Top 5 Tips to Manage Blood Sugar w/ Brenna Thompson, MS, RD, LDN

Season 6 | Episode 6 In this week’s episode I welcome Brenna Thompson. She is a Registered Dietician, and a Licensed Dietician in the state of Minnesota. She’s worked in dietetics for Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I'm your host, Jordan Kunde-Wright, founder, head coach of the Twin Cities Catabell Club. And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable, healthy lifestyles. Before we jump into the episode, I'm very excited to announce registration is open for the second annual Twin Cities Catabell Open. On October 22nd, at the Athlete Lab in Little Canada, Minnesota, just like last year, we'll be including video submissions for participants who are unable to make the trip in person. You'll be able to submit your videos until midnight central time on October 22nd and be eligible for all of the same prizes as our in-person competitors. Just go to our website, Twin Cities Catabell Club.com for details. Now, happy new year, everyone. 2022 is here, and I hope it is starting off healthy and well for you. I cannot wait to see what this year holds in store for all of us. In this week's episode, I welcome in Brenna Thompson. She is a registered dietitian and a licensed dietitian in the state of Minnesota. She's worked for many years in dietetics, helping people with a host of medical conditions, use nutrition to improve their lives and better manage their conditions. We dive into what it means to be a dietitian, what that credential looks like, how she got into that field, what she actually does in practice now, and then we really take some practical advice on how to manage blood sugar, which is her one of her areas of expertise. She has a lot, but one of her areas of expertise in an area of focus is managing blood sugar, managing insulin. She gives us her five top tips for how to manage your blood sugar. So I really hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoy reporting it. And I want to take a second to say that I am incredibly grateful that you listen to this podcast. If you haven't already, please be sure to leave a rating and review on the platform podcast in your app of choice and support my work by supporting our sponsors whose affiliate links you'll find in the episode notes. And of course, if you want to step onto the platform in compete in catabell sport or you need coaching for your nutrition, please reach out to me. I help athletes of all levels reach their goals without wasting time using my integrated coaching approach. You'll find the link to apply in the episode notes. And you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube at Twin Cities Catabell Club or email me at Twin Cities Catabell Club at gmail.com. And now let's step onto the platform with Rena Thompson. Alright, thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the platform podcast being live streamed on Facebook in the catabell fat blast group. My guest this week is Brenna Thompson. She is a registered dietician and in the state of Minnesota, I have to say she is a licensed dietician. Brenna, thank you so much for taking the time to come on to the podcast. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. So since we just got into the credentials, let's let's start with that topic. What does it mean to be a registered dietician as opposed to a nutritionist, a, you know, what are whatever titles you see out there on the social medias. What is the difference between being a registered dietician, a licensed dietician, some of some of those things. What are your credentials and how do they different from, you know, any random person you may see on Facebook? Sure. So to become a registered dietician, which is a nationally recognized credential. So that's where you have to get an undergrad degree and then you apply for an internship, you do your internship, usually at a hospital. And then you take a, unless it's changed in the last 10 years, about a 140 question, sort of registration exam and you only have to take it once, hopefully, you don't, you know, laps on your CEOs and then have to take it again someday. So that's what it takes to become a registered dietician. You can also, let's say somebody's been doing life for a while and they decide, oh, I want to change careers and become a registered dietician, then they could also do a master's program. And then again, they still have to go on and apply for doing internship and take their exam. So that's the registration piece of it. And that's what, how long is the internship, typically? So they are typically about a year long, give or take, you know, a month or two in there. I think mine was about 10 months long and yeah. And it is hard to, people might think like, oh, internship, that's nice. Actually, the year I graduated about 50% of the dietic students who applied for internships. And so that is a lower placement rate than people trying to get into, I want to say their medical residency. Yeah, that's, that's one thing that, that I know about the dietetics path is that I've learned from friends of mine who are artis that it's like, holy crap, they were like so stressed out about getting place and it was, they're like, they applied for 15 different internships. And I was like, oh, my gosh, why are you applying to so many? They're like, yeah, about half of the people that apply get in. So they're like, so I'm willing to go anywhere to get, because they're like, I can't wait a year to get another, the next round of internship or another semester to get the next round of internship application. So I was, that was my first exposure to it, but it sounds like it's super competitive and like super, super intensive, which is, I mean, I think a good thing since it's a nationally recognized credential. What does, what does being a registered dietician actually in tail as far as scope of practice is concerned? So scope of practice means that I can go into a hospital and I can work in a hospital, so that would be someone coming on to a cardiac floor working with cardiac patients and giving them information on a heart healthy diet or really I think of somebody as being a working in the hospital. I would want a dietician or I kind of think of it the areas that I found interesting when I was doing my internship was on more of the medical surgical floors, the kind of like post up, working with in the NICU and really kind of delving into what we call TPN or total parental nutrition where we're actually feeding you through your veins. Or there's also going to be tube feedings for a lot of these patients if they've had major surgery or they've been extremely sick and are unable to eat by mouth. And so those would be your tube feedings and I thought those are really interesting. Also kind of delved into my least favorite at the time was having to go in and talk to people about their new diabetes diagnosis and having to give them that information in the hospital because they're usually like. In pain they're drug like they don't feel good it's just it's not the place to do that kind of education yeah people aren't usually super receptive at that point yeah that's a very challenging situation to step into like hey I know you're really drugged up and in pain right now but let me tell you about why you shouldn't teach sugar anymore. Yes let me tell you about why that piece of pie you just ordered is not good for you. Yeah that's that's pretty that's pretty a rough situation to step into so where did you so where did you do your undergrad and then where did you do your your internship at. So I did my undergrad at Minnesota State University Mankato and then I did my internship at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Okay so that's go bulldogs and go mountaineers right. No we were the Mavericks. Oh that's right that's right oh it's Duluth Duluth is the bulldog sorry see I got my I got my Minnesota schools crossed up. Yeah and those mountaineers man it is no joke on football days you like we just stayed in the apartment you weren't going anywhere. I had a yeah I had an athlete that that actually transferred transferred from Iowa a kid that I coach in high school that played at Iowa and then graduated and since he had graduated he could transfer without sitting out of your any transferred and played a year at West Virginia and he said it's crazy. It's crazy it was insane but very cool and and cool it was it was a gorgeous area to get to live for 10 months very neat learned a lot more really different. We're gonna say like culture compared to the Midwest and just it was a great experience. It's fantastic so let's get into your origin story a little bit you know we'll go we'll go back we'll go back a little ways and you know where what made you want to get into health fitness wellness nutrition you know the diatetics path is not one that is well tried by a lot of people so why why why this why this life path where you know how did you grow up and you know what led you to this career path. So I grew up in lovely cedar Falls Iowa and I ran cross country and track for most of my junior high and high school times there I tried doing about a year and a half stinted MSU and because of a bunch of injuries just decided that was finally finally it kind of clicked after having about five stress fractures and then severe tendonitis it was like you know maybe you shouldn't run. I think I had that realization in like seventh grade but yeah. And so so in there there was always a little bit of that having to kind of learn along the way about hydration and a little bit about nutrition even as junior high and high school you kind of learn like oh don't eat right before a race and on race days we would always have whether it was true or not you know like. A couple days before you're doing the big spaghetti feeds because you're supposed to carve up and we had all of these myths around things that you could or couldn't eat on race days and it was going to you know maybe impact your performance or not superstitions die hard in sports it's it's crazy it's crazy. And then just eating after our racist as I did the 1500 typically and the 3000 in college yes level apps yeah yeah 3000 3000 brutal like 1500 and we're talking meters right 15 1500 meters so just under a mile right and yeah it's about 100 meters under a mile and then just and then just under two miles which. Like the mile is brutal because it's a short enough race that there are parts of it that you have to sprint but you know and and there's it's not like people think of it as an endurance race which it absolutely is but it's a short enough distance that it's like as far as. Go ahead you I mean you know more about it than I do I just observed it. To the to the freshman who would come in there like so how do you like how what's it like what tactics you take with the 1500 we go well. You kind of take it like a 400 and then you just hang on. So for anybody who who doesn't follow that 400 meters is one lap around the track and you basically sprint it. Yeah most of the way. And so we're just like yeah you just run it like a 400 and you keep going yeah it's not uncommon for 400 meter sprinters to throw up after their races because they've literally push their body at lactic threshold for the entire duration which is if you're fast you know 50 50 to 50. 55 seconds if you're really fast you know and then yeah you just hold that pace for basically an entire race for a mile is what is what the 1500 people do which is insanity to me like it's it's crazy. I was a thrower so I just like went through heavy implements and you know so if conventional weaponry fails like I can throw a spear I can throw rocks right like but other than that like I can't. I can't I can't run away from from things very very well not for very long at least so you might like tip of the cap to you for me for being able to do those distances and then at least with cross country though you you do you typically finish in a different place then you started or do you still finish in the same place that you started. Well you you basically finish in the same place you start but you run like over hill yeah yeah you run over hills I couldn't remember if that was like trail running where like it's at the top of the end of the course is at the bottom of the but no now that I recall you're right you still finish in the same but I always used to give my my middle distance and distance runner friends are really hard time because I would have like cheer them on while they're running and I would give them their splits and stuff like you know I tried to be a good teammate but then at the end I would be like oh you just read out 10,000 meters and you're. right back where you started except you're exhausted and just be like you're you're an asshole and I hate you think here's your gatorade let's let's get you let's get you up and get you get you over to the tent you know but that's that's awesome so so that that then dovetailed into an interest in. I was I was interested in food I really enjoyed cooking my parents got me a kitchen aid mixer for my 15th birthday and. But just playing around with that and so my dad was actually a teacher and I had this idea that I wanted to become a homeic teacher so went to MSU for that got about a semester in and was like nope I do not want to do this and. So I was sitting at home over Christmas break and Joy Bauer came on I think it's the today show and was talking and somehow I also happened to see something with a sports dietician and I looked at my mom and I go mom that's what I want to do. I said I want to go work with sports teams and talk about food and all this and thankfully MSU had a program so I just switched majors and that's that was the origin story there. The rest of the rest is history so now what to do now for for fitness like you it sounds like you're you're not a huge fan of running long distances anymore. I don't run at all this past summer I was like I want to try running again and I got about a week into it in my knees and everything was just like. Girl no. That office meme of Steve Karabani like no no like screaming at you yeah so these days well i'll tell you back in this so we we did a stint on my husband and I did a stint down in Georgia for about three years and moved back here in. D11 it was and I think then in about 2013 I saw this woman at our local snap fitness teaching this class and they were like swinging these weird things around. I do not figure out what was going on in that class sounds like what what are they doing and she came out one day as I'm on the elliptical and she goes hey i'm Linda there's a kettlebell class you want to join. Okay sure. And so from there I got in started swinging they do more hard style but it was once or twice a week we were in there and found some some good people and kind of got introduced to kettlebells that way otherwise it was still a lot of kind of got into more body building style lifting just weightlifting just not running. Yeah little little yoga for a while and then you have babies covid shut stuff down and start over. Yes all of those all of those things yeah it's yeah covid is covid is rough and the shutdowns are definitely rough on on everyone so. Yeah I don't. I don't know how we're continuing to get through the the continual like lockdowns and like the seeing things start to ramp up again is demoralizing but you know i'm hoping you know this is a peak and then they're and then it narrows off like we've seen elsewhere you know. Like we talked about before we started before we started recording can't control it so you're just like. Can't control it control what you can control. And as long as they don't take away my child care at the YMCA i'm okay and if they do there's always garage fit. Yes that is that is true you have all sorts of implements at home I see right I see Ryan posting you know i picked up a sand best 70 pound sandbag 500 times today that was my workout. Ryan Ryan is a is a member of the Twin Cities cat about club but he's he's kind of off on his own doing his own his own weird his own weirdness but he has the the wonderful the wonderful mustache which I I hear you actually kind of like it is that is that true. I am a fan of the stash he grew it out I don't know I think when our youngest was oh god like three months older so and now he's three so. And after the competition he gave people don't know he is mr Nordic stash yes Nordic stash on on the Instagram yeah so i'm like does that make me miss his Nordic stash. Yeah I had my my head my my I would call it my Teddy Roosevelt stash for you know for just a cup just for a few a few days and he was trying to encourage me to keep it because when when we met up for beers he was he was like oh you got to keep it you got to keep it and I was like my wife. He hates it like he hates it with the fire of a thousand cents. Well I think our our son who's three saw some we have some pictures in the house and Ryan doesn't have any facial hair in it and I think one time he was like who that. Yeah I shaved when I shaved like straight up clean shave like my kids had not seen me without any facial hair at all like I've been wearing a beard for a long time so like my kids had not seen me without any facial hair and my son just looked at me and was like. Like that he just busted up laughing I was like my I was like oh great my face is hilarious like he could not he could not stop laughing which was which was just fantastic it made me feel really good but I get it it was it was i'm sure it was very very weird for him to not to not see me with facial hair but. So now you mentioned you mentioned that you wanted to do sport you wanted to do sports nutrition and work with teams is that what you do currently with your with your RD or let's talk a little bit about about what your actual job looks like now. Not even close. I knew the answer to that but. Not even close no sports dietetics is actually very difficult to get into it's typically something that people kind of do a little bit more on the side before they're really able to dive into it full time. And and I did try to kind of get into it a little bit but it just life didn't take me down that path i really when we lived in Georgia I worked in a hospital and helped run the outpatient diabetes program there. When we came back to Minnesota I worked for about six years with a weight and wellness group and really just continue more and more about blood sugar and I really found I was like you know. I don't want to just talk about performance all the time like I don't want it to be just like really focusing on weight and like all these little like bits and pieces I actually want to help people like legitimately feel better and that was something that I. Really fell in love with were kind of those like bulb moments for people when they go oh my gosh this like this food or this way of eating has been making me feel terrible and now I feel so much better i've lost 40 50 100 pounds my favorite was a gentleman who. I said he just wanted to be able to get up and down off the floor when he played with his grandkids and we had him doing that within a month so. It's fantastic yeah so it's that to me is more is the most rewarding. But then. Had kit you know kind of decided it was time to change things up and found a group called stepping stone clinic which is actually an integrative psychology clinic and so did that back in what was it 20. End of 2017 very early 2018 and i'm only i was only there two days a week but it was it was a lot of fun to just takes a whole different look at things and really focus on brain health and get to work a little bit more with in the pediatric population more teenagers which are really challenging. i'm i'm i'm dreading those years frankly a little bit like i'm excited for them but also kind of dreading yeah at least I can legitimately have a conversation with you true true yeah so that's what i've been doing and also had two kids and. How old are your kids now so Frederick is three victor is almost 17 months I think. I'm going to start calculating my age in months I mean i'll have to do some math and carry some carry some twos and stuff but you know I think i'm going to start to when people ask me how old I am like i'm going to tell him how many how many months I just. He's a year old but he is insane so. Yes that I understand that I understand that feeling very well my my daughter Kira is like the sweetest smartest just kindness and she was such an easy baby she was so happy it's that you know the joke of like you know that's that's how the universe tricks you into having a second child is they give you the easy one first. You know and then you and then you have another one and like my son is is also fantastic, but he was like he would he had he had like acid reflux so we didn't get even after even after even after he was born like. You know my wife probably didn't sleep for a year after he was born and then you know and then once we finally got that that under control and then it was like he got into the same age range as your son and it was like. This kid's nuts like he's trying to kill himself he's actively trying to kill himself like this is apparently I just it is like he has figured out how to pull the drawer out. From the oven like that little bottom drawer so that he can reach up to the stove and like play with the stove. Yeah I think our I think our sons are are kindred spirits because yeah he was he was definitely doing all of those things and trying to take things apart and trying to like oh well you know does this fork go here no that's an outlet you know like you're like you know and you had like we had outlet covers on but he's like so mechanically inclined that he was like. I was like figured out how to pry the outlet cover out with the fork so that he could then try and you know you're like no no no no no no no like yeah that's why I have no hair I'm pretty sure it's I'm pretty sure it's my children's fault you know that's it's fun we're that's it is a joy most most of the time. Most of the time yeah sometimes it's sometimes it's terrible so but okay so you so you get to work you get to work with a lot of different a lot of different populations of people that have. Actual Diagnosed issues that they need they need intervention right and that's that's one of the big differences between a registered dietician and Joe Shmo off of the internet right is that you can actually you can actually use food as an intervention for a diagnosed medical condition you can. Not not to I mean is it prescribed can use this prescribe the wrong word or because I want to I want to make sure I'm careful with my. We recommend okay we prescribe a diet we recommend a diet yes so as a dietitian it is within my scope of practice to use risk evidence based medicine and et cetera to prescribe a diet to somebody based on their diagnosis and their symptoms. And versus buddy who is just you know like oh I went online and I got you know a nutrition certificate or I got a you know whatever they think. Like me like I like I have I have multiple I have multiple nutrition coaching certifications but that is looking at it from the perspective of how do I help how do I help someone who has the general goal of being healthy or losing weight or. Performance or whatever and i'm educating myself to be able to support that but i'm i'm looking at their macros and i'm giving them feedback on how they're doing with behaviors but if somebody comes to me and says hey i'm diabetic what do you recommend I eat i'm going to go i'm going to recommend that you talk to my friend Brenna because she could actually give you a very much better level of care and that is outside of my scope of practice right i'm not going to i'm not going to give people nutrition recommendations based. Patients based to solve an actual medical issue right like that that's where it's important to draw that line. And it's not to say that there aren't people who are not dieticians who are not actually medically based professionals who don't know a lot about nutrition because you can learn about this in textbooks and YouTube and online it's not like the information isn't there it's just that. Like you said if you're working with somebody and you want something specific find the person with the credentials who yeah and with the knowledge. I mean that credential ensures that they have the requisite knowledge essentially I mean it's not it's not that you can't find somebody without the specific credential that could help you yes of course you can but you could also find the person that's like. Oh i really recommend that you you do this in this and you should completely eliminate breads entirely and you should take this supplement and you should do this in that and you know like there's there's also those they're unfortunately there are also those people. And that's why so in Minnesota we have the licensing board not all states require licensure for dieticians or nutritionists but we are one of them and that means that somebody. Come somebody who's got a certificate so even somebody as yourself you even though you have good knowledge about nutrition and recommending diets for performance and for weight loss. You could not use you can't call yourself a nutritionist in Minnesota. Now you could call yourself a nutrition coach you can call yourself a health coach but nutritionist or dietician is off limits. Yep and that's why i'm very careful about that and I try and be and I try and be very transparent and clear about that because there is a difference and I. I do not make the mistake of conflating that I have as much knowledge as Brenna has so just so just so that we're clear like I know where my where my gaps are and I know where my my cap is and I try very much to stay in my lane. In that regard because I feel like that's professionally important I feel like it's ethical and I think it's just the right way to. To treat people because I want people to get the appropriate level of of help for what they're looking for right. Yes and I think that's where even for me within my scope of practice it's I know at this point in my career unless I went back and did a lot of like self study learning a whole lot more. There's no way I could walk into a hospital and and be like yes let me write your TPN order I would have no idea what i'm doing at this point. Now if somebody comes out of the hospital and they're like I need to gain weight I need to. You know follow a hard healthy diet or diet for diabetes or pancreatitis or fatty liver disease yes we can do that. And that's within my scope of practice because I work with a lot of psychologists i'm working with a lot of mental health concerns as well and so even though i'm in a psychology clinic it is not within my scope of practice to try and you know. I don't know diagnose somebody with anxiety or depression like yeah they come in and then we talk about how we can use nutrition to support their mental health and get their brains working better. yeah that's and that's that's super that's super interesting that is an area that is an area that I feel like is. For lack of a better word more of an emerging science like I feel like it's relatively new we we you know relatively in the scope of you know human existence right that where we where we finally started to understand that neurotransmitters are affected you know by a number of things including what you put into your body and how easy your body can produce them and how they are. Both produced by and also affected by what you what you ultimately ingest right so can you can you talk a little bit about that like what are some really interesting things that that you've learned in your course of study when it comes to. The relationship between food intake and brain health. Oh my gosh where i know that's a huge question. And if we need to break it down into into chunks where it certainly can i just that it's super fascinating to me so I think I always come back to blood sugar. Because if you don't get that piece of it right it's like the rest of your day is just crummy so for some people. It's like if you give them if you start their day off and you give them a bowl of cereal or the bagel or something else and we have this huge blood sugar spike with it. People say like oh you know I feel good it's fine it gives me some energy but then they just crash later on and as your body has this big blood sugar crash you it's your brain. You're going to jump all over the place here. It's like your blood sugar goes up your body produces insulin and that insulin also stimulates serotonin. And so you have that time where you're kind of like i feel good like happy happy chemical happy neuro transmitter serotonin. But then it's very short live because then we get this blood sugar coming down and that's where the insulin comes in right and clears out clears out the glucose from the blood. It clears it out and when we go high it's like too high too fast we get too much insulin and so then we bring it down too low too fast. And in that process it's like also we've also got the serotonin being retaken up by I believe it's the dendrites. Correct. And so then you're like oh no I don't feel so good and your blood sugar stop and so you're like now I'm really tired and I'm anxious and I'm crabby and you know the snickers commercials where people get hangry. So we're coming down and it's like you see all these people who think they who think we're experiencing depressive symptoms anxiety ADHD lack of focus mood swings. All of these things going on well it's because their blood sugar is just all over the place all day. And if we can get that more even all of a sudden they go all life isn't terrible. I mean I had a woman years ago who her friend knew that she couldn't afford to come work with me or with any of anybody within our practice. And the friend bought her one session she was like just just go. And this woman had bipolar disease and disorder and was taking like emergency anti anxieties to the three times a day. I mean this was just it was running her life and I looked at what she was eating and it's like she her eating was just so erratic and all over the place and like okay I have one session with her what do I do. Like I have this like one and a half to two hours what what can I do to make the most impact and I just said I need you to eat every three hours. I said you get up in the morning and you're going to have something to eat and it's going to be some protein and we're going to throw some fats in there and have a fruit or a vegetable. I said three hours later you're going to eat a snack three hours after that you're going to eat lunch or maybe you're getting up and you have breakfast and then you have lunch. Three hours she called me two days later and Joe's I haven't taken my emergency anxiety medications in two days. Thank you for tuning into this episode of the platform podcast we will return to the episode shortly. I just want to take a second to thank everyone who has made 2021 such a special year for me here at the platform podcast and the Twin Cities kettlebell club. Everyone who trust me to be the coach those of you who came to the Twin Cities kettlebell open are sponsors, elevator belts, barefoot athletic shoes, pro kettlebell, 27 degrees apparel, camera customs. Thank you all so much for your support and I cannot wait to see what 2022 holds for us all because she was just so susceptible to those big blood sugar drops. That it was just ruining her life and that was in the morning session so it's it's amazing what we can do. Yeah that's yeah that's really that's really interesting and can you talk a little bit about and I'll try and frame this question a little better so it's not not quite so big. So there's there's the there's the inverse relationship between insulin and cortisol right so so in the morning when we wake up we have the cortisol cortisol cortisol levels come up because we have the cortisol waking response right. How does that relate to so we're talking about having a big sugary breakfast what happens then to you to like how how is that to me that's one of those mistakes that I see a lot of people make where they start with they start with a really heavy. Heavy carb heavy breakfast because we've been you know bombarded since then we were since the age two right that you're supposed to have you know the frosted flakes in the morning as part of a balanced breakfast which also includes a bagel and also includes. Or shoes and yeah exactly right so can we talk a little bit about how how cortisol and insulin you know relate to one another and how that relates to the to the morning in particular like starting your day off well. So I just I think of it more as so people will say you are less what is it less insulin resistant in the morning I don't get that nitty greedy into it what I will say is that yes our cortisol should be coming up as your melatonin is going down in the morning and that's going to be part of what wakes you up. Now if we throw a whole bunch of just carbs on that and we start a big roll blood sugar roller coaster that's going to drive your cortisol levels even higher. Because it's really stressful on the body to have to try and be like okay do we need more insulin do we need more glucagon can we not produce glucagon because the insulin has come down yet can we tap into our blood or into our body fat stores yes or no can we you know effectively even take up all of this sugar that's being thrown at us. And so that increase in cortisol is then also going to release more sugar from your body from your liver over time and that's going to force your pancreas to then release even more insulin and as this happens days years go by and yourselves become more and more insulin resistant meaning they're not going to listen to. To that insulin coming at them saying hey we have sugar you need to take this up you need to use this so we come insulin resistant this is going to throughout the day drive up your insulin levels drive up your blood sugar and that insulin finally says well we got to do something with it. So it takes it and it stores that sugar in fat cells creates fat from the sugar from the carbs. Because that's all it can do it's like I can't get you into the Oregon your liver is full of glycogen your muscles are full of glycogen I got nowhere else to go. I think that's an important that's an important point to also be aware of right is the bigger your muscles are the more you the bigger your muscles are the stronger you are the more storage units you have for carbohydrates right and that's I think that's an important that's an important piece for for people to understand that's one of the reasons i'm such a big advocate for strength training especially. For people that are overweight already and trying to lose weight like one of the big things that I try and introduce right away is like hey let's get let's lift some weights because it's going to help you manage manage your blood sugar well or help you manage your blood sugar better than you're managing obviously there's also dietary interventions that we can also make and those two in combination are even are even better but I think that's really important for people to understand is like you can only store like carbs aren't necessarily the enemy like we've we've been told but. You also have to understand that if there's nowhere for them to go and you're taking into many of them they can really do a lot of damage pretty pretty easily right at a certain point I was longitudinally especially. Yes and that's where there we kind of because we're humans and I don't know if it's an American thing or what you know we had all the years of like fat is terrible and then all of a sudden it was like carbs are terrible. Okay then what are you left with meat carnivore diet carnivore diet which and here's the thing there are some people who do really really well on a low fat higher card diet there are some people who do great on the carnivore diet and I have worked with people at both ends of the spectrum but there's most of the rest of us in between who do better on something else mix of some mix. Some mix in there and and I've just started doing some genetic testing for patients and it's really interesting getting to see how even within that it's like there are some people who do really well with the high saturated fat keto stuff and that's what they need to keep their blood sugar really well balanced and to help break down insulin resistance. And then there are other people who it's like that saturated fat is not as beneficial for them and might actually make some gain weight or make them you know they might be the people who tend to have the higher cholesterol more inflammation and they really do thrive more in the like Mediterranean diet. But I don't mean a bunch of pasta I mean a ton of vegetables lots of protein and just cooking more with like olive oil avocado fats that that bend versus doing a bunch of butter and coconut oil. So you're saying it needs to be customized to the individual. So I'm saying there's new ones. Yeah, that's the one so you're saying it depends. That's one of the things that my clients are very used to hearing from me and I'm sorry but the answer is it depends and let me explain why because it there's all of these nuances. But now I'm going to put you on the spot and say with that with that caveat of that it usually depends on the individual what are some general recommendations that you would give to most people. I won't say everybody but to most people if they want to manage their blood sugar better let's just say what would be like your top five tips to manage to manage your to manage your blood sugar better and I'll give you a little bit of time to think because I realized that that's that's putting you on the spot. But like what would you say would be your and you don't have to put them in order we can put them in order after what would be like your five tips. I mean number one is eat more protein. Dear Lord, the meat phobia that we have had for years and years and especially for women. You know, I remember growing up and it was like we had oatmeal and bagels for breakfast. I think my mom would put a slice of deli meat on her sandwich. And then it dinner it was I don't know we would have like hamburger helper or spaghetti or something and so by the end of the day that was maybe the only meal that anybody in our family was actually having some really good solid amount of protein in there. And when you don't have that protein, you aren't getting enough amino acids to make your neurotransmitters to help support good brain health, but you're also not getting one of the most like the most satiating macronutrient and so you end up being hungry and having cravings all day. All right, so tip number one eat more protein. I can I am on board with that one for sure. And when people you know like well, I have an egg for breakfast and like that's great. My cat can eat two eggs. Yeah, that's I'm sorry. That's that's like nine grams of protein, depending on. Nine grams of protein and I need you to get to 30. So let's keep going here. So that's number one managing butcher. Have some have some fat with it. And again, that's going to vary for different people so that might be for somebody such as myself. I did some of the genetic testing and I was like, oh, look. You really are one of those people who needs to do more of the unsaturated, the mono unsaturated fats. So now I really geared more towards the olive oil. And that's not to say that I don't still have something like some sour cream and butter cream cheese around. Yeah, so so for for people to understand there's three types of fat. There's there's saturated. Well, there's two two primary types, right? There's saturated and unsaturated, but there's two. There's two types of unsaturated unsaturated fat. Right. Then you have your mono unsaturated, which which is going to be the olives and the avocados. And then you have your poly unsaturated, which is going to be your nuts and seeds for the most part. Yeah. So like I think of it as saturated fats are our solid at room temperature. So think of like your butter and things like most most for the most part. Butter and coconut oil in your blood. Yeah. And then and then when you move to your unsaturated fats, the monos are the ones that are solid at room temperature or there are things that are solid at room temperature. The monosaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. But they're there can the monos are typically contained in solid food items, right? Whereas the the polys are like olive oil and or is that or is that a. You're getting this all up here. Okay, and that's why I'm asking this is this is a question. So mono unsaturated means that there is only. There is only one one double bond in there. Yes, single, single double bond, single, single double bond. And so the organic chemistry is so hard, a single double bond. So in the last two class, the professor, oh my God, she was, she was hard. Or any chemistry has killed many of college college career, but. But anyway, so you have that double bond in there. And so you take something like olive oil and it's going to become solid when you stick it in your refrigerator. You think that's going to be a poly unsaturated is going to have multiple double bonds. And so it's going to be liquid at room temperature. But probably also when you move it into the refrigerator, so you think of something like some of the natural peanut butters, even if you stick it in the refrigerator. Like that thing of oil at the top is still going to stay liquid. Yeah, fish oil is a poly unsaturated fat. And so you can even stick that sometimes in the freezer and you could take it out and it's like gelatinous. It's still kind of gelatinous, you know, or you have like frozen salmon and you take it out and like it's boss really fast. So I knew there was, I knew there was something with the unsaturated fats about room temperature, not I just got it model. I just got it modeled in my head. Okay, so tip number one was any more protein. Tip number two was get some fat with it. Tip number three. Tip number three. What's tip number three? Get rid of the garbage. Okay, define that term. So garbage is garbage carbs and I'm not going to demonize all of the breads and the pastas and the crackers and whatnot. But if that is what is making up a majority of your carbohydrate choices, we need to find a replacement for it. And there are plenty of people who say, but I don't feel satisfied unless I have my dinner, I don't feel satisfied unless I have the rice or the pasta or that that filler thing in there and I said, okay, that's fine. I'm not going to put you on like just a meat and veggie diet. We can still have something like some sweet potatoes, some white potatoes, but not french fries. Or let's do and instead of just straight up white bread, maybe we can find some kind of like a really nice. It's just a rainier sourdough bread because we know that sourdough tends to have less of a blood sugar spike for people, same with like a really weak. We do not know that I just learned that right. But we don't eat bread in my house because my wife and son have silly, so we don't eat gluten containing bread because my wife and son have silly acts. So sourdough is kind of out the window for me, but is it because of the enzymes or like I'm just curious. Yeah, it has something to do with the fermentation process and then this is also where you get, you know, you can get really nuanced with this. There are some people who can sit there and eat a ton of white rice with their nice meal and you would barely see their blood sugars do much. And somebody else is going to sit down to like this little tiny like half cup and their blood sugar goes through the roof. Again, I'm going to say it's like, instead of having the cereal with breakfast, okay, can we replace it with, you know, a yogurt parfait and get you some like a little bit of some crunchy granola on there, but not just a bowl of granola. Yeah, and well, there's also the factors that I find the thing that I'm finding really interesting is you look at some of the data we're getting from like continuous glucose monitors is like even the same person eating the same foods at the same time might have a different glucose response depending on how sleep, how they slept, how their stress levels are, how hydrated they are like that is like. Like that, it doesn't surprise me, but i'm like seeing the data validate some of those things that like, you know, wellness and nutrition coaches have been harping on forever is like that it's all interconnected it's multifaceted this is holistic it's not simple. Yes, so I was using a continuous glucose monitor this past year and and it was really interesting. Because Ryan and I would joke when I would even just use like our little blue commenter i'm like you sat there and ate you know two made rights and an entire like malt and his blood sugar goes to like 140. I would be under my desk asleep yeah and i'm not saying he didn't later on kind of want to like take a snooze or something I go. I had two soups of that same malt and like two potato chips and it's inside out of you know my sandwich and my goes to 150 this is not fair. Okay, so there's a lot there are a lot of other factors as well, which is why which is why it matters and the holistic approach is definitely important but getting rid of low quality process carbohydrates in particular. And again, this is where for some people it's like I don't keep ice cream in my house and that's not because I think ice cream is a terrible food for somebody. But for me it's one of those where if it's upstairs in our freezer, I will choose that instead of either just not eating because i'm not actually hungry. Or finding something that's a more nutritious healthier yeah that setting up your environment just for success right that's one of the things we talk about because it's like. You know if you know the ice creams there i'm going to eat and I have clients that tell me that like I can't have cookies in the house or I can't like if it's there i'm going to eat it like great set up your environment for success it doesn't mean the cookies are off bound are off off off the board entirely just means. If you really want to cookie you're going to have to get your ass in the car drive to the grocery store get a cookie and and fine get your cookie from the bakery and eat one. And I also have what I like to call the three bite roll which has served me really well because i'm i'm a compulsive like purchaser of things like where i'm like oh i really want that that pecan roll looks phenomenal i'm like i've got the carbs i'll eat it right i'm going to i'm going to get it but I give myself the three bite roll and i'm like you have three bites to determine whether or not you want to finish it you take one bite and see is it is it good. And if it's good great you take another bite and then usually by the end of three bites i'm either like yeah i'm all in on this or i'm like. yeah it's it's not worth it and a lot of times all in it and this has been a growth area for me i will throw away like a like a dessert roll or something like if i've had three bites and i don't want the rest of it i'll throw it away because yeah it's not worth it to me to eat it and that was that used to be it was like if i opened the pint of ice cream the whole thing was going. yeah you know but now i've given myself some parameters that helped me like stay a little bit more reasonable but like the the thing isn't it's not the forbidden fruit anymore like you know it's not it's not off limits is just i set my environment up for success like if i want a pint ice cream i have to drive to kowalski's to buy it because i don't keep points of ice cream in the house for that exact same reason. and that's even where you know okay so if we do decide to have ice cream having worn the glucose monitor i can i can tell you which one is going to have like next to no impact on my blood sugar whether i've eaten a meal before it or not and which one is still going to send me through the roof. oh that's interesting so so that is where it comes in early and it's um you know now and i used to tell Ryan because he would get so mad at me he's like i just want to go out to pizza lucha. okay and just get a pizza but you just get salad and i love to have my love to swear oh yes yes and i looked at him and i was like honey you know that when i eat pizza i am a crabby bitch like do you want me to eat the pizza he was no you can get yourself. because you just don't like pizza i said no i do like pizza i like pizza when i make that my dinner you know when i eat my i can eat like one piece of pizza does not fill me up like i can eat a good four pieces of pizza. like but then i have heartburn in indigestion and my blood sugars go all over the place and i'm tired and i i'm just crabby yeah you're like i love pizza it just doesn't love me back and i'm not an unrequited relationship. yes and so i'm like yeah let's go to pizza lucha i'll get my salad i'll eat like three bites of your pizza and i'm happy you're happy like everybody's happy i love it i love it that's great i'm i'm you're not you're really peaking my i've i've been interested. interested in the in the cgm thing anyway so now i'm like i'm i'm really wanting to get a cgm and really and really get some more data i love data so i'm i'm really wanting to get more data on what affects my blood sugar and like i want to i so i'm going to talk to you offline we're going to talk we're going to talk more about about how you can how you can help me nerd out even harder than so get rid of the car we just eat that eat some more protein what are got to you got two more real will soon we can keep it fast because i know we're we're getting up against time and i want to be respect. just talking about blood sugar yeah okay um sleep just oh um and this is and i will say this you need to sleep like i have two other i have you know of course several friends were dieticians and we're all moms and we all have babies. that are very similar kind of in this one year old range and i can't tell you the number of times that we have texted back and forth and we go i got three hours of sleep sleep last night and all I want to do is eat my kid cereal. All I want to do is like dive head first into their crackers or i think. yeah. Frater brought home like a chocolate chip cookie yesterday from preschool and of course last night happened to be one of those nights and i was sitting there eating my eggs and i saw that cookie on top of the fridge and i was like yep that's mine. sorry i don't know what happened to it honey cookies. so so it's one of those where if you are if you are somebody who is struggling with the cravings especially for sugar and carbs. and you're only getting four or five hours of sleep a night address that and whether and that might be maybe you need to work with a dietician so that we can get your blood sugars figured out so you can sleep. yeah because that's one of those huge that's huge like a lot of again we were talking about cortisol waking response and insulin and how that relates the other you know cortisol and melatonin like you talked about are inversely correlated right so you know as melatonin as melatonin comes up cortisol goes down and vice versa you need melatonin to well yes yeah in an in an ideal state you need melatonin to go up in order to feel tired you you need cortisol to go down in order to be able to to feel tired right those well one of the things that helps with that is carbs before bed can actually help can actually help there right like that is one that can actually help now again. now not contact contact matters stand likes to do before bed because if you're kept people are like oh carbs before bed what tell me about this. you know my dad was the you know two peanut butter jelly sandwiches and a glass of milk before bed or a gigantic bowl of Cheerios and it's like no no no no talking like I'm talking like a teaspoon a teaspoon of honey or something. I'm talking about like maybe you know half an apple and some peanut butter yeah maybe and or there are other people where it's like we need them to not eat before bed like we really need to give them a really nice space and sometimes those people know they're like if I eat within two hours of bed I just I sleep like crud yeah it depends context matters it's very individual and throughout the day people need to eat enough and that's where I think especially a lot of women get themselves into trouble with the the combination of intermittent fasting and keto because they're like they're going to do one they're like let's do the other yeah we got to go hard car right if we're going to do it we might it we might as well go hard car and so suddenly they're they already weren't eating enough most likely and now they're trying to not eat enough and they're not eating carbs and they're eating in this little like eight hour window I can't sleep of course you can't sleep in particular for women our bodies don't let us sleep they wake us up in the middle of the night to tell us to go forage to go find energy because our our purpose is to make babies and to take from a biological directive perspective right we're not talking existentially but we're talking from a biological evolutionary drive yes 100% that's our that's our job and so and I can tell you that when I don't eat enough during the day it's like 3 a.m. oh I'm awake why am I awake what's going on yeah okay so we got we got the fifth tip there so it's eat eat enough throughout the day is is what is what I wrote down as the as the fifth tip so we've got eat more protein make sure you get some some fat with it depending on what your needs are and you know you can figure those out with working with somebody that like you to help figure out what types of fat and how much you need get rid of the garbage get some sleep and eat enough throughout the day I think those are five pretty pretty good general tips for for most people I want to I'm gonna I'm gonna ask one more question I'll and then we'll we'll let you get back to to taking care of your kids and and your your tell Ryan I said hello but to the to the fifth one one of the one of the myths that I think drives me crazy is the you need to eat every two to three hours in order to help you lose weight now there's some validity to the approach of eating every two to three hours as we just discuss and why and why that is but there's also research that says that it doesn't actually help you lose any more weight longitudinally right so you can you explain to us why it's still important and why it might be a good approach for a lot for a lot of people to to still eat that every two to three hours and and just talk a little bit about that that myth component of it I think it's there is no biological need for us to eat every two to three hours like it it's this myth that we came up with at one point in time and and it feels it feels the it feels the fire it stokes your metabolism it doesn't um I will say because we've heard this for so long people get into this pattern or this rhythm and and snack food is prevalent and so they're like well I need to eat every two hours and you eat every three hours and if you legitimately feel hungry because you're but you have a circadian rhythm your digestive juices work on a circadian rhythm with you your brain works on a rhythm and that's a whole other story and so we think we need to eat all the time and if people are eating garbage all the time if they're starting their day with a bowl of cereal and then later on they're like I'm starving I need a snack and they eat a granola bar or they just eat some fruit because an apple is healthy we're just keeping them in this blood sugar roller poster and they're going to be hungry all day so if you're in that and you're starting to make these changes it's like yes maybe we still have you eat every two to three hours but now we're replacing it with more blood sugar stabilizing foods and suddenly people go oh you know after a couple of days I'm not hungry every two hours yeah and the other piece of that is yes you need to eat enough so if you eat like a couple of eggs you're like well you know my dietitian or my nutritionist told me that you know I should eat some eggs for breakfast white twigs but I'm still hungry you know two hours later look yes that's not 140 calories that's 140 calories like that's not enough food for most most people when they're breaking their fast whether that's at seven in the morning or at 10 in the morning like that's that's just not enough food like we need to have a couple of eggs and some other protein in there probably and some fruits and some veggies like it needs to be a meal yeah like a legitimate meal and I can't tell you how many people have told me they're like I don't like salads they don't fill me what do you put on your salad like I have some lettuce and some carrots and some tomatoes and if you bake in bits and my faculty dressing hmm yeah that sounds terrible let me let me have you try my salad it's got half of a avocado it's got two hard boiled eggs it's got a chicken breast it's got it's got a lot of avocado on it yeah yeah you know I walked through when we were living in Georgia I walked through the hospital cafeteria one day and made myself a big salad and I'm in line and pay and for it and this lady behind me looks at me and she's like wow your salad looks really good and I looked at her kind of turned it around and I see she went through a salad bar light and I'm like we went through the same line she's got like this little rinky ding thing and it's got like a few cheese sprinklings on it and mine's got you know the tomatoes and the broccoli and the cauliflower and all the stuff in the meat and we walk through the same line where's your food yeah don't be scared to eat and I'm gonna I'm gonna be gendered on this one and say especially ladies like don't be afraid to eat like you've been conditioned for so long to to not eat enough food and that is just not right and it is probably harming your goals more than it's helping and I'll say if you were if somebody is you know and we would always say like drink water like you might just be dehydrated maybe but I can't tell you how many people I also see where they're like well I'm hungry like I'm hungry so I'll just drink some water no if you're legitimately hungry like you need to eat and we need to look back at what have you eaten previously in the day was your like they're like I just like to snack I just like to snack all day I'm just a snacker no you just didn't eat a meal yes okay well I'm sorry no no this is great I think I think we could definitely we could we could probably rant on for hours but about all of these various things and we can definitely rabbit hole on on a lot of these topics so I definitely want to have you back we can talk more about we can talk more about brain health you know and some we can pick some specific topics that we can bring your expertise in on but I really appreciate you you taking taking the time to come on it's been really it's been a really fun conversation I will I will type up the five tips and I'll ask everybody I'll ask you the same thing I ask everybody as far as how do people follow you how do they get in touch with you if they want to work with you you know where where should they reach out how can they get it how can they get a hold of you well you won't find me on social media because the first guest ever that does not have a social media handle I okay here's the thing I just I do not tweet I do not pin I don't what I don't insta like that's just I don't I have a Facebook page but that's my own I it's not business um and I'm not going to friend you sorry and so I'm so I'm so off I'm so offended goodbye I actually respect the hell out of that if they want to see weird kettlebell man they can gnaw it stash him but if you want to get a hold of me and work with me then it's stepping stone clinic mn.com is our website and I'll put that link in the show notes yeah and that's uh that's the clinic that I work for uh two to three days a week mostly evenings these days mostly virtual well unfortunately but hopefully hopefully to be done soon well that's fantastic though because if you're virtual then then nearly anybody can get a hold of you so there is there is that that benefit so that is that is fantastic uh with the genetics we are able to work across state lines and as and also um I have worked with people in Australia before so oh fantastic and actually for for some people depending on how good your insurance is and what what medical condition you have you might actually be able to get some some insurance reimbursement for it too correct correct we do I think our my line is we accept all insurance it just depends upon what your insurance is going to pay yes that and that's a whole other thing yes our staff is very very good at helping people figure out what their insurance will cover what it won't you can also pay out of pocket and I think that our prices are extremely reasonable compared to what you're going to find at other places so awesome well Brenna thank you so much for taking the time I I really I do really appreciate it this was this was a lot of fun for me hopefully it was fun uh for the listeners I think it's going to be super educational there's a lot there's a lot of nuggets in here and there's there's a lot of things we can we can dive in on more uh in hopefully future episodes all right thank you Jordan thank you so much thanks for listening to this episode of the platform podcast I'm Jordan Kunde-Wright we'll be back with a new episode next week please don't forget to register for the Twinsidiscatible open on our website twinsidiscatibleclub.com and if you have a question or suggestion please email me at twinsidiscatibleclub at gmail.com follow us on social media at twinsidiscatibleclub and of course if you want to step onto the platform and competing kettlebell sport please reach out to me until next time