Is There Anything Else to Consider Except Macros?
Macros aren’t the only thing to consider when it comes to optimizing blood sugar & insulin.
This is why we take a deep dive into all these areas and more in Blood Sugar Mastery!
In Blood Sugar Mastery, we use a holistic approach to helping you optimize your blood sugar so you can feel stable energy, crush cravings, sleep better, go longer between meals, have better moods and less anxiety, balance hormones, burn fat, and so much more!
There were some tech glitches for some people yesterday so I’m keeping doors open for another day so that everyone who wants to can join!
The waitlist is growing at a skyrocketing rate!! Will you be joining us next round? 💛
Can You Say No To Naked Carbs?
If you’re trying to balance your blood sugar or hormones, reverse insulin resistance and lower inflammation, just say NO to NAKED CARBS!
🤔 What is a naked carb you ask??
It’s any food that’s high in carbs (like these: 🍏🍐🍌🍍🥔🥐🥟🥨🧇🍞🧁🍝🍚🍪🍿🍬🧃) that is eaten alone or ISN’T eaten with a food that’s high in fat and protein.
So if you eat an apple, have it after a meal, or have something like hard boiled eggs first to slow the absorption of the glucose.
👉🏽 So why is this important?! Because steady blood sugar levels (without big spikes and crashes) can help you feel steady energy, mental clarity, happy moods, and set the stage for balanced hormones.
When our blood sugar is spiking and crashing, that’s when we experience energy swings, mood swings, reduced immune function, hormone imbalances, brain fog, carb cravings, sugar cravings, excess hunger, and of course its setting the stage for chronic diseases.
When I ate this apple by itself, as soon as my blood sugar started coming down I felt ...
Why Elevated Insulin Levels are a Real Problem!
High insulin levels block your body from efficiently burning your own body fat for energy. This leaves you dependent on consuming sugar and carbs every few hours to “keep your energy up.”
This only worsens the blood sugar dysregulation and insulin resistance. It’s a vicious cycle.
When you’re a sugar burner, you feel like crap and have lots or all of the symptoms on the left.
The solution to this is to become “metabolically flexible” where your body can burn sugar AND fat for fuel.
It’s amazing how that little switch absolutely transforms your entire health.
To make your metabolism flexible, you need to start with optimizing your blood sugar.
To help you do this in the most effective and efficient way possible, I have created a program that serves as the bridge to get you there.
This revolutionary program is Blood Sugar Mastery. It is the ultimate program to help you control your blood sugar so it stops controlling you.
Enrollment re-opens in November! 💛
Macro Ratios In Different Foods
Unless you have looked it up or tracked with a macro calculator, you might not know what macro nutrients make up your foods.
🍳 Eggs are a great source of bioavailable protein and healthy fats but since they only have 6g of protein per egg, just be sure to have more than 2 to have a filling meal! Eggs are a complete protein.
🥣 Oats are mostly carbs. That’s why they lead to blood sugar spikes!! They are NOT a good source of protein at all.
🫘 Chickpeas… we might hear that they are high in protein but are they really?? NO! They’re mostly carbs! I think this might surprise some people. Chickpeas are not a good source of protein because it doesn’t have a lot AND because plant proteins are not as bioavailable as animal proteins and they’re also incomplete proteins meaning they lack certain amino acids.
🥜And often we hear that peanut butter is a good source of protein but again, the macros don’t lie… peanuts are NOT a good source of protein. Because it is a plant, the protein is even less bioavail...
Eat Your Foods in the Right Order!
Did you know that the order in which you eat your food can have a huge impact on how the foods affect your blood sugar?!
So here’s how it works:
1️⃣ You start with vegetables (if you’re eating them). Of course these should be the low-carb, non-starchy veggies like these: 🥦🥬🥒🌶🥗 The point of eating them first is that the fiber in the vegetables actually slow the absorption of the carbs and sugar in the foods.
So definitely choose salad over bread for starting a meal.
⚠️ Cooked veggies work too and are recommended over raw if your digestion/gut can’t handle raw veggies well!!
2️⃣ Next, eat your protein and fats 🍳🥩🥓🧈🍗🥥🦪. Again, this will help to slow and even reduce some of the absorption of the carbs.
3️⃣ Finally, have your carbs. Ideally, if you’re having carbs, they will be whole food carbs like these: 🍠🥔🥕🌽🍓🍏🍑🍚.
If you’re still getting a spike, chances are you’re eating more carbs than you can tolerate or eating a carb that is too high glycemic (remember, the more processed, the ...
Are you hungry between meals?
The reason why there is NO SNACKING allowed in the #SugarFree30 program is because it’s so good for your blood sugar (and digestion- win win!)
As a refresher, by avoiding snacking, we allow insulin levels to come down which reduces risk of insulin resistance, and it allows you the opportunity to burn your own body fat for fuel and become metabolically flexible.
It doesn’t happen overnight thought. So since I recommend cutting out snacks, I know many of you are gonna say, “But Dani, I get too hungry.”
The easy fix for this is eating bigger meals. And that especially means more fat and protein at each meal.
Protein is the most satiating macronutrient. And fat is like a big log 🪵 in the fire 🔥. It burns low and slow unlike carbs which are more like kindling that burn hot and fast.
If your meals are carb heavy with just a little fat and protein, you won’t make it more than a few hours and certainly not 5 or 6 hours until your next meal.
If you’re used to eating small meals and can’t eat a lot at...
The best time to take your fasting glucose is upon rising
The traditional ranges are too high. Plus, who wants to feel “average” when you can feel OPTIMAL!
Conversion to mmoL for all my international friends: 99mg/dL = 5.5 mmoL. 70-85 mg/dL = 3.8-4.7 mmoL
Please note that if you are at these ranges and feeling weak, shaky, dizzy or lightheaded, you are experiencing signs of hypoglycemia. This still indicates some level of blood sugar dysregulation.
When I got my fasting blood glucose measured in 2013 it was 63 and I felt like I was gonna pass out. No doctor said anything to me about it!! With blood sugar it’s not “the lower the better.”
Your blood sugar may also go lower than this if you’re in ketosis and you will not feel signs of hypoglycemia. This is fine.
The best time to take your fasting glucose is upon rising. I highly recommend purchasing a glucometer. I love the one by Fora Care (link in bio). It also tests ketones, is highly accurate, and comes with an app.
High numbers only in the morning often indicate the Dawn Phenomenon.
Hacks for better blood sugar balance
One of the biggest game changers in helping me reduce my sugar cravings was having balanced blood sugar.
This essentially means reducing big spikes and big crashes. We want the blood sugar to only gently rise after a meal (or not at all), and gently come back down to baseline. This helps us have reduced cravings, better energy levels, better sleep, better skin, better hormone balance, and so much more.
These are some of my favorite hacks for reducing blood glucose spikes:
1️⃣ Have a tbsp of ACV (in some water) before meals. Add cinnamon for a better taste! 😉
2️⃣ Eat fat, protein (& fiber in the form of green veggies if not carnivore) before carbs at meals. This will slow the glucose response.
3️⃣ Avoid eating a big amount of protein with no fat as this may convert to glucose and spike your sugar! This includes lean protein (like chicken breast) and protein powders.
4️⃣ Get some movement in after eating carbs to burn the glucose off as energy 💃🏼🏋🏼♀️🚶🏼♀️ You can go for a walk, do a wo...
Most people can’t moderate sugar and highly processed foods because they’re designed to be hyper-palatable and addictive!
Most people can’t moderate sugar and highly processed foods because they’re designed to be hyper-palatable and addictive!
If these foods keep finding their way back into your life, you’re not alone! And this is not a will-power deficiency.
Sometimes it takes complete abstinence to get your life back!
“Just one cookie won’t hurt,” can be like saying to an alcoholic, “One drink won’t hurt.”
If these foods keep finding their way back into your life, I recommend trying abstinence from them for at least 60 days to allow your taste buds, your brain chemistry, your blood sugar, and your gut bacteria to re-balance and regulate.
Snacking trains your metabolism to want more snacks
This is a concept from Dr. Cate Shanahan’s book The Fatburn Fix.
“Whenever you snack, you are teaching your metabolism unhealthy habits. Whether we’re talking about snacking on candy or soda, fruit or nuts, protein bars or protein shakes, if you want to lose weight, you need to break the snacking habit.
When you snack frequently, the circadian clock in your stomach is set to alarm at whatever time you normally snack, and when that clock goes off, you get hungry.
In other words, snacking trains your metabolism to make you want more snacks. The more times you eat on any given day, the more time you’ll spend building fat instead of burning it.
Just like anything else you practice, by snacking, you’ll get better and better at building fat; meanwhile your metabolism almost never gets to practice burning it.
“We can be tricked into thinking snacking is healthy if snacking makes us feel temporarily better.
If we’re tired and snacks give us more energy, we can easily be tricked into ...
