How To Eat with Glucose Goddess Jessie Inchauspé | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Jessie Inchauspé 0:00 Diets don't work. Diet culture has destroyed, uh-

Simon Sinek 0:03 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 0:03 ... women's, uh, psychological health for decades. I grew up in France where every single cover of the magazine was like how to lose 15 pounds in two days.

Simon Sinek 0:11 The problem with this stuff is it can be overwhelming and, and the people who are espousing it, we can't live to their standard.

Jessie Inchauspé 0:16 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 0:16 But I can actually live to your standard.

Jessie Inchauspé 0:18 I am passionate, obsessed with making behavior change easy for people. Easy, sexy fun. I just really wanna help people take that first step.

Simon Sinek 0:28 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 0:28 And then that's why I developed this concept of the hacks. If you're lost, overwhelmed, sick, start with my glucose hacks. Even one cherry tomato, one baby carrot before your next meal is already amazing.

Simon Sinek 0:39 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 0:39 Be proud of yourself. Start anywhere. That's the key here. It's getting you in a state where then you can go on to bigger and better things. These are the first place to start. [upbeat music]

Simon Sinek 0:53 So I wanted to have you on our little podcast because, um, my brother-in-law announced at the dinner table that he was gonna get a glucose monitor just to try it out. So of course, my sister and I were like, "All right, we're in." And for 30 days we did glucose monitoring, and it was absolutely-

Jessie Inchauspé 1:13 Cool

Simon Sinek 1:13 ... fascinating. And in the course of this, we all became, uh, huge fans of yours.

Simon Sinek 1:19 How did you start becoming glucose obsessed? It's not a childhood dream.

Jessie Inchauspé 1:23 It's a good question you raised because I don't have diabetes. Nobody in my family has diabetes. Usually when you think glucose or blood sugar, you think diabetes, right? And I actually never thought this would be my career and this would be what I talk about all day, but it came about through my own personal health problems. So when I was 19, I had a very bad accident. I jumped off a waterfall and broke my back, snapped one of my, my vertebraes. Yeah. And so you know what it's like to hurt yourself. I had super intense surgery. I have lots of screws and metal in my spine now. But physically I was fine pretty quickly just because I was young. But what happened is that I started developing a lot of mental health issues: depression, anxiety, dissociation, panic attacks. I felt like a stranger in my own body, and this lasted for almost a decade.

Simon Sinek 2:15 Oh, wow.

Jessie Inchauspé 2:15 And during that time, I realized at such a young age that if you don't have your health, you really don't have much. And I wanted to feel better. I wanted to heal my brain and my body, and that's when I started a quest to try to understand myself and understand what I could do. And that first led me to study biochemistry in grad school, then to work in genetics, and nothing helped me feel better until I discovered the world of glucose. And a little bit like you and your family, I randomly put on a glucose monitor as part of this pilot study, and it completely changed everything because I saw that the days where my glucose levels were steady, my mental health was better.

Simon Sinek 2:55 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 2:55 And the days where I was in this rollercoaster, my dissociation panic attacks were worse, and that's when the gates opened and I became-

Simon Sinek 3:02 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 3:02 ... fascinated.

Simon Sinek 3:04 It, it is absolutely fascinating. My results were astonishing. Um, my whole life I've had, uh, crazy, um, sort of, uh, energy spikes. Like I'm-

Jessie Inchauspé 3:16 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 3:16 ... I'm like, I'm great all morning and I never take a meeting at like 4:00 in the afternoon if I can help it because I am... I'm useless. My brain doesn't work. I sit there like a lump on a log. Like I'm just... Uh, the afternoons are useless for me. And I just thought that's my circadian rhythm, that's just how I am. I'm high in the mornings, I'm low in the afternoons, and I come back in the evenings, right? Then we're doing the glucose monitoring, and I'm getting better at understanding how to manage the spikes, and something remarkable happens, which is my, my energy is steady all day. I have perfectly steady energy. I can work all day. I don't have the peaks and valleys like I used to have, and it has been game changing just from a, a, a, a, a productivity for one, but also just

Simon Sinek 4:01 feeling good.

Jessie Inchauspé 4:02 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 4:02 You know? 'Cause when you're tired, everything feels compounded. Your emotions are compounded. Fatigue is a killer, and that afternoon fatigue is gone.

Jessie Inchauspé 4:11 And usually actually if we feel crappy in the afternoon, we don't realize that it could be caused by the way we ate at breakfast, right?

Simon Sinek 4:19 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 4:19 It's hard to put two and two together to realize that what you ate six hours ago could be impacting how you feel now. That's not an obvious connection for people to make, and that's the connection that I had to start making. But yeah, as you said, it's when we study our glucose levels, so many things fall into place. You know, cravings, hunger hormones, energy. Your mitochondria function better. You're actually creating this healthy, sustained energy from within your cells. But when you're on a glucose rollercoaster, spike, drop, spike, drop, spike, drop, lots of things can go wrong, from mental health for me, to hormones, to skin, to inflammation in the brain, et cetera. So it's, it tr- it truly is the, the foundation of living a life in, in which you feel good in your body and you can actually go and do the things that you wanna be doing.

Simon Sinek 5:09 It, it's also worth noting that I'm not one of those people that like wears a monitoring device, wears a, a, an Oura Ring. I mean, I've tried them all, and I think they're all fun, but I'm not numbers obsessed where I'm tweaking my life to, to... You know, I, I'm not biohacking. Like none of these things have ever really had long-term impact or value, and this was the one where I was so concerned about spiking my glucose, I actually lost four pounds of weight 'cause I wasn't snacking at night anymore, and the way I used to deal with my energy drops was either with coffee or with sugar. I'd have a chocolate bar in the afternoon to get some, some energy back, which now I'm learning only made life even worse.

Jessie Inchauspé 5:46 Well, it wasn't actually giving you energy because sugar, we mistake the feeling of sugar for energy, but actually what we feel is dopamine. So when you eat something sweet-

Simon Sinek 5:56 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 5:56 ... like a chocolate or a candy bar or a muffin in the afternoon, you know you feel a sort of rush in your brain. You go like, "Whoa."

Simon Sinek 6:02 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 6:02 You feel awake. That's dopamine. That's the pleasure molecule in your brain. That is not energy.

Simon Sinek 6:08 Wow.

Jessie Inchauspé 6:09 But we're all confused,

Jessie Inchauspé 6:11 yeah. And it lasts, you know, for several minutes, but then on the inside, your mitochondria, which are actually making energy in your body- They get stressed out by a big influx of sugar, by a big glucose spike. Your mitochondria are meant to receive steady levels of glucose throughout the day in a very balanced way, but when a big spike comes their way, they go on strike. They're like, "Too much information, cannot deal, need to take a nap." [laughs] And as a result, they're not making this ATP, this energy effectively for you, and you feel tired, and that leads to chronic fatigue.

Simon Sinek 6:47 So-

Jessie Inchauspé 6:47 If you're tired, you keep eating sugar because you think it's gonna be good for you, but you're just making the problem worse.

Simon Sinek 6:52 So good. So let's, let's take a step back here. What is glucose?

Jessie Inchauspé 6:56 Mm.

Simon Sinek 6:56 Why do glucose spikes, why are they unhealthy? What's happening inside our bodies? What actually is it all?

Jessie Inchauspé 7:01 Okay. So glucose is your body's favorite source of energy, okay? So every single cell in your body is burning glucose for energy. So if you're a listener listening to us, your brain cells right now are burning glucose to make sense of what we're saying. If you make a fist with your hand, the muscles in your hand are gonna burn glucose to contract. Every part of your body runs on glucose, and the way that we give this very important molecule to our body is by eating, specifically by eating two types of food, starches, so that's bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, oats, tortillas, and sugars. So anything that tastes sweet, from chocolate to a banana. Starches and sugars turn to glucose in our body. Now, here's the trick, right? Do you have a plant at home, Simon? Do you take care of any plants? Okay. You know that your plant needs some water to live.

Simon Sinek 7:59 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 7:59 But if you give your plant too much water, what happens?

Simon Sinek 8:02 It dies.

Jessie Inchauspé 8:03 Exactly. The human body is the same. Some glucose, fantastic. Too much glucose, problems start happening, and specifically when during a meal you give too much glucose to your body, that leads to a glucose spike, which simply means just a lot of glucose arriving at once, and these spikes have consequences. Inflammation, which is one of the biggest drivers of disease in the world, and this can show on your skin as acne, rosacea, psoriasis, but also underpins so many chronic diseases, from heart disease to cancer. So first thing is inflammation. Second thing is glycation. Glycation is a fancy word for aging. The more glucose spikes you have, the faster you age.

Simon Sinek 8:49 Wow.

Jessie Inchauspé 8:49 And this shows on your skin as wrinkles, but also on your insides. Your organs slowly deteriorate. And then last big problem that happens when you have a glucose spike is that your body rushes in to try to get that glucose level back down, and the way it does that is by releasing a hormone called insulin. Insulin grabs all the excess glucose and puts it away in your liver, in your muscles, and in your fat cells, and that's one of the ways you gain fat on your body. And over time, too much insulin in the bo- in your body leads to type 2 diabetes. And that's just three of the things that happen, right? But depending on your medical history, your body, your genetics, you can get a whole range of symptoms from these spikes. For me, it was depersonalization. For somebody else it could be infertility, right? Glucose spikes are not good for us, and most of us, estimates put it at about 80% of the population, 80% of the population who does n- who does not have diabetes are still experiencing these spikes on a daily basis like you, and we suffer the consequences.

Simon Sinek 9:53 So managing the glucose spikes is a way of obviously reducing all those things. So now let's get into it, how to manage glucose spikes. So one of the big-

Jessie Inchauspé 10:00 Uh-huh

Simon Sinek 10:00 ... takeaways I learned from you is the order in which we eat.

Jessie Inchauspé 10:03 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 10:03 And so vegetables first, then protein, then starch.

Jessie Inchauspé 10:08 A plus.

Jessie Inchauspé 10:10 Good job.

Simon Sinek 10:10 I'm obsessive now.

Jessie Inchauspé 10:11 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 10:12 I'm obsessive, and I notice the difference immediately.

Jessie Inchauspé 10:15 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 10:15 Like I went out for pa- I went out to a pasta restaurant with friends. I know what it's gonna do to m- I happened to be wearing my glucose monitor at the time. I know exactly what it's gonna do. It's gonna spike it like crazy.

Jessie Inchauspé 10:24 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 10:24 So I ordered a bunch of side vegetables, and I told the, I told the waiter to bring it first. So I sat there and ate a bunch of broccoli first, and then I had a huge pasta meal, and I had no spike. It was astonishing. It was amazing to see.

Jessie Inchauspé 10:36 That's amazing. And actually, when you think about it, I'm gonna explain why this works in a second, but traditionally in Italy, this is what they do. They have antipasti at the beginning of a meal, which is-

Simon Sinek 10:46 Right

Jessie Inchauspé 10:46 ... generally grilled vegetables. So we've known this stuff for a long time but have lost touch. So the food order thing. So we discovered, scientists discovered that if you eat the elements of a meal in a specific order, you can cut the glucose spike by up to 75% of the same exact meal just by changing the order. And as you said, and honestly good job for remembering that, veggies first, proteins and fats second, and carbs and sugars last. And so why does this work? Because I'm gonna test you now. You ready?

Simon Sinek 11:16 Yeah, yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 11:16 Because veggies contain a very good substance called...

Simon Sinek 11:20 Fiber.

Jessie Inchauspé 11:21 Yes, exactly. So fiber in the veggies-

Simon Sinek 11:23 [laughs]

Jessie Inchauspé 11:23 ... is the key here. [laughs] Good job, Simon. When you have-

Simon Sinek 11:26 Very excited that I got that right.

Jessie Inchauspé 11:28 [laughs] When you have a fiber at the beginning of your meal, this is what happens. It has time to reach your upper intestine before anything else, and there the fiber deploys itself onto the walls of your upper intestine and creates a sort of protective superhero mesh, right? I like to see fiber as a superwoman there to protect you. Once that mesh is in place, if you have pasta afterwards, pasta contains glucose. Those glucose molecules from the pasta are not gonna be able to go through from your upper intestine to your bloodstream as quickly or as much as they would if that fibrous mesh was not there. So you're still getting all the pleasure from the pasta and all the deliciousness, but to your body it's landing much more softly. Your body's not receiving this big spike in the bloodstream. Rather, that f- protective fiber shield is slowing down the velocity, and that's why you see a smaller spike when you have the veggie starter. And it is such an easy thing to do.

Simon Sinek 12:25 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 12:25 And I don't know if you've noticed it, but it impacts your energy, your cravings for the rest of the day, how you feel. It's just like it's amazing how quickly glucose levels are able to be modulated by what we do, and then how quickly we feel the benefits.

Simon Sinek 12:39 And one of the reasons I lost weight was, so I went out for dinner and I ordered fish with vegetables and, and I got onion rings 'cause I like onion rings.

Jessie Inchauspé 12:47 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 12:47 But I followed my Glucose Goddess advice-

Jessie Inchauspé 12:49 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 12:50 ... and I had my vegetables first, then I ate my fish, and then I only ended up eating two onion rings as opposed to six or seven because I was full.

Jessie Inchauspé 12:58 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 12:58 So I had the joy of the onion rings without the excessive amount of fat, uh, from the fried food. And so it, it didn't affect me at all, which was great-

Jessie Inchauspé 13:06 Yeah

Simon Sinek 13:06 ... from a, from an energy spike to, uh, to, to gaining weight.

Jessie Inchauspé 13:10 However, Simon, like, even if you had had all of the onion rings, right? Even if you didn't change how much you ate but you just simply changed the order, you would still get a big improvement in your glucose levels and your energy. But yes, one of the great side effects of this is that once you get to the carbs, you know, you, you don't need as many anymore to get the enjoyment and the satiety-

Simon Sinek 13:30 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 13:30 ... because you've had the p- the veggies, proteins, and fats before.

Simon Sinek 13:33 Why, why do proteins go second? So the veggie I understand produces this protective mesh. What does the f- what does the protein do?

Jessie Inchauspé 13:39 So the protein has an effect on what's called... Okay, it's not a very appetizing word. It's called gastric emptying. So it's the speed at which food moves from your stomach to your upper intestine. So protein slows down gastric emptying. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to stack all the stuff that is gonna pass through more slowly into your upper intestine, and then at the end bring in the pasta or the carbs that are gonna be slowed down by the fiber and proteins and fats that are there before.

Simon Sinek 14:06 So interesting. Okay.

Jessie Inchauspé 14:07 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 14:07 Talk to me about the importance or detriment of water. So I've had people tell me not to drink water before my meal because it-

Jessie Inchauspé 14:15 Mm

Simon Sinek 14:15 ... dilutes the digestive enzymes, blah, blah, blah. So am I allowed to drink water before? Can I drink water during? Do I have to wait to drink water? Like, w- how does water play, you know-

Jessie Inchauspé 14:25 You have to completely stop drinking water for the rest of your life.

Simon Sinek 14:28 [laughs]

Jessie Inchauspé 14:29 That's... No, I'm kidding. [laughs] So there's, there's one small study that I'm gonna mention about the water thing. It appears that if you refrain from drinking water while you're eating, the glucose spike of the meal is gonna be smaller. So it's better from a glucose standpoint to drink before and after the meal. Why is that? The scientists have a few hypotheses, but it's not totally sure. What I think might be happening is that simply when you're not drinking water as you're eating, you're gonna be chewing more and just eating more slowly, so the food is gonna arrive more slowly into your bloodstream.

Simon Sinek 15:01 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 15:01 But, you know, the effect is negligible. So I'm a water drinker. I can't stop drinking water while I'm eating, so this is one of the times where I'm like, "Ugh, not for me." You're gonna have a much bigger impact by adding a veggie starter or going for a walk after your meal versus removing the water.

Simon Sinek 15:17 A- and you're French. Where does wine fit in?

Jessie Inchauspé 15:21 Well, my philosophy is that when you're having alcohol, it's what I call a pleasure decision. It's not a health decision.

Simon Sinek 15:28 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 15:28 Alcohol is not good for our health. Now we know that. The best amount of alcohol for your health is zero.

Simon Sinek 15:33 Right.

Jessie Inchauspé 15:33 But if you're having alcohol or if you're having, like, your favorite cake or whatever, it's your birthday, I don't know, have the alcohol that you like best. Don't try to optimize your alcohol consumption for your health. It's a pleasure decision. It's okay to make some decisions for that purpose. If you really want to know which alcohols are best for your health, well, wine actually is one of the best ones, so any color, sparkling or not. And then hard, uh, alcohols,

Jessie Inchauspé 16:02 tequila, vodka, gin with some soda water and lime. The worst, and again, I'm using, you know, air quotes here-

Simon Sinek 16:08 Yeah, yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 16:08 ... the worst alcohols for your glucose levels are beer and cocktails. But if you're gonna have a drink, like if you-

Simon Sinek 16:14 Sure

Jessie Inchauspé 16:15 ... love margaritas, have a margarita. See what I mean?

Simon Sinek 16:17 Sure, sure, sure. Okay. Now, the big one that really upset me when I started to learn about your work was oatmeal.

Jessie Inchauspé 16:25 I'm so sorry.

Simon Sinek 16:25 Because oatmeal I've always been told was healthy.

Jessie Inchauspé 16:29 Well, so oats are a grain, right? And grains are full of starch. So if you absolutely love oats and you want to have them in the morning, there's a few things you can do. You can add what I call adding clothing to our carbs. So if you had just naked oats by themselves, the glucose would create a glucose spike very quickly. But if you add clothing, so protein, fat or fiber, you're gonna slow down the speed of arrival of those glucose molecules and reduce the spike. So an easy thing in your oats meal could be adding some protein powder, adding a few scoops of nut butter, for example, some seeds. I don't know how that sounds. You're making a funny face right now. What do you think?

Simon Sinek 17:10 No, I can do all that. The-

Jessie Inchauspé 17:11 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 17:12 But it raises the question about the order in which we eat. So, like, you know, pizza, I should be eating the cheese and then the bread.

Jessie Inchauspé 17:20 [laughs] Well, you sh- yes, of course, you could technically. Same thing goes for lasagna or a sandwich, right? You could separate out all the different parts of your meal.

Simon Sinek 17:30 I could have the lettuce-

Jessie Inchauspé 17:31 But, like-

Simon Sinek 17:31 ... then the turkey and then the bread.

Jessie Inchauspé 17:33 Yeah, but that's crazy. [laughs] So don't do that. What you can do in those cases when you have a mixed meal is just add a plate of veggies before you have that mixed dish, so you're gonna get the benefits of the fiber without deconstructing your, uh, sandwich, right? There's some instances where some hacks are easier to apply

Jessie Inchauspé 17:51 than others. We have to be flexible.

Simon Sinek 17:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 17:53 We have to adapt.

Simon Sinek 17:54 So when I eat vegetables, how long does that lining in the, in the, in the upper intestine last? So for example, can I eat vegetables at home when I'm heading out for dinner where I know there won't be vegetables? Like I'm going to a barbecue or something.

Jessie Inchauspé 18:04 You can. Yeah, about 90 minutes. Uh, there has been no studies precisely measuring the length, but from what I can gather from how digestion works, it's about 90 minutes.

Simon Sinek 18:13 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 18:13 And that's also what I've observed. And I actually have a lot of readers who do that. Um, for example, the, it reminds me of the story of this, a wonderful Mexican man, Gustavo, and he was a bit embarrassed that he was doing the hacks, so he would have a big head of broccoli at home before going to the steakhouse with his friends, and nobody would know that he had the fiber lining [laughs] in his intestine.

Simon Sinek 18:32 I-

Jessie Inchauspé 18:32 It's cute

Simon Sinek 18:33 ... you speak with such passion about something that most people aren't passionate about. Where, where does that come from? What, what is the passion?

Jessie Inchauspé 18:41 The passion is behavior change. I am- ... passionate, obsessed with making behavior change easy for people. Easy, sexy, fun. I don't know why, I just really wanna help people take that first step, take that first step to implementing change in their life. That's, that's really my passion, and that's why I developed this concept of the hacks, and that's why I talk about fiber as a superwoman, and I give, you know, names and, uh, genders to the molecules because I wanna help people take that first step. So I think I'm just really good at helping people become motivated and see that they can start with easy solutions. Do you see what I mean?

Simon Sinek 19:17 Yeah, yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 19:17 And I can apply that to lots of different, lots of different spaces as well.

Simon Sinek 19:22 I, I also appreciate your, um, um, the reality of it. You know, a lot of biohacking and a lot of people who are out there preaching health, it's, it's difficult. It's obsessive.

Jessie Inchauspé 19:32 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 19:32 It requires a lot of discipline, and yours requires-

Jessie Inchauspé 19:35 And money

Simon Sinek 19:35 ... some discipline, not much, but you're very reasonable, which is if you wanna, you know, if you wanna have chocolate cake, have chocolate cake. Just it's fine because we're managing the spikes. We're not obsessive about them.

Jessie Inchauspé 19:45 Yes.

Simon Sinek 19:46 And I, and I just appreciate the very-

Jessie Inchauspé 19:47 And actually because that's the life I wanna live [laughs]

Simon Sinek 19:49 ... sort of French way of approaching this.

Jessie Inchauspé 19:50 [laughs] Yeah. Absolutely. And, uh, I mean, you know, diets don't work. Diet culture has destroyed, uh-

Simon Sinek 19:58 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 19:58 ... women's, uh, psychological health for decades. I grew up in France, where every single cover of the magazine was like how to lose 15 pounds in two days. But I never talk about weight loss these days because it's not about weight loss.

Simon Sinek 20:08 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 20:08 It's about feeling good and thriving and going after what you wanna go after and your dreams.

Simon Sinek 20:12 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 20:13 But, uh, but yeah, you asked the why question, which, uh, of course makes sense, and it's, um, it's because of my own health journey, and now I became so passionate about helping people make that change. You know, I'm the f- I'm the one in the friend group who sends the motivational videos to my friends and, like, forces them, helps them to make change and have realizations-

Simon Sinek 20:31 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 20:31 ... and take that step. Like, I, that's just my energy. It's like, you can do it. Even one cherry tomato, one baby carrot before your next meal as your first veggie starter is already amazing.

Simon Sinek 20:42 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 20:42 Be proud of yourself. Start anywhere. That's what I love.

Simon Sinek 20:46 Is there, is there someone you've helped that really or that you've given advice to that stands out? Like, someone who, like... Like, if I ask you, like, you say you, you have a passion of helping people change behavior. Is there someone, it could be a friend or it could be not a friend, but somebody who you've helped that-- And it doesn't even have to be glucose related, you know? Just that, that stands out as like, "This exemplifies what I'm trying to do in the world," this person.

Jessie Inchauspé 21:09 For my second book, I recruited 4,000 people on Instagram to go through this four-week method with the four most important hacks, and three women in that study, uh, were able to get pregnant after being told that they were not gonna be able to do it naturally by using the glucose hacks because glucose levels and, uh, fertility and sex hormones are so linked.

Simon Sinek 21:31 That's incredible.

Jessie Inchauspé 21:31 And for me, I was like, wow, like, that impact on these women's lives is beyond anything I could have ever imagined or hoped for. So I don't know why that sticks with me. Um, but then, you know, I have the great honor and, and, uh, privilege to receive messages every day from people who've used my work to reverse diabetes, to help their grandmother who has, uh, Parkinson's, to get their energy back, to get their period back, to get their acne to die down on their face so they can go outside without feeling self-conscious. You know? It's like there's a, there's a whole community of people using this stuff. So no, not one person stands out. Well, I would say I think I stand out because I was the first person that I helped, and now I feel amazing. You know? Now I can spend a week by myself in an Airbnb across the world for work, whereas 10 years ago, I could not spend an hour alone because I was having panic attacks about just being alone. So I would say, I would say, yeah, my, my own journey was, is the most powerful one, and now just all of my readers, uh, it's just amazing.

Simon Sinek 22:35 Is there something that you've done professionally that stands out, again, glucose related or not, that if all of the work that you-- Something specific, something specific that you've done, um, uh, that, that stands out that if all of your experiences, all of the projects you worked on were like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive?

Jessie Inchauspé 22:53 You mean if something happened?

Simon Sinek 22:55 No, no, just like something you've been involved in, something a pr- a specific thing, a specific project or m- maybe something you wrote or something you did or s- just something you've been a part of that really stands out in, in, in your, when you, in your memory as like, "I, I want all of my projects to be like that one."

Jessie Inchauspé 23:11 Mm. So my best projects. I think-

Simon Sinek 23:16 Something specific. Something specific.

Jessie Inchauspé 23:17 Yeah. To be honest, I think it's the, the new supplement I just launched, and it's not a plug. I'm just saying this because it's a, it's a product and a project that I took from start to finish, and I was involved in every single minute decision from which logistics center we're gonna work with, to the padding and the font size on the bottle, to the color of the capsules, to the formulation, to how the cap is gonna be embossed, to what I'm gonna write in the postcard coming in the mail, like, to the website, to the emails. I'm obsessed with y- consumer experience products, and so having the ability to make that baby from scratch was amazing. Because with books, you don't do it all alone. There's a publisher, and they have opinions on the cover and the blah, blah, and it's like, it's, it's much more of a process. Whereas this, it felt like it just came from the depths of my being, and it's like this is so much work and so much precision and perfectionism and thoughtfulness that went into this that I'm so proud of it. It was grueling but amazing.

Simon Sinek 24:21 Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory.

Jessie Inchauspé 24:24 Playing in the waves on the beach in the south of France with my dad. I was born in the southwest of France on the Atlantic Coast in Biarritz.

Simon Sinek 24:29 Are you th- are you thinking about one, one incident in particular?

Jessie Inchauspé 24:32 Yeah, yeah. So we were at the beach, and we were in the waves. My dad was holding me, and he was teaching me how to do le bouchon, uh, which means, like, when you go up the wave and down the wave and up the wave and down the wave. And I don't know, I just remember that being so joyful. I've always been scared of water, and I think for me it was the first time maybe where I felt safe-

Simon Sinek 24:52 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 24:52 ... in that, in that space. And then I broke my back jumping off into the water. You know, water and me have-- We have a history.

Simon Sinek 24:59 Yeah, that sounds like it.

Jessie Inchauspé 24:59 So I think that was my earliest memory of feeling safe in the water.

Simon Sinek 25:02 What, what I love about that story is-

Jessie Inchauspé 25:05 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 25:05 ... that's very much how you describe who you are, which is you're the friend who's sending the motivational videos and, and things to everybody. And I guess the, the waves, the, it's the, it's the... I'm gonna use a big word, the vicissitudes. Uh, it's just the ups and downs of, of life. You know, like the waves that, you know, that if you stand still, you're, you're gonna get, you're gonna get hit. You're gonna, you're gonna-

Jessie Inchauspé 25:27 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 25:27 ... think everything's fine until the next big wave comes and you get, you know, salt water in the face. And you had someone show you how to manage the ups and downs of the waves. And now-

Jessie Inchauspé 25:38 That's very true

Simon Sinek 25:39 ... you in turn are doing that. You are holding us, and you are showing us how to manage the ups and downs of life and, and you are teaching us these skills. And then we-

Jessie Inchauspé 25:51 And the ups and downs of glucose levels

Simon Sinek 25:51 ... just like you no longer need your dad-

Jessie Inchauspé 25:54 Yeah

Simon Sinek 25:54 ... like, we learn these skills ourselves, and you are basically become your father.

Jessie Inchauspé 25:59 I hope so.

Simon Sinek 26:00 You're guiding us through the up- You're fr- whether it's your f- whether it's professionally through folks like us who are devotees to your work, or just your friends through... I bet you're the one they go to when they're having troubles in their relationships. You're the ones they come, you're the one they come to for advice when they're, when they wanna change career, or they're having problems at work or problems with their friends. Like, you're the one-

Jessie Inchauspé 26:19 I love holding space for people

Simon Sinek 26:19 ... holding somebody through the ups and downs.

Jessie Inchauspé 26:21 Yeah, I love holding space for people, but, you know, I don't want it to sound like I have everything figured out. I have s- you know, I cry all the time. I have emotional ups and downs. I have a great therapist and great friends who also hold me, right? I'm not this, like, perfect being. But I do love holding space for people and helping them especially go through the difficult, the, the, the dips, right? Because if you're able to-

Simon Sinek 26:40 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 26:40 ... really metabolize the difficult feelings and really get into them, then you're able to come back up. The worst is when you get stuck at the bottom because you're not able to feel the stuff fully, so you never get to the next stage. So I'm good at helping people really be in their feelings.

Simon Sinek 26:54 Well-

Jessie Inchauspé 26:54 If you come to me and you're crying, I'm not gonna tell you, "Don't cry." I'm gonna be like, "Yeah, that's fucking sad," and just stay with you until you're done crying. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 27:03 Th- b- and by the way, the, the way a why works is the thing that you give to the world is also the thing you need the most.

Jessie Inchauspé 27:09 Mm.

Simon Sinek 27:10 Um, and that's the relationship of a why. Um-

Jessie Inchauspé 27:13 That's beautiful.

Simon Sinek 27:14 Um, so you know, I like how you caveat, "I don't have it all figured out." I would imagine you didn't. And I think this is... It's sort of I understand glucose now, 'cause there's so many hacks now, and ev- You know, the problem with this stuff is it can be overwhelming and, and the people who are espousing it, that, you know, when you're a problem, when you're a hammer, every problem's a nail.

Jessie Inchauspé 27:32 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 27:33 And you know, everybody thinks everything is cured by their thing, you know?

Jessie Inchauspé 27:36 Mm.

Simon Sinek 27:37 Which of course is nonsense. I'm sort of skeptical when somebody thinks that their thing is the solution to all the world's ills and all your body's problems, which of course is just not true, you know? Um, um, and I appreciate that your attitude is more moderated, you know? This is-

Jessie Inchauspé 27:52 Yeah, and, and I will caveat the glucose thing, Simon, because glucose levels are just one, one window through which to approach better health, right?

Simon Sinek 28:04 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 28:04 When you, when you manage your glucose levels, a lot of other things fall into place. You eat more fiber. You eat fewer processed foods. You eat less sugar. You move more. You know, all of these things that we know as common sense, um, things that everybody should do. But then you need to layer other stuff on. So when I was in my journey, yeah, glucose was the first thing I fixed, but then I also started working out and doing exercise I loved. I figured out my sleep routine. I got a therapist. I did EMDR. You know, glucose is not the answer, but again, because my objective here is actually to just help you make the first step, it's about behavior change. These hacks, to me, are the best place to start.

Simon Sinek 28:44 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 28:44 If you're lost, overwhelmed, sick, and you're like, "This is overwhelming," start with my glucose hacks. It's gonna... You're gonna get on the saddle, and then everything's gonna become easier.

Simon Sinek 28:53 Yeah, and this is not the dis- finding the discipline to take a cold, you know, plunge every morning, though we know the benefits of that. I mean, ugh, you know, it is not difficult to eat the food that... You can order any meal you want.

Jessie Inchauspé 29:05 Yep.

Simon Sinek 29:05 Just eat it in the right order, you know?

Jessie Inchauspé 29:07 Exactly.

Simon Sinek 29:07 Or- order the vegetable, the side of, you know, spinach before the, eat the hamburger or something, you know? And you can still have the fries, just have them at the end instead of at the beginning. Like, like, the thing that I appreciate is it's a very, very easy thing to do, and as you said, it's sort of a, it's sort of a gateway hack, if anything.

Jessie Inchauspé 29:22 Mm, totally. It's, it's gateway behavior change so that you don't feel like you're, you know, you're a failure and you can never stick with anything.

Simon Sinek 29:32 Yeah, yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 29:32 These hacks are not a diet. You can adopt them for life and you're gonna feel really good about yourself, and they're super easy. And again, you wanna start the virtuous cycle. That's the key here. It's getting you in a state where then you can go on to bigger and better things.

Simon Sinek 29:45 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 29:45 These are the first place to start.

Simon Sinek 29:47 What's next for you? I mean, you... This, this wasn't... I mean, your career is an accident. You set out to help yourself.

Jessie Inchauspé 29:53 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 29:53 It's, it's my favorite s- it's my favorite entrepreneur story, which is the best entrepreneurs find a solution to a problem they struggled with, and it turns out that it works for other people, and they end up building a business around it.

Jessie Inchauspé 30:02 What's, what's the saying? Your best customer is who you used to be.

Simon Sinek 30:06 Yeah. Oh, I like that.

Jessie Inchauspé 30:08 Yeah. Um, well, you know, I mean, it's been a crazy five years since I started the Instagram account. Now there's books, and I have an amazing team, and, uh, we have Anti-Spike, we have Recipe Club, all this stuff. So this year for me, 2024, is a year where I'm trying to make space in my brain so I can think about the next big project, which might be a book. Who knows? Um, and I just launched a big YouTube show, which I loved 'cause I'm obsessed with visuals also. I'm obsessed with, uh, fashion and just the aesthetic of things. So I launched this series of 18 episodes where I talk about glucose stuff in fabulous outfits, and it's been amazing. Uh, but I'm, you know, I'm thinking about the next project. There's gonna be lots more to come. I'm still young. I wanna do this for many more years. So it's just chapter one, baby.

Simon Sinek 30:55 Well, Jessie, I, I'm a fan of chapter one.

Jessie Inchauspé 30:57 [laughs]

Simon Sinek 30:57 You're an absolute delight. Your passion shines through.

Jessie Inchauspé 31:01 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:01 You're-- You, you are very good at explaining complex things in simple terms that we can understand, which is, which is why we trust you, um, and why we follow you. Um-

Jessie Inchauspé 31:11 Thank you, Simon

Simon Sinek 31:12 ... and because you, because you were your f... You were the first guinea pig-

Jessie Inchauspé 31:17 Yeah

Simon Sinek 31:17 ... um, it's where the passion comes from.

Jessie Inchauspé 31:20 Totally.

Simon Sinek 31:20 Uh, so, so, so great to meet you. Really a pleasure.

Jessie Inchauspé 31:23 You as well. And can I say something? I loved your book, and so I was so, uh, honored when we got the email saying you wanted me on your show. I was like, "Oh my God, the Simon from Start With Why? Like, yeah, of course I'll be on his podcast." So I'm a fan, too.

Simon Sinek 31:36 Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Jessie Inchauspé 31:37 So we're just amongst fans here. [laughs]

Simon Sinek 31:39 Oh, I love this. Well, I mean, by the way, the... Can, can I offer unsolicited advice for the, for the long-term future?

Jessie Inchauspé 31:45 For sure. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 31:46 When I discovered the Start With Why, it was, uh, it was very similar to your story.

Jessie Inchauspé 31:51 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:52 You know, which is I went through darkness, you know? I was an entrepreneur who it... I had success in the sense that my business survived for three years, but I lost my passion for it, and lo- the, the loss of passion was very... was a dark place for me, you know? Because I'm-

Jessie Inchauspé 32:09 Mm

Simon Sinek 32:09 ... I'm supposed to be happy-go-lucky. And, uh, the discovery of the why became profound for me because I realized that what was missing in my life, which is I knew what I did and I knew how I did it, but I didn't know why.

Jessie Inchauspé 32:20 Mm.

Simon Sinek 32:20 And like you, I turned myself into the guinea pig for my own work, not for any other reason, but out of absolute curiosity, because it seemed to have an impact, and I wanted to see how far that impact would go. And I, I always kept looking for things I hadn't done to see if it would work, and it just kept working.

Jessie Inchauspé 32:34 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 32:34 It's much like...

Jessie Inchauspé 32:35 Mm

Simon Sinek 32:35 ... it's much like yours. And the h- one of the huge profound shifts I made in my life was I stopped talking about what I did, and I started talking about what I believed.

Jessie Inchauspé 32:45 Oh.

Simon Sinek 32:46 And I'm the same idiot the day before as I was the day after. The difference was I wasn't talking about the manner in which I was bringing my cause to life. I started by talking about the cause itself. And one of the results is it gave me flexibility. Because if I hadn't done that, even if I launched Start With Why, I'd be the why guy only. And I've been able to write other books about other subjects and do other things, but it's all contained within my cause, which is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them. And I've been able to articulate a vision, a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do, right? And I think the same is true for you, which is glucose is, is, uh... You tripped over it, you know? It, it, it's, it's not the passion. It's a mechanism that you found to deliver the passion.

Jessie Inchauspé 33:36 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 33:36 It's a, it's... And had it been something else, then you'd be talking about that other thing. But the thing that would be consistent, whether it's this thing or another thing, is the, the holding space and holding people through the ups and downs so that they can learn and manage it themselves. And so right now, it's all glucose related, but in 10 years, you'll exhaust all the glucose stuff. Other people will copy you-

Jessie Inchauspé 34:00 For sure

Simon Sinek 34:00 ... because if there's a market, people will always copy it.

Jessie Inchauspé 34:03 For sure.

Simon Sinek 34:03 There'll be 100 glucose supplements on the market by bigger companies, you know? But the thing that will always remain true and honest is the cause that inspired the obsession with glucose in the first place.

Jessie Inchauspé 34:17 Completely agree. And I think the place I'm gonna go with this is taking that passion, that cause, and the framework of how to help people actually do stuff, and I love the term you used, self-reliance. I really wanna go into the nervous system regulation and mental health space, because I love talking about glucose, but I'm even more passionate about mental health.

Simon Sinek 34:34 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 34:34 And I haven't even explored how to get into that yet, right? And it's always been in the back of my mind that-

Simon Sinek 34:40 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 34:40 ... glucose was chapter one, and that I was gonna get to different parts of life and the human experience with that same framework and that same cause, and you said it so well, so thank you. And I think my special sauce is turning complicated stuff into easy steps.

Simon Sinek 34:55 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 34:55 Being really human in the way I deli- deliver things.

Simon Sinek 34:58 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 34:58 So it's not a difficult diet that you can fail at. Using, using visuals. I'm really good with visuals.

Simon Sinek 35:05 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 35:05 I'm a very visual person. I think in another life I would've been a graphic designer, and so how can I find a visual way to represent your nervous system state?

Simon Sinek 35:14 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 35:14 Um, because with glucose it's easy, 'cause we have glucose cells.

Simon Sinek 35:17 Right.

Jessie Inchauspé 35:17 And that's why it's so viral, and people get it instantly. I could remove the words from my graphs, and people would still get the message.

Simon Sinek 35:25 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 35:25 That's how universal it is. But I haven't figured out what that visual is for mental health and nervous system yet, but it's a big, uh, it's a big quest of mine.

Simon Sinek 35:35 Well, uh, I wish you nothing but godspeed on your journey, because, uh-

Jessie Inchauspé 35:39 Aw, thank you, Simon

Simon Sinek 35:39 ... I, I think the work that you do is profound, and I think more importantly than your work is you. As I said before-

Jessie Inchauspé 35:44 Mm

Simon Sinek 35:44 ... you care a lot. Some of the people who are putting out, you know, biohacking techniques, they're obsessive, and they're doing it themselves, and I think it's... And I, and I... What I love about you is y- you're, you're not even obsessed about your own stuff. You're more relatable than some of the-

Jessie Inchauspé 36:02 Mm

Simon Sinek 36:02 ... other people putting out their stuff who are so obsessive about their own work. I, we can't live to their standard.

Jessie Inchauspé 36:07 Mm.

Simon Sinek 36:07 But I can actually live to your standard, you know? I can actually... Like, you make it very achievable, and the fact that you're healthy and happy again after going through some really bad stuff makes it much more attainable to somebody like me-

Jessie Inchauspé 36:21 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 36:21 ... who's not obsessive about some of these things.

Jessie Inchauspé 36:24 Yeah, and you know, I don't always do the hacks. Sometimes it's Sunday morning, and I want a five pound chocolat and orange juice, and heck, like, if that's what I want, I have it, right?

Simon Sinek 36:32 Yeah.

Jessie Inchauspé 36:33 I... This is lifelong. To me, the hacks are things like brush your teeth, drink enough water, wear sunscreen. If you forget to drink enough water one day, are you gonna, like, feel really guilty and ashamed? Of course not. You're just gonna-

Simon Sinek 36:45 Yeah

Jessie Inchauspé 36:45 ... drink more water the next day. That's the level at which I wanna be operating, sort of a public health, like, good practices, common sense level. I've just been able to bring it back in a society and in an age where we're so disconnected from these common sense practices that, um, from an ancestral perspective we've known for centuries are good for us.

Simon Sinek 37:08 If you wanna hear more of Jessie's work, check her out on Instagram, YouTube, all the other places. Glucose Goddess. Read her books. Just everything she does, stay tuned, because I think we're only seeing the beginning. As you said, this is just chapter one.

Jessie Inchauspé 37:22 Thank you, Simon. You're awesome.

Simon Sinek 37:23 So good. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsinek.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.