Overcoming Prediabetes With Real Food

Transcript:

MELANIE: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness. We are a company specializing in life-changing nutrition education and counseling. Our goal with hosting this podcast is to give you all solid science-based nutrition information and practical nutrition tips so that you can improve your health and well-being. And if you've been listening to us for a while, you might already know that balancing your blood sugar levels and getting your fasting blood sugar in the normal healthy range is one of the most important things that you can do for your future health.

Prediabetes is associated with health risks

KARA: We all like to do a deep dive into research, but it does not take a researcher or a scientist to find information that backs up the seriousness of high blood sugar levels. In fact, all of you on this February morning could go into Google right now and just type in “health risk of prediabetes”. When I did that in preparation for today's show, I had 14 million sources come up.

MELANIE: Did you read them all?

KARA: I did not. I was just, I wasn't surprised though. So clearly this is a real issue in our country, in our world. We'll introduce ourselves and then we'll get into our topic for today. I'm Kara Carper. I'm a Licensed Nutritionist and Certified Nutrition Specialist. As dietitians and nutritionists, even with 14 million sources coming up on the negative health consequences that can come about from prediabetes, we really focus on the peer reviewed scientific literature when we prepare for our shows.

I found the following on PubMed from the journal, Clinical Diabetes. Recent studies have demonstrated that patients with prediabetes can suffer from coronary artery disease and diastolic heart failure even before progressing to overt diabetes.

MELANIE: Wow. Something to think about as those blood sugar levels rise. I'm Melanie Beasley, a Registered and Licensed Dietitian. I agree that it's important to sort through the information online and stick with credible and reputable research, such as the journal you mentioned, Clinical Diabetes. The article you just mentioned was published in 2020 and the title was “Prediabetes Deserves More Attention” and we couldn't agree more.

KARA: Yeah, that title really says it all. Let's unpack that journal article for a moment, Mel. Recent studies, so we're talking in the past several years, so very recent, show that people who have prediabetes can have heart disease and heart failure, even before prediabetes progresses into type two diabetes.

MELANIE: Yeah. So have you recently been to the doctor and been told that your fasting blood sugar numbers started creeping up a bit too high? Or did your doctor or nurse say that your blood sugar numbers were in the prediabetes range?

According to the study in the Journal of American Medical Association, more than half of the U.S. adult population has diabetes or prediabetes. This is tremendous compared to, gosh, 30 years ago. It was rare.

KARA: More than half of the U.S. adult population has diabetes or prediabetes. And I just want to throw in that a lot of people have no idea that they're walking around with these higher blood sugar levels. Those are folks that have been diagnosed with prediabetes or diabetes. So it's even higher than that. If diabetes is either undiagnosed or ignored, over time complications can happen, such as stroke, heart disease, even Alzheimer's, certainly kidney disease, nerve damage, problems with feet or legs, problems with the eyes, even loss of vision.

But according to the article from 2020, just having elevated blood sugar levels just stand alone can lead to heart disease. So I think prediabetes, it really needs to be a wake up call to folks. It's not something to wait on, not something to think about in the future. It needs to be addressed as soon as someone knows.

MELANIE: I believe it was Dr. Mark Hyman say the biggest risk factor was elevated blood sugar for disease. And so when we say prediabetes, we are talking if your levels are over 100 to 125, you're prediabetic. We like to see blood sugar levels under 90 or lower, fasting blood sugar levels.

I don't even like to see my clients creeping up in the 98. I like to get it down lower. So today's topic is a really important one because the rates of prediabetes And diabetes just keep going up every year, like you mentioned. And although there's a small genetic component to having higher blood sugar levels, it's almost all under our control. That's the good news.

Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes can be reversed

And did you know that prediabetes can be reversed? So can type 2. So, with a careful eating plan that focuses on eating real food, adjusting those macronutrients, which we're going to talk about, these changes can sometimes happen very quickly. You can turn it around in three months.

KARA: Absolutely. Some diseases and some conditions do take a little bit longer, but with blood sugar levels, if someone is eating, like you said, carefully, and we'll talk more about what a careful real food diet looks like, they can turn that around in, you know, six weeks, two months, three months, very short time.

Processed carbohydrates & sugars can contribute to prediabetes

So how does eating real food that you buy at the grocery store and prepare in your own kitchen help to reverse prediabetes? Well, the main reason that over half of Americans have prediabetes or diabetes, it's just due to eating too many processed carbohydrates, too many sugars. And sugary beverages are part of this as well.

MELANIE: Yep. Yeah, those sugary beverages are huge factor in this. So these processed carbohydrates and sugars, that's what you're finding in foods that are sold in boxes, bags, cans. They're pre-packaged from the frozen section at the store, you know, the ready meals.

So my challenge to listeners today is to take a day, one day, read every label of every package you're going to eat for the ingredient sugar or maltodextrin, or something that ends in o-s-e, which is a sugar derivative. See, how are you doing? How much sugar are you actually eating in just pick one day.

KARA: I think that's a great challenge. I mean, everyone should be reading labels. Let's give some examples of those carbohydrates that tend to be the biggest culprits that create high blood sugars: Bread, chips, pasta, muffins, bagels, crackers, pizza, French fries, and of course the more obvious culprits like the sugary treats and sweets and drinks and things like cookies, candy, cake, sweetened coffee drinks. I won't list all of them, but you get the idea.

MELANIE: We'll be here all day. Yep. And so those are the overt. Like you can obviously tell they're sweet. We know they convert to sugar. Chips and bread convert rapidly to sugar, whether they have sugar in them or not. So it's not the occasional treat or dessert that we're talking about.

You maybe you have, you know, a piece of cake at your birthday. No one burst into flames. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about that chronic high blood sugar numbers that come from eating high sugary foods or carbohydrate foods. It's the daily and weekly habits that build up over time. So if you're frequently going to a coffee shop and get one of those sugary drinks or even a cookie, muffin, scone, that's the habit that could lead to chronic high blood sugar levels.

KARA: Or maybe you just don't have time to prepare and eat breakfast in the morning. So instead of making a balanced breakfast, you grab something like a bowl of cold cereal with milk. And maybe for lunch, you're also in a hurry and you did not pack and prepare anything, so you swing by the local sandwich shop.

And maybe you get a sub sandwich, chips, and a soda. Believe it or not, a lunch like that adds up to at least 25 teaspoons of sugar. So we're talking about take 25 multiply by four. That's we're going for grams of carbohydrates here. That's about a hundred grams of carbohydrate.

MELANIE: It's about a half a cup of sugar.

KARA: Half a cup of sugar.

MELANIE: About a half, about a half a cup of sugar.

KARA: At least, yeah, that is, far too much for anyone’s body to be able to handle.

Is oatmeal a healthy choice?

MELANIE: For lunch. Yes. So I'm going to ask you to just talk a little bit about the beloved oatmeal for breakfast.

KARA: The beloved oatmeal. Yeah, I think that's a great topic because a lot of folks are under the impression that it's high fiber, heart friendly. And those are things that are on the label. But those are claims that are not actually scientific claims. It's all marketing, but oats, you know, they're a grain. They're a high starch, high carbohydrate food. They're going to spike that blood sugar very rapidly. Just like cold cereal.

MELANIE: And I have clients that just, they grip that oatmeal, they're like take away anything but just don't take away my oatmeal and they'll say I, I eat the whole grain version. But once I ask them to test their blood sugars, it spikes their blood sugar.

KARA: Sure. If there's someone using like a, a glucometer.

MELANIE: A glucometer or they have a continuous glucose monitor. So let's give some context, Kara. Because some listeners might not realize that 25 teaspoons of sugar is a lot. So our bodies are not designed to take in that many carbohydrates or that much sugar. Back in the day 100 years ago, we weren't consuming this amount of sugar. This half a cup at 25 teaspoons is quite the load for you to have just at lunch.

KARA: Right. I mean, sugar used to be more of a delicacy. It wasn't even available. And it was, you know, it was a big deal to have maybe a dessert once a week as a very special occasion. We are completely inundated with sugar in every variety, in every form these days.

MELANIE: And then we came out with, you know, the “healthy cereals”, you know, in the 50s. So, if you're a cereal eater, go to your cupboard, pull out that box, roll over and look at the ingredients. How many grams of carbohydrates are you getting per serving, which is usually three fourths of a cup.

KARA: Mm hmm. And most people, you have to think about serving size. Right?

MELANIE: You have to think about that. But you're over 30 just in three fourths of a cup before you add the milk, before you add the sugar, before you add the toast or juice or anything else.

What is an ideal blood sugar range & how do we achieve it?

KARA: So let's talk about what's ideal for healthy blood sugar range when it comes to carbohydrates. And also for maintaining a healthy weight, most people should not be having more than 25, maybe 30 grams of carbohydrates in total with a meal.

MELANIE: Yeah. Yeah.

KARA: So what does that look like coming from, let's switch over to real food. We've been talking about processed cereals and things.

MELANIE: So we talked about the three fourths cup of cereal, but you can eat a lot of vegetables. You can eat 3 cups of broccoli and still hit about 25 grams of carbs. So, the volume of food that you're going to get in for that amount of carbohydrates when you're eating the real food vegetable carbohydrates, so much more satisfying, but also so much more benefit for your overall health because of the, what comes along with those vegetables.

KARA: Sure. You get the fiber, you get the plant you know, chemicals, you get the antioxidants.

MELANIE: Bioflavonoids. You're getting a big boost of nutrition that's helping you all the way around.

KARA: Yeah. That's a very nutrient dense way to get three cups of carbohydrates versus the three-quarter cup of cold cereal, probably zero fiber, high sugar, not a lot of vitamins and minerals.

MELANIE: And just not a lot of food. My clients, when I get them eating real food, they're like, this is a lot of food you're asking me to eat. And I say, you're welcome.

KARA: Absolutely. And that's how people feel full and satisfied.

MELANIE: Yeah.

KARA: So you can't eat large quantities of starchy carbohydrates if you're trying to keep it to that 25 to 30 grams or less with a meal. We've gone over that. That's about a half cup or maybe three quarters of a cup of something starchy. One piece of bread, there's about 20 grams of carbohydrates. So if you're someone that likes to eat a sandwich with two pieces of bread, that's going to add up quickly.

MELANIE: Then you throw those chips in there.

KARA: Exactly.

MELANIE: Or a piece of fruit.

KARA: You have a sandwich with two pieces of bread, a piece of fruit, some chips. We're probably back up to a hundred grams of carbohydrates, divide by four, there's your 25 teaspoons of sugar, or like you said, half of a cup.

MELANIE: Yeah. So one cup of cooked pasta, whole grain or not, has over 40 grams of carbs. And one cup of cooked rice has 45 grams of carbohydrates. If you have prediabetes, even having one cup of rice, or one cup of pasta, or a sandwich, it's just too many starchy carbohydrates for your body to handle. But the good news is, is that you can eat unlimited vegetable carbohydrates, like leafy greens, spinach, romaine lettuce. The vegetables that grow above the earth, with the exception of legumes and corn, are your low carbohydrate vegetables.

KARA: And on the flip side, you had mentioned you can eat, I think you said three cups of broccoli?

MELANIE: Yes.  

KARA: So also, maybe a large salad with two to three cups of greens. Throw on some of those, we call them the non-starchy veggies: tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, maybe a little onion, cucumber. You name it, put it on that salad and that total carbohydrate content will still be very low, maybe 20 grams for a huge salad.

MELANIE: Yes. And the term I use with my clients is concentrated carb or low concentrated carb.

KARA: That's a better way to describe it.

MELANIE: It's so concentrated for that three fourths of a cup. They get a better picture of it. But imagine how full you're going to be eating this big old salad. Especially if you follow our nutritional advice which is adding in four to six ounces of protein.

And then adding in, and we're talking animal protein like chicken or fish or steak, and then adding in your healthy fat, a half avocado, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil dressing. So filling and delicious. And more importantly, it's going to contribute to healing your prediabetes.

KARA: And if you're already struggling with high blood sugars or you have prediabetes, you're definitely not someone who can go over that 25 to 30 grams of carbohydrates with a meal because you have something called insulin resistance. And you might be wondering, what is insulin resistance and why am I not able to burn through 40 grams of carbohydrates? And we have to go to a quick break and then Melanie is going to give a great explanation of why when we come back.

MELANIE: Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. I'm Melanie Beasley, Licensed Dietitian here with Kara Carper, Licensed Nutritionist. And if you are someone who can't imagine completely giving up sugar and sweets, but you know it would improve your health and your waistline, well, we have a great class and resource for you.

Our Chef, Marianne, is facilitating a live Zoom class on February 7th. It's called “Sweets That Satisfy”. She'll demonstrate how to make sweets with real food and some will be gluten and dairy free. You can go to our website for more information and sign up at weightandwellness.com or you can call 651-699-3438.

Sign Up for a Cooking Class

We're also available for consultation if you need some help with prediabetes. That's what we're here for.

Schedule Nutrition Counseling

So someone who has healthy blood sugar levels, which are ideally 70 to 90, could get away with eating maybe 40 grams of carbohydrates with a meal once in a while. Maybe they do eat an occasional sandwich with two slices of bread, but because their blood sugars are healthy and normal, the hormone called insulin does its job quite well and helps to carry the sugar into the blood and into the cells. I'm thinking mostly younger people can kind of get away with this for a while. For a while. I'm not a big proponent of bread because it's, there's, it's no nutrients in bread.

KARA: Right. And it's kind of like the oatmeal. I think people assume that they're getting fiber and vitamins and minerals. But it's very, very difficult to find bread that actually has more than like a gram or two of fiber per slice.

MELANIE: And the vitamins and the minerals that they're spraying on grains, they're the junky junk. That's the clinical term: the junky junk vitamins that our bodies really don't utilize very well. And for some can actually cause problems. So I'm not a big fan of getting your vitamins through sprayed on cereal and sprayed on bread.

KARA: Yeah. And certainly not for someone that is, you know, has those higher blood sugar levels.

MELANIE: Exactly.

KARA: So thank you for that, and so that's a great example of what insulin resistance is. But what you just said is that's how blood sugar and insulin should be working. And a lot of younger people, like you said, they can kind of get away with having sugar and high starchy carbs for a while.

How can insulin resistance develop?

Because if it's doing its job, insulin will carry that excess blood sugar into the cells, and that's where we get our energy. But what if you are that person who frequently eats or drinks more than the 30 grams of carbohydrates or sugar with meals? Then what? Well, over time, your cells will become resistant to the insulin. The insulin that your pancreas produces, it's really just trying to do its job by carrying that excess blood sugar into the cells. But, after a while, it can't get it in there.

MELANIE: Well, I liken it to a fire hose effect. So, when you're consuming about 30 grams of carbohydrates at a meal. It's enough that insulin can pick up all that blood sugar, unlock the cell, and bring it into the cell. When you're at 45, 50, 100 grams of carbohydrate, it's like a fire hose effect, and that insulin just can't pick it all up and get it in like it's supposed to. And now it begins to create inflammation, pain and a prediabetes situation in the bloodstream when it's done over and over and over. And that's when those blood sugar levels start going up and up and up.

And it's just, it's too much glucose circulating in the bloodstream that can't get into those cells. So, if you are starting to have higher blood sugar readings through your doctor visits, always ask, what are your numbers? Take a peek at them. It's information. And if it's creeping up every physical, that should be a warning sign. That's your body's flare gun.

KARA: Yeah. It's really important information to know what your fasting glucose is. And if it does start creeping up toward a hundred, that's a red flag. And typically, lower is better, although, we don't want glucose to get so low. For example, in the 50s and 60s, that could cause issues depending on the individual.

But for health purposes, to prevent heart disease, to prevent Alzheimer's , and other brain related diseases: stroke, neuropathy, and like you had said, just overall inflammation in the body, you're best having your fasting glucose 70 to 90. And I'll just give a quick example.

I recently got labs in December, the end of the year going for lab work. And my recent fasting glucose was 80. Now that is in the safe range, but personally, I prefer to have mine under 80, because I know that the damage that high blood sugars can cause. And I also know that I've kind of been getting a little bit loose on my starchy carbohydrate intake.

MELANIE: It's a slippery slope.

KARA: Yep. And I, although I eat gluten free, maybe too many of those rice crackers. Maybe a little bit too much brown rice pasta.

MELANIE: No, you're not eating those rice crackers.

KARA: So I just feel best and most confident about my personal health and labs when my fasting glucose is in the seventies.

MELANIE: Yes. Yeah. It's a slippery slope. I mean, if I can't buy those things because I don't, once I have, you know, those crunchy gluten free crackers, who wants to go for real food? I mean, those are delicious.

KARA: Who wants the chopped up veggies with guacamole when you have the crackers, right? I really just need to get rid of those.

MELANIE: Gone is gone, whether it's in the trash.

KARA: My daughter won't be happy.

MELANIE: If it's in the trash or in your mouth, gone is gone. One causes problems. The other does not. Prediabetes is just not a free pass to continue on with your current eating and lifestyle habits. Prediabetes is that red flag warning and loud warning bells that should be going off when you see this, that you could be at risk for heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, vision loss, neuropathy. The list goes on and on, and weight gain.

Also, I just want to mention if you have prediabetes and you have a surgery, you're more likely to have infection because if you've got more blood glucose, sugar floating around in your bloodstream and it's going to that wound site, guess what? It puts you at risk for bacterial infection because they feed on that sugar. So you really want to get this under control if you've got surgery coming up.

KARA: Lots of important reasons to get blood sugar under control. Prediabetes just doesn't happen overnight. Insulin resistance occurs first, and that can take years, maybe even a decade or more for that insulin resistance to lead to prediabetes.

MELANIE: Well, the definition of prediabetes is when someone has higher than normal blood glucose levels, but not quite high enough to qualify as type two diabetes. Like we mentioned, if your fasting blood sugar is 100 to 125, that's considered prediabetes and it could be very misleading for many people who receive that diagnosis.

The importance of addressing prediabetes

I can't tell you how many clients I've met who have said, my doctor told me I have prediabetes, we should keep an eye on it, but not worry about it so much. I disagree because it's a common misconception that it's okay to have prediabetes as long as it doesn't progress into full blown type 2 diabetes. So the watch and wait.

KARA: Yeah. It's not a good idea.

MELANIE: It's medically never a good plan.

KARA: No. In my opinion, that's negligent.

MELANIE: I agree.

KARA: Is the watch and wait. It should be addressed.

MELANIE: It should be addressed.

KARA: Mm hmm. That actually happened to a relative of mine. It happened to my aunt a couple of years ago. She used to text me or call me if she would get lab work that she was concerned about. And she said, my doctor said it's getting up, it's, it was over a hundred, her fasting glucose.

MELANIE: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

KARA: And then she got it back into the high 90s and her provider, her doctor said, let's just kind of make sure it doesn't turn into type 2 diabetes. We'll keep an eye on it, that watch and wait approach. And I, I totally disagreed. And it just made me sad that she, that was the advice that she received and I did try to talk to her about food and things and it's a really sad story, but she did end up passing of heart disease.

MELANIE: Oh golly.

KARA: I have to think we know that high blood sugars are related to the heart.

MELANIE: Of course.

KARA: Of course we'll never know exactly what happened, but it makes me sad thinking about that.

MELANIE: That inflammation to those blood vessels. That's such a sad story. And also, if it's affecting you in areas that you can't see, sometimes you, you can whistle past the graveyard, right? You can forget what's happening in your body if you're not feeling it all the time when it's happening.

It's when you actually have a crisis and that's the sad part of it. And I also wonder what type of education or counseling your aunt received from her doctor's office. Back in the day when I started as a young dietitian when dinosaurs roamed the earth, if someone had diabetes or someone had a cholesterol problem, they were immediately sent to a dietitian. And I don't find that to be the case anymore.

KARA: She was yeah, I actually saw the packet of information and this was the pandemic was a little bit more in full swing at the time, so it was harder to get into see providers, but she was referred to a dietitian. Unfortunately, I did see the packet of information with the recommendations of what to eat, and it was kind of that old information;

The old kind of standard diabetic diet with the high carbohydrate, low fat, low dietary cholesterol, that real outdated information that just perpetuates the high glucose levels. You know, when we remove the healthy fat, we remove all the fat, and we limit certain proteins and we focus on starchy grains, that's a recipe for disaster.

MELANIE: It really is. It really is.

KARA: When it comes to prediabetes.

MELANIE: So we should mention that a low fat, high carbohydrate diet makes people feel kind of crazy because they're so darn hungry all the time. And many times they end up binging on more sugar or carbs because that hunger is driving them and after a few hours after a meal, their blood sugar tanks and they're hungry again. So I love what you said is that we need that protein and fat.

Healthy fats anchor the blood sugar

KARA: And you know, the healthy fats, they're really the most important part to include with every meal and every snack if you are someone with prediabetes or type two diabetes, of course.

MELANIE: Yes. And to eat those before you eat the carbohydrates, it makes a difference. We did a radio show on that.

KARA: I know. That's such a great topic, too. The order of eating.

MELANIE: The order of eating if you've got prediabetes matters. So I like to explain that healthy fats are an anchor for our blood sugar levels and prevent them from spiking or going too high. They're the perfect solution for prediabetes and high blood sugar levels. So they can't, you can't have a healthy fat and then eat two cups of mashed potatoes. You know, that's not what we're talking about here.

But healthy fats are so satisfying and they won't leave you feeling hungry. If you're eating healthy fats throughout the day, it balances that blood sugar, which keeps that crazy craving away. You know, delicious avocados, nuts, seeds, and of course, real butter are other great oils.

Avoid inflammatory seed oils

Our avocado oil, coconut oil, and olive oil you want cold pressed organic, but listeners, please hear me when I say you want to avoid seed oils. They're inflammatory to the body, they coat the cells. So, they're slipping in.

KARA: What are seed oils, Mel?

MELANIE: Seed oils are any oils that come from a seed. So, sunflower seeds, we want to avoid. Soybean, we want to avoid.

KARA: Cotton seed.

MELANIE: Cotton seed, and there is no canola plant. So, we want to avoid canola oil.

KARA: Yes, so that's a great kind of summary of the importance of healthy fats, especially when it comes to higher blood sugar levels.

Eat protein, fat & carbohydrate balance for optimal blood sugar

As far as protein, we know that protein increases metabolism up to 30 percent every time we eat it, but you know, that's just the beginning. It helps us to feel full and satisfied, just like those healthy fats. And if you can get a variety of animal proteins, that's ideal. There's no need to limit certain proteins, or I should say there's no need to avoid eating red meat, for example.

MELANIE: Good. I'm glad you brought that up.

KARA: No reason to avoid eggs. And that information stemmed from people being fearful of eating foods that contained dietary cholesterol. It's very outdated information. There was actually never any valid science behind that. And I remember the dietary recommendations.

This has to be almost 10 years ago, they actually removed cholesterol as being a nutrient of concern. They said, it's no longer a nutrient of concern. So eat all you want. So we got permission from them. We've been preaching that message for decades though.

MELANIE: And I think it's, I think it's important to say, sourcing your animal protein from wild caught fish, free range eggs or pasture raised eggs and also grass fed because they're higher in omega-3 fats, which is anti-inflammatory.

KARA: If the animals are eating healthier, those health benefits are passed on to us.

MELANIE: Yes. So if you open up your fridge and take a look at all the foods inside, just know that every food has to fall into one category called a macronutrient. So some of you savvy listeners may already know that the three macronutrients are fat, protein and carbohydrates. So what we're talking about today, pretty much for prediabetes, is the concern of what type of carbohydrates. So if you open up and you see a lot of vegetable carbohydrates with multiple colors, you're in a good, good place. That protein and fat are anchoring your blood sugar and the fiber in the vegetables keeps that blood sugar at a slow rise and then fall.

KARA: So imagine that for those of you that enjoy avocados, I love me a good avocado. Eating half of an avocado, it's not only delicious and satisfying, it has a lot of fiber, lots of vitamins and minerals, but it's assisting in healing your cells, healing those cells that have become insulin resistant.

So you're going to feel full and satisfied and that half of an avocado will prevent your blood sugar from spiking. It's also going to prevent it from crashing. Nobody likes low blood sugar and being in a hangry mood.

MELANIE: No, I used to be on such a kick with eating a half avocado and I would squeeze lime on it and then, Himalayan sea salt and eat it with a spoon.

KARA: It sounds so good. I'm going to go home and try that.

MELANIE: So fat has zero effect on our blood sugars. So eat that avocado. My clients who've tracked their glucose levels with a glucose monitor and seeing firsthand that when they eat just healthy fat, blood sugar levels do not go up, which is great because it gives the body a much needed rest from pumping out that insulin.

I also want to say we live in a grazing world where people always want to have food or beverage in their hand or in their mouth. I think it is much better and what I've seen in clinic is to have structured meals and snacks and don't have anything in between. That handful here, handful there keeps your insulin up all day long.

Not your blood sugar, but your insulin, which relates to that insulin resistance. So having structure: protein, carb, and fat at your meals; give your body a rest from eating for a period of time until you have that snack or next meal.

KARA: Right. And you had said snacks too, some people prefer to eat three meals a day. Some feel best if they have three meals and one or maybe two snacks and that's okay. But it, take it out of the refrigerator. Put it on the plate, put it back in the refrigerator, sit down, enjoy your balanced snack or meal instead of like having foods on the counter and just like you said, going back for more and grazing.

MELANIE: Grazing. Oh I’m really hungry, I'll have a handful of fruit. Nope. Nope. That's a nope. So make it a structured and then sit down and rest and digest. I love that.

Recap of steps for overcoming prediabetes

In conclusion of our message for prediabetes and preventing it with real food, you know the bottom line is watch the volume of carbohydrates, starchy carbohydrates, concentrated carbohydrates at a meal. You can track yourself in one of these apps that's out there.

Should not be over 30 grams and it should be balanced with healthy fat and animal protein and a good source of vegetable carbohydrates for the fiber and that's going to anchor that blood sugar. Really important for longevity, for health, for disease prevention and you can reverse this. And if you need help reversing it, we are here for you and you can call us at 651 699 3438. Set up an appointment. We'll help you with a plan.

Schedule Nutrition Counseling

KARA: Don't wait. It's not a…

MELANIE: It's not worth it.

KARA: It's not a condition that needs a wait and see approach. It should be addressed now.

MELANIE: 100%.

KARA: Our goal at Nutritional Weight and Wellness is to help each and every person experience better health through eating real food. It's a simple yet powerful message. Eating real food is life changing. Thanks so much for listening. Have a wonderful day.