(upbeat music) - Hi friends, welcome to the Savvy Cast where we'll talk food, family, beauty, health, relationships and more. Join me for conversation designed to help us live our best and savviest lives. So grab a cup of coffee and let's talk. (upbeat music) - Hello everyone, welcome to the Savvy Cast. This is Jamie and I'm so grateful that you're joining today. Whether you're watching on YouTube or listening to the podcast. Thanks to all of you who have been asking about Zane's A1C, he got his repeat test last week. We did get the results back. He went from 6.1 was the initial to 5.9. So it is a little bit better, but it's not sufficient. We've got to get that lower. So we are calling in his daughter, Ellie, because I tend to be very harsh. I'm like, we're cutting it all out, don't fit, don't eat that. So that doesn't work. - And just to get people a reference point, hemoglobin A1C, but we wanna get it, I deal it per the metrics that are already outlined under a 5.7. So he has 0.02 percentage points to go. So he's halfway there if we're gonna use that metric, although some people argue if that's the best way to determine it relative to a CGM. - Which way we'll talk about that. But this is the thing, and he's not here right now, but I'll be listening to that. - He knows we're skiing. - He knows, yeah. I have with Ellie's help devised a plan that I think Zane's gonna be placed with, and I'm excited about it, and Ellie is going to tell you about it, and I'm gonna go get the cooler. I'm gonna go get the cooler. - Yeah, I'll stay one thing, love it, yeah. - So I'll tell him how that came up. - So my dad has a truck, and his big thing is options. So if he doesn't have food and he's hungry, he's gonna go get fast food, or a vending machine or whatever's available. And so with this cooler, we're gonna keep it in the bed of his truck, and it's gonna be stashed every day with high protein items. So do you have this cooler, guys? I love it. This is a Stanley. I will link to it. I got it. - I love this. - They make coolers to take this off. - Well, I will tell y'all this. I stood in the aisle at Target for about 20 minutes or rating. There were soft side coolers. There were hard coolers, a tons of big lip, but this Stanley, of course, we know it is gonna keep things cold, but the size is what's perfect. - And what if that's this one? - Yeah, so you could probably put, I mean, even like if he had like stuff that doesn't need to be cold. - Yeah. - You can sash it up up there. But I did pack this little cooler. It's the perfect size. It's like a mid-size. I packed this yesterday. We went to the farm and I put a little ice in the bottom. I got a pizza. I had all the ingredients for salad. I had a salad dressing. I had boiled it, hard boiled eggs. I had tongs. - Well, she ate this one? - I ate this one. Yes, he ate this morning. So this is fabulous. Bye. I will link to it in the show notes. - And it's masculine. So you can keep in a stroke. - Yeah. They had a pink one, guys. And I think I'm gonna go back and get the pink one for myself. - Well, this is so good. Real quick for anyone, a cooler is not as complicated to pack as we make it sound like. You know, if you're going to the ballpark, take a cooler, a smaller one. And so he'll always have options. - So can you tell everyone the punch list, the things that are acceptable? - Yes. Now, I do want to say, and Ellie, explain why we know snacking, it's not necessarily the best, but why are we telling your dad that it's okay to snack? - So the most important thing when it comes to snacking, what's the goal of a snack? It's not anything other than to satiate you to keep you full. And I think people forget when we're snacking, the goal is to be full, right? Or not be stuffed, but to elongate the time between meals. So with dad, his problem is mindless snacking, right? Like at night, he would have just eaten dinner, and he just wants something crunchy, right? And so- - Not something sweet. - Yes, so with dad specifically, I want him to, maybe incorporate two snacks in the day, so that he doesn't have six hours between meals, which we know when you're ravenously hungry, what are you gonna choose? Something that's not really healthy, carb-laden, fat-laden, sugar-laden. So with dad, we want a high protein snack, and that's what this cooler's gonna do, is he'll have cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, boiled eggs, chomps, things that he can just eat really quickly between meetings and between meals. - I will say what I recommend, and what science is going to do, is assess whether there is a refrigerator at work, and then maybe load it on Monday for them to take on Monday, and then just take everything out, put it in the refrigerator, and bring the cooler home. But this is, what if he's going between meetings, and he's not in the office, he leaves the cooler stash. - That's true. - And I will say this cooler that I got, it's an outdoor cooler. So it can sit outside and still keep the things at the right temp, and in Alabama, that is super important because it's hot here, even now it's hot. So one that will withstand the heat and be fine. So what are the things that you recommended? - Yeah, so with dad, it needs to just be really simple to execute. And let me just say real quick, I'm speaking as a registered nurse and the daughter of Zane. I'm not a medical professional, so I'm not here giving medical advice to anyone. I'm just gonna walk you through what we're doing with dad. One of the most important things, aside from nutrition, that I'm really encouraging him and mom to do together, is a walk after every meal. So the research is overwhelming when it comes to the benefit of a post-prandual or post-meal walk. Ideally, the research shows you want this between no later than 60 minutes to 90 minutes after the meal, the sooner, after the meal, the better. But what happens is basically your muscles, when they're active, they suck up glucose, 'cause that's where we store glucose. So the problem with prediabetes is we don't want excess sugar floating around in the blood. And with someone like dad who's prediabetic, insulin resistant, he already has to produce more insulin to get than the average person, to get the sugar out of the blood. So if he goes and walks after a meal, that excess glucose can be taken up by the muscles where it's stored, as well as the liver, where excess glucose is stored. - Walk tucker, just a-- - Like that jumping rope or doing something, nothing jacks. - Right, but is he gonna do that? - But if you're in a hotel room and maybe you can't get out, I mean-- - Here's the next thing. - Something, something to move. I tell my busy moms, wash the dishes immediately after dinner, you're moving, right? Is it as good as a wall? No, but are you standing and are you moving your muscles? Yes, so there's always the next best thing. And then the T or C, even behind that, would be just standing. And so if he's at work and he has a meeting, use his standing desk. He has one, but doesn't-- - Yeah, he doesn't use it that often. - Well, at work, he does. - Okay, so he does not sit down at work. - Okay, then-- - Great. - The next best option would be to stand while you work, because we do know that there is a little bit more of a modest improvement after a meal standing than sitting. - And I just ordered, and I'm excited, and this will be great, a walking pad. - Ooh, yeah, so when it's raining or whatever, you know, he can get in there. - Well, he watches the news. - Yeah. - So he watches every single night. - He's in there watching the news. You know, usually on the sofa. - Right. - So those are steps that will make a difference. - And encouragement doesn't have to be, it's not all that it's every day. He says that all the time. So maybe just walking five to 10 minutes, and then he can sit on the couch and watch the news. - Right. - But just building this to have it will be huge. One thing that I have done that is sort of a hack, and I asked Ellie. But I know, and she said, you do have to look at the carbs. That's, it's not gluten. 'Cause I said, Ellie, we found some really good cauliflower crust pizzas. They are gluten free, but they do have carbs, but they're small, smaller than normal. And what I've done is I make these, I get like the Supreme version, and then I will cut up turkey pepperoni, guys. You would not believe the flavor bomb that comes from, and you cut it in little pieces, and you scatter it over the pizza, and I even add a little of the Trader Joe's refrigerated pizza sauce, and maybe a little sprinkling of Chet's for cheese, and it is like decadent. But we're adding that extra flavor through tomato sauce, and you know what that's called? - You know what that's called? - It's tricky, well, it's tricking the mind. - It's tricking the mind, but it's called, it has a name, it's called nutrient density, as opposed to calorie density. So you're adding more food volume for not as much calories that you took away from the crust. - Right. - And so it's a trick, and it's a hack, and it works really, really well, but to your point about carbs versus gluten, diabetes in the words of Peter Attia is a carb tolerance disorder. Don't get really into the weeds of gluten, anything like that, it's calories and carbs. - Okay. - And so hopefully by nature of eliminating some carbs, you lower the calories a little bit, but you write a fine line of not wanting to starve the individual, 'cause when we're hungry, we go towards the sugary foods, like I said earlier. So it's a delicate balance, the more protein you keep on, the better you're gonna help that individual. - And I will say, I did a real recent like this week of my chicken tetrazzini, and it was made healthier. It substituted a few things, added some cottage cheese that was swept, and my friend Cindy texted me immediately and she said, Jamie, you've got to buy this pasta. I'm gonna put it in the show notes. This Instagram has a thousands, hundreds of thousands of olive protein. It's high protein. He has an Instagram where he makes fabulous recipes, but it is, they have created a pasta that supposedly take like pasta, but that has very few carbs in his low protein, and that leads me to another thing. The hero bread. - Yes. - That is something that I can feed, Zane, you can feed your people that will totally satiate them, loaded with fiber. - Yeah, which fiber is huge, by the way. That's on the list of things, keep talking, but that's a massive thing with someone pre-diving. - Yes, like put tons of turkey, put some lettuce tomatoes, and those two slices will almost make your fiber for the day and almost zero net carbs, and you feel like you have had, it's almost hard to get through a sandwich on here in the bread. - It tastes like the same, those normal bread. - Yes. - So that's great, and if your store's out of hero bread, there's a lot of high fiber on it. - You can order online. - Yeah, you can get hero bread online, but also your grocery store's gonna have a high fiber, more tea option, or even a zico bread, if you don't have hero bread. - I'm also, every morning in his coffee, I'm putting, and it's flavorless, I'm putting a heaping taste spent of bina fiber metamucals the same. That is a pre-biotic that is supposed to really help. - Yes, it's fiber. - Pre-biotic is a food for fiber, sorry, pre-biotic is fiber, which is the food for probiotics. So, fibers will implement, we wanna get it through whole foods primarily, but most people will need a supplement to help. So that's good that you're doing that, just to sneak in some extra, but I'm not gonna give my dad a list of hyperfiber foods until I'm, hey, eat this, 'cause he's just not gonna do that, we've tried. So what we wanna do is his high protein items, we wanna easily incorporate high fiber foods paired with his protein. So for example, cottage cheese, high fiber item, we can top on that would be berries, okay? Mix it in, right there you have fiber and protein in a snack. - Or high fiber crackers, if you-- - Like that crunch. - With a turkey, right? If you want some cheese, maybe you give them like a baby bill, and you pair it with high fiber crackers, right? Another food sneaky that super high in fiber is avocado. - Yes. - You throw that on a salad every night. - And I can give you a good hack if you don't wanna peel and slice. It's bobby approved, and it's in our fridge. It's real good foods, real good foods. I have a guacamole, but I have the guacamole too, and it just adds all spices. - It's really good. It's so good. - And it's preserved in lemon juice. - Yeah. - That's great, that's all they use. - Yeah. - So thin with cruditase, carrots, cauliflower, with that. - Yeah, so if he does key roe bread with turkey, put all the caudal on it, right? He's gonna knock out his fiber gold and just that meal, right? - Yes. - Ideally, in a perfect world, you would wanna space fiber throughout the day, but sometimes that's not feasible. So get it all in at one meal if you can, but because it slows digestion, it's ideal if you have it sprinkled throughout the day, rather than, oh, I knocked it out with my heat roe bread. - And another thing we're doing with him, and it helps with this filling of satiety, is when he comes in, he starts going to the pantry. - Yeah. - Starving. - Yeah. - I say here, drink this big glass of water. - Okay, drink this big glass of water, because he does not drink water. - Well, when he gets outside, you can have this when you drink your water. - Yes. - And it's almost like, he doesn't even rummage anymore. - Yes. - I could say, it's gonna be such a good dinner. We've got fish, we've got this. So that helps. - It is, I will not join a harp on dad, but he really doesn't drink water. And so I truly believe half the time he's snacking because he's so thirsty. And we know most people do that. - Yeah. - It's hard, how do you differentiate thirst between hunger? - Yeah. Most of us are just gonna go to the pantry. And so yeah, he needs, I wish he would carry a Stanley or something like that. - I'm gonna give him something to carry, because that's for all of us, waking up. But now we do drink our HE1. That's the very first thing we do. And we drink at least six finances with that. - That's good. - He's getting started, but it's just before you eat, drink the water and you'll feel more satiated. - And I do like before a little better, because yes, it's okay to drink water with a meal, but what happens is a lot of time, people don't chew their food very well when you're drinking water with a meal. What happens is you use the water to kind of mechanically digest the food for you. You suck it down, but guess what? Now you're not registering how full you are from that food because you just use the water to almost melt it for you. And we know food hygiene chewing your food is really important in telling your brain, "Hey, I'm full." So that's one reason I like kind of drinking water before and after. So maybe if you're still hungry after a meal, drink some more water and give it about 15 minutes and let your brain catch up to your stomach because it's about a 15-minute delay. - Yeah. - And a sweet treat at the end. He has been enjoying, and I'll put it in the show notes. I can't, they're right in there in the pantry. Like one net carb, these nut protein bars. - Nuts are high in fiber. - Yeah, he's been enjoying those and you can get these yogurt, oh goodness. Anyway, you can freeze them, little yogurt bars, just something sweet. You know what I like to the idea of? Frozen fruit with just the whipped cream. You just whip it yourself. - Yeah. - So heavy whipping cream, you can squirt it on there. You can pan, but ideally if you just had the, you can just whip it in a bowl really quick. - Yeah. - And dad loves strawberry shortcake. So that would be. - Mosk or pound cheese is fabulous. - Yeah. - You can just pick that out and put it right on. One thing Ellie you mentioned, and just address this for those who might, you know, also be struggling with this. - What about a continuous glucose monitor? - Yeah, so I think for someone like dad, he's like me. We're really rewarded with visualizing our success. And with a CGM, it's a continuous glucose monitor. So it's in the name, it continuously, every five minutes, I think, we're levels and maybe one of the other nutrissants is another popular brand. - Loomin. - Loomin, you breathe into lumen. - Yeah, lumen is different. But every five minutes it's gonna give you your blood glucose levels straight to your phone, right? Now you would need some help in how to interpret this data, but it's helpful because my dad can see a reward of, oh, I walked after a meal, look at how my blood sugar responded. And then from there you build it to dopamine response every time. And so then he can actually see the trends of OA to donut, look at what it did to my blood sugar. - Is there one though that says he's like, he's not going to pull out, he doesn't wear an Apple watch or any of that. - For those who maybe have a teenager or a husband who's not gonna do all that, can you find one that you can monitor and track? - Yeah, so, and this is kind of tough love. Like I will tell Dad, like I know he's not gonna do anything, but like, he's motivated. And I think I could really encourage him, he doesn't have to worry about it, it's on your arm, that's already there, then you forget about it. I could help him look at the data and say, okay, hey, like let's talk about, based on what you ate today, where that impacted your blood sugar, and then kind of help him be able to interpret it on his own. But real quick, let me say this, blood sugar spikes are not, they're not all bad. That's a natural product of eating food. So it's not like the CGM is there for us to see, oh shoot, I ate a meal and it spiked my blood sugar. The point is to track trends in averages, yes. And that's where a lot of the doctors are saying that A1C falls short is, you're not able, I'm real in time. Right, A1C is over three months, it's an average. Yeah, so all I could say, I could help him and I think it would really, it would help him visualize. Oh, that don't know, it was like way worse than I thought. You know, and it's not to scare fear monger, it's just knowledge is power, and maybe you don't wear it forever, 'cause then he just knows, hey, no naked carbs, don't need a carb alone because of what it does to my blood sugar. And I think it would really incentivize him. Kind of like if he saw a withdrawal from his bank account, you know, after he goes to a certain restaurant, it might make him less likely to go there. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, I think, and then we're both learning and we're both trying to, when we go to a restaurant, order a steak and some great veggies and a good salad. I mean, we're trying to both mate. Y'all really are, and I will just say too, for mom, like I know she puts it all out, they're kind of joking, you know, daddy to donut or whatever, but they really are making a ton of amazing changes and a lot of this just takes time, you know? He, he, lowering his A1C by the amount he did, I think is really impressive in three months. Yes, does he have room to grow? Yes, we all do. But I think the changes y'all are making is obvious. And you're not, he's not deprived, right? You're eating-- - Oh my goodness. It's not the time. - Great meals. And I will say this guys, he sent me and go walk in any minutes or about to have dinner, but he sent me a picture of his breakfast. You know, I left the farm yesterday but I had taken all the food in our new cooler and he said, "I think this is healthy, look what I made." And he had the boiled eggs that I sent. And he chased them. - Turned the pepperoni. He cut it on top. - Cut it cheese. And he had a little sad out. - He did great. - And he said, "This is really good." So there are very few if any carbs in that. - Yes, so-- - He did great. - Yeah. - Last point I'll make, this is really quick, but there's a lot of research that shows how much stress impacts blood sugar, maintenance, insulin resistance, all that, cortisol, stress hormone. So it just doesn't go without saying all this lifestyle and exercise is really important, but if you're not sleeping well and you're not managing your stress, which are my favorite ways to tell clients to work with your natural cortisol levels, which is a good thing if it's not in excess, is to eat according to your circadian rhythm. So if dad skips breakfast, you know, four days out of the seven, that's not ideal, right? We would love if you could keep a consistent eating pattern within an hour each day of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He eats around the same time. - Yeah. - But if he's eating at 9 p.m. one night for dinner and seven p.m. another, your body wants to know what to expect. - Yeah. - And I will say that is a great point. And one thing we're trying to do, and it helps. I promise you it helps, we're trying to get in bed way before nine, like 8.30-ish. - Yeah, that's huge. - You know later than nine, and then get up around five to get, knock out the cardio. - Yeah. - But when you're in bed and you brush your teeth, you're not gonna be in the pantry. - Yeah. - And when you're in bed early and you get good sleep, you can wake up if we do not get our exercise in in the morning. - Yeah, it's hard. - And nothing's gonna interrupt you at five a.m. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You're not really gonna have an excuse to get a five a.m. So, but he's doing great, he's making progress. So, y'all keep falling along, and we'll see. And we hope this is helpful for you all. We're not just wanting to talk about dad, but we hope that this helps the rest of you who may have someone in your life that's struggling and wants to make it better. But anyway, thank you, Ellie, thanks to all of you, everything that we alluded to, we'll be in the show notes. And until next time, you all have a fabulous rest of your night. Thanks all. (upbeat music) - Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Savvy Cast. If you'll take the time to rate, review, and subscribe on iTunes, that would mean so much. As always, thank you for listening and have a blessed day. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
