Let's talk about the narrative of 'healthy' breakfasts served up by the food industry... In this episode, we take a deep dive into the sugar laden truth of your morning staples and their impact on your health. From explaining the role of sugar in the development of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, to shedding light on the concept of a pre-diabetic state, this episode serves up facts that are hard to digest, but necessary for your health journey.
As we take apart the breakfast myth, we also build up an actionable plan to kick-start your day on a healthier note. Discover the magic of mindful eating and a simple hack to regulate your blood sugar levels. But it's not just about what you consume, it's about consuming it with love and gratitude for your body.
Let's talk about the narrative of 'healthy' breakfasts served up by the food industry... In this episode, we take a deep dive into the sugar laden truth of your morning staples and their impact on your health. From explaining the role of sugar in the development of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, to shedding light on the concept of a pre-diabetic state, this episode serves up facts that are hard to digest, but necessary for your health journey.
As we take apart the breakfast myth, we also build up an actionable plan to kick-start your day on a healthier note. Discover the magic of mindful eating and a simple hack to regulate your blood sugar levels. But it's not just about what you consume, it's about consuming it with love and gratitude for your body.
When I am thinking about the meals that I'm eating. This is like the number one hack I guess that you could call it that I try to stay on course with to really just make sure that I am mindfully trying to avoid spiking my blood sugar. Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self-love.
Speaker 1:
So big question for you are you starting off your mornings the wrong way every single day? And you may be wondering what I specifically mean by this, because we've all heard the different ways to correctly start off your morning right Early, before everyone else's up journaling, meditating, getting in a workout and all of those things of course, have their place and teach their own on how they want to start their morning and what works for them. But I am actually specifically talking about breakfast and how we specifically start our morning off with breakfast, and there are a couple of things that I want to go over when it comes to things that we should actually be avoiding to start off our day and the actual impact it can have if we're not having any awareness around this or maybe we just don't know. So that is really what I want to dive into today, and the first thing that I want to start off with is it's crazy how well the food industry has made us believe how many things are actually quote unquote healthy or a good way to start our day. Like I know as a kid, the main thing that we were fed as kids and just like starting off our mornings with cereal and if you know anything about cereal, all cereal pretty much is basically pure sugar, and I mean I think I plan to do a whole episode on the effects of sugar intake and what it actually is doing to our body and just having more awareness around what's actually in our food, whether or not we believe it to be sugar or not, because obviously sugar is not just candy or desserts, it is fruit. It is added to a lot of different things that we eat that we wouldn't maybe necessarily think that sugar is in. So there's a lot to think about when it comes to our food. And again coming back to this whole idea that cereal campaigns have had on their boxes I think it was like Cheerios or something that it like lowers cholesterol, and I know a lot of cereals were marketed to kids specifically and make kids really want their parents to go buy them a specific cereal because of the way that it was marketed to them.
Speaker 1:
But ultimately, cereal sugar and let's just talk about what sugar does to our bodies when, especially when we started off with our day, and you may already know, but there is something called insulin resistance and there's something called type two diabetes. Maybe you have heard of it, maybe you have heard of type one and type two and you're not really sure what the differences are between the two and what I will just say is type one is something that you can't prevent, like it will happen. It can happen at any stage. Sometimes it happens when you're younger and you find out you have type one diabetes and that is a disease where your body doesn't produce insulin like it should. Type 2 diabetes is really something that happens over time when we consume too much sugar, because the process of when we consume sugar, our pancreas releases this hormone called insulin and basically it's insulin's job to reduce. Well, basically, insulin removes the glucose from our blood into cells and if it has to constantly do that all the time, then our body basically becomes resistant to insulin. So and that's really where I'm going with it with type 2 diabetes is that's why we need to be paying attention to the amount of sugar that we're consuming every single day, because it can lead to type 2 diabetes, and type 2 diabetes is really really bad for your health, and obviously someone can be pre-diabetic, which basically means they're on their way to becoming type 2 diabetic. So it's super important that you're not only aware of how that all happens and what's going on with the body when we start to go down the path of becoming diabetic, but also how we can prevent it and pay more attention to the foods that we're eating and know like just better understand how it all works and how we can make sure that we're not causing our body to become insulin resistance.
Speaker 1:
And so when I talk about the mornings and starting off our mornings the right way or versus the wrong way, I personally think that starting off your morning with like any kind of sugary food, which basically pretty much a ton of different things are considered breakfast, but they're literally dessert. So I think of like cereal, pancakes, crepes, muffins, like anything bakery from the bakery, like bread big, like carb carby foods, even bagels. I am like I used to in college I would make a bagel sandwich pretty much every single morning and I don't do that anymore, just because a lot of the packaging, like the breads that you buy, have a lot of added sugar to them, and breakfast is just one of those things that I stick to my routine. I want to start my morning off really good, because the worst thing that you can do for yourself is not only spike your blood sugar but do it the first thing in the morning, because that is really when you can start to create a roller coaster for your entire day when it comes to your blood sugar. And obviously, if you are experiencing a like a roller coaster with your blood sugar, where it's like peaking really high and then all of a sudden it's crashing really low, that's when we start to feel cravings.
Speaker 1:
Throughout our day, our body is responding to the crashes that is happening, that are happening throughout our day and it's doing what it knows to do in order to pick that energy back up, which is going to lead you to grabbing more sugary foods in order to bring your energy levels back up quickly, and this is really really bad for the body to like. Have this roller coaster effect when it comes to our blood sugar. It is really not good, and if you can prevent it from happening first thing in the morning, especially, then it's going to be better off. Even if you know the lunch time or dinner time, you end up having something sweet or sugary and but it's going to at least help regulate that blood sugar a little bit, a little bit better because of the way you started off in the morning. So this is somewhat of a hack that you can use in the morning, but I honestly recommend it for all of your meals and even snacks is, if you can, if you know you're going to eat something with sugar in it, even fruit, if you can have something such as protein or something that is super dense in nutrients and fiber or fats, specifically before you eat the sugary, whatever, it may help in reducing a spike in blood sugar.
Speaker 1:
Obviously, every single individual is very different when it comes to how we react to certain foods. So that is just something to keep in mind that one person may have a banana and their blood sugar spikes like really high, and another person may not have the same effect happen to them. But when you can balance out your meals where, even if you are going to have a side of fruit or dessert after, if you can strategically eat foods that are high in protein and high in healthy fats before and then eat it, it's going to also have a positive impact and help reduce any kind of spike that would happen. So that's one thing that I always pay attention to with all of my meals. But even in the morning when I'm having my breakfast, I actually don't eat any carbs in the morning, not because carbs are bad.
Speaker 1:
I do eat carbs throughout my day, like towards the end of my day, but I honestly feel like full for a really long period of time when I start my morning off eating foods that are high in protein and high in fats, and I really don't eat any carbs in the morning, unless it's a special occasion or something different. But normally that's how I start off my day and, compared to how I used to eat and what I would start my day off, which in college, we were always told to eat a lot of carbs because they had a lot of energy and we were working out all the time. And you know, as a student athlete, and I was constantly told that I should be eating a lot of carbs because I needed more energy. And it was so funny because I would always make those egg sandwich, like bagel sandwiches in the morning and it was like within the hour I would be starving for more food. And that's the thing too is, if you're constantly spiking your blood sugar, you are also going to feel more hungry because, again, if you're feeling those roller coaster and you're crashing and you're coming up high again, your body is doing whatever it can to regulate everything and so sometimes you may feel even hungrier after you've had the high carb food that you've eaten.
Speaker 1:
So that is like my little hack to eating healthy and just starting off your day better, but also like carrying that in throughout your entire day and through all of your meals is always balancing out the meal with all of the food groups again, high protein, healthy fats and, say, like carbs that are high in fiber, and also limiting the amount of sugar that you're eating. I do. I try to be mindful of that for every meal and I also try to like try to eat those proteins and those fats before I dig into all of the carbs. Obviously, it's not always the case, but when I am thinking about the meals that I'm eating, this is like the number one hack I guess that you call it that I try to stay on course with, to really just make sure that I am mindfully trying to avoid spiking my blood sugar. I know I could be way better at it, but, again, that is just something that I always have in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1:
The other thing that I will add that I hadn't actually originally planned on sharing when it comes to starting off your morning, right is and I think I've shared this before in the podcast but avoiding um, well, maybe I shouldn't say avoiding, but like the first thing that you do in the morning before eating or before making your coffee, or maybe your pre-workout is drinking a glass of water before anything, Because obviously, when you've gone to sleep for you know, eight hours, or hopefully eight hours, however many hours the night before your body is dehydrated and that's also something that could help you wake up naturally in the morning is drinking a glass of water, because when we are dehydrated we are actually more fatigued. But this is something to keep in mind too, like before you make coffee and drink coffee and drink caffeinated drinks In the morning. It's super important to rehydrate before anything else, and something that I've been doing, and I have done in the past before, is I actually have been drinking lemon water with a little bit of sea salt added to it, and I promise I don't even taste the sea salt, so I don't add that much to where I actually like really taste it, but it's actually a natural electrolyte as well. So that is also one little thing that I wanted to add in. There is, if you are starting off your morning with sugar and coffee and caffeine, prepare to have a roller coaster of a day, because not only will you be feeling the crash of the sugar, but you will also probably eventually feel the crash of the caffeine, especially if it is something that you were addicted to.
Speaker 1:
That is something that hit me in the face a while back. I stopped drinking coffee, kind of as an experiment for my own body. I was like not, I was experiencing a lot of bloating and from what I was. I was just trying to figure out how to reduce the bloating and I knew that sometimes when I had coffee I would feel bloated after drinking it. So I was trying to reduce it and so I just basically stopped drinking it for about a month to see how it would help or if it would help at all.
Speaker 1:
And it was crazy, the headaches that I got from the withdrawals from the coffee, like not having the coffee. And I don't even. I mean, I do drink coffee because it does help wake me up a little bit, but I more so enjoy coffee because I just love the taste of it. It's like the experience of coffee, for whatever reason, just like makes me happy and that is one of the main reasons why I like to drink it. But it was crazy. I did not realize how addicted my body was to coffee until after I stopped drinking it altogether and boy, those headaches sucked so much. So that is something again like side note. If you drink a lot of coffee, you actually may be addicted to it and it may be worth considering finding ways to limit it, just because being addicted to caffeine or addicted to anything is not a good situation to be in.
Speaker 1:
So I know that this is kind of a shorter episode today, but I hope that it was helpful and I hope that it helps you learn a little bit more about your own habits and having more awareness around how you start your day, what your routine is and just your regular eating habits in general. So I hope that it helped and let me know if you have any suggestions for next week's topic or the week after that. I would love to do a topic that you are really looking to learn more about. Otherwise, I will chat with you next week. Have a good day.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the Love your Body Now listeners. If you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed and left a review. This helps me get the message out to more women just like you who are also committed to their journey. And if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self-worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now let's help change the world, one woman at a time. All right, talk to you soon, friend. Long live the Earth.