS.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. JI

      So, you know, the premenstrual syndrome, endometriosis, fibroids. Everything that's hormonally linked will get better when you steady your glucose and insulin levels. It is truly the foundation of hormonal health, is to have steady, balanced blood sugar.

    11. RC

      Yeah. It's, um, it's pretty incredible, and I think... I don't know how you view this, Jessie. When I would talk to patients about blood sugar rollercoasters, and I'd, I'd often draw them a graph.

    12. JI

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      You know, in a 10-minute consultation I'd sit there and say, "Look," like, and I'd, I'd just grab a piece of paper, you know, and I'd literally draw it out and I'd explain that, "This time you're having this food," right? "This is what's happened to your blood sugar. And then maybe two hours later, after it's high, it's coming down, it's crashing. And sometimes if you've been doing this a while it will overshoot."

    14. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    15. RC

      And one thing I would often say is that this is not just a blood sugar problem at that point. It's also a hunger problem. It's also a stress on the body.

    16. JI

      Yep.

    17. RC

      I wonder if you could speak to that, because I think that, for me at least, that really landed with patients. Your blood sugar falling rapidly is a stressor.

    18. JI

      Absolutely. So I actually just did a Live with an amazing, um, woman, Aviva Romm, who's really-

    19. RC

      Oh, brilliant

    20. JI

      ... specialized in this, uh, in glucose and stress, adrenal steroids, and she taught me a lot. She explained that when your body is going through this glucose rollercoaster- There is a certain amount of biological stress-

    21. RC

      Mm-hmm. Yeah

    22. JI

      ... that happens as a consequence, and that then impacts your, your hormonal axis, your thyroid axis, your adrenal axis. And that stress in and of itself can then lead to other problems in your body, whether it's mental health disturbances, whether it's inflammation, whether it's hormonal problems. Because your body, like, if you're stressed out, adrenals are stressed out, you're on a glucose rollercoaster, your body doesn't think it's safe to conceive. So you have all these side effects of that stress, that biological stress, that lead to downstream symptoms, and we need to look back at the fact that, yeah, that glucose rollercoaster is causing stress on top of the inflammation and the glycation and the insulin release. Truly, I don't think there's a better place to start-

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. JI

      ... for your health. Like, it is truly the foundation. You cannot have a healthy body if you're on a glucose rollercoaster. It's just not possible. You can manage, maybe. You can be a high-functioning glucose rollercoaster, but [laughs] it's just, it's just not gonna work. You n- you need that baseline.

    25. RC

      I, I love that. There is, there's a lot of people at the moment who are high-functioning glucose rollercoasters, right?

    26. JI

      [laughs] I love it. I love it.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. JI

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      But you walk around, you will see that, and-

    30. JI

      Mm-hmm

  8. 47:07 – 58:08

    Vinegar Before Meals and Using Hacks Without Pressure

    1. RC

      Let's talk about some more hacks, okay? So at the start of the conversation, you mentioned food order.

    2. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      And I really hope people put that into practice straightaway 'cause the, it can be transformative, just switching a few things around.

    4. JI

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      Vinegar.

    6. JI

      You wanna talk about vinegar? Let's talk about vinegar.

    7. RC

      I'd love to talk about vinegar.

    8. JI

      Yeah.

    9. RC

      I'd also love you to just drop in as well how certain cultures-

    10. JI

      Yes

    11. RC

      ... have had this within them as well 'cause I think give us the modern science, but give us the ancient wisdom as well.

    12. JI

      Let's talk about the ancient wisdom first. So for centuries, there are countries around the world where vinegar has been consumed. I mean, I'm French, right? In France, we have vinaigrette on everything. Or in Iran, where making apple cider vinegar is sort of a tradition that people do in their home, and they drink it every day. And in the 18th century, vinegar was even given as a tea to people with Type 1 diabetes. And so we've known culturally for a while that this is a good thing to eat-

    13. RC

      Mm

    14. JI

      ... but only recently we've discovered actually how it works. And to be perfectly transparent, when I was f- when I first came across the vinegar stuff, I was like, "This must be a fad." Like, I just, I just didn't believe it.

    15. RC

      [laughs]

    16. JI

      I was like, "This is another Instagram thing. I don't..." But then I looked at the studies, and they're actually incredible [laughs] clinical trials showing the impact of vinegar on our glucose levels. So now I'm a big vinegar fan. So let me explain.

    17. RC

      Who funded that study? Was it big-

    18. JI

      Oh, I checked

    19. RC

      ... big, was it Big Vinegar?

    20. JI

      Big Vinegar? No, no. [laughs]

    21. RC

      [laughs]

    22. JI

      No, actually legit scientists across the world. In Brazil, um, they, there was this one review study that was incredible. Um, it's all linked on my website and book if you wanna check it out. But the science showed that one tablespoon of vinegar before a meal, so either as a dressing, um, or- In a drink. It can be water, it can be tea. Reduces the glucose spike of that meal by up to 30%, and reduces the insulin spike of that meal by up to 20%, without changing what you're eating afterwards. Simply by adding this vinegar at the beginning of your meal, you can see an impact on your glucose levels. Now, of course, you know I don't want people to think, oh, it's a magic pill. I'm just gonna change nothing and just do the vinegar. The vinegar is one of several tools that become very useful in your day-to-day life. What I recommend in, in The Glucose Goddess Method, in week two we go over vinegar, and I have-

    23. RC

      Yeah, you have the whole week de- I saw it in the new book

    24. JI

      ... the whole week, and there's all these beautiful recipes, and I made it really fun and gorgeous. Because people are like, "Oh, vinegar? Like, what? I gotta drink vinegar? That sounds gross." Don't worry, I have a lot of delicious mocktails and teas for you.

    25. RC

      Well, actually, in the book-

    26. JI

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... there was, there was this, um, the, the photography's gorgeous-

    28. JI

      Thanks

    29. RC

      ... i- in the new book. It really is. And there was one image, I can't remember what it was, it was in the vinegar section, where it almost looks as though you're in a bar-

    30. JI

      [laughs]

  9. 58:08 – 1:10:22

    Putting Clothes on Your Carbs

    1. RC

      Don't eat your carbs naked.

    2. JI

      [laughs]

    3. RC

      Okay.

    4. JI

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      Right, let's talk about that, 'cause I think this is a really, really good hack.

    6. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      And maybe I'll share with you what I did a few weeks ago with my kids-

    8. JI

      Tell me

    9. RC

      ... in a se- Well, [laughs] okay. This is, this is not common, right? So, um, I guess like your Sunday morning, uh, chocolate ice cream, this is [laughs] not very common. But a few weeks ago, I cannot remember the exact ins and outs of what was going on, but I think it was just before dinner or at dinner time. There wasn't that much in the house, and there was some white rice, and I thought, "I can't just have this white rice by itself." [laughs] So I opened the cupboards, and there was some nut butter. So I scooped some. [laughs] I, uh, exactly, this is not common. This is what my kids were seeing at the same time. And I wasn't tracking anything, right? But I, [laughs] I also know about stable blood sugars, and I thought, "Actually, come on." So I put in, um, two or three big scoops of nut butter.

    10. JI

      I have so many questions.

    11. RC

      Right? Okay. [laughs] My kids do, and they still tease me about it. And I had it, and I wasn't tracking anything. But the reason I did it, A, is because I know actually adding that to it is likely to slow down the sugar release.

    12. JI

      You put clothes on your carbs.

    13. RC

      And I happen to enjoy that, right? I haven't had it much, but I did enjoy it.

    14. JI

      So my question is, is it good?

    15. RC

      I ha- I can have some quite unusual taste from time to time.

    16. JI

      [laughs]

    17. RC

      I enjoyed it. I like white rice. I like nut butter. [laughs]

    18. JI

      It's like Joey in Friends, you know?

    19. RC

      [laughs]

    20. JI

      Did you see that episode where they make, like, a, a pie, but it has meat in it, so it's sweet and meat, and he's like, "I like meat. I like pie. Meat and pie together."

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. JI

      [laughs]

    23. RC

      Well, listen, I, I haven't done it since, and the kids keep saying, "Daddy, why did you do that? It's disgusting." I said, "Listen, taste is a subjective experience. Daddy actually really liked that." They said, "You gonna put that in one of your books?" I said, "Look, I don't know. I'm not sure it's gonna take off yet." But the principle, I think, relates very much-

    24. JI

      Absolutely

    25. RC

      ... to I'm gonna guess one of your most popular hacks. I don't know if it is, but, you know, that term naked carbs is quite provocative, right? What does it mean, and why should you put clothes on your carbs?

    26. JI

      So let me ask you a question back. Why did you feel like you didn't wanna eat the white rice on itself, by itself?

    27. RC

      Yeah, you know, the truth is I'm taking one isolated incident, right? And I don't wanna put too much on it, because I don't really do it. I, as a general rule at the moment, am trying to, um... I have been probably since I put my CGM on about three months ago for two weeks, and I saw the impacts of certain things. I've not been wearing it, but I've just been making subtle tweaks, you know, like movement after exerci- uh, movement after eating, things like that, which we're gonna talk about. ... to stabilize blood sugar. Now, I was hungry as well. I was really hungry, and I thought, "This white rice is gonna go into my stomach, and about an hour later I'm gonna be starving again."

    28. JI

      Yes.

    29. RC

      Right? So that's why I did it.

    30. JI

      Great.

  10. 1:10:22 – 1:16:29

    Gratitude, Mental Health and the Surgery Memory

    1. RC

      Now, I wanna talk about the link between blood sugar and the way you felt.

    2. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      Before we do that, as I was reading your first book, there was a really powerful section towards the start. You are explaining that experience, okay? And you were explaining the moments before you had to go into surgery, and I wrote it down. Um, you wrote, "If I could wake up on the other side of this, I knew I would be filled with gratitude for the rest of my life."

    4. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    5. RC

      Do you remember that moment?

    6. JI

      Oh, yeah. I was so scared of dying. I was so scared. So I had broken my back four weeks ago. I had been transported in a medical situation all the way back to Switzerland for this operation in this clinic, and I had just been immobilized for, you know, four weeks. And they, the doctors came in, and they were telling me what they were gonna do. They were like, "Okay," and trigger warning, it's a bit graphic. They said, "Okay, we're gonna open your body from the side, take out all your organs, then find the pieces of the broken vertebrae, take them out, close the side, open the back, and then put this cage in, put the metal rods, drill some stuff into your spine, put the pieces back, and then we'll close you up. By the way, we might perforate your, you know, lung envelope or something, so you might wake up with a perforated lung, but, hey, we'll try not to do it. Everything will be cool. You ready?" And I'm like, "What?" [laughs] And I was so scared, and my body was in such a state of stress, and there was nothing I could do. You know? I could feel just this fear of dying that was so intense.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. JI

      Um, but yes, I remember very well.

    9. RC

      Well, what's interesting to me, first of all, thank you for sharing that, and that does sound... You know, as you were describing that, I mean, that is huge.

    10. JI

      Yeah.

    11. RC

      You know, you're 19 years old. You're being told in graphic detail what's about to happen.

    12. JI

      Yeah.

    13. RC

      That, of course, is incredibly scary. That part, if I, if I get through this, I will be filled with gratitude for the rest of my life, why that really fascinates me, Jessie, is big life experiences often happen to us.

    14. JI

      Mm.

    15. RC

      And in that moment we think, you know, "If we get through this, I'm gonna look at the world differently." And then we get through something, and for a few days, for a few weeks, for a few months, right? The memory is still there.

    16. JI

      Yeah.

    17. RC

      And we're feeling that intense gratitude. Given that that was over a decade ago, do you still feel that gratitude? And, and where I'm really fascinated by this is, obviously we, we had a coffee before we started in my kitchen. We were chatting. You seem to be someone to me who, despite an extraordinary amount of success in a short period of time- You strike me as someone who is really grounded, who's not let that attention go to their head.

    18. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RC

      Right? And I'm always fascinated what's going on in people who are able to do that. Is your accident, is that gratitude part of the story?

    20. JI

      I, uh, absolutely think it is, and that gratitude from surviving the surgery, actually it only lasted a few days, but the one gratitude that lasts, lasted forever and still I carry with me today, is the gratitude of waking up in the morning and having my mental health be good. Because after the accident, after all the mental health struggles I went through, having my mental health became even more powerful, and me feeling grateful. So let me give you an example. You know, I'm in London right now and I'm staying in an Airbnb for 10 days by myself, and for years I could never be alone. I could not sleep in a house by myself. I really couldn't be alone for more than 30 minutes because my mental health was so broken that I would get so anxious and scared of just existing. So to me, when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, "Wow, I'm actually okay. I'm alone and I'm okay." That drives me every single day, much more than the surviving the accident. That to me, if I had a day, my mental health was good, I didn't wanna die, I didn't feel terrified about being alive, that's an amazing day. And to me that is the biggest success, biggest wealth I could ever, ever, ever, ever have.

    21. RC

      Do you have a, a set practice to make yourself consciously aware of that each day?

    22. JI

      Yes. Every evening, and I've been doing this for four years, um, I use an app called Daylio, which is like a very sort of basic, like journaling app, and every evening before I go to bed at 10:00 PM I rate my mental health on a scale of one to five in that app, and then I put a little entry about how-

    23. RC

      Wow

    24. JI

      ... that day went. And so I, I can show you on my phone afterwards. I have, um, four years worth of daily, a little color per day showing my mental health. And no matter what happens, maybe I'll have like a difficult day at work, maybe somebody will say I'm stupid on in the, the internet, [laughs] like it doesn't matter because if my mental health was okay, that little rating in the app will be a five out of five. You know?

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. JI

      They're different, completely different things. Like the, the work thing and the success, and that's amazing, but ultimately I go to bed every single night, and what matters the most to me is my health and my brain, and if I feel okay. Because I don't th- I think it's hard to understand, like the depth of the angst and suffering that I was going through. Be- being alive had become the most terrifying thing I could ever imagine. Ever. So it's like if you're really scared of spiders, I'll get like a living tarantula from Australia and glue it to your forehead and tell you, "You can't touch it. It's alive, it's moving."

    27. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    28. JI

      "You can't do anything." I felt that way about life. Just being alive was the scariest thing. Being in a body was the scariest thing ever. Like, it went really far, the pain and the suffering. So today, the fact that I'm, you know, I took the train for two hours by myself. I felt happy. I didn't feel dissociated. I didn't feel anxious, depressed, scared of being alive. That's just gonna be the best feeling ever for the rest of my life.

  11. 1:16:29 – 1:22:19

    Blood Sugar, Anxiety and Healing Beyond Food

    1. RC

      When do you think that started to change for you, that, that fear of being alone, that fear of being alive? When did that start to shift to, "I'm okay being alone. I have gratitude now-"

    2. JI

      Mm.

    3. RC

      "... for being alive"?

    4. JI

      There were a few steps. I think, one, learning about glucose was a very important first step in me reconnecting with my body. And feeling, and knowing that I could trigger those episodes of immense existenc- existential fear with glucose spikes, I was like, "Whoa."

    5. RC

      Let's just pause on that a minute. I don't wanna get in the way of your answer, because I, I, I'm, I think it's absolutely profound what you're sharing. This is a point I don't think people get, that you're saying that feeling of an existential crisis, or let's broaden it out, panicky, anxious, feeling stressed, that can sometimes be because your blood sugar's going up and down, right?

    6. JI

      [laughs]

    7. RC

      It's, it's, it's a biological, it's a physiological problem, not necessarily a psychological problem.

    8. JI

      Being on a glucose rollercoaster can trigger a vast range of symptoms. For me, it was these extreme episodes of anxiety and, uh, brain fog. Oh, brain fog is a fascinating topic as well. Brain fog would become overpowering, super anxious, super stressed, not okay. And when I first discovered that glucose spikes could be one of the triggers, that completely changed my life. Because instead of feelin- feeling powerless towards this symptom and this feeling, I was like, "Oh my God! Wait a minute. You're saying that in the way that I'm eating, I'm triggering these moments?" That blew my mind, and I finally felt like I had some power back. I was like, for 10 y- eight years I had been a victim to this, not knowing when these episodes were happening, being too scared of being alone all the time, and then learning about glucose, it was the beginning of the rest of my life. Because I thought, "Hey, I can impact how I'm feeling. I can change these symptoms if I learn about my glucose levels." [laughs] What a beautiful, powerful place to be.

    9. RC

      Yeah, it's really interesting. I'm drawn to thinking about some of the trials on diet and mental health.

    10. JI

      Yes.

    11. RC

      Let's talk about the SMILES trial, for example. You know, in 2017 when they showed, um, depression can be influenced by a 12-week change in diets, right?

    12. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      Now, I, I've not read the paper for a while. I can't remember what's in the, uh, discussion at the end, but when they're querying what's going on here, I don't recall blood sugar being part of the conversation. I recall things like they're saying could it be the Omega-3 content of the Mediterranean diet in that trial? Is it the impact of, uh, all the diversity and plant foods on the microbiome, and that's then affecting moods? And of course, those things can be playing a role- But it could also be that you're eating a minimally processed food diet that's gonna stabilize your blood sugars.

    14. JI

      Yes, and there are studies maybe that have come out since then, I think, that show that the more glucose spikes you have-

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. JI

      ... the worse your symptoms of anxiety and depression are. So that was the first step for me, being like, "My food is impacting how I'm feeling, my mental health." And then when I studied my blood sugar, not only did these episodes happen way less, but also so many other things fell into place that I didn't even think were a symptom or a thing. I thought it was normal, you know, the fatigue, and the cravings, and the pimples, and the... I just thought it was normal. So that's changed a lot, but then I layered on to that. Once I felt, like, quite strong in that base, I layered on to that just amazing therapy. EMDR, and the shaking, and the everything, and the journaling, and I started bringing together all these practices. And over time, slowly, you know, I've been able to heal myself, and that is to me, I'm so, I'm so proud of it.

    17. RC

      Yeah.

    18. JI

      Like, I'm so happy about it.

    19. RC

      Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

    20. JI

      You're welcome.

    21. RC

      It's, it's funny, as you say that, as we record this, literally a few hours ago, the new episode with Bessel van der Kolk just, just went out.

    22. JI

      Yes.

    23. RC

      And in that, uh, conversation, he was chatting about EMDR and what a powerful therapy it can be for certain people in certain instances. Um-

    24. JI

      It helped me so much.

    25. RC

      Did it?

    26. JI

      Yes. It helped me a lot, really. It's quite amazing. Um, and I, you know, I used it for so many things, notably at the beginning for, like, that incident of the accident, jumping off the waterfall-

    27. RC

      Mm

    28. JI

      ... before the surgery, having my first panic attack. All those moments, with EMDR I was able to go back and give myself the, the love and the, the resources, and the tools, and the compassion that I didn't have in those moments, and to process some of that, you know, traumatic stuff.

    29. RC

      You strike me as someone who is very open-minded.

    30. JI

      Mm. Yeah.

  12. 1:22:19 – 1:25:56

    Grounding and Interoception

    1. RC

      I've heard that you like to ground.

    2. JI

      I do. Yes. I love-

    3. RC

      Me too.

    4. JI

      You do too?

    5. RC

      I, I do.

    6. JI

      [gasps]

    7. RC

      Well, what does it mean to you? And then I'll explain what it means to me.

    8. JI

      Um, well, I mean, technically, actually grounding is putting your feet or your hand on the earth, right? So I love putting my feet on the grass and just, like, feeling my nervous system calm down. And I started learning about the science behind it, which, again, blew my out- my mind. Like, when you ground, there are actual electrons-

    9. RC

      Yeah

    10. JI

      ... from your body that go into the earth's nervous system, and you connect your body and the earth's nervous system. Your nervous system, the earth's nervous system connect and regulate you. Like, hello, that's insane. That's so, so cool. And people say there are, aliens don't exist. Like, guys, come on, like, we're doing alien stuff. Like, how cool is that? And now we even know that that has an impact on your glucose levels. A study that I just shared on my Instagram a couple weeks ago, um, showed that if you ground, and okay, this is a lot, it's for the study, eight hours a day, too much, but it's for the study, you can reduce your glucose levels by 50 milligrams per deciliter. That's probably, like, three millimoles per liter.

    11. RC

      That's a lot.

    12. JI

      It's huge in people with type 2 diabetes. In just a week of doing eight hours of grounding a day, nothing else has changed, because it reduces your stress levels, and it has all these wonderful side effects on your body. So yeah, I love grounding.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. JI

      It's amazing.

    15. RC

      Yeah, I mean, for me, it's simply, you know, I'm lucky enough to have a garden, and pretty much every morning, particularly now as, you know, we're recording this in February, right? But it does feel as though spring is in the air.

    16. JI

      Absolutely.

    17. RC

      Which means in the morning, I'm out, I'm barefoot, I'm on the grass.

    18. JI

      Yeah.

    19. RC

      I'm often drinking my coffee on the grass.

    20. JI

      Oh.

    21. RC

      And we have a phrase in the family, 'cause I, I always try and do it with the kids when they're up, and we call it power from the earth.

    22. JI

      Mm.

    23. RC

      As a, as a family, that's what we call it. And to me, what does it do? You know, really, it's, it's fascinating to hear the science. It really is. But a few years ago, I thought, for me, I don't even need science for this, right?

    24. JI

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      I feel good-

    26. JI

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... when I'm barefoot on the grass, just as I feel good when I'm on a beach and I'm barefoot on the beach, right? It feels good to me.

    28. JI

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      And I think, I feel like I'm someone who has lived much of my life in my head.

    30. JI

      Mm.

  13. 1:25:56 – 1:34:44

    Practical Foods: Oats, Savory Breakfast and Plant Milks

    1. RC

      Maybe we could go through some common foods, for example-

    2. JI

      Hmm

    3. RC

      ... or common things that people do-

    4. JI

      Hmm

    5. RC

      ... just to explain blood sugar and maybe what people might be able to do, like, about it to limit the spike.

    6. JI

      Yeah

    7. RC

      Oats, right?

    8. JI

      Ah, I was gonna say oats

    9. RC

      Oats, right? A, a common breakfast food all over the world-

    10. JI

      Yes

    11. RC

      ... which may not be the best thing in all situations. Talk to us about oats

    12. JI

      So oats are a grain, and grains are full of starch. And as I explained, there's two types of food that create glucose spikes in the body, starches and sugars. So oats are a starch. And actually, if you look at starch, it's just one long chain of glucose molecules attached hand to hand.

    13. RC

      Mm-hmm

    14. JI

      And when you eat starch, those glucose molecules get freed, and then it creates a glucose spike. So oats in the morning, if you're just having oats, you're just having starch, which means glucose spike. So if you have oats and you feel hungry two hours after eating them, or if you feel tired at any moment during the day, or if you have other symptoms that you wanna take care of, you might wanna look at your oat situation. You have two options. One, you can learn to put some clothes on those oats. So maybe some nut butter. Maybe you can put some protein powder in there. Maybe you have a little egg, you know, a little soft-boiled egg in the oats, make it like savory oats. Uh, you can find lots of nice little combinations to put protein, fat, and fiber in the oats. Other option, you just change your breakfast completely and [laughs] and you go for what I call the savory breakfast. And in The Glucose Goddess Method, lots of recipe ideas, beautiful, but the principle is the following, a savory breakfast that keeps your glucose level steady and helps you feel amazing is built around protein.

    15. RC

      Mm-hmm

    16. JI

      So eggs, fish, nuts, tofu, protein powder, leftover from dinner, leftovers from dinner, one of my favorite ways to get protein in.

    17. RC

      Me too

    18. JI

      I had leftover, um, butter chicken for breakfast this morning. I had Indian food last night, butter chicken for breakfast, perfect. And then you can add some fiber or some fat to that, so, you know, olive oil, butter, avocados, maybe a bit of spinach if you want. And then the most important thing to remember is that in a savory breakfast you should not eat anything sweet, except if you want some whole fruit for taste. No fruit juices, no jam, no sweet cereal, no sweet yogurts, et cetera. You can still have sweet foods later in the day, but for breakfast, if you wanna set yourself up for success, it's very important to not have sweet food. And then starch you can as well, but for taste. So you can have some oats but for taste, you know, if your body really feels like them

    19. RC

      See, a lot of people will feel that they don't have time in the morning to make a breakfast, and they will get on the road to work-

    20. JI

      Mm-hmm

    21. RC

      ... and they'll stop off at a coffee shop, and they't pick up a coffee, and they may get tempted with pain au chocolats or croissants or pastries.

    22. JI

      Get a ham croissant instead of a chocolate croissant, right? 'Cause at least it has some protein in it. Or maybe on Sundays you can make a big batch of soft-boiled eggs, and you can take a couple with you every day. Or in my book I have a, a recipe for egg cups, which are really delicious. But at the coffee shop, maybe they have nuts. Maybe they have a toast with something savory on it.

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. JI

      But I agree, it's a difficult food landscape to navigate

    25. RC

      It, it, it really is, and I think, you know, having a savory breakfast is game-changing-

    26. JI

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... when you've never done it. Um, you know, for, for years, like you, I've been talking to patients about eat your dinner for breakfast.

    28. JI

      Yes

    29. RC

      You know? Cook too much, and in the morning heat it up. And-

    30. JI

      Absolutely

  14. 1:34:44 – 1:38:54

    Movement After Meals and the Soleus Calf Muscle

    1. RC

      Movement and blood sugar.

    2. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      This is quite an easy hack for people. It's been in many cultures for years, but, but as you've already explained, we've lost a lot of this kind of cultural wisdom.

    4. JI

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      What is the relationship between movement and blood sugar, and how can we utilize movement to mitigate the effects of what we've eaten?

    6. JI

      So you know the mitochondria I was telling you about earlier, so the little factories that make energy? In our muscles we have a lot of mitochondria, and they turn glucose into energy so that your muscles can contract.

    7. RC

      Mm.

    8. JI

      So when you're walking, when you're dancing, when you're lifting weights, you know, playing a whatever, team sports, your muscles are using glucose to power themselves, and so we can use that to our advantage. And here's the hack. After a meal, use your muscles for 10 minutes. Now, this can be just walking, it can be cleaning your kitchen, it can be doing my new favorite thing, which is calf raises. So you just sit at your desk, and you just, like, put your feet planted on the floor, and you just raise your feet up on your toes so only your toes are touching, and you do these calf raises or calf pushups for, like, five minutes. And any way you wanna use your muscles [laughs] it's gonna be helpful because as you're contracting your muscles, the glucose from the meal as it arrives in your bloodstream is gonna be soaked up by your muscles-

    9. RC

      Mm

    10. JI

      ... and used for energy. So you're gonna reduce the glucose spike of that meal without needing to change what's in the meal at all.

    11. RC

      So, yes, we can try and eat better quality meals to stabilize our blood sugar. We can change the food order.

    12. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      But let's say we don't wanna make any changes, and we've had a meal that we know possibly isn't the best for us in terms of blood sugar spikes.

    14. JI

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      You're saying if we do 10 minutes of movement after that meal, we can mitigate the effects.

    16. JI

      Exactly. So within 90 minutes after the end of the meal, use your muscles a little bit. And really it can be super simple. You can be sitting on the couch watching a movie after dinner, grab a bottle of water, and do, like, some bicep curls with the bottle of water.

    17. RC

      Anything, basically.

    18. JI

      Anything. Anything. Anything. And really the calf raises are a really easy place to start. Your calf actually has a muscle called the soleus muscle, which is specifically excellent at soaking up glucose from the bloodstream, so the calf raises are a good option.

    19. RC

      I saw this on your Instagram grid recently.

    20. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    21. RC

      Profound.

    22. JI

      Cool, right?

    23. RC

      And, and, like, I always look at things through an evolutionary lens and think, "Well, what is so unique-

    24. JI

      [laughs]

    25. RC

      ... about the calf muscle?"

    26. JI

      We use it for walking.

    27. RC

      We use it for walking.

    28. JI

      Yes.

    29. RC

      Exactly.

    30. JI

      Yeah.

  15. 1:38:54 – 1:45:15

    Fruit, Dried Fruit and Ancient Wisdom on Eating Fruit

    1. RC

      Fruit versus dried fruit.

    2. JI

      Oh my God, I think this is one of my favorite topics.

    3. RC

      Okay, let's go.

    4. JI

      Okay. So you know how people say, um, "Well, it's fruit, so it's natural"? Yeah, okay. So I have a scoop for you. The fruit that we have today in our supermarkets is not natural. Just like humans bred gray wolves into Chihuahuas for their entertainment, humans have been crossing and breeding fruit for millennia to make them more appetizing for humans, to make them sweeter-

    5. RC

      Mm

    6. JI

      ... to make them have fewer seeds, less fiber. If you look at an ancestral banana, it's tiny. It's full of seeds. It's quite dense, and it's not very sweet. If you look at a banana today, it's very sweet, very little fiber, very little seeds, super easy to eat. Humans have been creating these fruit-

    7. RC

      Mm

    8. JI

      ... to be extra juicy and extra sweet and extra full of sugar. So that's one thing to note. The fruit you see today in the supermarket is not natural. However, a piece of fruit still has fiber in it, and fiber is protective. As I explained at the beginning, fiber helps reduce the glucose spike of a meal-

    9. RC

      Mm

    10. JI

      ... because it creates that mesh in the intestine. So if you wanna eat something sweet, eating fiber is still the best... Sorry, eating a piece of whole fruit is still the best thing to do because of that fiber blunting the spike from the sugar.

    11. RC

      Mm.

    12. JI

      The problem arises when we denature that piece of fruit. So maybe we're gonna juice an apple.

    13. RC

      Mm.

    14. JI

      As a result, we're removing all the fiber from the apple, and we're concentrating the sugar that was already being concentrated for centuries by humans in that whole apple. When we dry fruit, we take away all of the water, so we concentrate the sugar, and we eat way more pieces of dried fruit than we would of regular fruit.

    15. RC

      Yeah. And what's, I think, particularly concerning about that is there's quite a few companies now which are targeting children with dried fruit, and I think many parents are... Again, um, I, I, I always say this, and I wanna reiterate this point. I genuinely believe that all parents are doing the best that they can in the context of their life situation, the context of their knowledge.

    16. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    17. RC

      But I'm not sure that [laughs] those dried fruit packets are the best thing to be giving our kids, particularly on an empty stomach.

    18. JI

      Yes, although you could argue that dried fruit is better than, like, candy because at least it has some fiber in it. Though what would be even better, if you really wanna give dried fruit, would be to pair it with some nuts, for example.

    19. RC

      Yeah.

    20. JI

      So you make a little snack with, like, a few, like, dried apricots and then some pecans or whatever. That's better 'cause you're putting some clothes on the [laughs] -- on the carbs, right?

    21. RC

      Yeah. I get it, and that, that's what I love about all your suggestions. They can be applied by anyone in any situation, no matter what diet they're following.

    22. JI

      Yes.

    23. RC

      Little hacks, little tweaks, just to make things a little bit better than they would've otherwise been, right?

    24. JI

      Exactly. We're not talking, like, big overhaul-

    25. RC

      Yeah

    26. JI

      ... of your life, of your food habits. No, no, no. Small tweaks, big impact.

    27. RC

      Yeah. Adding those nuts into the dried fruit-

    28. JI

      Yeah

    29. RC

      ... you can see how it could be really tasty-

    30. JI

      Yeah, absolutely

  16. 1:45:15 – 1:55:09

    Handling Pushback, Eating Disorder Concerns and Final Advice

    1. RC

      Now, Jessie, it's almost impossible now to have the audience size which you have and not get pushback.

    2. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      Okay? I'm sure it's technically possible, but I would say it's almost impossible.

    4. JI

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      If and when people push back against your work, what is the common thing they say, and how do you respond?

    6. JI

      Hmm. So I've, I've experienced, like, multiple waves of this.

    7. RC

      Okay.

    8. JI

      Um, and I sort of categorize pushback or criticism in two camps. So there's, like, the stuff that really I can't do anything about. For example, um, people who don't wanna hear any information about food. Because it... No, but, you know, because maybe they had an eating disorder in the past.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. JI

      Maybe they're just like, "No." So for those people, my work is like, they just, they just hate it because I'm talking about food. Those things I don't really pay attention to because, you know.

    11. RC

      It's not for them.

    12. JI

      Exactly. And then you have the useful criticism, and from the beginning of the Glucose Goddess project, I've always really listened to feedback, whether it's in comments or in DMs or in real life. Like, because my purpose here is to make science accessible, to make it inclusive, to make sure that I'm serving the people that I wanna give this information to. So I would say the biggest criticisms have been from people with Type 1 diabetes. Maybe this was a year ago that it started happening, that they didn't like that I was using a glucose monitor as a not, as a person without diabetes. And I really listened very carefully to this because, um, a lot of people were sharing with me how, um, saddened it made them that I was, like, showing my glucose monitor like, "Hey, I'm wearing a glucose monitor," and for them it was a device that they need to survive. And so I really took that to heart, and I started thinking a lot about my glucose monitor approach and, you know, whether I think it's for everybody. I stopped also posting photos of myself with the device-

    13. RC

      Mm

    14. JI

      ... being like, "Hey, glucose monitor." Now I really am just like, I'm using it to make the illustrative graphs, but I no longer, um, use it as, like, a fashion statement.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. JI

      You know? So that was really, really helpful. I think another thing that people, uh, push back on is the close on carbs thing. They say, yes, but if you take it to an extreme, it could be harmful. Like, as I explained at the beginning, you could put two pounds of butter on a piece of bread-

    17. RC

      Mm

    18. JI

      ... and that would reduce the spike, but you need to have more nuance. And that I think I really address it in the book quite well. So...

    19. RC

      I think you do address it really well.

    20. JI

      Yeah.

    21. RC

      I think... You know, I've read both books, and I think you're really clear that this is not to stress you out, right?

    22. JI

      Mm-hmm.

    23. RC

      This is not necessarily to be applied in every situation.

    24. JI

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      This is to try and help you.

    26. JI

      Yeah.

    27. RC

      Right? Yeah, sure, in an ideal world, we'd all eat an exclusively whole food diet-

    28. JI

      Mm-hmm

    29. RC

      ... that was naturally stabilizing our blood sugars, but the reality is most people, or at least many people, are going to struggle with that.

    30. JI

      Yes.

Episode duration: 1:55:09

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