Are You In A Metabolic Famine?

Whether it be diabetes, pre-diabetes, PCOS or a foreshadowing condition, your body has been whispering and talking to you for quite some time and now it’s screaming for help. It may have started with issues related to digestion, hormone production, or lipid metabolism. Perhaps you even saw some mood and cognitive changes along the way. These are all conditions I’ve addressed in my book Fast Metabolism Food Rx, and the underlying issues we’ll work to repair. Diabetes is a disorder of the metabolism, and the definition of metabolism means, “to change”. It’s back to my equation for health, E+M =H. If we can change our environment and repair the metabolic pathways, we can achieve health and homeostasis. And yes, we can do this!

We don’t get diabetes because we eat sugar; we have it because we can’t metabolize sugar and our cells are starving at a cellular, structural, and hormonal level. What I tell my clients who have blood sugar issues, is to shift the thought from “I’m starving” to “I’m waiting for food delivery”. Food, not the lack of it, is what your body needs. We must use a Food Rx to repair the metabolic pathways for blood sugar metabolism and start to eat to treat.

Repair Your Blood Sugar in These 7 Steps.

1. Take Your Rx Six Times A Day. You will take your prescription (eat), six times every day. That means you will have three strategic blood-sugar-stabilizing meals and three blood-sugar-stabilizing snacks. I’ve included some delicious recipes in your meal maps like Baked Salmon and Roasted Cauliflower for lunch.
2. Eat Every Three To Four Hours And Don’t Fast! If you have diabetes or pre-diabetes, don’t ever skip meals (not even breakfast!) You need to be eating a meal or snack every three to four hours to stabilize your blood sugar. Skipping a meal is the worst thing you can do for your blood sugar control because it puts the body in survival mode. We want to feed your body to thrive – not survive!
3. Strategically Plan Meals And Snacks. For blood sugar repair, we’re going to strategically place complex carbs, vegetables, proteins and healthy fats throughout the day.
   • Have Complex Carbs At Dinner. Adding a complex carb in the evening feeds your starving cells and helps to stabilize blood sugars.   You’ll find delicious recipes within your sample meal maps in the book, to help your body access the cells for sugar delivery.
   • Have A Healthy Fat And Protein Before Bed. Doing this helps support enzyme and hormone production to prevent the body from reaching for sugar stores in the muscles while it sleeps. Have a snack like turkey jerky and olives within one hour before sleeping.
   • Include Power Foods. Have as many of my Top 20 Power Foods in as many meals and snacks as you can. These foods help stabilize blood sugar and insulin and feed the mechanisms of sugar metabolism. My Power Foods for Blood Sugar Repair as well as my Foundational Food List are all found in my book.
   • Consume Fruit Before Workouts And A Protein After Workouts. Unless you are working out in the evening, consume fruit before 2:00 pm. Follow your weight training session with protein to boost your workout with food and help shuttle the sugar from the blood into the muscles and cells.
4. Hydrate. Remember you must be drinking half of your body weight in spring water every day, up to 100 ounces. That means if you weigh 150 pounds, that’s 75 ounces of water. Water doesn’t just keep you hydrated, but it helps shuttle nutrients where they need to go.
5. Lift Weights. Food is always first in my playbook, but adding resistance training to the plan is an important part of this metabolic prescription. Lifting heavy weights helps open the gates for sugar to enter the muscles and pull out excess sugars stuck circulating in the blood. Whether you’re using bands, weights, machines, or body weight for your exercises, add strength training into your weekly plan.
6. Sleep. Get eight to ten hours of restful sleep every night. This is extremely important for insulin stabilization and to repair the metabolic pathway for sugar metabolism. While there are some supplements that may help, I recommend evaluating your sleep hygiene. Do you sleep in a dark environment free of electronics? Do you have the TV shut off or could something like sleep apnea be disrupting your sleep?
7. Work Closely With Your Doctor. If you’re currently on diabetes medications, do not jump off them! Work closely with your doctor and explain you’re using food therapy to help with your condition. Ask for lab tests to continually monitor your blood sugar and insulin so that you can adjust any medications accordingly. The goal of this prescription is to even out blood sugar and insulin levels, so checking these labs on a regular basis is very important. We’re going to build your dream team and I’ll give you the specific tests to ask for and how to work with your doctor to build a partnership for your success.

I want you to repeat with me, E+M=H. Diabetes and blood sugar conditions are a disorder of the metabolism and we have the power to make their symptoms as manageable as possible. When I was struggling with my own issues, there wasn’t a plan out there so I had to create one. I’ve created this for you and together, we’re going to feed your body back to health. This is a practical guide, a game plan for health where you are the captain of your team. We’ll work through Self-Discovery Quizzes and Self-Assessments to understand the root cause behind your current condition. We’ll use meal maps with delicious recipes and discuss how to team up with your doctor to ensure your success.

Your body has an amazing ability to heal itself, to make things right again. We’re going to use food, the safest and most effective forms of medicine as the cornerstone of your game plan for true metabolic repair. This book will feed your body back to health.