#496 How We Eat: Keto

Mike is an adult living with type 1 diabetes.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:10
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 496 of the Juicebox Podcast six of the Juicebox Podcast. Hello, Hello, friends. Hello. Hello. Today's episode is with Mike. Mike's had Type One Diabetes for a long time. And he's here to talk about how we eat. Mike will actually be back on the show later in the year to talk about some of his complications that we didn't cover that here. It seemed like it needed its own place. But look out for Mike again in an upcoming afterdark episode. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, I wonder how long I could get my voice for real. Always cold. No, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin that hurt my chest. I used up all the time where I usually tell you there's a bunch of other episodes about how people eat but you'll find them they're in there somewhere.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash Holy moly. 30 days I know that's what you were thinking. Check it out at Omni pod comm forward slash juice box. And the show is also sponsored today by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com forward slash juice box Get started today. do good things for yourself on the pod and Dexcom qualify as a good thing for yourself or for a loved one. You get my point. Okay, here comes the show.

Mike 2:11
My name is Mike. I live in San Diego, California and type one diabetic. And for those of you around the world, this is the good old USA.

Scott Benner 2:20
Alright, Mike, you and I know each other bizarrely In my opinion, just because of how I think of the world. So COVID hits. And I got caught up for a second in a hysteria that content providers all got caught up in the idea that somehow because people were going to now work from home, they were going to lose track of their of their people. And I think they they're like, Okay, well everybody's you know, using, you know, video chatting. We'll all do these video chats. People can say whatever they want. Mike, let me be cynical right out of the box. Okay, they can say if they want to, I just wanted to keep all my people connected and everything but they were already connected, like not going to work didn't disconnect them. I think people thought lives were going to change. And that these followers and I'm making quotes with my fingers, because I don't think of the people listening as followers. But I think that people believe they were going to lose their followers that their lives were going to change, they were going to forget about their favorite Facebook page, or charitable organization. So they tried to hold them all together. And then I fell right into it. I was like, I'll hold a zoom for everybody. And the funny thing is, is I liked it. I was like, Oh, this is nice, like get together a little bit. But we would have, I mean, sometimes 7080 people on that zoom, right? And so then I got competitive about it. Because there were other people holding them that had like four or 510 people and I was like I'm kicking their ass I should keep. But No, but seriously, like I had a really good time with it. But at some point, it wasn't sustainable. And people didn't need it anymore. Like I think after the fear of life just change really drastically, very quickly went away. I don't think I just I don't think people wanted it any longer. And And honestly, I felt like my time for everybody listening was better served making the podcast then, because it took a lot of time to do. But you were one of the people that came into it. Yeah, that's correct. Right. And that's where we met eventually.

Mike 4:25
Yeah, that's, that's where Matter of fact, it was. So I got turned on by the podcast several weeks before that. listening to it started applying your, your techniques of bumping and nudging and I was actually out on a walk. It was about 12 bags about 1130 California time, which was almost you were about halfway into your No, you weren't quite into it. You're almost into your first zoom chat which I heard on that pod. Okay, I'm like, trying to hurry back. So I could get in on the zoom. And I made it about halfway through. So that was our that was our first,

Scott Benner 5:08
right. And I know that we're talking about it, and I'm done being flippant about it, I really did like it. And I thought it was I thought it was great. What ended up happening was, unlike what I expected, I thought it was going to be like a conversation to make people feel connected. But it kind of quickly turned into, like, ask Scott and Jenny live except Jenny wasn't there. And people were just asking me a lot of questions, which I was happy to do, because you were seeing some people had the questions, but not the nerve to speak up. So if someone asked the question, everybody sort of got the benefit from it. And it's not that I wouldn't continue doing it. I do think it's nice, actually. But I don't know, like, I'll say I just I ran out. It got I was also thrown into COVID at the time, you know, so my life was kind of messed up, too. But I really didn't want to see, my concern wasn't like everyone else's. I don't think people are going to abandon this podcast. I think the podcast has a real solid following. My concern was not creating content in a moment when you needed something that represented normal to you. So I wanted there to keep being content. But then I was surprised by the whole thing. And I liked talking to everybody. It felt like I was giving a talk in public except I didn't have to get on a plane first. It was kind of nice, honestly.

Mike 6:32
Yeah, I think it was a it was a nice tie into it. Like you said at that time, COVID hit and everybody was freaking and panicking. So it was you know, we're at home, we're not out seeing our friends and our normal comrades who are listening to the podcast, and then to be able to kind of have that you did a few zoom kind of connection of, Okay, we're there together, which kind of

Scott Benner 6:53
comes every one of those makes, I have to be honest, I've gotten a number of notes during Corona. By the way, COVID Corona, I bounced back and forth, you think I'd pick one. But during during COVID I got a number of notes. And that was really what it was about from people like thank you for being consistent with the show. That was a real like strong threw in a lot of the messages. So anyway, I don't know if we were planning to have you on. Before we start I started talking to people about how they eat or not. But I do want to learn a little bit about you before we find out about how you eat. Just so how old were you when you were diagnosed? How old are you now

Mike 7:34
so yeah, so I was between I was actually miss diagnosed at first. I was around nine I was mis diagnosed from a general practitioner having an ulcer. I was getting my symptoms were getting those double over stomach cramps I guess I had the flu or something. And from my understanding that could trigger your body attacking this pancreas which was that's what was happening. Right? So Miss diagnosed with an ulcer, the doctor and the general practitioner diagnosed my mother with being too hard on me so sent her to a psychiatrist, which was furthest from the truth. So my poor mother long story short, they're treating me for a, an ulcer, and I'm just whether in a way, and they finally had taken me to the hospital. So it was right around 10 Wow. And then I was finally correctly diagnosed. Okay,

Scott Benner 8:29
we have to I know that you were young and it was not you're not. You're not an old man, but you're not a young man. And so I'm saying I know it wasn't five minutes ago but but do you have a little context for that? So they thought your mother was like, overbearing

Mike 8:46
about your health? Yeah, just life in general. Just you know, being a kid so the kid is you know, why would a eight 910 year old have an ulcer unless your mother was stressing you out? Oh, that was Yeah, so because I was having such bad stomach cramps bouts of it. When I guess my body was attacking the pancreas. We went to our general practitioner, he said, well, that bad of a stomach cramp. He's got to have an ulcer. So you have to be hard on the boy.

Scott Benner 9:14
What year was this like?

Mike 9:16
7074 75 right in that range? Okay. Because I remember around 76 when the Freedom Train came that's about when I was properly diagnosed. So yeah, so for a year so so I did the bare lilium test and all that stuff. And I remember that I remember that. The X ray technician was there doing the bare lilium whatever they call it stuff to see where the ulcer was. And I'm drinking the stuff of course my sugars are probably all out of whack from actually being a type one and diagnosed I met I just vomited all over the cutest technician. Remember the look on her face just saw this pink stuff. So that was that was my one of my memories of that but yeah, so my mother was dead. Not hard on us. She was an excellent mother. very loving, caring. But

Scott Benner 10:04
What a strange leap in. Like, how come they didn't think you were upset about, you know, the Nixon scandal?

Mike 10:12
Actually, I could have been, but I didn't follow politics at that time. You never know. I could have been a secret politician. But yeah, no, that wasn't wasn't the case. And it's kind of funny. We're not funny, but just pictures of around that time, you know, skin bones, all the symptoms, right? But

Scott Benner 10:30
nobody put it together from being pressured by somebody is what they thought. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's come a long way in a short time. Hmm. I know. It's hard to it's hard to feel that way in the moment. But for anyone, it's really like putting the numbers together here in the early 70s. Mike's mother was sent to a psychologist for how terrible she was to Mike because his stomach hurt. Yeah, that sexism in case you're wondering? Completely? Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's really crazy. Okay, so they originally they eventually find out that you don't have an ulcer? What's management, like in the early 70s?

Mike 11:07
Oh, my gosh. So in the early 70s, well, there was beef and pork, insulin, so you would take the beef until you were kind of, you know, resistant to that. And then you'd take the pork until you were not resistant to that there was no meters. No, there was no really way to test, they kind of you weren't falling over, you were doing good was kind of their rule of thumb. They had exchange rates, which, you know, you know, to starches, or that tend to call it to breads, fat, or protein. And you'd kind of try to do that and go on which throw that right out the window, you take a shot at that time was on one shot a day of a mixture of, you know, obviously the regular beef or pork and then long acting. And you just took that and went about your day. Nobody knew what you were, I was probably, I've probably always fight around 500 I had to bend because I never fell over.

Scott Benner 12:08
Like it really is when you stop and think about it. Like I'm assuming you'd eat something if you were dizzy. And then other than that, you didn't think about it.

Mike 12:15
Yeah, that was that that was it. And then you'd go to the doctor every three or six months, whatever it was, at that time, I really don't remember. And they would obviously do the a one to a one c test and scold your parents because you were probably too high. But that's how do you how do you bring it down? You know,

Scott Benner 12:31
in modern thinking, what that really makes me think about is just helping somebody the other day, I was teaching them how to correct a lower blood sugar without over correcting it. And I made this offhand comment. I was like, hey, look, it's so close right now. If your child has a chewy vitamin, like a gummy vitamin that you use, now would be a great time to give it and she's like, Yeah, he does that they only have four carbs on that. That's perfect. Give him four carbs. So Kate gets the vitamin. Of course she gets nervous because this she's just starting to learn how to do it and gives him a few Skittles. And then the kids blood sugar's 200. And keeping in mind that that's how it all works. Like imagine just Hey, I'm busy. I'll eat you weren't you weren't having to scuttle you were eating you were having a meal right if you got

Mike 13:21
oh yeah that time so the rays and boxes about the size of a cigarette pack. You measure how many carbs that thing had in it

Scott Benner 13:29
so that when you

Mike 13:31
eat one of those you drink plus that maybe the orange juice and so you were probably from you know 40 to 500 again overcorrection

Scott Benner 13:44
and when did meters come into your life?

Mike 13:47
So Gosh, I got my first meter and 1987 15

Scott Benner 13:54
or so years later

Mike 13:58
yeah krim 76 or whatever it was 287 So yeah, that's when I got my first meter there was your mid 20s really nothing before that really no control no

Scott Benner 14:12
and and I'm thinking that not being able to see your blood sugar in any kind of time forget like real time like nowadays if you have a glucose monitor if you're lucky to have one of those you you probably had no you probably that was probably starting over right getting a meter because

Mike 14:27
that was that was completely starting over so prior to that you just you took whatever insulin the doctor kind of prescribe you the morning and the evening and pretty much ate whatever you want to use.

Scott Benner 14:40
All right, When did you become a modern type one like When did you get a pump? When did you move to quicker acting insulin all that stuff?

Mike 14:50
Yeah, so prior to 87 when the the newer insulin came out the newer version pork and beef, I was switched to that, but never any control. And I was just living my life I was actually in Florida at the time. And in Fort Lauderdale. And so you know, eat and do whatever you want, I was overweight, out of shape out of control, my doctor was kind of like, because I had to have a prescription for insulin, you could buy the syringes over the counter. And so at that point, my doctor was ready to fire me as a diabetic and kind of said that nobody's gonna take care of you in South Florida less you go see this person and say that you're taking control. That's kind of when I became a modern diabetic, okay. And 8787, so to speak, and then got in shape, lost a bunch of weight on set, I was way overweight, and nakshi 91. I was my doctor's first patient on insulin pump at that time

Scott Benner 15:55
in 1991, four years, after four years after the doctor, I'm assuming told you look, you're close to being a lost cause in the system.

Mike 16:03
Yeah, pretty much. Okay. Well, you got to remember back in the 60s, the doctors estimated you had approximately 10 year lifespan. In the 70s. And I remember this vividly the doctor looking at me and saying, you'll never live in old folks home. So, you know, that was kind of a maybe a 30 year span. So in my mind, take into consideration it's got in my mind from a kid, I was never gonna live past 30. So why do anything different, right? Don't buy doctor and he said, you know, dude, you're, you're going down.

Scott Benner 16:38
So there's a shift in technology enough so that people didn't any longer believe that you were going to die. By the time you were 30. Except for you who had gone so hard after the idea that it was like maybe you Well, I find a lot of my my friends, you know, kind of my ages that were diabetic at that time. And I don't know why the age 30 wasn't a milestone or an argument of age, but pretty much everybody thought 30 was it. And then 30 came on like, I'm still here. I gotta wait to lose.

Mike 17:14
Technology definitely came along. And obviously, as I don't ever want to say it's a good time to be diagnosed type one. But nowadays, it's a pretty good error to be diagnosed with type one.

Scott Benner 17:26
It's better than it's better than the day before. Always. I feel like we think now the best time and one day you look back on this time and think Oh, I can't believe that's what we used to do. You know? If you're lucky if you're lucky, you get to think that Yeah, and by that I mean if we're lucky the technology will continue to improve and become more affordable so that people can look back at this moment think how barbaric a continuous glucose monitor ended insulin pump, you know, or whatever will happen. Interesting. How did you lose the weight? And because I because as I know you I'm sorry to cut you off. But as I know you you just seem like an older fit gentlemen to me.

Mike 18:03
Like that. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, so and obviously in 87 we got my first meter in the hospital for a week learn how to be in control. Doctors like you got to lose weight. And at that time, there wasn't a lot of type ones being very active and I'm, I'm either don't do it or get way involved in it. So I was an auto mechanic at the time of my parts manager was racing bicycles amateur. So he's like, man, once you get a bike and come along and and, you know, lose some weight because I couldn't jog anymore. I ran cross country and track in high school but I'd been in a bad car accident my knees wouldn't take it. So cycling seemed like the thing to be bought a bike and I lost 45 pounds my first month and got heavily into amateur bicycle racing.

Scott Benner 18:54
Well, you lost 45 pounds in a month riding a bicycle would you ride it to

Mike 19:00
Fort Lauderdale area day one a up and down and ended up doing about 1000 miles my first month. Wow. My first I remember my first ride out I could barely do seven miles without pulling over every mile and Oh, geez. And stretching and, and cramping and, and but yeah. So that's that's how I did that. And then just fell in love with cycling.

Scott Benner 19:24
See, I'm writing down a note here. You can't see what I'm writing, but it's by a bike. Because Jeez, that's amazing. Wow, good for you. That's right. It's not that good for him to invite you along and try to help. You don't mean like be a friend in that situation. Yeah, it was.

Mike 19:43
It was an interesting time. Again, it wasn't a lot of type ones at being that active. So I was my doctor is only that active of a diabetic. And he kept saying my BMI was you know, too low. You need to you need to gain weight and I mean To 20 503,000 calories a day, burn it off, and I had like, no body fat. So and then from there with the injections, I was on multiple injections obviously at that time, and I just couldn't get up in here that I was getting up at, like 2am, injecting going back to sleep, getting up at three eating, going back to sleep. And at 530, I get up and depending on my blood sugar, I could either go work out with the advanced groups. This is when I got more heavily into cycling, I could then go work out the advanced group I had to back off because of my blood sugar. So the pump seemed like the thing to do at that time. Yeah, it took me six months to convince them that a pump was a good idea.

Scott Benner 20:44
So you have an all or nothing like personality, then yeah, right. Yeah, I'm not burnout. I just heard a mike tyson recently say that he didn't want to even work out. Because he didn't want to reignite his ego about competition. And I sort of didn't understand what he meant. And then he went on to say, his wife told him he looked heavy. So he got on a treadmill. And then he went 15 minutes, and then he wanted to go 20, then you want to go an hour, they want to go three hours, because he's just very competitive. And he was doing it. So if he was going to do it, he was going to do it all the way. And now I'm hearing he's gonna fight Roy Jones Jr. in an exhibition match. So it's, you know, it was either I'm going to get fat, and that's it. Or if I start moving, I gotta go punch somebody because I'm a box. Yeah. Very runner up or down. Yeah. Um, so how much of that impacts how you handle other things. I'm wondering, I'm assuming a lot. And you're on here today. Mainly to tell us about how you eat so what's your eating style.

Mike 21:49
Now my eating style, I was eating any and everything. I do the cooking in the house, I like to cook. I teach barbecue. So I was eating any and everything. And with your methods, got my agency down. And recently a few months ago switch to keto. just seemed like the thing to do not having the impact of the you know, the heavy glycemic and out index just for me personally, it seemed to work out pretty good. So um, but I do about 29 carbs a day. And then high protein, high fat is what I'm doing.

Scott Benner 22:31
How long have you been at that? Hey, why don't you set your summer free with the Omni pod dash, you can enjoy your beach and pool days without having to disconnect your tubing or stopping your insulin. You can wear whatever you want, without having to worry about where to clip your pump, or how to carry your pen. There's no better time than the summer to try the Omni pod. Whether you've always wanted to try an insulin pump, or simply want to cut out your tubing for the summer. You can try the on the pod dash now for free for 30 days. Are you hearing through what I'm saying there? If you're using another pump, but you wish you had on the pod dash for the summertime, you can try out the free. You get it you're paying attention right? Go find out if you're eligible on the pod.com forward slash juice box. Maybe that on the pod dash trial for 30 days, we'll be right for you. And since you can now get your only pod through a pharmacy, there's no commitment or long term contracts. like there might be with other tube pumps. I feel like I'm telling you to cheat on your insulin pump. It feels weird. Okay, so if you want to learn more, if you want to find out the full terms and conditions of what I've just talked about, all you have to do is go to Omni pod comm forward slash juice box. Now let's talk about the Dexcom. CGM. Dexcom gs six continuous glucose monitor is the weapon of choice against diabetes. In my opinion, being able to see the speed and direction of your blood sugar or a loved one's blood sugar makes all of the difference in the world. No more guessing what your blood sugar is what it's going to be what this food does what that food does. No more like I'll just count my carbs and put in my insulin and then wait three hours and I'll test again if I'm Heil. Correct. And if I'm low, I'll eat some juice or something. No more. Now you can just see everything happen. You can. You're like, I know I'm old. But you know the matrix where, you know, Neo, you guys might know as john wick, he slows down time. And the bullets like stop at midair like Imagine being able to slow diabetes down so you can see it happening. So you can just step out of the way of a potential problem. Hmm, that's how I use it. My daughter's a one C has been between five, two and six, two for seven years now. I believe I've lost track. Our results are ours, of course, and yours may vary. But understanding what your blood sugar's doing is the first step to doing better dexcom.com forward slash juice box. I forgot to tell you about all the other stuff. It's got alarms and alerts and you can share your data with other people. But you'll figure it out the website dexcom.com. forward slash juice box on the pod.com forward slash juice box. Hey, what the heck Juicebox Podcast calm, get a little plug for myself. There's a little more music left. How about this? The diabetes pro tip episodes are available starting at Episode 210 in your podcast player, but you can also find them at diabetes pro tip.com. Alright, let's get back to Mike we'll find out how long he's been doing this and much more. I'm about May, since May. Okay, so you're coming up on six months? Maybe? Tell me when you make a decision to try something like that. How do you figure out how to do it even?

Mike 26:13
Oh, well. I did a lot of research first. Check with all my doctors. And I'm also working with Ginni with integrate diabetes, been a good help a lot of positive input. And just researching it figured out what's going to work and why. So that's kind of how I got into it.

Scott Benner 26:39
You know, you check with your doctor and say, Look, I'm going to eat like a high protein high fat diet. Is that okay with you like or at least be aware of it? I guess. So. You know, I look for I say,

Mike 26:50
yeah, so I was on obviously, high cholesterol, this that the other vaccine off my cholesterol medicine now. I get most of my carbs from like, for instance, broccolis beans, you know, low glycemic vegetables like that.

Scott Benner 27:06
So you had high cholesterol, so much so that you were on a medication for it? And now that you're eating keto, you don't need that medication anymore. Correct? Gotcha.

Mike 27:14
Yeah, it's interesting to get it, I could get into more of that if you want. But don't tell me about it, please.

Scott Benner 27:19
Because what it made me think about was when I when I, when I speak to somebody, and they're like, you know, we're getting low all the time. And I look at their graph, and I'm like, well, you need more basil. And they think that's not right, I said I was getting low, I must need less insulin. And so the, the, the thing they're seeing this low blood sugar makes them feel like, Oh, I definitely need less insulin, except they don't recognize that because their basil is far too low. There are over bolusing their meals, the meals are getting out of balance with the insulin, and they're causing this crash later. It's just very causal effect. And, and that made me think of that, like, you know, if I saw that my cholesterol was high, I might think to myself, well, I definitely have to eat less fat, right? Well, no, not necessarily. But that's what I would think. Yeah. So tell me about it.

Mike 28:09
Sure. Well, first of all, your theory of donco high, and you won't go low. And by and I was eating massive carbs. And I figured it out. But you know, I'm doing 1214 unit for lunch type of a Bolus. I'm thinking now that sense. And then you read about what is inflammatory in your arteries, and this and that it is the artificial, the bleached flowers, it's the artificial, anything low fat, low, you know, that type of stuff, they have to add stuff in there to make it taste good. So all that stuff is inflammatory to your. And again, I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on TV, I just want to preface that. But all the what goes into your veins is the inflammation is what's inflammatory, which causes the arterial disease. So if you're eating let's for instance, I do grass fed beef, free range chickens. I do the best pork I can find. I'm not doing heritage pork yet. But natural beef fat, your body was meant to process natural chicken fats, pork fat, if you're eating like margarines, and stuff like that, that has all the artificial stuff that's inflammatory. So if you take in the inflammatory stuff away from your diet, you you're, you lower your risk for the cardiovascular disease. And I look at the French they, you know, real butters, heavy creams, all the natural stuff, which was what your body was meant to process. It's like a grain fed cow. The molecular structure of the cow, the meat is changed and our body's not meant to process that so if you get a grass fed cow, our body's meant to process that same thing with you know, natural vegetables not you know, genetically modified vegetables. our body's meant to process that so and I can feel the difference. I'm just after, you know, several weeks of eating that way. And I don't know who you are, but there's nothing better than eggs fried bacon grease.

Scott Benner 30:13
You know, I'm sorry, you made me think of something my dad used to do. But

Mike 30:17
yeah, you know, and so, you know, using your methods and for Bolus and bumping and nudging and eating a better meal is, you know, I reached my goal and a one C. And if you look at my, my chart, my glide for the most part, yeah, I still have highs and still have a few lows. But it looks like a flatline. You know, most guys dead, which,

Scott Benner 30:41
what is your anyone say, at the moment,

Mike 30:44
my last day when C was 5.7. And I was head trending that way, just through looking at Dexcom. And those but I'm usually pretty close, I finally got my one taken several weeks ago, and it was it was 5.7 was my goal for you, to me, and I was proud of that. I was seven, two to nine. And my doctor was like, Great go to God, you know.

Scott Benner 31:06
So you're saying two to nine prior to finding the podcast? Yeah. And then consistently, and then you get to where would the podcast

Mike 31:14
with your podcast? I got down my best on my graph was five, seven, but I was averaging five, nine, okay, to 659 to 659 to six.

Scott Benner 31:23
And then the condo moved you more or not? Correct?

Mike 31:26
It did maybe down to five, seven? Pretty, pretty stable family.

Scott Benner 31:30
Excellent. Yeah. And you feel I think more importantly,

Mike 31:34
yeah, I feel a lot better. Um, you know, I've got a lot of nerve damage from prior just, you know, you figure all those years as a kid, no meters know this, that the other, but definitely feel better. I have hypoglycemic and awareness. So I'm trying to stay around the 100, not the 70 to 80. I say, till I get my, my next service dog back, and then I'll feel more comfortable staying down and then I'm shooting for, you know, below five.

Scott Benner 32:01
So that was my point. That's the point where I was disconnected for a second because if you have such a stable line, I was wondering why not that by the way, none of this is a judgement. I was just thinking like, if you were that good with the insulin and eating keto, I would think you could be closer to a five, then closer to a six. So I thought there must be a reason why you were doing that. And yeah, that's a very good reason.

Mike 32:22
Yeah, I've passed. Well, past several years, the wheels have fallen off the bus here but developed hypoglycemic and awareness. And so I got a service dog. And he was awesome would wake you up at night. You know, they're not robots, but they they can't do work for their train properly. So I was more comfortable. You know, being lower at that table. I was still in the sevens at that time, because that's what the doctor said. Yeah, you got a great, fine. Yeah, that 300 no problem, but it's just an excursion. Yeah, right. But anyways, so had the dog he had to have his kidney replaced. So he got replaced, and they're training another one now. So what once I know the dog will wake me up at night. I'm more comfortable being at a lower range.

Scott Benner 33:05
Gotcha. Hey, your dogs, like in a convalescent center somewhere.

Mike 33:09
Now he got retired. He's living in a two acre fenced in yard. Up in Riverside, I think it is. So he had to be adopted out because the medication he was on. He was not alerting properly. He had a reflex this energy, which is a bladder issue, which was caused anyways. So because he wouldn't alert properly because of the medication, he would sleep through the night sometimes. So I see had to be easily he had to be replaced. So he got retired. He's running around. He's happy for him.

Scott Benner 33:39
That's good for you, too. And how long will it take them to train a new dog?

Mike 33:43
They're training one right now. I've met in fact, they trained I had another one that wasn't trained for me but didn't work out. And where I work, he was just too afraid of the environment. Okay, so the training one now it should be anywhere from six months to a year. Wow. That's a nice time I set my clock to wake up every few hours and make sure that I'm in a good zone at night.

Scott Benner 34:04
And mostly you are. Yeah, yeah, for the most part. Gotcha. hypoglycemic unawareness is we never really talked about it. But since you're here, you you could be 20 and not know it right? You don't know until you're unconscious. Yep. Wow. No dizziness, no confusion. You're not talking oddly. Just not the you know, I'm I guess.

Mike 34:26
My wife says occasionally, she'll notice something. Hey, let's go test you. You know, because sometimes the CGM like backseat of the roller coaster, you know, it takes a few minutes to catch up. So I'm in that dip and don't don't know it. It's just yeah. happens. He's talking to you in 30. And Hi.

Scott Benner 34:45
Did you did you drag your wife into keto? Is she doing it with you?

Mike 34:48
Yeah, so she's doing since I'm cooking the house. She eats whatever and

Scott Benner 34:53
she has no real choice actually. Now

Mike 34:56
so she she's also doing keto. She does. She runs marathons. And she's actually noticed she has more energy with keto than not.

Scott Benner 35:07
Well, listen, I'm certainly no expert on any of this, which is why I'm trying to talk to so many different people. My experience in my life would be that when I was in my 20s, I gained a lot of weight. And we did the Atkins diet, which I think basically is, you know, very, very low carb. And I lost a lot of weight fairly quickly doing that. And I have to echo your sentiment that I felt, I mean, obviously, I lost weight. So I'd feel better about that in general. But I do believe that there's something about processing grain and flour and all that stuff that your body really just some people's bodies just struggle with. And, you know, so I am not at the point where I would, I don't mean restrictive in the way that you might take it, but I'm not at the point where I could do something that's as restrictive as keto, but I am really specific about what I eat, I guess, like I really try hard to stay away from most of the things you're talking about. In my day to day eating my day to day eating is very kind of natural. And I agree with you a little things like I'd rather use butter than margarine. You know, I tried for them not to be preserved as in things extra ingredients. I don't know what they are, I stay away from a lot of oils and processed food. But then at the same time, like the kids asked the other day, they're like, Can you make sugar cookies for us? And I was like, of course I can. So I whipped up some sugar cookies and now I'm not sure if I made them for them or me. But you know, so that's it really for me.

Mike 36:46
You can still eat the cookies. I don't find it hard personally hard to maintain, you know, keto, you know we don't i don't like go out to restaurants anyways and obviously we're don't go out because of COVID right now or Corona however you like you said you want to call it but I don't find it hard to to maintain because I was never a sweets person anyway, so you know desserts and cookies were never a thing even as a kid before type one. I just don't find it hard to there's so many recipes now and the early. I'm not saying anything against the early Atkins or whatever. But that was more of kind of a dirty keto for my understanding how well it was Mark, you know, eat all the greasy cheeseburgers and bacon and just all that versus you need to add some like the broccoli you need to have some carbohydrates so you get some of the more nert nutrients, the macros. And there's dirty keto now which there's dirty keto clean keto. I've tried to do it where I am doing a cleaner keto and, you know, again, we didn't have the cookies in the crap but that was a Dorito Holic or chip a Holic if you want to be generic popcorn a Holic just don't eat that stuff anymore. Because all the other ingredients that go with it.

Scott Benner 38:04
Yeah, so there's me I don't I if something comes in a bag, I don't eat. Like that just seems to be my role. I there's I've chosen aisles in the grocery store. That just, I don't go in anymore. I'm like, I just don't i don't go in that. That is not for me. Now the problem is, it's interesting for you is how old are you right now? 54. Okay, so you're 54 you're married? There's no children in the house right.

Mike 38:28
Now. Other than me, my wife would say no, yeah,

Scott Benner 38:32
I understand that. But like, I'm 49. Actually, I think I'm 49. The other day, I was confused about how old I am. I'm not quite, but I really don't know how I guess we can figure it out. But I'm not gonna bother there. I'm right around that space. And but I still have two kids in the house often on two kids, one kid for sure. My wife who's not interested in eating a specific way you're not away. And so I am a little in the middle of balancing everyone's desires around food, which is interesting. But I noticed for myself as I get older, food becomes more and more the way I wanted it to be when I was younger, like in my heart. If we could just if the Jetsons pill will just pop out on the table. And I can eat it and stay healthy and alive. I love cooking. But I think I would opt for that more often than not because I'm a slippery slope eater. For sure. Like I don't eat more Soylent Green. I don't know. Maybe I'm alright with that. Because I'm not like, I'm not like, oh, sugar cookie. I'll have one of those. I'm like, oh, sugar cookie, I just won't eat today. And I'll have five sugar cookies today. Instead, like I'll make sugar cookies my whole day. And I don't meaningfully understand that about myself. But I can't eat chips. Doritos, like that stuff. I would be like sick and biking. I can make popcorn and like have a handful of it. But then I'm done. Like I couldn't eat a bowl of it. It's if it's the salt and butter. If it's gonna get me Yeah, if that makes no sense and sugar I guess to in there, but otherwise I put sugar in nothing. And I am one of those people that if everyone around me stopped eating that way, I don't think I ever would again. But that it's here it gets me. It's

Mike 40:15
that's why we couldn't keep some of this stuff in the house. Like I couldn't keep chips in the house because if I knew it was there, you know, you have one I need the whole bag. of popcorn. I'd get up at three in the morning. It's like popcorn is like crack cocaine for me. Anyway, all the people out there that know me, you'll know who I am. I just I have no control over power. Yeah,

Scott Benner 40:34
yeah. No. Is it the sometimes I think it's the texture more than the food. I don't know if that makes sense. Or not like I like the way cookies feel on my mouth. I don't like the way string beans feel in my mouth. I don't know what psychological issue I have around that. But I am tactile to begin with. Like when I go shopping. I end like in a clothing store. I touch everything. Yeah, like I want to touch the like I it's part of my ability to like understand that there are things I don't like the way they feel in my mouth. And you know, I don't know another way to put that but but so to the Quito what are some examples of Fuji now You and I have something in common? A you obviously were doing it much longer than I was. But at the beginning of COVID I decided I was going to learn how to smoke meat. And I started right around the time COVID started it was hard to get a hold of a grill to be perfectly honest around it's hard to buy anything right now, actually, but I got it and I've spent the last like five or six months. Like I can make ribs now terrifically, even little things like I like to have turkey in the house to slice up. So instead of buying like lunch meat, I'll go buy turkey breasts and just smoke them. And then and I slice at them as I need them. That that I've really enjoyed actually learning how to do all that. I've learned how to make pizza on the grill from like scratch, like from like scratch scratch. But you helped me in the beginning because I didn't know I didn't know a lot about it. I ended up asking you a lot of questions. But yeah, is that where most of your food comes from?

Mike 42:10
Well, yeah, a lot of it does. Because anything you could do in the oven you could do in the smoker, you know the they go from depending on your brand, a smoker, they'll go from, you know 150 to 600. So when you get the higher temperatures, it's like that woodfired pizza oven flavors. Obviously I don't do pizzas anymore. I used to do a same thing. Make my own dough ton of pizza as we do a lot of couches prior but now doing keto I smoke got a great recipe for smoked meatball so well one of the one of the dishes is some boiled or not boiled but pan fried kind of get moist out tomatoes, some spinach, some cheeses and the smoked meatballs instead of cooking the meatballs in the oven. I smoked them and they're just they're awesome smoke a lot of my vegetables that we eat you know do admit In fact, yesterday I did the barbecue started teach with just started to import or not importing but they started selling Australian wagyu and that is just a bomb. So I did a wagyu tried tip yesterday for dinner. That was amazing. Couple days prior to that pulled pork do a lot of ribs. Hamburgers on the on the smoker. Do you ever do more

Scott Benner 43:31
exotic animals like elk or venison or stuff like that? Do you get involved in that at all?

Mike 43:37
I've gotten a little bit one of my co workers is a big Hunter. And he'll bring stuff in and he'll give me a package of whatever and he'll say let's I'll be out for lunch tomorrow at whatever time so I got a smoker at work too. So

Scott Benner 43:55
it is something you walk away from for a long periods of time. So you can't get a lot of other things done while it's happening. It's just a little bit of pre planning is how I find Yeah, you know, what we do?

Mike 44:03
We do low and slow and hot and fast. Depends on what you're cooking. So that's good. I like it. That tried tip last night took me an hour and a half. Yeah, I did that at 380.

Scott Benner 44:16
Well, does everybody and everybody doesn't need this kind of time to eat keto, right, like there's ways to do it. No,

Mike 44:22
no, no, no, you can. You can whip stuff up fast. Like I said, that's kind of the most people eat 1520 different items. That's kind of what seems to be the average people's diet. So we repeat a lot of our meals throughout the week, be it salmon be at the meatballs with the spinach and tomatoes, be it you know, the spaghetti you know the zucchini spaghetti so a lot of the dishes we do was kind of the same thing and I've always been a 20 minute or under kind of meal guy for the average. So something you could come home and make quick But good and healthy. So I find that a keto it's easy. There's a lot of different apps you can get. One of the specific ones I has will will suggest menus, you put in your, your, your body weight, your your birth, your height, what you want to do you want to maintain lose gain, and it'll suggest meals and recipes for you. So it's, it's, it's as hard as you want or as easy as you want. And that's an that's an any diet, be it high carb, low carb. Yeah, paleo.

Scott Benner 45:31
It's funny, as you're talking, I realized that everything is everything's branded in the world today. Like you could sit here and you're like high carb, low carb, keto, paleo, vegan, vegetarian pescatarian. Like, you know, everyone's branded their way of eating. But in the end, you're eating more meat with vegetables, and no grains. It's like, yeah, that's kind and no, you don't eat processed food. That's pretty much, right.

Mike 45:56
Yeah, no, I eliminated all processed foods. Matter of fact, we went through all our cabinets, and we came up with like, three boxes of stuff that we donated to the church of everything that we just don't eat anymore. All the processed the carbs, the pastas, you know, all that stuff. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:14
I found myself I got away from my idea earlier. But I wanted to finish by saying that I find that as I get older, I don't see eating as entertainment anymore. Maybe. But as the way I did when I was younger, I don't know why that is. I mean, it's not it's not wisdom, certainly, cuz you could bring a couple of those cookies in here, right now, I'd be like, I'm gonna eat those. And I wouldn't even I wouldn't even need to want them. But when. But when I'm very careful about my, I guess I do eat on an intermittent schedule. And when I'm specific about that, you know, say you started, start off not eating that way. And then I moved into an intermittent fasting schedule. So I went from like, 11am to 7pm. And I would just eat in that space. And for the first month, I was like, I'm just gonna test the idea of intermittent, I'm not going to limit me, I'm just gonna eat the way I always eat right in here. And I lost like, 15 pounds doing that, and generally did feel better. At some point, I found myself in the middle of the baseball season for my son getting home a little later. And I was like, Well, I didn't eat dinner yet. And it's 730 I'll just eat. And then I wouldn't get done eating till 815. And then that was that was the slippery slope, right? Like, then you're just sort of like, Oh, well, it's, you know, 1030 I'm hungry. It's sad. elevens almost coming and that, but it's very specific about that schedule, and how your body deals with having food or not having food with, you know, insulin levels and energy and a lot of other things. And as soon as you get outside of those hours, I could eat anything inside of those hours and lose weight. But as soon as I opened those hours up a little more, I put the weight back on again. It started to come back. It was it really, really interesting. I don't know, I don't think there's a right answer for anybody. I think that what works works and you know, if you're listening, if you're listening to you and going look, Mike, alright, but I wanted some bread, you know, like, you still could not eat a bag of Doritos. You know what I mean? Like, there's reasonable

Mike 48:14
I don't crave this stuff anymore. I don't crave because I used to eat out fast food. It was just easy. burger fries. Come home. I made all my own breads, all this stuff. And you know, you need a loaf of bread in two days. Because it was good. Yeah. But because you're not having those spikes and insulin and spikes and you know, all that sugar and salt and things that come with that. I I don't crave anything anymore. It's just an I used to like, see a fast food commercial that literally my wife and I really had to go get the keys, get in the car, go get whatever they were advertising. Pavlov's dog. Yeah, it really was. And I did. And since and I crave that. So I thought I craved it for a longest time that I had a cheat meal. We have local fast food. Mostly Southern California, Texas, had these little mini tacos, and I just used to love those are tiny tacos. And so I finally went in one day, I'd been a couple months into keto and I had it for lunch and I shot up to 300 I felt like crap. And I'm like, never again and I I just don't crave that stuff Good for you.

Scott Benner 49:18
Well, I think in the end, you're not saying anything crazy. You're saying there are natural things that were on the earth long before someone figured out what high fructose corn syrup is. And people ate those things for a long time. So our bodies have developed and grown to be good at that stuff. And you know what, by the way, I have no idea. I'm not a scientist, nor am I a person who can see the future. But there's part of me that thinks that one day we all might just weigh 500 pounds and be really good at digesting high fructose corn syrup. I don't know that. That's not that that can't happen. But I can I can definitely say I don't want that to happen to me. So I'm with you. Not as Are you lose me as vegetables? I just I really dislike vegetables. It's probably my parents fault because they used to yell at me about eating them and I think they really made me hate them like I feel a defiance about them

Mike 50:12
depends on the vegetables and again, we don't eat tons of them but and it's like the green stuff the the Rockies the cauliflower is not green, unless it shouldn't be green. But if and I hated brussels sprouts and asparagus until he cooked them on the smoker Konya smoker on about like 300 little either olive oil and whatever barbecue rub you want. Throw them on the smoker for a little bit. I love asparagus and brussel sprouts now. Really? Yeah. All right, Mike.

Scott Benner 50:41
Well, I'll tell you what, you send me the you send me a recipe for brussel sprouts and asparagus on a smoker. I will try it and I'll include it in this episode. Because I will if you can make me a Brussel sprout you're a magician.

Mike 50:57
Dude, I seriously man, I tried them over the years because your taste change? I think Well, let me try it. Let me try it right up until several months ago, you could not pay me to eat brussel sprouts or asparagus. Okay, now it's like part of one of our staples. Yeah.

Scott Benner 51:10
Well that I would love to know about that. Because I don't think I have I cook them for my family. So like everybody else here eats asparagus and brussel sprouts as two examples. Like I make a lot of vegetables, I just make them and then I don't touch them afterwards. Which is also makes it by the way harder as the cook to make because I don't really know what I'm shooting for and texture and things like that, you know?

Mike 51:32
Well, that's that's another neat thing with like flash flash and like Tomcat flash frozen vegetables. So if you get like those steamer bags of broccoli, that you throw in the microwave for 10 minutes, that's probably better than buying the fresh stuff at the grocery store and either over steaming it. It's simple, it's easy, you divided it up, put your favorite barbecue rub on it, and it makes it even better. And a little bit of butter here so butter and salt will cover a lot of

Scott Benner 52:03
what broccoli is. Is that what you're telling me?

Mike 52:04
No, no. I was you know, not I wasn't implying that. But you know, if you want to flavor it, but it's it. Some of that stuff is my point is it's so easy to make nowadays. Because you don't have to have you know, go to the store, get all the fresh vegetables, you got to eat them. Within a few days, they start going back, get to flat flash, frozen tongue twister, flash frozen vegetables, and there is healthiest eating and getting fresh. And it's it's not. That was my point. It's not hard to eat good.

Scott Benner 52:37
Yeah, well, I because I think that that ends up being one of the arguments sometimes about any diet structure is that people are like, Oh, it's so expensive to do. You know, because you're talking about meat meats more expensive. Is there a way to eat keto? I guess not. Because that would be dirty, right? If I was doing it with lesser meats, I guess or

Mike 53:00
Well, you know, you want to get the best you can afford. And, you know, grass fed beef sounds obviously better, a little bit more, it's not that much more. If you go to a restaurant, and you're going to spend 30 bucks a pop, if you go out to a fast food joint, it's almost $20 for two people anymore. So if you spend, let's say six bucks on a pound of grass fed beef, that's going to feed the two of you, there's three bucks a person for better meat than you would get if you went to the restaurant or the fast food place, right? Or just spent $1 less than got the, you know, the regular grain fed. So it's really not expensive. It's kind of you know, if you watch what you're doing, and we don't ever get I don't look for sales. I don't do coupon shopping. I'm just I don't want to say I don't have the time for it. But I just I don't have the I don't have the patience for it.

Scott Benner 53:53
I always, every time the cashier says Do you have any coupons? I said no. I'm against saving money. Thank you. Because I know that's how it feels to them. But I'm just I don't have the mind for it. Like you could cut out a coupon and leave it on the countertop. And I'll just I won't remember it. I don't know why that is exactly. Okay. Well, what what what do you think people should know about keto eating that they don't know? Like, what's what's not in the, you know, out in the world about it, things you learned or things you think they should know?

Mike 54:26
Gosh, well, I always remembered from the prior and even my mom and my mom's still stuck in the 70s for diabetes education, and how things work and it's like no, and when the the Atkins and I'm not talking about about it, I think it's a it's another alternative for people but the original is your body was going into ketoacidosis at that time, which was thought to be the same as diabetic ketoacidosis, which is bad. What you're actually doing is you're going to a keto keto Genesis. So your body's learning to burn the fat That's the one thing that my wife said was gives her more energy before when she would run it would take her four or five miles to warm up. Now she is warmed up in the first mile because you're not, you're not accessing all those glucose sources right away to try to deplete, you're burning, you're burning, you're burning fat. So that's why you have the higher fat but you need good fat the grass fed if you can butters are regular butter, the fat from the pork, the beef, even beef tallow you can use in cooking so you're putting clean fats in your your your body that your body was meant to burn, it's the same thing and they the whole cholesterol thing back when you know margarine came about and so they everybody go low fat low this, and they were still having all this coronary artery disease and heart attacks. Well, it was from all the inflammation that you were getting from all the non fat, low fat, all the additives. So by by eating, drinking whole milk, using whole creams, using stuff your body was meant to process, your body's going to run cleaner. And I've noticed my blood pressure's lower. Like I said, I got off my, my cholesterol medication and again, consult your physicians, your doctors, you know,

Scott Benner 56:14
don't just start taking your medication.

Mike 56:16
No, but it you know, it got it lowered just because I'm not having all that stuff. So, you know, I like you can do this. There's there's keto without eating meat, you know, people who don't, you know, vegans or whatever the Monday you could still get your proteins from your, your lagoons and what have you. But, you know, it's, it's, it's been good for us. It's not difficult. You're not not eating food you enjoy, I'm not eating, you know, crap, or just stuffing myself with, you know, stick of butter in my coffee every day. So, you know, there's no look into it. There's, there's keto for diabetics, and there's a lot of good information, and there's a lot of bad information out there. So that's, that's why I consulted. You know, like all my doctors. Again, Jenny, she's a dietitian. And, you know, did my research do? I would say, with anybody, any diet is do your due diligence, do your research, don't just listen to one source. Yeah, and find what works for you.

Scott Benner 57:25
I think too, I mean, about finding information, like, everyone's got their, you know, the, everyone's got the castle, they're defending, you know, for the most part, and because I don't eat any specific way, I thought maybe I'm a good person to talk to about how other people eat because I really don't, I don't have a, you know, I don't have a horse in the in the race. I don't care one way or the other, you know, just say what you're gonna say. But I think too, you got to be careful about people who are making money off of things. So if you know, it's, hey, there's this keto lifestyle, and for just $50 a month, we'll take like, there, you're there, you're falling into a trap. I admit, I agree with you about the about the fats, and about natural foods as well. Like, I would just never eat margarine. But my wife's like, you know, she's like, this is what I have to do, because there's less fat and I'm like, I really think you're wrong. You know, but there's, I can't get through to her. And she's she and maybe I'm wrong,

Mike 58:16
you know, so it's, it's all processed under high heat. And it's like, like, you know, the vegetable oils on stuff. It's all processed with high heat. So it's actually not good for you. It's inflammatory. So, you know, it's not for everybody. And then there's there's the other side of it that you know, if you want to eat a certain way when you want to have pizza, and is that the other you can figure it out that works for you. You know what, back to you.

Scott Benner 58:42
Oh, yeah, I I genuinely imagine people understand that are listening. But in case someone's coming in from the outside, like, I'm not doing these episodes, because I'm trying to change anybody's mind. I just, you know, I think everybody, if we're going to understand how to use insulin, it should be everybody should understand how to use it, not just people who eat, you know, whatever a classic meal is they mean, if somebody eats keto, they should know how to use insulin just the same as if they don't, so I'm just trying to pump information into the podcast.

Mike 59:08
cut my insulin way in half. My basil rates are obviously down, way down. And I've noticed which didn't take me long to learn but I had to learn the different proteins for instance, like the beef, the hamburgers, or whatever, that kind of fats versus the pull the pork fats, and then they kind of hit me differently. Okay, so I have a different approach to is, you know, obviously, I don't Bolus before I eat I Bolus after and then depending beef, pork or whatever, I might do an extended. I'm using loop so I'll do an override maybe a 30% override for three or four hours. And I found that that works pretty good for me and I'm typically pretty on you know, the other day I had a pretty bad day. I Got up higher than I wanted to. But, you know, yeah, stretches of the world also add to that.

Scott Benner 1:00:05
No kidding. I think it's it's so important for people to hear that in any context. I mean, you're eating almost no carbs. And your blood sugar is going up from protein. And the fat, it's so I mean, there's a pro tip episode about it. And I mean, we've tried our hardest to, like, make sure people understand that it's not just some magical diabetes rise that happens. But you know, that protein gets broken down, and it gets stored as glucose. So yeah, yeah, it's not hard to understand, I guess, if you if you put it simply enough, but it happens later. So you can't you can't Pre-Bolus and eat keto, because that insulin will crush you before that process of the breaking down of the protein ever happened?

Mike 1:00:47
Correct? Yeah, yeah, I was. I was Pre-Bolus and maybe up to an hour before. So I had for the most part, for the last. I don't how many years, I've had a turkey sandwich for breakfast every every morning. When I know out hits me too. I really enjoyed it. And I would Pre-Bolus almost up to an hour before eating that and kind of hit that right. And with keto for breakfast, I'm depending on where I'm at. Might be a half hour to an hour after before I Bolus for the proteins in the fat.

Scott Benner 1:01:18
Do you find your your kidneys and and just the the system of disposing of liquid waste is an easier process without carbs. Do you mean I don't know. I just find that if I if I feel like my, if I feel like my health is tumbling in the wrong direction. I'll go to a very low carb thing for a couple of days. And the first thing I find happens is that the excess waterway to me just goes away. Like are you retaining less water now?

Mike 1:01:48
No. So I drink a ton of water. So prior to Corona COVID

Scott Benner 1:01:57
let's call it COVID

Mike 1:01:58
COVID I keep a case of water in my truck or car Jeep whenever I was driving the day and anywhere I went even if it was to the gas station a block away I drink a bottle of water. Okay, so I was drinking, you know, 10 1215 bottles of water a day. Since I'm not driving, I drink a 12 pack minimum of sparkling water, which is basically nothing in it. So I'm always flushing anyways. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:02:23
so your process?

Mike 1:02:26
Yeah. I've noticed I probably have a little bit more water retention. Since I'm not doing as much like I'm not working as hard right now. But I know that's just water. And but I'm still constantly flushing. So I haven't noticed the difference in that.

Scott Benner 1:02:44
Okay. I'm just wondering. Hmm, but you do need your fiber. I will say that, hey, listen, I am not embarrassed at all. Let me just say something right here right now. What I use is an old classic Metamucil still has the sugar in it. I don't want any of that fancy sugar free Metamucil into a few ounces of water. Everything is perfect forever. And why do I have to do that? Because I don't mean the goddamn vegetables.

Mike 1:03:12
I noticed that's one thing I noticed. I am using a psyllium husk. Good that doesn't have any sugars or additives. So even with the vegetables I'm eating, I'm not eating a ton. But and I wasn't eating a lot of vegetables prior. I'm doing that better now. But so I'll do a teaspoon of that. And I find that that worked out quite well.

Scott Benner 1:03:33
I have to be honest with you. I joke about it because I'm older. But I wish someone would have found me when I was 20 years old and said hey, pick a fiber supplement. I really do wish somebody would have said that to me. I think it would have changed my life. Yeah, it can't hurt just have a little have have enough supplements have enough in you that what your body needs is available to it. And that's all do you take any supplements at all like I take I take a zinc and a D? I take a fish oil and vitamin B every day

Mike 1:04:07
you do I started taking just a men's 40 plus just kind of a I mean, I get a lot of I never got the keto flu. I've always had enough sodium and mineral from all the rubs and barbecue stuff. So I just took that on a recommendation. But other than that prior to that I've never taken supplements. I didn't understand what you just said keto

Scott Benner 1:04:27
flu.

Mike 1:04:29
Yeah, so when you start keto, sometimes people say they get a headache. And is because if you're most processed foods, I'll have a ton of sodium you go to fast food sodium, you go to the restaurant sodium. So your minerals go down when you start keto if you're not keeping that up. So because a lot of people don't salt heavy, so if you're when you go to keto, your your electrolytes get lower. So you need to pay attention that and one of the sides of that, as they call it keto flu, you get a little bit of a headache, you're foggy. Okay, you can take some chicken broth and kind of get over that level now,

Scott Benner 1:05:08
I guess also you're getting away from sugar. Possibly too, right? If you're making like a real firm switch like, bang, I'm going from this to that.

Mike 1:05:16
Yeah, well, the breads I used to make only had three teaspoons for the lopen anyways. But yeah, there's sugar in french fries that you get at the fast food and there's, you know, sugar and salt makes everything taste better. So yeah, you're getting away from that, but it's mostly the the electrolytes the salts. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:05:31
Have you stumbled during this process at all? a loaf of French bread got to you or something like that? or?

Mike 1:05:38
Yeah, so we had, it wasn't I'm not blaming my wife for that monthly, but we did have a pizza the other day. Yeah. And it was horrible. And I felt like I'm so glad I had it.

Scott Benner 1:05:49
So you ate the pizza and your body just rejected the idea of the pizza.

Mike 1:05:53
I used to be able to eat half. if not more of a pizza, we'd go to the the one of the local places that's national chain and it was deep dish. It was great. And we could easily eat half of it and some of the cheesy breads and I had two pieces and I felt like I ate a cow. Yeah, just just your your body was like what, why? Why are you doing this? And I was like, you know to at all night I was like I kept just Bolus Bolus, Bolus 200% override it was I it was.

Scott Benner 1:06:26
So when I make mine, I make a nice like it's a Neapolitan is a very thin crust. And you know sparsely with cheese, and there's some sauce and maybe I'll put like, you know, sausage or something like that on it. But they're also like 12 inch pizzas. And I could probably eat like, I guess if I pushed myself. I could eat a whole 12 inch pizza, but I don't usually. And then I don't make it again for five, six weeks. And then yeah, it just pops up on a Sunday. Like sometimes I just want to get up in the morning and cook all day and not think about anything and and

Mike 1:06:59
Well, yeah, when we were normally when I was making pizzas I do. You do a typical dough ball. I put it in forts. I make my own for myself and then whatever trophy wife wanted, and we do pesto's I do barbecue sauces. We do you know, all that stuff, you know, pretty thin crust. And that's the stuff when I was making them.

Scott Benner 1:07:20
How do you handle barbecue sauce when you're like, do you use any sauces when you smoke Are you just mostly dry rub everything.

Mike 1:07:26
I pretty much dry rub. I've never been a fan of barbecue sauce. Just because meat has to stand on its own. But for the pizzas that we use a little thin, then barbecue sauce. So one of the things we used to do the way I teach barbecue at the barbecue started every month we'd have a free for all barbecue come down and I'd make you know 50 6070 pizzas, and we'd use the different sauces that he sold in the store to show what you could do with it. Yeah, and you're using a tablespoon maybe on a pizza. So it does doesn't hit you too hard.

Scott Benner 1:08:00
Right? That makes sense. Yeah, I have to say that. The moment I learned that pizza crust had to be cooked, hot and fast changed. I yeah, I make too much and my neighbors can kind of smell it happening. You see them they're in the backyard. They're kind of like his he can offer me a pizza. You know, and and I'll kind of pass them out a little bit. My one neighbors like this is the best pizza in town. And I was like, well, it's just, you know, just put a little more effort into the dough and and and by the way, I feel like because I cold ferment the dough and it takes days for it to come together. I actually feel like my body processes it better than then if I would have made it the other way. I I can't imagine that I could ever completely. I should say that I think I believe and I agree that flour, processed white flour is not something your body's meant to deal with. I believe that. And at the same time, I don't know what's going to have to happen to me. For me to not have pizza again.

Mike 1:09:05
I'll send you a recipe for a dough it uses Parmesan cheese, eggs, and such. And if you if you can tell me that it doesn't taste like real pizza dough or if not better than some of them. Really. I'd be surprised. Yeah, we did. We did several different doze and that one restaurant that we the national chain that we would get them from I love that flavor and it is really close to their cheesy bread flavor. And then some of my prior to that goes I'd use double lot flour. And it was just some of the best Oh,

Scott Benner 1:09:36
yeah, no, I there's definitely ways to make good food better. And it but it takes a lot of effort. And a lot of you know, time I think that's what I said earlier like sometimes I just want to like when I'm looking for a day off on a Sunday. I sometimes choose cooking something that takes a lot of time because nobody can argue with that. Nobody can look at you and go Hey, go do this now to be like, Oh, I can't sorry. This is how long it takes to make the pulled pork. Yeah, it's like so um, and by the way not not to go down the rabbit hole but I made pulled pork and crock pots before my life and I thought they were good and smoking uphold pork is a is magical it just it's an I lean towards you I make the meat in more of I guess would be considered more of a Texas style which is just dry rubs and and nothing really wet on them. I do put a little bit of a thin sauce on the on the ribs but but i like i like that style of cooking meat.

Mike 1:10:38
Yeah, we do competition ribs, we we saw some a bit for that kind of turnout, which is a different read than you'd normally have that you'd cook for your your friends and neighbors. But that's pretty much the only time where you really use sauces and honeys and

Scott Benner 1:10:50
yeah, that's that's too much. The other thing about me is I eat like a little girl. Like I'm not kidding, like I, I have a little bit of food, which is sad all the time. Like I'm the fattest guy, it doesn't need that you've ever met in your life. Because, you know, I'll make these three racks of ribs. There's only four people in the house. And I take four or five little ribs off and I'm done. I'm like, Oh, they were really good. And they're like, have more. I'm like I can't I'm kind of full. You know, like I fill up easily. It's it's fascinating how quickly I get full. I actually I'm insulting little girls who I'm sure it could pretty much out eat me No problem. I don't know how it is. I don't know, I don't know how it is I eat Exactly. But I get full quickly. And then it's funny when with empty calories. I don't get full. Like with the cookies, I could eat them. Like mass wise, I could eat way more cookies than I could eat beef for some reason. It's

Mike 1:11:42
because your body keeps spiking insulin, which then makes you hungry again is coming down. Yeah. It's just that it's just an effect like Chinese food effect.

Scott Benner 1:11:50
I believe you and I know it's right. And I've heard enough people talk about it. I've seen it happen enough in my life. There are some foods that just turn your brain and your body into a garbage disposal for more of that it just makes you want it in a way that is I mean, they say rice Sugar Sugar is more addictive than, than some drugs they say it is. Yeah. So can be. Alright. What have we not put in this episode that belongs in here? Anything? Um, gosh. You know, it's Monday,

Mike 1:12:25
I had a couple of points. I just want to make sure we we hit or talked about, I appreciate them. Yeah, so I kind of want to go back to from when I was first diagnosed to then when I got in control in the 80s to kind of now it's education, diabetic educators education as far as Ed, your podcast is, I think does the most justice to the world. Because there's just not enough education out there. And what you do the pro tips, the Ascot and Jenny, which, you know, if you're in the hospital, you get your five or 10 minutes education, you leave and nobody thinks to go back. And nobody really tells you to go back, which is a disservice to type ones because as things change as technology changes. So my first training was in the 70s, which wasn't my trainings, my parents. My second training was when the 80s and that was kind of it, then you figure it out. My third training was education. What I mean by training was your podcast. And then I continued that with Jenny, which you have to relearn things or talk about things which like I said, My doctor 20 years just told me I was doing great. never told me you know, maybe she'd go back and get some more education on diet or control or how to come from between seven and nine down to respective. Like I said, I got a lot and you know, neurological damage and neuropathy. And, you know, education is key. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:13:57
I work or somebody just say to you, hey, by the way, you know, protein could turn into sugar, sugar needs insulin, you know, like any of those things could be told to you and, and and genuinely aren't. And I think I at this point, I'm at peace now with why it happens that way. I just don't. I mean, listen, it's gonna sound pompous for half a second. But I'm really good at explaining diabetes to people. And so I've tried, in my mind to wonder if I was a doctor in that situation, how would I get this across the people? And the best I can come up with is I would send them to the podcast. I can't. It's too much. And it's you can't just we're not machines. You can't just download that much information at one time and have it make sense the next time you need it. I think it's something about the conversational nature of this. It's part of why it sticks to you.

Mike 1:14:55
It is and and after, listen to the podcast and work Going with Jenny. And, again, my doctor 20 years it never said to do better. But I think they have a, they have a guideline that they have to go between, okay, keep people around seven, you know, and now we have CGM and such, how much damage could have I avoided? You know, 15 years ago when I got my first or Dexcom. seven plus, you know, just just with that technology might have might have I avoided but I think, again, most of my damages from early on, but you know, I think the doctors have a guideline they have to go to, I think they could gently refer you for to the podcast, if you want to know more fine tuning this will work because there's not a lot of I don't want to say there's not great diabetic educators out there sure that they also have a guide. Yes, there are, but they also have guidelines that they need to follow, which is what the doctor tells him, right?

Scott Benner 1:15:50
Yeah, and there's no point when you can say to somebody like, oh, that happened, all you really got to do is this, like the hacks and the, and the little things that you would only know by doing it every day, no one's either gonna think to tell it to you, or they're gonna be afraid you're gonna misunderstand it. And so there's that piece of it, too, is that nobody really wants to say it out loud. You know, which is fascinating.

Mike 1:16:12
10% of type ones that are taking care of themselves, the rest of them just, you know, I know my I got some friends it just like, yeah, you're a zealot. Yeah, for wanting to talk to other type ones and hang out. But, you know, I don't think that's true. But you know, it is what it is it.

Scott Benner 1:16:31
I don't think there's a way to understand. And then to put it into practice, if you don't immerse yourself in it a little bit. And, you know, I heard from somebody recently, and I, you know, I took some time to talk to this person on the phone at the end, I said, Okay, so here are these episodes I want you to listen to and then you can contact me back and ask me any questions you have? And she said, I don't have time to listen to that. And I don't think she meant it that way. I think she meant I don't have time. Like, I think I meant she, I want to make sure I'm like saying it correctly. She couldn't imagine giving time away to this thing, because diabetes is such a, like a Hellfire in her life. So what I said was, look, I don't think this is going to be cliched, but you don't not have time. Like you have to make time for this. Because you could all the time you're giving away to fighting low blood sugars and worrying about spikes as like imagine not having to do that anymore. So find 20 hours. Listen to those episodes. I think you can put them in your ears and listen while you're doing anything. Like you don't have to be sitting taking notes. And then yeah, you'll save all that time and your health.

Mike 1:17:41
Yeah, I've turned everybody I can from the top of the mountain. It's like, Look, you gotta listen to this podcast. Listen to this. Listen to this, listen to this. And you know, the ones that do like, hey, thanks, man. It's like because it's, it's a whole nother way of looking at just just think about just the bumping and nudging that I started gently. Just being as you call bold with insulin. I was terrified to insulin. I'm hypoglycemic, right? You know, just just doing that. It's like, Wow, what a huge impact. And nobody told me that before. Yeah, my doctor 20 years never said, hey, let's, you know,

Scott Benner 1:18:16
seems like such common sense to me. Like even when I first set it out loud. I thought, this is a waste of people's time, who would look at a 160 blood sugar and not do anything about it. You like,

Mike 1:18:29
yeah, I'm with 350 because I didn't want to get woken up at night. Yeah, my alarm now is 120

Scott Benner 1:18:35
get woken up in the morning comes to pick you up. My doctor said that was fine. Yeah. If you want to sleep, that's okay to do that. kind of started leaving high so you can sleep? I mean that I think everybody gets those words spoken to them. And, and I say, you know, there's a world where it can stay lower and stable, and you can still sleep. Yes. Just understanding how the insulin works. And if you want to eat keto, and do it, you can. And if you want to have bread and do it, you can you just have to understand how it works. There's different caveats to different diets, but

Mike 1:19:11
and I figured I figured it out prior keto, just by the bumping nudge and I went from 350 to 300 300 to 250. You know, I lowered that line till I got to 180. And I was like, Well, why not go lower? Well,

Scott Benner 1:19:26
I'm gonna let you go in a second. But your progression makes me happy. Because you, you know, from, from my perspective, you prove out the theory. You were you were you're an older diabetics or somebody who got, you know, not great technology, not great insulin moved into different areas within that space of a one. See, that's obviously too high, but people are telling you, don't worry about it. It's okay. You found the podcast, learn how to implement it, it worked for you, you could cut you could keep eating like that if you wanted to, and you'd be able to take good care of yourself. And now you've decided, you know what I'm going to eat keto. But you're still using what you learned in the podcast, you're just using it for the keto diet 100% This is my goal. My goal is I don't care what you eat, you need to understand how insulin works. And then you can eat however you want. I've never once I've never once thought of myself as caring about how people eat. I'm not pushing carbs on you, I'm just saying that I think it's unreasonable to think that everybody is going to be a vegan, or everybody's going to be low carb, and everyone deserves to have low stable blood sugars, that Yeah,

Mike 1:20:32
you need to learn how the insulin works. And that was never really explained in detail. And that's where to go back to the education if, you know, however, you can get it and thank you for putting this out there. And, and I know a lot of people that turn it on to the podcast, it's the same thing. It's like, Wow, man, it but it's learning how to learning how to it works. You're right timing and amount. Yep, whatever it is you're eating, I don't care what you eat, you can eat, you know, candy Carmo corns all day long, if you can figure it out, God more power to you, but know how to do it. And that's what I learned from the podcast.

Scott Benner 1:21:07
Thank you. And I appreciate you saying that. Here it is. Eating healthy, whatever that means. And having stable blood sugars are not the same thing. They don't need to be the same thing. You know, like you can control any carbs you take in with insulin if you do it correctly. I'm not saying it's a great idea. Like I'm not saying the karma corn all day long. But if you're going to just because that's your decision, doesn't mean you don't deserve to have good blood sugars, a nice day one C and a nice long life as long as you can live it. And I don't understand anybody who would argue one diet from another. That's that's a that's a different conversation. Like if you want to make one of those arguments, like you shouldn't eat meat, or you know, you know, whatever, like whatever your argument might be. That's a different argument, then you need to understand your insulin, but somehow they get conflated sometimes. Yeah,

Mike 1:22:06
yeah, they do. And it's just, it's like the people that look at you can't have that cookie. Like, well, why not? So there's two things that type one diabetic cannot eat. First is poison. Yeah. 100%. Second is anything made with poison. So that cookie is not made with poison, dammit, I can eat it.

Scott Benner 1:22:21
But if you don't know how to use your insulin, you eat a cookie, your blood sugar's gonna be 350. Just so you know. And so let's get that straight. And I think we went a long way towards helping people understand what it is to eat keto, these x, these conversations are not to teach people to eat keto, or teach people to be a vegan, it's to have a real conversation with a person with type one who has made that choice. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing this all with us. I really do. Sure happy to do it. Thank you. It's been really nice knowing you to me, not that we're never gonna see each other again, like, but I've enjoyed. I've enjoyed our relationship. So. So I appreciate that as well. Thank you. All right. Hold on one sec. I'll send you those recipes. Oh, yeah, seriously do that. I will put them in the show notes. There'll be right in the show notes with the links to the advertisers that if you click on the podcast gets to keep going, right, Mike?

Mike 1:23:11
Yeah, absolutely. And I did switch g ship because he you.

Scott Benner 1:23:15
Thank you Dexcom, Mike bought a G six because of me. And I did get a new meter. Ah, got the Contour. Next One. The winnaar News. Ah, there we go.

Mike 1:23:26
And that thing is spot on. accurate and I'm going to take up one more minute of your time I don't like. So I've been at type one test monkey for years. And I don't know if you know what a y si machine is. But it's a it's basically the most accurate meter there is and they take these blood draws for whatever they're doing every so often. So that meter compared to the y si the closest in it was the Accu check and that was several years ago at my old meter, right? It was dead on closest from all the meters and I had like five different meters with me. I'm not gonna go into other names, but you want a good one. Get the right one

Scott Benner 1:24:05
Contour. Next One. I knew it right. Hey, let's just say right here, Contour. Next One Contour Next One slash juicebox. That's all you gotta do. Now, I appreciate you saying that. Because seriously, I meant everything I said about wanting to help people. And this podcast went from what I thought was going to be an extension of my blog to a real legitimate full time job. It's this podcast takes up my entire week. And I'm happy to do it. I actually really very much enjoy doing it. You know, but the other side of that is is that you know, I got kids and bills and house and everything else and I can't give away Hey, he's showing me the meter. He really has it. It's a great meter. And you know, I'm not selling anymore. I really mean this as the technology gets better and better and better. You know, CGM. You still need a meter. Yep. So have a good one. Cuz you're going to get one anyway. So, you know, get a good one. That's all I get a great one. Yeah. Good point, Mike. Let's not just get a good meter get a great meter. You guys might hear that in the future ad by the way.

Mike 1:25:12
The other thing that really upsets me is the FDA allows meters plus or minus 20%. So are you 80? Or 120? Right? Are you 50? Or are you whereas, you know, if you have a great meter that you can rely on, you can rely on that number

Scott Benner 1:25:29
to tell you something else while we're being mad about things. If you I mean, how much more difficult can it be to make a great meter than a good meter? Like, if you're gonna make a meter? Why would it not just like, work really well. And by the way, if it doesn't work really well be a mentioned, get out of the game, save yourself, the best meter we could make is the sixth best meter in the world. Maybe we shouldn't make blood glucose meters, we'll make something else. You know, it's such an odd thing. I think that about cars. I think about cars sometimes, too. I'm like, how much effort would have been to just make this piece so it didn't fall off the car?

Mike 1:26:05
You know, you figure they save $2 per one unit over 100,000

Scott Benner 1:26:09
you're making the car already? Why don't you make it nice? Is it really? Yeah, I don't understand that. So anyway, we can talk forever. I've got to go live my life. And I'm assuming that you have to cook for your wife or she'll starve to death. So it's coming up on lunchtime. So yeah, I have to make something for my trophy wife. Well, I'm glad that she's an exceptional woman that you sound like you seem lucky to have. I am every day I wake up and she's still there. Thank you. Sometimes my wife will get up and walk out I'll look at the kids and I go I knew she was gonna leave eventually. Get here from the other room. She's like, I'm just using the bathroom like none of that said she's out of here. I can tell. Okay, Mike, thanks so much, man. I really appreciate it.

Mike 1:26:53
Hey, thank you, Scott. I really appreciate you know

Scott Benner 1:26:55
that's it's my pleasure. Have a good night. Thanks. Hey, huge thanks to Mike for coming on the show. He'll be back again after dark series. Wow, did you hear that Thunder? I'm not editing that out that scared the living crap out of me. Thank you also to the on the pod see if you're eligible for the free 30 day trial the dash and on the pod comm forward slash juice box and dexcom@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Get yourself a CGM. Find out what's going on. This could be the end of my life. So if you if you never hear from Oh my god, the dogs are going crazy. That was a lot of thunder. Wow. x comment on the pod paying for a weather report. Hmm, it's raining in New Jersey. This AccuWeather forecast is brought to you by Dexcom and Omni pod. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast.

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#486 How We Eat: FODMAP

A D-mom talks about parenting with a FODMAP diet.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to Episode 486 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today's episode of features Meredith, and she's here to talk about being the mother of a child with type one, and about understanding, creating and cooking for a fodmap diet. That's a funny word, right? fodmap it's not actually a word, it's an acronym.

This episode is going to be ad free Memorial Day celebration, no ads. But it is part of the how we eat series. Now if you're not familiar with that, I'm going to spend 20 seconds explaining it before the episode starts. But it's going to happen after I tell you that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. All right, let the music finish up. I'll spend this couple of seconds talking about how we eat and then we get right into the episode with murder, by the way, is a super fan of the show. And I'm sure right now is shaking in our pants listening.

The how we eat series is building up a nice little repertoire. Is that the word I mean? It doesn't matter. So right now we have Episode 373. Vegan cat, which is not about a cat. Episode 400 carnivore. Episode 405 plant based Episode 439 gluten free Episode 453 low carb episode, episode in boy ready here we go again, Episode 480, Dr. Bernstein, and today's episode 486 fodmap. And there are many more coming. This has become a favorite for people. And I'm very much enjoying having these conversations. I hope you enjoy this one with Meredith, check out the others.

Meredith 2:21
Hi, my name is Meredith and I am a mom of three children, one of whom is a type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 2:28
Cool. And you're on today to talk about an eating style. Is that right?

Meredith 2:35
I am we have a lot of interesting food issues. The reason that I'm here is to talk about the low fodmap diet. But we actually eat not just low fodmap My daughter has lots of food allergies, as well. So that also interacts with diabetes and and low fodmap.

Scott Benner 3:00
Okay, so I assume that first you present with a food allergy? And then how does that how does that present itself the first time it happens

Unknown Speaker 3:11
with food allergy? Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:12
like what's the first like, what's the remembrance you have of like, Hey, does anybody notice she turns purple when we let us or something like that, like whatever happened, you

Meredith 3:20
know? Well, you know, it goes back for us. Before that my daughter that's diabetic is my second child. And so the food allergies go back to my first child. So really, we were prepared for so with my first daughter, my oldest is I've got a girl girl boy. And the oldest, was just presented with food allergies when she was two months old and had eczema and was fussy all the time. And so that was just from sort of, essentially birth. And we figured it out through what beyond is nursing and what I was eating. And then as we were introducing them I had to eliminate foods from my diet. And as we were introducing foods to her diet. She had some full blown reactions. By the time my second daughter who was like the type one diabetic by the time she was born, we were like assuming she had allergies we didn't know and it was also the way they treated allergies then is very different than what they do now. That's a whole it's changed a lot over the years now they introduce peanuts to kids practically from birth at like four months old. They want to give them peanut powder and based on the whole study in actually started in Israel but where they give kids bomba which is like this peanut snack anyway, and they found that kids had fewer peanut allergies. But when my kids were sort of in that sweet spot where they were preaching total avoidance, and they've since changed some of the recommendations but at any rate, when Eve was born, we ended up testing her for A lot of foods and avoiding a lot of foods initially, and she tested positive for a lot of food allergies. So some of a lot of her allergies are to things that she actually never even ate. So we didn't know for sure that how she would react. And then later, we would go to the food out, we'd go to the allergist yearly and have blood and skin tests. And she either had like a cache a couple of accidental exposures, but they were kind of minor because we were so careful all the time. So I never thankfully had really a full blown turning purple when she really horrible reactions, but I carry it with me all the time and, and everything else. But she did have several food challenges in the office, which is my kids laugh at this beam. But essentially, you go to the food, they go to the allergist office, and they give you a little bit of the food that you they think you might have outgrown, and then a little more and then a little more and then a little more and hope that you don't go back and turn purple and whatever anyway, and she had some that were successful, and some that were not. And some of those ended with epi pens. And yeah,

Scott Benner 6:19
well, let me let me go all the way back to your to your first child, and you're breastfeeding. So you figure out she has allergies to something, and you eliminate it from your diet. Yep, that's kind of fun. Like so what did you have to eliminate with your first daughter? Oh, wow.

Unknown Speaker 6:35
Well remember,

Meredith 6:36
when I was nursing, I eliminated dairy eggs, not sweet. Soy? I don't remember she's 19. Now,

Scott Benner 6:48
what were you eating? Would you just like styrofoam assault? or What did you have, by the, by the time you've learned everything?

Meredith 6:54
Well, there's, you know, we do a lot of meat and potatoes in our house. Um, and chicken and rice and a lot of race, which is, um, causes interaction of all of the fit issues, is I think one of the hardest things around with diabetes, too, because then, as each each condition sort of builds on the other. And then it becomes, because my daughter also has stomach issues. She's always had stomach aches, and even her allergies, which some of some of the things we didn't know, she would get a lot of stomach aches, and we didn't know whether she was alert, she said, you know, she didn't feel well after she ate things. And that's actually why it turns out, she's eating a low fodmap diet, which is something that is usually it's a treatment for IBS. And she didn't know whether she was allergic to every single thing she was eating, she kept getting these stomach eggs. And it turns out that she had to avoid foods for for that reason. And it turns out, like so then there were things that were good for her to eat on them, like to avoid for the low fodmap diet, but aren't good to eat. Because of her allergies or and then late then she was diagnosed with diabetes. But it's like, well, that's, you know, you should have these low carb things. And there's a whole list of low carb things. And she's allergic to half of them. You know, it's just, you know, we sort of had to like, look at the list and say, Well, she can't she can't, she can't have this and you just cross off half the thing. Wow.

Scott Benner 8:38
So there's basically three different things to consider.

Meredith 8:42
Oh, by the way, we keep kosher.

Scott Benner 8:44
Yeah, so four different things to keep considers you know, we're not just I mean, I mean, honestly, how many things could be left, right? So you remove the Well, okay, I saw I understand all that. What is fodmap stand for?

Meredith 8:58
Okay, so fodmap, which is a crazy diet when, um, fodmaps are and I'll read you this that I took off the internet. fodmaps are a collection of short chain carbohydrates, which are sugars that aren't absorbed properly in the gut, and can trigger symptoms in people with IBS. And they're naturally found in many foods and food additives. And there are four times and they're hard to pronounce, so I'll do my best but they're illegal saccharides, STI saccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. And so when we were advised by your doctor to avoid to go on the low fodmap diet, I said, Okay, you know, sure I can do this. I've done food allergies. All three of my kids and my husband have multiple food allergies. I said, I can do this. I've done this for years and like cook and all these crazy ways and they aren't all allergic to the same things. So I said sure. Tell me what she has to avoid. And then they gave me like the list. And it's not a category. It's like, some fruits are high in fodmaps, and some are low in fodmaps. And some are percentages, like with food allergies. If you can't have eggs, you can't have eggs. Like, that's it, and just a little bit can kill you, if you can't have peanuts, you know, it'll kill you, you know? Yeah, so I'm used to that. In with fodmaps, one of the things that you can have, depending they're also some people can tolerate certain amounts of certain things. But for example, um, what peaches, which is, you know, a favorite fruit of my daughter's, um, she could have like one peach or one nectarine, or if she had that a nectarine or a peach, today or tomorrow, she couldn't have a, you know, watermelon The next day, because then it would just it builds and it sort of the too much too many fodmaps together, will then affect her her stomach. So you can have things that impact not quite as hard. But if you stack them up too close to each other day after day, it's the same impact as having something that strikes her that hard. Exactly. And so what you usually do at the beginning is you do a total elimination diet. And then you add in a food from each of the different four categories or some of the foods from each that the four categories separately, and you add them back into your diet to see whether it's one of the categories or two or three that are affecting you. So for example, the all the illegal saccharides are fructans, and GLS, which are in foods like wheat, rye, onions, garlic, and Legos. So onion and garlic are completely out of our diet. Now, my husband always used to joke that I put black pepper and garlic salt on everything, you know, I made, that was just sort of our staple. And I now don't use all although, oddly, you can in a low fodmap diet, you can flavor things with garlic, you can flavor the oil with garlic, but apparently the garlic doesn't get absorbed into the actual oil. So you can infuse garlic with oil, and then remove the actual garlic. There are all these really weird tricks. And then like the scallions, you can use the green part of the skeleton but not the white part of the scallion. There's a whole Australian University called Monash that's devoted to this. I don't know if they're devoted to it. But they have a unit or division that focuses on fodmap. And they're really detailed and they have an app and everything that's talks all about low fodmap. And it's fascinating because this is very scientific. It sounds like complete Voodoo to me when I was reading the list. Like for example for the monosaccharides are fructose. So this is there's a lot of overlap. It's really interesting when you're talking about diabetes and how you eat and carbs. And when you were talking about the when I was listening to the episode on glycemic index, there's a lot that sort of overlaps. It's it's different. But it sort of comes in it comes at it from a different angle. But there's a lot of kind of overlapping interesting things. And so would it be a surprise, I'll just just tell you the fridge just as one so it's in honey and apples. And like she can't tell honey apples or high fructose corn syrup. But she can have maple syrup, for example.

Scott Benner 13:49
Okay. Do you know why? I guess there's no way to By the way, this sounds exhausting. It is no point to just like, oh god, I'm going to leave them at the mall. And that'll be the end of this because we're just like Mommy's going out and just never come back. And you guys are gonna have to fart your whole lives because I'm not doing this. Like what is it? You know? I mean, seriously, like, just so just thinking about an elimination diet. First of all to get your answers about what it is that you can and can't eat or should or shouldn't be eating. How do you start an elimination diet? Is it like with a piece of chicken that you boil, and then everyone eats it in horror? Terrible.

Meredith 14:32
And here's honestly like, I mean, that's the thing is it? It starts with total paralysis is what it starts with. Okay, um, and you kind of go, oh my god, what am I gonna feed the family, which is actually kind of the way I started with diabetes to like, Oh my god, how am I gonna feed my daughter? Um, but then slowly I did what I did with food allergies too, and I went to the internet and I looked for Facebook groups, I looked for recipes and I looked for resources. And essentially, I started with brand new recipes and I just looked, you know, you Google, you go to Pinterest, you go wherever and you find low fodmap recipes. And then what I would do is, I would modify them, because inevitably, it would have something in it that my kids were allergic to. And then or something they didn't like, or something that was an ingredient that, you know, I couldn't gather or whatever, but I tend to make a lot of different meals, which

Unknown Speaker 15:37
is,

Meredith 15:38
you know, one of the things that, um, you know, they say, Oh, you know, if your kids don't want your main meal that you make for dinner, like, just tell them they can have cereal tonight. When everybody's allergic to different things, and everyone has special diets, it's not really fair at some point to say, Well, too bad.

Scott Benner 15:56
Yeah. Wow, what's the reaction of I mean, you the children, everybody in the family, when you realize that this is the way you're gonna eat, I realized it was probably different for you because of the food allergy thing. But, but what I'm trying to imagine if I went to Arden tomorrow, and I said, Hey, we're going to eliminate everything from your diet to figure out why something happens, she probably would kill me in my sleep. So I'm trying to figure like, seriously, and or at least put up one hell of a fight about it, I can actually, I can envision her saying I'd rather my stomach hurt than do this. So

Meredith 16:31
I think that there are a couple of issues that you're there. As far as the food allergies, I actually think it was easier because my kids were diagnosed with them really from the get go. So they don't know what it's like to eat, whatever my oldest is, has now outgrown all her nut allergies. And the craziest thing is that she now eats, like, all Oh, nuts. I mean, it's just blows my mind when she's peanuts, and cashews and walnuts and talks about the differences. And, you know, I just is totally crazy. I'm used to thinking of them as poison. Um, but so they, they didn't know what it was like, they didn't know what they were missing. That's something that was almost easy. It was harder when they went to school and more of a social component, and going out with their friends and going to restaurants. And those kinds of things were the most difficult for the low fodmap diet, which came well. Diabetes came in, in the tween, and then the low fodmap diet came after. So in terms of timing, um, so with diabetes, we don't, we don't eat differently, really, for diabetes, there was only a very short period of time. When it was first diagnosed that they she was she didn't have one of those horrible diagnosis stories where she was admitted she wasn't NDK. Um, she had a whole variety of health issues for about a year where we were trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with her, which included a lot of stomach issues, which actually had been going on for much of her life, she'd had a lot of stomach discomfort, and went to one doctor for a second opinion, who did a whole battery of blood tests. And I got a call the next day and I was like, Where's your daughter? And I'm like, Well, she's at school. Like her blood sugar is really high. You need to come get her and redo her blood test. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to pick her up for was actually some other tests for something else. Because like I said, she was having all these other issues. And I'm gonna get her in a couple hours and take her to the doctor for something. They're like, No, no, you need to go now. And I'm like, I don't like I don't know anything about blood. I don't know anything about diabetes. And I don't know what they're talking.

Scott Benner 19:00
We don't eat sugar in my house. There's no sugar in her blood.

Meredith 19:08
literally about to get on the subway. I'll talk to you later. And I got off the subway like three stops later. And the phone rang, like my cell phone rang and they're like, it's the doctor like, where are you? And I'm like, Oh,

Unknown Speaker 19:22
yeah, you're not getting it. Give me a sec order. And you need to

Meredith 19:27
have this checked. But anyway, I lost my train of thought and why I was.

Scott Benner 19:32
Well, while you're finding your train of thought I'm taking off my headphones to take off a sweatshirt home. how incredibly unprofessional of me was it to do that right in the middle of the episode. I would never forgive myself if I was you. But since we're taking the break, have you heard about the diabetes pro tip series that begins at Episode 210. If you haven't seen it, you can check it out at Juicebox Podcast comm where diabetes pro tip calm or just go back in your app. To Episode 210, I'd also like to recommend, as I said earlier, the how we eat series. If you're interested in algorithm based pumping, there's a whole series about that. We have defining diabetes, which I'm very proud of its terms about type one diabetes, that are explained, but not in a dry way. There are short episodes with Jenny Smith and I, we explained the term and then put it into some context for you. So sort of like, imagine if you saw a hammer didn't know what a hammer was. And someone just said, it's a hammer, you use it to strike a nail, that would be not very helpful. But if you said it's a hammer, you use it to strike a nail, and then explained what a nail was, and why you might want to use a nail, well, then that would be useful information. To me, that's what the finding diabetes is. I'm just gonna take this moment to let you know about another series that's coming up also with Jenny Smith, it's going to be called variables. super interesting. We had Lehman on like, it's super interesting, you now either have to believe me, or you don't talk to you went to the Facebook page, the private Facebook page for the podcast and asked for people to make a list of things that impacted their life with diabetes, and a list came back, I think over 150 things long. Jenny and I are going to do these very short kind of burst episodes, about variables. So you'll start seeing them soon. Here, that's where you're gonna start seeing them soon. That is so much better.

Meredith 21:28
Okay, good. Um, anyway, so she, um, so she then was diagnosed, and basically what they told us, so then we were, we had like, two days where she, they knew her blood sugar was high, we had an appointment The next day, one day, and they had an appointment the next day at the diabetes clinic, the goddess and right away, but they told us, we could go home, and then we, we went back in for training, like outpatient. And we came in, like two or three days in a row, for hours long sessions, to learn to use insulin and count carbs and all this stuff. But they basically told us for, you know, two or three days, like, just eat really low carb, like, don't eat any carbs for the next two days, was essentially what they told us. Um, so while while we went home, I mean, because their blood sugar wasn't crazy high, but they're like, you know, just, you know, have have protein and don't have any, any carbs. While while we're doing that you're

Scott Benner 22:24
like, just give me a list. I know how to eliminate things from a diet, this won't be any trouble whatsoever.

Meredith 22:30
Right. So so that was so in that case. So that was just a couple of like, days where we really ate very, like, she had a lot of cucumbers, and, and then, um, and then in general, with diabetes, we don't, we don't eliminate food from our diet all that often. Except for you know, sometimes, like, she had an important test. And I was like, you know, let's not have dessert tonight, let's try to have a really low, like a low carb dinner tonight. Or, you know, let's see what's going to not impact your blood sugar. Um, a lot. Um, she's a junior in high school. Yeah. Um, you know, those kinds of things. So, in that respect, I think about her diet with their diabetes, but I don't otherwise say you can't eat X, Y, or Z because of the diabetes. Although, when we had to figure then we had some big changes when we moved to low fodmap. Because for the elimination diet, it's not that you can't eat any foods. It's more that there, you pull a lot of things out of the diet, but it was one of the initial things was, well, she can't add apples. So one of the things she had she just was a staple for low blood sugars was apple juice. Okay, so I was like, oh, man, like, she has apple juice all the time. Right? Like, okay, well, what are we going to do now? So now we do grape juice, but like excited to get grape juice boxes? I think I still have juice boxes of apple juice somewhere in my back of my cabin. I

Unknown Speaker 24:05
don't know what to do with expired.

Meredith 24:05
I gotta, you know,

Unknown Speaker 24:07
what were

Scott Benner 24:08
what were the symptoms we're talking about, like, you know, because I'm obviously I'm looking online too. And cramping, diarrhea, constipation, stomach, bloating, gas and flash ones. Is that basically or is it just you're in pain? Is it hard to put the word

Meredith 24:23
stomach pain for years and years and years? And I think she's a, I think, well, let's leave it at that.

Scott Benner 24:32
Wait, that was fascinating. You started to say something and then you stopped yourself. And now I'm gonna wonder for the rest of my life. What you were going to say? You don't have to say, you know what, forget it. Say it. I'll bleep it out for you. What were you gonna say?

Unknown Speaker 24:47
I think we're gonna leave it at that.

Scott Benner 24:49
All right. Okay, so she had stomach pains for a long time.

Meredith 24:53
Yeah, I mean, really since she was since she was little and we see in lots of doctors and dentists. things and chess, you know, checked and well, there might be various medicines and this is one of the things that is has helped. And it does help. And unfortunately, it's doesn't help all the way for her. Okay, um, but it does help. And so when you say Is she willing to do it? Well? Yeah, because it helps, right? Um, but no, it's sometimes really socks. So she wants to eat things. I mean, like, licorice is like something she likes and she you know it has the Twizzlers have wheat in them and she now is on a gluten free diet. Well, as you know from other things, the gall the gluten free stuff has stays in your system longer and has probably has like a higher glycemic load. It's, it's, um, you know, has other other issues. Um, and cauliflower, you know, you could do a nice cauliflower pizza crust, well, she can't have dairy. So that's a whole other issue. But, you know, cauliflower instead of pasta, say, rice, cauliflower or something? Well, that's, that is a, that's high fodmap. So she could have caught cauliflower, but only in a small quantity. So there are a lot of interactions between the foods that cause problems, or, you know, it's just a balance. Yeah. between what you know, what do you want to what do you want to choose? You want to so she ends up often with higher carb choices that impact her blood sugar, and that we then have to figure out how to how to deal with

Unknown Speaker 26:46
Yeah, when did she when we should diagnosed how old again?

Meredith 26:49
She was diagnosed when she was almost 12 when she was 11. She was diagnosed in Yeah, in 2015. Right? November Actually, this is her anniversary mark.

Scott Benner 27:03
Come on. No kidding. We're here. Do you know all this off the top of your head? Like if I if I came to your house and I had a big bag of food, and I sat your daughter next to me and I started reaching out or with a banana would you know that's okay, or Oh my god, stop no banana? Like, Are there times when you have to stop yourself and say, I don't even know how to eat this. And I like when does it? You know,

Meredith 27:27
I can tell you which foods everybody in my house is allergic to? Well, I am. It's actually really funny. I have a joke that I want to make like a Venn diagram. Like a piece of art. It's a Venn diagram with like, was alerted to what and like sell them to people. But like, I just think it's funny that maybe I'm the only person in the world that thinks it's funny. But anyway,

Scott Benner 27:48
you realize now that you said that everyone listening who doesn't think it's funny is thinking in their head? Yeah. That was not funny. Although someone's laughing their head. Oh, my joke

Unknown Speaker 27:57
in my house. Yeah.

Scott Benner 28:01
You're screwed. So,

Meredith 28:03
um, for the fodmaps. It's interesting, I guess. You've started that when she was a little older. And also, it's so complicated. I know. We're on video, nobody else's. But this is a list of like, some of the low fodmap food. And like I said, brand categories. I have to look. I mean, I don't remember. And then there's this app. I mentioned the app I like literally go on the app and look. So I know a lot of them. But like for example, she can have as many strawberries as she wants, I think but not as many raspberries. So when I say it's arbitrary, like it's really arbitrary. Yeah, like, you know, she, you know, berries are mostly okay, but like strawberries are better than raspberries. And like really? I'm,

Scott Benner 28:53
I'm I'm fascinated by the way that your other daughter just magically is not allergic to nuts anymore.

Unknown Speaker 28:57
She's not magically Well, you

Scott Benner 28:59
don't I mean, you did something though. Like you introduce them slowly. Is that

Unknown Speaker 29:02
very Yeah.

Meredith 29:04
And you have a lot of food challenges and we spent years going to the doctor and having Yeah, crazy and actually, um, we've got some food challenges scheduled will and have been canceled given due to the pandemic Yes, canceled a couple times for Eve. So she actually has outgrown she out. She did outgrow almonds, she can have almonds, and she can have pecans and pine nuts. Of course, almonds are not low fodmap. And she has a couple food challenges scheduled but until she tries his foods in the office, we won't know for sure. So there are a few foods that she could potentially have outgrown. But we don't know for sure. And it's not safe to try them at home because there's really, unfortunately no way to know for sure Unless you eat the food, whether you really are grown it, because even though they do blood tests and skin tests, they're not foolproof. And there's really no real way to know. So yeah,

Scott Benner 30:10
until you know, I'm not I'm imagining the heart that would come if I my entire life, I wasn't allowed to have an almond. And then one day someone says, Oh, great, you're gonna have almonds again. But this intersects poorly with your other things. So you can't have on this or by the way, I pop an almond in my mouth, and I go, I don't like almonds. He's such a downer.

Meredith 30:31
When my oldest daughter had her peanut challenge. We I was really excited about it. And we get to the office, and she's got peanut butter in front of her. And it's on a spoon. And I'm like, okay, like, go for it. And she literally it was like a magnet repelling it from her mouth. She could not put it in her mouth. I mean, I understand because actually, I've literally been telling her was poisoned her whole life. But she was so it was like, she couldn't get it in her mouth. And finally she did. And then she was like, Oh, I like this. And the other ones were easier, but and then she was fine. It turned out but it was, she was understandably terrified. I mean, it wasn't even, it wasn't even terror. It was almost just like, an inability

Unknown Speaker 31:18
to put it in.

Scott Benner 31:20
Yeah, this would be perfect for me, I have to tell you, because I don't love food for some reason. Like, I don't that I can't think of one thing that I eat. I'm like, Oh, this is the thing I should eat every day for the rest of my life. I don't I'm so happy because I'm meeting whatever this is. I have never felt like that in my life. And as you know, I had Paul Saladino on a couple of weeks ago, and I prepped by not like basically eating very low carb more protein. The week leading up to him so I kind of would like have something to talk about with him if in case like it didn't go well, but and he ended up being terrific, but but I lost like seven pounds by the time I spoke to him. And now it's got to be like a week and a half later, like 13 pounds lighter. I'm not even hungry anymore. I just get over. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just get up in the morning. I'm like food. Not really necessary, I guess. Yeah, you know, so I'll, I'll eat, I'll still have protein. Like yesterday, I had, I don't know, I had a piece of chicken. And a couple of fried eggs. At one point, I think my son had bacon lifestyle, like two pieces of bacon from him. And by nine o'clock last night, we were watching election returns, and everybody was like snacking, and I was just like, I'm not hungry. I just I'm not hungry anymore. Assuming that most of my hunger comes from, like, the interaction of carbs in my body, and I have a carb and then my body is like guilt. It's probably like crack to it. It's like, oh my god eat more of that, you know. But I've eliminated so much for now. Like, I think if you gave me four foods to eat, I could probably go on for quite some time like that.

Meredith 32:54
But I wish that were the case. For you, you know, there's always chocolate.

Scott Benner 33:03
Oh, you know what, I should be completely honest. The way I get through all this, is I take a small bag of Jordan, Ellie's chocolate chips, and I pick it them once or twice a day, I'll take like five or six chips, and I'll be like, there we go. And that as long as I kind of like whatever the sweet monster is as long as I give the sweet monster that but it has to be really good chocolate. Like if I had a Hershey's Kiss. It would make me nauseous. So there's something about like, like, like, quality. No, I'm actually not joking, because I've tried it because I'm cheap. I wanted to just do it with a Hershey Kiss. Because this bag of chips are like $3 I am really cheap. The bag of chips are like $3 and like that's very expensive. But that's that's how I've gotten through and there are days I don't go to the chocolate chip bag but but that's really it's fast. Like yesterday was one of those days I was just not hungry. I should I it never occurred to me to eat. I only ate this morning because I started getting tired. I was like, Am I shutting off so and I'm gonna eat something when I'm done speaking with you, but I it's fascinating what happens to me when you take away carbs, although that's not what you're doing. You're just it means that list you showed me is crazy. You know?

Unknown Speaker 34:21
Oh, it really is you have how

Scott Benner 34:24
many things that this so and it's it's funny when you say fodmap it obviously and you explained it earlier but there's so many big words that I just want to roll over it one more time again, right it's it's it's fodmap stands for fermentable all IG Sacra dotties whatever, doesn't

Meredith 34:43
amigo saccharine okay.

Unknown Speaker 34:45
decid char

Meredith 34:47
nice dry saccharine.

Scott Benner 34:49
I saccharides monosaccharides Look at me. I'm fallen boy, you're not gonna let me try the fourth one.

Unknown Speaker 34:55
Oh, yeah, go for it. polyols Yeah, go

Unknown Speaker 34:57
for it.

Scott Benner 34:58
Yeah.

What's your shortcut? carbohydrates, you shouldn't use that all that but, but the point is, is that when I heard fodmap in the past, I always just associated it with you have to eliminate things from your diet for some reason. I always thought of it is like, what am I trying to say? Not as a specific thing, but an idea. But it's a it's a specific idea. Incredibly specific, actually.

Meredith 35:25
It's very specific. And it's based in scientific, like the examination of the you know, the scientific like molecule like I can't think of the right word of the elements that are there make up the food, and it's really I don't know how you analyze it, but you they've got scientists breaking apart. What's in a watermelon and what's in a chick pea.

Scott Benner 35:57
Oh my god, it's so funny. You said that my daughter's friend a baby two years ago. They're like they couldn't find her everybody's like we're sorry, I can't find Sasha haven't heard from Sandra cup we so they're texting her texts. And finally, she's like, I'm in the hospital chick p incident. And she was doing an adding, like, they were re adding things. You know, she had some allergies too. And they've been having a lot of success. And I think somehow the the counting got off with the chickpeas and she just had too many chickpeas trying to and the whole time I'm hearing the story. I'm like, just don't eat chickpeas. Like who was it?

Unknown Speaker 36:36
Was this a fun number? This

Unknown Speaker 36:37
was an allergy. It was an allergy. And they were my my,

Meredith 36:40
my kids are allergic to chickpeas also. Okay,

Scott Benner 36:43
so listen, what's going on here? Did you marry your brother or something like that? How come? How come nobody can eat anything in here? Is it just is it in the extended family at all?

Meredith 36:53
Good allergies in the extended family. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Actually, both sides of the family have allergies. I like to think that we gave them a lot of other benefits and really great genes in other ways. But no, the the allergies were pretty much a perfect storm. Well.

Scott Benner 37:09
So here's a question. I've been dying to know, the whole time everybody's weight average. Like this eating like this lead to a slenderness is I guess my question?

Meredith 37:20
Um, yeah, I mean, pretty much. We're, I mean, I'm eating Ed was really skinny before she was diagnosed. Um,

Scott Benner 37:30
but, um, you consider them to be like, average, but like, you are like, average bill. Like, I'm trying to decide like this eating like this make me super skinny. Or not necessarily, or even like with that gluten free stuff. I've seen people put weight on with gluten free because

Unknown Speaker 37:46
Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah.

Meredith 37:48
No, I think that it's actually very easy to, um, it's actually easy to overeat and to eat too much or the wrong things. Because you end up I mean, anyone can justify eating too much, except for you. Because you don't like food.

Scott Benner 38:07
Oh, no, I can definitely eat too much. But you have to give, like I said, it's got to be crack. It's got to be like, oh, cookie, and then my brain goes cookie.

Unknown Speaker 38:15
And then I'm done.

Meredith 38:16
I think sometimes, if you can't choose what you want, exactly. You might eat too much of something else. Because it's available or because I mean, I've seen my kids, like, eat things that are like, they got a dessert. They don't they you know, and they don't know if they're gonna get it again. Or there's, you know, some and so they'll they'll want you know, it's special. But they'll you know, it's sort of this like, Oh my god, I got this amazing cake. And who knows if I'll ever get this cool, amazing cake again, because it's really hard to get and then they'll want to eat more than you would otherwise. But No, they're not. They're not overweight and underweight. They're pretty much

Scott Benner 38:56
you understand your kids basically have a depression mentality about about Yeah, I see. Okay.

Meredith 39:03
And I don't know that they have it. I just think that that I've seen I've seen it. I mean, when it was interesting when my my oldest was little she had no snack, you know, no snacks. She had no treats, she had no anything. And then when I found things she could have that like I didn't make myself that were store bought that were safe for her. And now there are so many allergy friendly, available treats, and even low fodmap treats you find there's no like low fodmap logo that you can find on some foods now. But anyway, but now you find things in this guy would find something in the store and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can buy a store bought packaged cupcake or whatever it is. And I'm like, wow, and then I would of course buy it because it exists. Yeah. Right. Like, not because we needed it. But I'm like, Oh my God, we have to try it.

Scott Benner 39:53
Oh sure. I understand that. Like, nobody wants a cupcake but it says fodmap on it. Just take it

Unknown Speaker 40:01
Is it an expensive way

Meredith 40:01
to have free, dairy free, nut free? How can we not get it?

Scott Benner 40:06
How is by the way? Is it flavor free? Or do they know? How did they figure that out? Problem?

Meredith 40:12
You guys?

Scott Benner 40:13
I'm wondering

Meredith 40:14
that no, we make really delicious food.

Scott Benner 40:18
Cool. That's excellent. How do you say you just, you just kind of, I was gonna say pepper it but you, you, you, um, you just use different spices that you're able to use?

Meredith 40:29
Yeah. And And honestly, what I really tried to do is I really tried to make food that everyone in my house can eat, for the most part. So that's the thing about I think, I think low fodmap for us was actually kind of the, the death knell to that a little bit, if you will, with the allergies, I mostly am able to do that. Like even for example, like my husband is allergic to wheat. So he was eating not not exclusively gluten free, but allergic to just wheat. So if, for example, I made spaghetti and meat sauce or whatever, I'd make two pots of pasta. So that was one thing that I would do separately, like I'd make him gluten free pasta, and I would make everybody else wheat pasta. Yeah, um, and I mean, now Eve also is gluten free pasta for because of fodmap. But for most other things, I would try to make a main course and most of the food that everybody would eat. with some exceptions, I think the low fodmap somehow has, there are some things that I do that way and a lot of things that I do that way. But I do tend to make a little bit more, I'll make two things or, or I'll make, like, I'll make two main courses where it's the same main course but I'll separate it out where half of it doesn't have garlic and half of it does cause but there's all kinds of other spices that i've you know, started to use as alternatives that I make spice mixtures, I just make a new I make I make a mix up my own spices. So I mix now, you know I didn't used to, but I'll mix up curry powder without garlic, or onion, and I'll mix up a taco seasoning that doesn't have garlic and onion ended and I mix up. And you can find, you know, recipes for all these things online. But you know, they're all kinds of different spice mixtures that I'll just make. And I use a lot of oregano and basil and I use a ton of tumeric and, you know, Indian type spices, a lot of them don't even, you know necessarily call for garlic or if they do I just leave it out. Right? Wow.

Scott Benner 42:37
I i Geez, you're so at ease with it and comfortable, which is comforting. And no, seriously, like, because I easily could have come on here and been like, Oh, we have to eat like this. Scott, it's a drudgery. Every day we consider ending it. You know what I mean? But you're just you're you don't feel that way. I'm assuming it's because you can make a lot of different things. And you put some effort into figuring out what those things are and people have been amenable. But I guess it's hard not to be amenable if you're allergic to something. Yeah, but did you ever run into fights with the kids? Like, did they ever tell you like, Look, I don't care what you say I'm meeting this or does that you just got them at the right age.

Meredith 43:18
I don't think that's ever been an issue. I think it's more that they won't. They might not like something that I make. So I get I get into a lot of like, I don't want to eat that. Or I get a lot of dinner fatigue. And whether the dinner fatigue is coming from me or from them is not always consistent. Yeah. But I mean, I'm sick of making dinner because sometimes because either I feel like I'll make something that people don't want to eat. You know, I it's not it, you know, there's that, oh, you I went to all this trouble, and I made this elaborate thing. And then people don't eat it. There's that a little bit, but it's even just like, I don't care when I make I'll make anything, right, just tell me what it is that you'll all eat. So, um, there's a little bit of that my son eats you know, meat and rice, like, you know, sauteed meat, you know, just that plain grounding and rice for you know, it's default for like most meals and he's very happy. And then I'll go through this phase where I'm like, that's really just not okay, like, I

Unknown Speaker 44:22
have to do some

Meredith 44:23
diet. Yeah. And, and then he's not happy and then I'm frustrated. I'm happy. It's not that bad.

Scott Benner 44:30
Yeah. How old is he? He's 12 Oh, yeah. By placement Cole was 12 I gave him chicken every day. So wonder we can't fly and lay an egg. I have to be honest, I've gone through it took me years not to have my feelings hurt when I made a meal and everybody's like, it's fine. I'm like, fine. Like you like

Unknown Speaker 44:53
I've been in the kitchen since 230. What do you mean It's fine. It's amazing. And if it's not you shut up and eat it and smile and then just like Hey, Dad don't make that again. But while I'm still hot, Don't tell me it's not. Like I'm standing here. I'm like, Alright, here you go. What is this on it? Yes, sons, the

Meredith 45:14
best thing I did actually is I made a Google Doc, where I wrote down like I listed the title of, of different recipes with the link to where I found them. And then I made a couple of notes. So because the problem is I was saving things and that people were like, Oh, I really liked that chili you made. And I knew that if I made it, I either printed or saved it in printers or saved it somewhere or whatever. But I was like, which chili? Cuz I tried two or three. And they're like, you know, the one we had whenever? And I'm like, so then I'll make the chili that I think it is. And they're like, that one. That one was gross. And I'm like, I don't know which chili it was and I can't figure it out.

Scott Benner 45:58
I am so horrible. I know. I know I that that happens to they're like make this again. It was good. He make it you know, I got that wasn't the right recipe. Apparently. It really so you must hate cooking shows, right? Because it's just the view of things you can't do.

Unknown Speaker 46:13
Yeah, I don't watch cooking.

Scott Benner 46:15
The whole time. I was like, there's no way Meredith watches cooking shows they must be

Meredith 46:19
home decorating shows. And that's just aspirational. Yeah, it doesn't look like any of them.

Scott Benner 46:24
I so like, I like I said, I haven't had anything except protein. And you know, for I gotta be coming up on like, three weeks now. But on Sunday, I got Hey, Dad, can you make that pizza again? And so it's like homemade pizza like, so I'm going to make the dough from scratch. I'm going to do the whole thing, right? And I'm like, Am I really not going to have pizza? seems unlikely. You know, it seems unlikely. But I'm worried I'm worried that my body's gonna not be like, Oh, why are you having flour? Like, what are you doing? You? We haven't had that in four weeks by the time I eat it. And there'll be some sort of revolt? But I don't know.

Meredith 47:07
We don't do is sort of like, I don't I guess we eat all these specialized diets. But I don't do like a no, you know, no flour? No, whatever. I guess I do. I

mean, I do know gluten for some of the people I know. But it doesn't I don't, there's a pretty wide mixture of

Scott Benner 47:26
concepts in your eating style. It's just

Meredith 47:28
there's so many things. We don't eat that I feel like I can't restrict

Unknown Speaker 47:31
other things, right. So

Meredith 47:32
like, for example, a lot of what we eat, for at least for two of the kids overlaps with vegan, but there's no way we're vegans, because we eat so much meat, but they don't. But my daughter's don't eat are allergic to dairy and eggs. So I don't have any eggs in the house. Literally, they are not in the house. I have not ever had an egg in the house. And there's been no product that has eggs in it in the house. Which is of course a great low carb food.

Scott Benner 48:05
Yeah, well, so how does this all? Alright, I'll tell you what, I want to know how this intersects with type one. But I want to take a detour for a second first. And you don't have to talk too much about this if you don't want to, but you are helping me with something. And I want to thank you where other people can hear me. Thank you. Oh, seriously. So I mean, everybody who listens knows that. I like I just got done editing a show that's gonna go up tomorrow. And at one point in the show, the guy said FOMO, and he was hiking, and he went on this trail somewhere. And I'm gonna call the episode hiking the FOMO trail, which has almost nothing to do with anything that we spoke about, right. And then I'm gonna write a two sentence description that says, This guy has type one diabetes was was diagnosed as an adult, and teaches overseas. That's what I'm gonna write because by the time I found him, booked him, interviewed him, edited it, put it back together, I've got seven, eight hours into his episode. And I'm gone. Like at that point, like, I can't sit down and like, you'd be surprised that I just got done editing his show. And if you asked me to write a synopsis about it, I don't 100% know that I could, because I'm not listening to it for that as much during the editing process. And during the conversation. I'm just trying to keep the conversation moving. I'm trying to listen and ask questions that I imagine people want to know the answers to. So I'm never in conversation. The way human being is, while I'm making this podcast, right? So people complain to me a lot about there and the more popular the podcast gets, the more frequently I get complaints. They're always very kind complaints like Oh, I wish there was a better description of this show. And I always See that somewhere and think, yeah, I wish there was two, but I'm only one person. So this is pretty much what I have. And it was I on the private Facebook page, it came up again, pretty recently. And I just said, like, Look, if you guys want to do this, that'd be terrific. And you really took like control of it. And you were you were you were very nice about it, you weren't, you were eating soup, and you're like, I'll handle this I was, you were like, I can be a little helpful. I think I messaged you privately. And I'm like, just do this, if you want to do it, like just, but leave me the hell out of it. Like I can't, I can't really think about it too much. And, and you guys are doing like you put together like a group, right? There's 1516 people

Meredith 50:42
a great group of I think it's about 16 people. And, um, everyone is really, really invested and have great ideas about how to tag the episodes and summarize the episodes and give them different, you know, information that's will be helpful and more searchable for so that if people are looking for something specific that they can, and will still have all of your great fun titles, and people that want to listen from the beginning like I did, we'll do that. But if you have a kid that is going through puberty, and you really want to find something about that, or you're really struggling right now with your cow, you know, basil, Basil testing, and you want to look for that and not just find the defining diabetes episode about it, but you want to hear other people talking about it, you'll be able to search for that

Scott Benner 51:48
is very, I am genuinely excited. I used you the sample synopsis of Alyssa Wyler Stein's episode and I use the I

Unknown Speaker 51:56
did not know your cello and and

Scott Benner 51:59
I loved it. And so when I put it up, I was like, This is what these should look like. I found myself fairly disappointed in myself as I use it. I was like, Yeah, I should have been doing this. But at the same time, it's hard to it's a nice in my mind, it's a really, it's not just a nice have. It's an amazing have. But I know how well the podcast is doing. And it did that well without descriptions of the episodes too. So I'm not like, you know,

Meredith 52:25
I think the reason that it's so necessary, is because the podcast has done so well. And there are so many episodes now. Yeah, I think the more episodes there are, the more necessary it is. Because when there were only 20 or 50 or 80 or even 100, then it's fun to find out the Terry lives on a boat. But when they're 400 or 600, or hopefully 1000. Maybe you kind of want to search for something specific. And I think that the people that are interested in doing this LP Scott, are really interested because we've all found your podcasts so helpful for us. And it's a way for us to first of all, make it even more user friendly for us and other people, but also to say thanks cuz, you know, it's been great for us and for our kids. And for all the people that you've been helping,

Scott Benner 53:21
I really I very much appreciate that I seriously do it. This is and it's a pretty big departure for me because I was just like I met Meredith like, I listen, I know, as many of you as I can through like avatars and you know, things people say like, I can't really keep up with everybody, obviously. But you're, I remember your avatar, and I associate your avatar with reasonable things being said, Isn't that amazing? Like, that's how my brain works, right? And so you jumped in, I'm like, oh, reasonable lady with the curly hair in the picture, once the help. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 53:59
So

Scott Benner 54:00
I'm like, that makes sense to me. Because there are crazy people I can think of, and if they would have popped in, I would have been like, oh, stay quiet and pretend you don't see that. So I would have handled it a different way. But it really is amazing. You guys developed a list, like like basically, this form to fill out while somebody listens back to an episode and fills the form out so that the information can be put in. And I tried to I tried to give to the to the whole project on my end as much as I could to and I, I somebody donated some money through the blog. I use the money to pay for a service to do transcripts of the podcasts. And so very slowly, I've added transcripts online. I haven't told anybody yet they're there. If you find them, they're there, but I'm just I don't, I don't. I'm not correcting them. Meaning like I don't do a transcript and then go through and go we've made juicebox two words, you know Basil is with an eye like, you know, you'll get the idea if you're reading. But I've been adding them slowly because that is another thing people ask for that. They don't ask for a lot, but I'm like, Okay, well, that seems reasonable to do. So I've been doing that it's a ton of work. I swear to you, as I started doing it, I was like eight episodes into it. I was like, why did I do this? Should I continue to ignore people's desire for a transcript? But, but I am doing that. And I and I have heard back from a couple of people who found them on their own. I was like, Hey, I just read Episode 11. And I'm like, wow. And you have to understand that, from my perspective, I love the podcast, like I could listen to the podcast on my own. But it's still when you hear somebody say they read a transcript of a 45 minute conversation you had. It's, it's overwhelming to hear somebody say that, you know, they mean, you're just like, no, come on. Because I start talking in the kitchen. And halfway through my sentence, my wife walks out and I'm like, Oh, my God, like she, I like, sometimes I'll be like the other, like, a lot of people waiting to hear what I have to say. And she's like, I'm not one of them. And she like rolls out of the room. Like, Oh, Jesus, that was harsh, you know. But But anyway, my

Meredith 56:07
family's pretty sick of you, too. I talked about you a little too much.

Scott Benner 56:10
You tell them to screw off too. I don't care. If they are not careful. I'll feed them a blueberry.

Meredith 56:17
I think blueberries are okay, but only in maybe limited quantities.

Scott Benner 56:22
I did my best to guess. Like I have an app on my phone here. I can tell you right now, if

Meredith 56:29
you do, I'm gonna tell you, I think you can actually blueberries in almost in in a lot. We're gonna see if I can figure it out, anyway.

Scott Benner 56:39
Well, anyway, I really appreciate that you took the lead on this. I appreciate everyone who's doing it. I am trying to I'm figuring something out to say thank you to you all with because the truth is, is that once you get through the backlog of 400 of them, I'm going to need you to keep going because because a new ones gonna come out and then where are we gonna be?

Meredith 56:59
I think there are people there. We'll keep going. Troy nice to have a cup of them.

Scott Benner 57:05
A couple of blueberries.

Meredith 57:07
A cup of blueberries are green, I think well, they have fructans. They're green for fructose and lactose and Amazon service, all NGOs. But they're, they have fructans in them. So I know, okay, they're low in the quarter cup. But then they're yellow at a third of a cup. And they're red. If you have,

Scott Benner 57:30
oh, I see like severity. A whole cup of a quarter

Meredith 57:34
cup, you can have a quarter cup with no problem. And it starts to get problematic,

Scott Benner 57:40
then that sounds like something I did when I was younger.

Unknown Speaker 57:43
See, there you go.

Scott Benner 57:44
Yeah. Anyway, thank you very much. I really I genuinely appreciate it. It's it's been it's a very, like you guys, you obviously keep me in the loop. And it's like a very professional undertaking. I feel like a project manager. When I get it. I'm like, Wow, my people are working well together.

Unknown Speaker 58:00
They're good people. They're good people. I

Scott Benner 58:02
genuinely believe that everyone listening to this podcast is good. And I'll tell you that I come to that from that private Facebook group, because I because once it got to 7000 people, when it's still such a kind, gentle, lovely place to be. I was like, wow, there's something about this podcast that that you must pull in people like this or something, but it's just I don't know, I don't know how to quantify it, but it's absolutely It's lovely. So, alright, so before we finish like to finish up, I'd like to understand somebody is having an allergic reaction or a physical reaction, they can't figure out what it is they're pretty sure it's food. They try a fodmap diet, which is basic is very simply broken down is a three step process, stop eating high fodmap foods, slowly reintroduce them to see which ones are troublesome, once you identify them, that that cause symptoms you can avoid or limit them while enjoying everything else where you're free, unless you're your family, which is

Meredith 59:02
and you're really supposed to do with a dietitian for fodmaps I'd really recommend you do that with a dietitian but yes, get

Scott Benner 59:06
a doctor. And and so so that's the process. But what happens when you're low fodmap and type one, is it a more insulin situation? Or not? So

Meredith 59:19
not specifically really you eat the same way you otherwise would eat but there are certain things that we switched a little bit So for us it was just I know I looked at the low fodmap list and then I said okay, these are things that are issues for us because of diabetes. So for example, um, like I said, we were using apple juice for Lowe's, we switched to grape juice. Honey was a sweetener that we were using. I don't know whether that's really for diabetes, but whatever we switched to maple syrup. Artificial sweeteners are not good on a fodmap diet so that's, that's an issue. So, um, because artificial sweeteners are better if you're diabetic than using, you know, too much. Um,

Scott Benner 1:00:10
yeah. So that's just something less than death to think about, you know, what the, you know, the argument around artificial sweeteners are is they make you hungry, so you don't eat sugar, but you eat something else, and it might be a toss up anyway.

Meredith 1:00:23
Right, but in terms of just like drinking and stuff, so you don't want to have like one of those, you know, some kind of a drink with an artificial sweetener, or whatever else, you actually need sugar, but then you're going to have to dose for that or whatever. Um, you can't have high fructose corn syrup. That's something a lot. So lots of candies, and things don't work for for low. So a lot of it was really like, what are we going to use for Lowe's? more immediate,

Scott Benner 1:00:50
right? Like, like, when you need something to work right away, your brain goes to simple sugar. So what do you do in a panic situation?

Meredith 1:00:57
So that's so that that was the issue that was I was really interested in the question, the index thing was saying that, like, um, fructose, like the I was, I was listening to that, and some of the things that work faster are actually high and fodmap. So maybe that's why some of our things don't work as well. But we use grape juice, or it uses chocolate, which doesn't work as fast, but that just happens to be something that she uses. So she has allergy friendly chocolate bars that she keeps with her. And she's a bad she does use glucose tabs, um, now, but she didn't use too. Um, and then other things that were sort of relevant, that's not really low fodmap so much, but um, is sort of goes along with stomach issues, a lot of you really shouldn't have too much ibuprofen, so she was taking Tylenol, and she has migraines too, so. So Tylenol then would affect the G five. Now at least she's on the Dexcom g six, so she can have more Tylenol, but not too much Tylenol, because energy six will still go wonky if you get too much. So that's an issue. Um, gluten free pasta is something that you need to have are gluten free, and you know, you eat gluten free on the low fodmap diet. So that's higher carb than some of the other grains. So that's kind of an issue and a lot of the low carb foods also don't work with low fodmap because insulin in them, okay, um, which is a problem. So there's just this like, interaction of things, and I would say that that low fodmap interacts fine with diabetes. I think you just make some substitutions, I think and I would say you especially make substitutions for Lowe's. I would say the hardest thing is really probably the allergies and the diabetes because a lot of the low carb things that would be great go twos are things that my daughter's allergic to but that doesn't mean that everyone's allergic to sure um Wow Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:15
Well you you may if you're not tired then I don't be tired

Unknown Speaker 1:03:22
Are you allergic to anything?

Meredith 1:03:24
I I don't eat soy because it gives me migraines. But ironically you know my everyone else in the house can eat soy. But no, I'm just allergic to like dogs and cats and environmental stuff but

Unknown Speaker 1:03:37
don't choose Wow, Jesus Alright,

Meredith 1:03:41
but it won't kill me. You know,

Scott Benner 1:03:42
are your children gonna disclose this during dating? I think I think if they do they're limiting themselves they shouldn't they should keep it free

Meredith 1:03:51
my kids are real catches on just

Scott Benner 1:03:54
Hey, you know if we get married you won't be able to eat you know anything. I hope you enjoy fish and rice

Unknown Speaker 1:04:04
no fish sorry.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:08
Actually,

Meredith 1:04:08
the girl is gonna fish my son Camembert attention to who? You know you got to think about like crack me up No

Unknown Speaker 1:04:16
no no.

Scott Benner 1:04:18
Anyway, I'm sure they have other I just I'm telling them just that they want to be earners. You know what I mean? Like, like wage earners, like so people are like, you know, we can only eat five things, but she makes a good living.

Meredith 1:04:31
Works, you know? Yeah, they do. They need to make a good living because they really like steak. steak and potatoes. No kidding.

Scott Benner 1:04:37
Yeah, I was gonna ask you. Is it more expensive to eat this way? Probably.

Meredith 1:04:40
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, our food bells are like nuts.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:45
Well, no, well, no pun intended.

Scott Benner 1:04:49
Our food bills are like nuts. Well, I'm just glad that you ate the nuts slowly to get rid of the nut allergies and didn't rub them on you because I was like, as you were saying, and I'm like, is Murdock gonna say we had to rub nuts on our kids then she didn't. And I was like, thank god anywho you were really kind of do this. I am trying really hard to get all people's styles of eating included in the podcast. I had been having Paul on recently talking about carnivore, I only got one half, like kind of sideways pushback online from somebody was like that's, you know, I forget what they said that fad eating and I was like, Listen, it's fat. He Call it whatever you want. I was like, the guy's got one of the most popular podcasts on Apple like it can't because it's a fad. Like, it must be because a lot of people are doing it. I don't know if it's right or wrong or not. I'm not I'm not making a judgement about it. I'm just trying to find out how other people eat and talk about it. So I really appreciate you doing this one because this one's specific. And you jumped right up and you're like, I can talk about fodmap. And I was like,

Meredith 1:05:54
get out of here. All right. And then you know how many people it'll it'll will be relevant for but I you know, I think it'll be

Oh, and I want to say one thing though. I did not cover is with all of our crazy eating things on. A one C is now down. The last time we had an appointment was down to 5.1. Wow.

Scott Benner 1:06:17
Well, that's because of me though. Yeah, I'm just I was joking. Stop.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
You know, let me make the joke, though. It is? Absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:06:27
That's very cool. Good for you. I'm, any of the other kids have markers for type one.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:33
The yellow one does,

Scott Benner 1:06:34
yeah, do we? Do we tell which one it is? Or we just tell them? It's one of you.

Meredith 1:06:38
I know at the end and my child knows. But I don't need to

Scott Benner 1:06:41
know I wouldn't ask you to tell everybody else. I was just wondering if you were like, hey, if you got on both tests, and you said, Hey, one of us got it. But I'm not gonna tell you which one?

Meredith 1:06:48
No, I don't think I would do that the child does No.

Scott Benner 1:06:51
Oh, okay. Well, I'm glad you know, how long good you look. Did you use trial that

Meredith 1:06:56
did trial net, and it was fairly soon after diagnosis.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:03
So a couple years ago? Well, and follow you something to look forward to?

Unknown Speaker 1:07:09
We're not. Thanks, God.

Scott Benner 1:07:12
Berta. Thank you very, very much. So that was Meredith and this was another episode of how we eat here on the Juicebox Podcast. Look, for more coming soon. I'm gonna ask you, what am I gonna say to you? Yeah, there's nothing to say. There's no ads. I'll tell you what, though. If you've been thinking about checking out the T one D exchange, because you've heard me talking about it. I'm gonna just put the information right here after the music. And if you haven't been thinking about doing that, just let me remind you that the show grows, when you share with others. Please subscribe in your podcast player, we're following your podcast player. If you're not listening in a podcast player, consider it. And that's it. I really appreciate your listening, the show's doing fantastic. It's all because you guys and I couldn't be more grateful. Last thing, the T one D exchange. The T one D exchange is looking for adult type ones and caregivers of type ones who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few minutes from your computer, or your phone. Right from your home. Like on your sofa, you could do it. After you finish the questions. I took the let's say I did it in about seven or eight minutes. I didn't find the questions to be deeply probing. They were actually kind of basic questions about type one diabetes, but they need the data. They need the answers to these questions from many, many people. So I was happy to throw into them. Anyway, when you're done, that's it. You're done. You know, it's 100% anonymous, it's HIPAA compliant. You don't have to go to a doctor or a remote site. And you're still helping people think you might get an email from them like once a year where they'll be like, hey, there's another opportunity here for you. And if you are interested, you do it. And if not, don't do it. It's just you. Putting your answers into a registry that allows them to take that data and make decisions. They influence things that happen in the world for people to type ones. For example, test trip coverage, Medicare coverage for CGM ada guidelines for pediatric a one c goals, that kind of stuff. They've impacted, even labeling for CGM to include fingerstick replacements that data helped with that. This is super simple to do an incredibly valuable T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box you get there. Click on join our registry now, answer the simple survey and you're done. If you do it, you're helping other people with type one diabetes and you're helping the podcast. I hope you check it out. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox

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#480 How We Eat: Bernstein

Alex has type 1 diabetes and follows the Bernstein Diet.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends. Welcome to Episode 480 of the Juicebox Podcast.

In today's episode, we're going to be speaking with Alex. Alex is a type one in the way she eats is why she's here. That's right. It's another episode of how we eat. And as you saw on your podcast player just now, today's topic, Dr. Bernstein. In the past, I've spoken with someone who eats a vegan lifestyle. Dr. Paul Saladino is here to tell us about the carnivore diet. We've had plant based people gluten free low carb today is Dr. Bernstein coming up soon keto, and fodmap. And I'm super excited to be telling you, I'll be recording one about intermittent fasting pretty soon. So excited. I'm excited. I love talking about how people eat. It's interesting. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod Dexcom and touched by type one, you can learn more about touched by type one at touched by type one.org. Or find them on Instagram, or Facebook. They're a wonderful organization doing incredible things for people with type one. I hope you check them out the Omni pod dash boot Did you know about this, let me tell you real quickly, you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash find out at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. And to get started with the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Or to find out more about it. All you need to do is go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box. I want to tell you before we start because I don't even know how much of your name you're going to use. But it doesn't it doesn't matter to me. But I want to tell you that every time I see your name, I think if I was going to be like a writer like that wrote like a kind of like exciting almost trashy novels. I would I would want your name,

Unknown Speaker 2:42
but I love it.

Scott Benner 2:44
Don't you think it just is like, now we won't tell anybody your last name and it'll be great. Nobody will wonder. But anyway.

Alex Quinn 2:51
I say my name sounds like a pseudo name for like a trashy novel writer or something to that effect. Yes.

Scott Benner 2:58
Even if, yeah, like writing like, I don't know, like, spy thrillers even or something like that.

Alex Quinn 3:05
Yes. I love that. That makes me happy. Thank you.

Scott Benner 3:08
I would feel very good about that. If that was my name, and I was writing a spy thriller anyway, and that I feel like 40 years from now, Tom Cruise in his 90s would play the main character in the movie.

Alex Quinn 3:22
Alright, I'll get to writing that and I'll let you know when it gets made into a movie.

Scott Benner 3:26
We have plenty of time. He's not aging, so don't worry about it. I heard I heard someone say the other day. This is such a strange way to start this off. But Tom Cruise is the same age. While he's making like Mission Impossible movies that Wilford Brimley was in the movie. Were they all in cocoon? I think or something like that.

Unknown Speaker 3:46
Wow, that crazy? Yes, that's that's quite the juxtaposition of characters.

Scott Benner 3:51
So you're on your balcony. Where do you live? ish?

Unknown Speaker 3:54
I live in Atlanta. Oh, cool. Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:58
Oh, and it's March so it must be at seven degrees there already?

Alex Quinn 4:02
No, it's in the 60s today but the sun is out and it's beautiful.

Scott Benner 4:06
hottest I've ever been in my life. I was in Georgia.

Unknown Speaker 4:09
Really?

Scott Benner 4:10
See I grew up in the desert in southern Arizona and I feel like that is way hotter. Maybe I've never been there. So my appendix almost a burst. Almost a burst. Ooh, English is going to be a problem today by my my appendix. Almost burst the night before I was supposed to go to Arizona for the noun. And I've since then I've been there once but only to fly in like be shuttled to something speak and fly out again. Gotcha. But Georgia was terrible.

Alex Quinn 4:42
What time of year did you come? Oh,

Scott Benner 4:44
it was summertime. My son was playing baseball. at its worst moment. I stood next to a telephone pole and circled it as the sun moves across the sky to stay in the small strip of shadow on

Alex Quinn 4:58
the pole. direct sun in Georgia summers pretty brutal,

Scott Benner 5:03
almost kill me. I'm not gonna, the boy almost died too. But I was worried about myself by that, you know, when you get into self preservation mode and you're like,

Alex Quinn 5:10
yeah, I hear it. You know, I lived in the desert for my like, from 10 to 22. So my youth and then moved to Georgia, and I never once had any sort of like heatstroke or anything like that until I moved to Georgia. The humidity, right? It was Yeah. Well, it was also the hottest day of the year and I was working in an amphitheater outside in like a bowl with indirect sunlight. So, you know, just a radiator just banging sudden heat around on those brutal

Scott Benner 5:46
Okay, anyway, well, now that we're five minutes into this, can you tell me your name, please?

Alex Quinn 5:51
Okay, my name is Alex. It's short for Alexandra. Alex Quinn is usually what I go by.

Scott Benner 6:01
And if you were an author, you would definitely go like that for certain totally, totally. Yes. I just don't know why it just every time like your name is Monica. We had to reschedule once, right. So it as it stuff bumps around in my inbox. I'm like, that's a great name for a book author. I love it anyway. Okay, so you're on? I'll tell you why. Well, not that you don't know. But um, basically, I don't know if this is a secret to people, Alex, I'm not really telling you. I'm telling the people listening. But I've been doing the how we eat series through the podcast, and people have been coming on talking about the different ways that they eat. And you were recommended to me by someone else. And when you emailed me to tell me how you eat, you said, you use the words Dr. Bernstein. I was like, Oh, that's interesting, because you're the first person who's ever come out and said, I like those words. Like some people say I'm low carb or stuff like that. But I was like, Sure, I would love this. So well. Yeah.

Alex Quinn 6:58
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Oh,

Scott Benner 7:01
well, that's odd. But thank you. I appreciate that letter.

Unknown Speaker 7:03
Why is that odd?

Scott Benner 7:05
Well, I mean, it's just me. I'm in a room. You don't I mean, like somebody was telling me the other day, like, they saw like somebody prepping to be on the show. And they were nervous. And I thought, well, that's so strange. Because I'm in Costco right now. And if you were, if there was anything to be nervous about talking to me, I wouldn't have to be in Costco. Like, that's how it occurred to me.

Alex Quinn 7:29
Right? I think I think it's because this carries the potential for it to be more in a public eye. And it's not just you and me. shooting on my back porch. Yeah, sorry. I suppose I shouldn't say shooting the breeze. There we go. Okay.

Scott Benner 7:46
Don't worry, I'll just cut it out. I'll be like, Okay, cool. I'll be like shooting, and it'll get really boring from it. Alright, I used to do beeps, and then I realized, why am I bothering with that it was extra time. And it was bored by it. So anyway, I, I'm happy about this. And yeah, the more of these I record, the happier I get about them, because I think that I think that as people we are very inclined to get into groups. Yes. Get on a team, where color that kind of stuff. Right? Okay. And then I think you bring in this sort of extra added layer of people feeling like they're saving your life when they're telling you something, right? They've been through a thing, and they don't, you don't have to go through it. And this is the thing that saved me. And, and then there's somebody on the other side, just like you're trying to take a thing from me or I have a different idea about how to write a view. And then it just becomes tribal. And it's very interesting.

Alex Quinn 8:46
Sure. And the the potential for like, dogma is enormous. And I I don't ascribe to that. I don't feel like that really helps anybody find their own way to living with type one and what it looks like for them.

Scott Benner 9:04
Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I'm, I'm so I'm excited that you're that you're here to talk about. So first, let's start slow with how old were you when you were diagnosed?

Alex Quinn 9:13
So I was three years old. That was in 1992. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 9:20
I'm sorry. I'm remembering when I graduated from high school and feeling badly about myself, but good.

Alex Quinn 9:26
It's all good. Don't worry. My my partner is 12 years older than me. So we have conversations like that a lot. Yeah,

Scott Benner 9:31
no, can you just I mean, you just threw out a number. You were three years old, like three years after I graduated from high school. And I was like, Oh,

Alex Quinn 9:39
well, hopefully I don't make you feel old during this conversation. Other than that,

Scott Benner 9:42
no, I don't worry about that. If you do, I that might be more on me than you. So. So you're three you're diagnosed. I mean, 30 ish years ago, right? Okay.

Alex Quinn 9:52
It'll be 29 years this year.

Scott Benner 9:55
And your parents are obviously on board taking care of you. But you're In God 30 years ago was like regular and mph days, right?

Alex Quinn 10:04
Yeah. The analogs hadn't become available yet. So yes, I was on regular an MPH. But um, I'll tell you this. So my mother's two older brothers. Both have type one. Okay. And it wasn't, it wasn't unfamiliar to my family. And so my mom was actually the one who caught it first, because she grew up with brothers who had it. So she recognized, you know, the symptoms and took me to the doctor and, you know, made sure that they got the testing done that needed to be.

Scott Benner 10:41
Well, it makes sense that she saw it, she doesn't have Does your mom have any autoimmune stuff?

Alex Quinn 10:46
As far as we know, she does not, but she has had several rounds of skin cancer and breast cancer. So I don't, I don't think she got the autoimmune stuff. But pretty much every woman in my family on both sides has either an autoimmune disorder or cancer or both. So I find your neck a lot was doomed.

Scott Benner 11:16
I was just gonna, well, I was just gonna say it's incredibly interesting how people who live with chronic illness see the the roll of the dice of life, you were just like, Yeah, she didn't get diabetes, but she got something else. We're all screwed over here. It is. Pretty much. Yeah, no, it's, um, it's a telling statement. Because there's no other world where I would say to somebody, like, Hey, does your you know, you have a car? Does your mom have a car? And you were like, No, she doesn't have a car. But she does have an airplane. And it's, you would never say that. Right? Right. Right. But it feels very connected. And it's, um, and I don't know that. I don't feel the same way honestly. Feels like he got bit by some sort of a bug that other people don't get bit by or something like that.

Alex Quinn 11:59
For sure. Yeah, definitely. You know, I've actually, I've thought about that a lot over my life. Just because, you know, I have family members with it. And one of my uncle's died from type one complications. And I really feel like, and this is going to get a bit meta here. But like, my role here is to change the story. And really take my life with type one and do something with it. You know, like, I'm here to live well, and to, you know, take that story and turn it around, and, and prove that I don't have to die from complications or be like, riddled with them. You know, I can live a good life and still have the right one.

Scott Benner 12:46
Yeah, without giving away too much of somebody else's details. Do your uncle's not have a good go of it.

Alex Quinn 12:52
So they were diagnosed in the 60s. And blood sugar monitoring was, you know, the urine dipsticks back then. So they didn't have the tools to manage blood sugars when they were young, the way that we do now. So Well, I didn't imagine because to be honest, you were born in a time where it still wasn't terrific, either. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I mean, I know that I had it a little better than they did just because we had blood glucose monitors. By the time I was diagnosed, but I think that they didn't. My uncles and I were still on the same types of insulin. You know, 30 years later.

Scott Benner 13:40
Yeah, yeah. Well, such a leap now.

Unknown Speaker 13:43
Sure, yeah.

Scott Benner 13:44
Just It's a crazy difference. I'm going to revisit that idea while we're talking at some point, but so your mom is just I can't, by the way, I'm trying to imagine using that regular and mph and just like thinking like this babies on the schedule has to eat at certain times. Yeah. And because what are you gonna do? You're three, you're gonna be like, Hey, I feel dizzy,

Alex Quinn 14:05
you know? Right. Right. And I can clearly remember as a child, you know, having these like horrible low blood sugar episodes in the middle of the night where I just wake up, just totally disoriented, like vomiting and just, you know, out of my mind, and my parents would have to, like, force me to drink orange juice, or whatever they could get me into me at the time. And to this day, I still can't do oranges. Like, being forced to drink orange juice. Well, in that state as a child so many times I can't eat them. No,

Scott Benner 14:41
I understand. I really do. I had a piece of chicken from a certain place right before my appendix when I can't believe that came up twice. And I still can't like stomach the smell of the chicken even though it had literally nothing to do with my appendix.

Alex Quinn 14:56
Sure, but man, those associations get deep down in your psyche.

Scott Benner 14:59
They don't go away. Okay. Okay, so you, it's a tough go. Do you? Do you have context for your health outcomes? How did you measure them back then? Or did people are just being alive and not dizzy? constituted when?

Alex Quinn 15:16
I think, you know, as a toddler, it was basically like, Are you alive? And are you happy overall? You know, we're cool with that. But I, I don't have too much data on like specifics of blood sugars and eight, one C from when I was a child. I'm sure I could go back and dig it up. But I don't really, I don't really have that information. But my parents have told me that, you know, my a one sees when I was a kid were mostly like in the eight to 10 range. It got up to as high as 14 when I was a stubborn teenager who couldn't be bothered to take care of myself. But I've slowly and steadily improved things since then.

Scott Benner 16:04
Isn't it interesting, too, that no matter where you start, the idea of ignoring it just seems to exponentially make it grow. Like Like, there's like, I mean, what are you really ignoring as a team shooting twice a day? and eating certain times? That was it. Right?

Alex Quinn 16:23
Um, when I was a teenager, homologue had come out. And I was on Lantus as well. So I don't, it wasn't just, you know, twice a day injections and a rigid eating schedule by that time. So I think I was like, maybe five or six when the analogs became available, and they put me on those as soon as they could. Oh, good. Okay.

Scott Benner 16:45
And so you just can you describe a little bit about what it means to just ignore it when you're a teenager?

Alex Quinn 16:52
Sure. Um, so I think for me, I just deeply rejected the notion that I had to do this. And it was just, it was painful for me, because I didn't want to deal with it. And I didn't want to be, you know, the freak with needles, because that's how my peers viewed me when I was a child and I got bullied a lot for my diabetes, had a lot of like, really not pleasant experiences with my peers about my being the only person in the entire school who has type one. So by the time I got to be a teenager, I was like, EFF this, I do not want to deal with it. I'm weird enough as it is without this in my life. So, you know, I just don't care. I don't want to you can't make me and I was, I'm a stubborn person. And when I was a teenager, I was even more stubborn. And you know, you couldn't get me to do something I didn't want to do. So, at that point, my parents were kind of like, Okay, well, if you don't take your insulin, you're gonna end up in the hospital, in decay. So let's put you on the pump to at least make sure that you get something in you. So I think when I was 14, they put me on an insulin pump. And I am convinced that that insulin pump kept me out of the hospital from like 14 to 21. You know, I would not have taken care of myself at that point.

Scott Benner 18:33
I'm really interested that you said it that way. Because I've gotten the feeling over the years talking to adults who have had type one for a long time. That that is what an insulin pump was considered. In the beginning, it was like, Alright, this is for people who are just not going to take care of this. So we'll get them at least their basil in through the pump, and maybe once in a while for lucky, they'll push some buttons with me. Mm hmm. Right.

Alex Quinn 18:56
Yeah, totally. That was that was exactly how it was for me. And I think part of my rejection of everything was because of my family history with type one. My mom's brother died when he was 37. And I was seven. And he died of type one complications. And my family kind of used that as the example of what not to do. And they were like, you know, finger wagging. Take care of yourself, or you're gonna end up like your uncle. So in my little seven year old brain, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna die like my uncle. So why does it matter? And by the time I hit teenage years, I was like, I can't even care. You know, if that's what my adult life is gonna look like, why should I even bother you a third

Scott Benner 19:48
of the way to death already? 14, right.

Unknown Speaker 19:51
Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:52
I'm almost there. And I'm doing it. Like you're getting up in the morning and nobody's staring at you and nobody's making fun of you. If you're not showing them your needles and everything is right. There was somebody on once I wish I could remember their name, who told me that they had a person bullying them about their diabetes, who would just say to them die? diabetes?

Unknown Speaker 20:09
Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner 20:10
That was like, wow, how? I mean, try harder at the very least. But you know, yeah. But you mentioned being I mean, I almost say, Can you imagine being a kid? Like, yes, Scott, I

Alex Quinn 20:24
can. I can. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I can't remember. Like, I went to Pizza Hut one time with my soccer team when I was 10. And I went to the bathroom to go test my blood sugar and take a shot. And I'm standing at the counter in the bathroom, and drawing up my insulin. And one of my teammates walked in and saw me with a needle and just started hysterically screaming. And her mother came in, and she was like, Why are you screaming? She sees me with a needle, and then she starts freaking out about me in the bathroom with a needle. And I got so upset that I just, like stormed out of the bathroom. And I went, and I got my mom. And I was like, Mom, I need you to deal with this. And my mom had to come in and be like, What is wrong with two of you? You know, like, she's 10? Yeah, well, you know,

Scott Benner 21:22
20 years later, you would have just looked at them and said, Hey, Karen's calm down. Right? Right. Diabetes, just chill out a second. I'd like to know, I just tried to do my business here.

Unknown Speaker 21:33
Sure. Yeah. No, actually, sorry. Go ahead. I

Scott Benner 21:36
just was gonna say it bothers me when I hear that people used to get driven into bathrooms to give themselves insulin,

Alex Quinn 21:41
right? Well, I you know, and that bothers me too. Because I've gotten to the point in my life where I just don't care, I have to do this. And if it makes somebody else uncomfortable, they can just not watch I'm gonna do it whenever and wherever I have to, because other people's pancreas is are doing it whenever and wherever they have to. So you know, my pancreas just lives in a bag that I carry around? Well, the truth is,

Scott Benner 22:07
you have to care more about your health than you do about what other people think. It just exactly just ends up being very important. You can't, you can't just you can't, I mean, imagine, it's so hard for me, because I don't have a personality like that, where my wife and I were talking the other day about. She got a she's looking for cars a couple years ago, and I really thought she was going to buy a jeep. And yesterday, I said to her, I was really, I'm not sure how we got back on the topic. Maybe it's, you know, I'm not certain. And I said, I was really surprised when you didn't buy a jeep. And she said, Yeah, I did want one but and she started talking about the experience she was having with the salesperson, and how it kind of led her out of the place. And I can't make sense of that. Like, if if I had a, I can't explain to you there, there'd be no situation where a salesperson could do or say or create a scenario where I would leave and then go buy a car that I didn't want, because that was so bad. But my wife's like, in part that happened. You know, she's like I was, it was early in the process. And I didn't I wasn't invested enough to push through this scenario. And I thought, Oh, my God, like, that would never happen to me. But But I recognize that it's, it's a it's a reality for a lot of people that you just, I mean, and so that's why I try to say on here, the that idea that I think your health just has to be more important to you than what other people think you just can't. Yeah.

Alex Quinn 23:38
100%. And, you know, I think that i think that that ties in a lot to the pressure against eating low carb and following Bernstein because there's, there is, like, almost vitriol against it in some circles. And, you know, you have to be steadfast in your convictions that, you know, this is a choice that I made for myself, and I'm not doing it for anyone else. And I really don't care what you think. Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:11
I I'm in a unique situation where I feel like I understand both sides of this, like, fight that you see happen online sometimes. And, and I don't know that there's, I don't really think there's a fight. I think there's these Anyway, we'll get to it as we're talking. I think it's interesting how it works, but and I agree with you, you know, and Listen, I've had enough adults on who eat low carb, then I there's a commonality through your stories usually, which Yeah, you know what I mean? And it is, I've noticed that too. Yeah, it's it's Look, I was diagnosed at a time where I didn't have a sensor that could tell me that for carbs, maybe go from 86 to 104. And you know, and I, we sometimes were using insulin that was inexact. Nobody ever told me to, you know, you don't Pre-Bolus you know, regular and mph. So that's not how I grew up and then you get not stuck even but you're just indoctrinated into this is how diabetes is handled, and then people bring you a newer insulin. And that's frightening to see, you're like, you got it younger, you got him a lot younger. But I watched a buddy, I watched that a friend of mine happened to he had to go through regular and mph to, you know, humor blog novolog. And that stuff might as well have been rocket fuel that they were putting in him.

Alex Quinn 25:34
Sure. And they are they are not the same, or not the same, like completely different action profile, completely different effect completely different timeframe. Like, it's, it's, yeah,

Scott Benner 25:48
I think there's nothing the same about using that older insulin and the newer insulin?

Alex Quinn 25:52
No, not at all. And you know, I'll I'll say this. Yeah, to that point, when I first started following Dr. Bernstein, I had to, like, take everything I thought I knew about diabetes management and kind of put it in a box over there for a second, and then focus solely on learning an entirely new way of doing things. And it was really challenging for me, because I had at that time, you know, 23 years under my belt.

Scott Benner 26:37
I'm going to start today with the Omni pod and tell you that you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash, this is an exceptional possibility for you. And I hope you check it out. Omni pod comm forward slash juice box, get there and see if you're eligible. Now, what are we talking about here? a 30 day trial, this is a usable thing, like they're gonna send you the dash enough for you to I mean, you get it right for 30 days, it's pretty crazy. On the pod does other stuff. Like if you don't want to try the dash for 30 days for free, or you're not eligible, you can ask them for a free, no obligation demo pod will they'll just send you out one pod, but it's nonfunctioning, and I know you're like, well, what am I gonna do with that? Well, what you're gonna do with it is where, and you get a real good vibe for it. Like, this is what it feels like to have on you know, you'll notice, I mean, at least for me, when I've worn it in the past, that you just stopped noticing it. And this, this demo pod is really great for that. I think they call it a pod experience kit. So you can you know, alright, look, that's a lot, right? There's two things, but Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox, you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash, or at the very least, everyone can get a demo pod. I feel like I can hear you and you're like Scott, why would I do that? couple of reasons. You're on MDI and you're looking for a pump. This is a great way to try. You have a pump that has a tube on it. And every day of your life You think I don't want this to pump. There's so much tubing, why is there tubing going through my underwear, maybe that's your heart. This would be another good reason why the Omni pod is tubeless. It doesn't have to point to bling. That's not a word tubing. It's worth looking into on the pod.com forward slash juice box. My daughter Arden has been wearing it on the pod since she was four years old. She's about to turn 17 she's worn one every day. It's been a real friend in this. And I think maybe it could be for you as well. Now another thing I don't know what I would do without is the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor being able to see Arden's blood sugar, the number like what it is the direction and the speed, it's moving, it's moving all in real time is crazy bananas. Now I know that Arden's blood sugar right now is 127. She's having some popcorn, and we might have missed on the Pre-Bolus a little bit. But it's kind of Alright, because we'll watch this, see what's up, make an adjustment if necessary, and have a lot of comfort doing it because again, I can see the speed direction and number of her blood sugar all the time. I can see it on my iPhone. If I had an Android phone, I'd be able to see it on my Android phone. Arden can see it by the way on her phone as well. And if we wanted up to 10 people could be watching Arden's blood sugar. I mean, I don't even know 10 people, but if I did, and I wanted them to see my daughter's blood sugar, we could do that with the Dexcom. You may be thinking about people who you'd like to be able to see your child's blood sugar or perhaps your own. And you're thinking Oh, Scott, I see what you're getting. That is a good idea. And you're right it is. Now what do you do? You go to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox and while you're out there on the internet, check out touched by type one.org. There are links to these sponsors and all the sponsors at Juicebox Podcast comm or right there in the show notes of your podcast player. Have you ever really looked around on that podcast player? Which by the way, if you're listening to one, please subscriber, follow the show.

so dramatic. Okay, let's get back to Alex.

Alex Quinn 30:34
How do you take 23 years of thinking that this is how I do this, and put it aside for a second to learn something new, it just, it's like learning a new language. That's in it. I did it. But it was hard. People should,

Scott Benner 30:50
people might find commonality in this idea. There are people who go from MDI, to a pump, right? And the common, the commonality, there's people will tell you, hey, that's it's like learning diabetes all over again, like you'll, you'll feel like you have it all worked out. And by the way, who all worked out usually just means there's a pace and a balance to your life that you're accustomed to. Not that not that you're walking around with a five to a once that you've got it all worked out. Because I would imagine someone with a five to whose MD is like, I don't need a pump. And that would make sense to me. Right? So you move from that. That would be me. Yeah. So you'd move from MDI, to a pump? And it's like learning it all over again.

Unknown Speaker 31:30
It is Yeah, sure.

Scott Benner 31:31
So the same would be from going from, you know, humalog. And, you know, some needles to I'm going to remove, like most of the carbohydrate impact out of my life. It's like starting over again.

Unknown Speaker 31:44
Yeah, it was for sure.

Unknown Speaker 31:45
How long did it take you to figure it out?

Alex Quinn 31:47
Oh, man. So okay, for context. When I started Bernstein, it was out of sheer desperation, because I had been diagnosed with retinopathy. And I was 25 at the time, and it scared the daylights out of me. He and I had, I didn't know it at the time, I got this diagnosis later, but it also had gastroparesis and neuropathy. So in my mid 20s, you know, showing long term complications, and I was like, I have to do anything and everything I possibly can to make this not happen, because I know where this leads. And so my, my health was not great. So adjusting to a whole new diet and asking my metabolism to do something that it had never done before. And learning how to manage my insulin around that was enormously challenging. So I think I took about six months to just lean myself down slowly off of carbs, because I tried to do it cold turkey, and it made me like violently ill to the point where I thought I needed to go to the hospital. So I backtracked. And I was like, Oh, okay. Oh, no, no, don't do that.

Scott Benner 33:17
Have a Do you have a CGM now? And did you have one then?

Alex Quinn 33:20
Um, I don't have one. Now. I didn't have one when I started, but I got one shortly thereafter. Okay. And I'll, I'll explain my stance on CGM. I'm allergic to medical adhesives. So I had one I used it. I took all the data I could possibly glean from all of that for as long as I could stand to wear it. And then I got to the point where I was like, I'm covered in rashes that never heal, and they drive me insane. And I just can't do this anymore. So I got rid of it.

Scott Benner 34:00
Yeah, I have to say about that, that it really is unfair, that seriously autoimmune issues that that end you up with a disease that could really be greatly benefited by something that has adhesive on it. And you might also have an adhesive allergy because of autoimmune issues is like right, double suck. You know, it's just like, Wow, thanks.

Alex Quinn 34:24
Trust me. If I wasn't allergic to medical adhesives, I probably have built my own DIY closed loop rig by now and just be like killing it, but I can't wear them. I could not figure out a way to not have an allergic reaction to so I got rid of

Scott Benner 34:42
I understand how did you try all the barrier creams and stuff like that?

Alex Quinn 34:45
Everything. Everything I could possibly find. I joined groups on Facebook specifically for people who have allergic reactions to these products. like yeah, it's Yeah, I tried everything. I could I just it wasn't worth it, you know,

Scott Benner 35:03
feels like walking through a desert and finding a well full assault water. You're just

Unknown Speaker 35:08
yeah,

Alex Quinn 35:10
you know, so no, because Okay, here's my thing like I, I think CGM are amazing technology. But I didn't grow up with one. And I don't need it.

Scott Benner 35:22
Now you figured something else out?

Alex Quinn 35:24
Right? And I understand why other people feel like they absolutely need it. But I don't, I don't have that push for myself. You know, I think that the data is really interesting. And I find a lot of value in being able to see the trend lines and the graphs and you know, adjust like that. But I can do that, with my glucose meter, poking my finger, and I don't care about finger sticks. They don't bother me. I've been doing it since I was three. So

Scott Benner 35:56
well, I would imagine also with the small amount of carbs that you're taking in that the variability is much less and so you're using insulin to stop the spikes. And you and of course, I say all the time that the lessons when you use, the less chance you're going to have have a low later. So for sure, yeah, you're in that in that space?

Alex Quinn 36:16
I am definitely. And I honestly, I think that's, that, to me, the stability that you just described is the number one thing that keeps me doing what I do. Because

Scott Benner 36:29
Yeah, I would say that I'm sorry, one second, I'm going to tell you that our connection is just a little bumpy, or I'm stepping on you and I apologize, but I'll finish and let you get right back to it. I think if Arden my daughter ate low carb, like a real low carb diet, I think I can pretty comfortably put her a one C in the mid fours. I don't think yeah, it would be hard, honestly.

Alex Quinn 36:51
Yeah. Um, I have some long term complications that make that tight control a little more challenging for me. Like the the gastro precice really affects my digestion. So, you know, there are some days where everything works great. And then the next day, you know, I wake up with food that I ate 12 hours ago still sitting in my stomach, and it doesn't I can't do anything about it, except kind of do damage control. So I would love to be able to achieve that. But I've had I have accepted that. You know where I'm at right now is still really really good.

Scott Benner 37:34
Yeah. My my point wasn't that what you're doing isn't good. My point was that I know what my daughter eats a whatever she wants. Okay, so she doesn't have like a like a limit on what kind of food she's taking in. And I have her a once he really settled in the mid fives. And that's cool. Yeah. And like Saturday, she you know, got up and last minute said to me, can you go to the corner to the bagel place and get me a blueberry crunch bagel. Have them toasted put butter on it. And I was like, and she was on her way to a lesson she's taking. She's taking sewing lessons. I don't know if I should say that here if she'd be anyway, she's taking. And so I roll out. I grabbed the you know, as I leave I think her blood sugar's about 94. Yeah, I said, Okay, I'm gonna go I'll be back in like 20 minutes, just Bolus 10 carbs right now. So she puts it in a little Bolus, get some insulin working as I'm driving back and fairly comfortable, I won't be killed in a car accident. I text her again. And I say you know, Bolus this much now. And, and we stayed on top of that bagel for the first. I don't think it came back to try to bite us again for maybe about three hours. And then you use the CGM data to say to myself, okay, here comes the second round of this bagel. And then right, you hit it again, and it stops it from spiking again. So like, given that, that, you know, a five and a half is amazing. But if you took away all those carbs and how I understand how to use insulin, I just think that it would, I don't think I don't think I'd have trouble with I think it would kind of be it might be easy, honestly. So yeah,

Alex Quinn 39:12
for sure. It really takes a lot of the cognitive processes out of things. Like I don't, I don't have to pay attention like that. And I do just because I want to I like keeping on top of things and being proactive about stuff. But you know, I I Bolus right before I eat a check again an hour later, and I'm usually like, pretty dead on right where I was before I ate something. Yeah. And I really appreciate that stability in my life because it allows me to do other things. And that's what's most important. There's no

Scott Benner 39:57
calm to it, I would imagine.

Alex Quinn 39:59
Oh man So I was, I was starting to tell you a story earlier. But um, so when I had been following Dr. Bernstein, or a couple months and had really like, hit my stride with it and started understanding what the hell I was doing. I was at work one day, and I tested my blood sugar. And it was in the 90s. And I stopped, and I thought about it. And I realized that my blood sugar had been in the 90s, consistently for over a week. And that was the first time in my entire life that I had ever felt that and I just cried. I'm getting teary eyed now thinking about it, because it's still such a profound moment for me, you know? Like, I had never, ever experienced that kind of internal stability before. Yeah. And it just, it was like, somebody hit me over the head, and I just started crying happy tears, and like, my boss came over. And she's like, are you okay? And I was like, No, no, it's

Unknown Speaker 41:03
a good thing. It's a good thing.

Unknown Speaker 41:05
I'm healthy.

Alex Quinn 41:07
But I 26 for the first time in my life. Yeah. Wait, that. I like there are no words to describe how profound that was for me. And I'm doing my best right now.

Scott Benner 41:21
I can't imagine Honestly, it seems like it would have been, it would have been like a moment where you saw the sun for the first time, right? Just Just a man.

Alex Quinn 41:30
Yeah, it was it was so profound. And having experienced that, I was like, oh, man, I'm I cannot go back to how my life was before. I can't.

Scott Benner 41:41
So we don't really. So I have some theories about the world. I think that media, social Li, the social kind, is incredibly valuable. Because without social media, no one would ever hear your story, I wouldn't be able to talk about the things I talked about. And at the same time, it opens up avenues for people to I always think it's be scared, and then react to the fear. Like that's how, how it seems to me you hear something that's uncommon or different to you. And your brain immediately goes for Oh, well, what about this? Or this? You know, like, yeah, it's just, it's, I mean, it's how my brain works. I work backwards from now. Like, my kids could come to me and say, Hey, Dad, we have a foolproof plan to make $100 today, and I would go, No. And then I would ask, and then I would ask questions, and to see if they could get me off of now. Sure, some people are, you know, not like that. But I think that in social media, you get you get shown things that are so far from how you think that it can be shocking. And when I when I see it, I'm always like, Oh, that's interesting. Like somebody does something like this. But that's not that's not common for everybody.

Alex Quinn 42:57
No, it isn't. And I think that knee jerk reaction really prevents people from accessing things that could actually help them.

Scott Benner 43:07
Yeah. And it's interesting to watch the things that you'll be able to believe and the things you'll be able to display, like, like, I'm going to just tell you right now, like, I don't think my daughter would ever eat low carb, okay. And that's neither here nor there for this conversation for us. Because what I see people do is a number of different things. And you've probably seen them all too. I eat low carb and my blood sugar's super stable. I've been I was in the 90s, once for two weeks, eating just protein is not healthy. I'm assuming you've heard that. Right. And then you think, Well, how do you know? Like, so. So you heard eating just proteins not healthy, that you believe I tell you, I'm eating just protein? And look how well I'm doing that you disbelieve? That's got nothing to do with protein and the health of protein? It's no,

Alex Quinn 43:55
that's just cognitive dissonance rearing its ugly head. Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:58
It's very interesting. Like, I'm going to disagree with this now, because it's different than mine. And to go deeper, not to make everybody think too deeply about themselves, because that can be painful sometimes. But I think what it really says is, oh, gosh, what if I'm doing it wrong? Oh, yeah. hurting myself? Or what if I'm doing it wrong and hurting my kid? Yep. And then you don't want to feel that way. So then you have to fight the other person, because this is the thing you're doing. Now. I'm not saying it. I'm not saying eating carbs is hurting anybody. I obviously don't feel that way. Because, you know, my daughter is doing it

Alex Quinn 44:38
right now. But I understand what you're saying. Because people want to feel like they're doing the best thing they can for themselves or their children. And when presented with information that might possibly contradict that idea. It can be painful that they have to admit that hey, maybe I could be doing better, even though I thought I was so

Scott Benner 45:00
Because there's no time machine. And yeah, and you're and you're running towards listening, we are all running towards our death. Okay? I don't mean to be too like deep here. But if if you have been making decisions for the past 10 years that have been running you faster To that end, and suddenly you're you realize, Oh gosh, this is wrong. Do you put your head down and run faster? Because you don't want to feel badly about what happened? Or do you look up and stop and go, okay, maybe I should be doing something differently. And again, I'm not making that this or that discerning comment about low carb and not low carb. I'm just telling to tell you why people react the way they do.

Alex Quinn 45:36
Sure, sure. And, you know, I run into that enough times that I recognize that pattern. And, you know, everybody deals with new information differently.

Scott Benner 45:48
Yep. And I'll say this, too. Because of the internet again, the internet draws in lost, lost people and new people in health space all the time, right? I either I need an answer, maybe these people will have it. Or, you know, I'm brand new with this. I don't know what I'm talking about. Let me see if I can go find out. So when you keep bringing in the new people over and over again, they keep having the same reactions, because they're at the same space in their progress. Right. That's why it seems like people are always arguing about the same things, not because the world is overwhelmed with people who are carb versus no carb or republican versus Democrat. But because these people are constantly brought together for the first time around this. I mean, you're in your 30s I'm almost 50. It's comical, around political season to hear people talk about politics as if it is a brand new thing that just heard for the first time, right? Yeah, or really anything really, like, you know, racism, you're like, oh, my god, there's racism. I've known I've been alive longer than you have. I've been in this space longer. But when people first find out about it, it's so shocking. And by the way, in some worlds, it's the lighting to see how motivated they are. To do something, it's amazing. It's as an older person, you look back and go look young people some energy, thank god get in there and scream about racism. We need Yeah. Like, yeah,

Alex Quinn 47:22
totally. You know, I I have that same mindset when people start talking about we need a cure. I'm like, Alright, get it. Yeah, I don't care.

Scott Benner 47:30
No, you're right. We definitely need one. And if you get it call me, but yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 47:35
I've already been

Alex Quinn 47:36
in the meantime, I, I've been there. I've done that. I've gotten over it. And I have better things to consider myself.

Scott Benner 47:42
I, I've already been at this part. And now and now you're at that part and great. But the problem is, is that when people look inward, they'll say things like, well, we're as divided as we've ever been. mean? Or I'm sorry. I've misspoken. I think we're as divided as we've ever been. People are like this is as divided as we've ever been. And I don't think that's true. I think that it's all been the same forever. There's more people.

Alex Quinn 48:09
I think that it's more that we're now aware of all of the opinions as opposed to, you know, existing inside of an echo chamber. Exactly. And the internet, the internet really brings all of the opinions together. Yes. And that's why you get so much infighting and argument. And it's like, Look, we all have our own experience, and have drawn our own conclusions from it. And all of us are operating from a place where we think we are right,

Scott Benner 48:37
your friend circle is built of people who you either feel superior to, or agree with. sorry to tell you.

Unknown Speaker 48:47
No,

Scott Benner 48:49
like, well, you ever noticed some people just like to feel like they're in charge of the friend circle? Yes. And so they put themselves with people, they feel like that's reasonable for them to do. And but my bigger point not to get I don't want to go down a different rabbit hole. But But the idea, yeah, you bring you you surround yourself with people who agree with you. And so when you hear of an outside influence, everybody poopoo it and suddenly you don't hear about the outside influences any longer because you're so surrounded with people who agree. And then the internet to your point makes it impossible to avoid other people's opinions. Sure. And then we say stupid things like oh my god, we're as divided as we've ever been. We just have more cons. It's the world's not a more dangerous place. It's not a more racist place. It's not a more anything place. It's, you're just aware of it now, in 1949, if there was a tornado in Kansas, you did not know about it if you lived in New York, right? That kind of stuff. So, so so back to car versus no car. I think what can happen already, we'll play like, we'll take sides. Okay. And then we'll, we'll have a little conversation. You'll be the low car person because you're doing an RD. My kids just diagnosed, I feel like normalcy has been taken from them. You have been saved by eating a low carb lifestyle. Someone that comes from your perspective swoops in sees this newly diagnosed person and thinks I can save them all the pain that I went through. Mm hmm. Right. And then you come in you say, Dr. Bernstein, and other words that you know, mean low carb, and some and their their feeling is either Oh my god, I'm so scared by this. I'm gonna go try that. Or you can't take my kids normalcy from me and cupcakes at their birthday.

Alex Quinn 50:40
Right? Right, right? Yes, I would agree with that. And I'm actually pretty active in a newly diagnosed parents of type one kids group. For that reason, but not because I want to prove that I'm right. But just because there's so much knowledge of managing diabetes that you have to wrap your head around. And the learning curve is extremely steep. And, you know, a lot of people have never even been exposed to type one until their kid is diagnosed. And then they're just confused. And they have no idea what the EFF they're doing. And so, I come along, after almost 30 years, and I'm like, hey, you're going to be okay. And here's what I've learned about how to live with this stuff. And I'm not there to prove that I'm right. But I think that mentors are extremely important with this kind of thing. Yeah. And, you know, I had him growing up. My mom's two older brothers were type one. So I had a family member, I could call if I wanted to, to just be like, this is happening. And, you know, I think we need that. But I think you're right to like, the Don't take my kids last sense of normalcy away from them is is a really powerful driving force,

Scott Benner 52:06
right? And then they'll hear all kinds of different things. If you if you came to me and said that privately, like, forget the internet, if you came to me and said, Oh, my God, normalcy it's gone, Bob, I'd say, hey, look, I think that there's a way for you to eat a cupcake. And for it not to make your blood sugar crazy and lead to a bunch of long term issues here. And and if you start laying those things out, like you said, they're overwhelming. So yes, I, if you understand the, the, the place I came from, because we have a pretty firm understanding of where you came from. So the place I came from was, I had a kid with diabetes, no real attachment to it. Nobody told me how to do it. I started a blog where I was talking about it. And so I was watching it happen and seeing what I needed to happen differently, that I figured out how to make it happen differently. And then I thought, okay, here it is, excuse me, once I get the spring. Here, here's this stuff, read it if you want, I don't care. Doesn't matter to me. It's here if you want it. And then I watched it help people. I thought, Okay, why is it not helping people faster? Well, it's not as digestible as it needs to be, I can break this down farther and farther and farther into simple to understand concepts. And I feel like I've basically done that by now. And so then you go to audio. And it turns out, it's way easier to listen to this kind of stuff than it is to read about it, my and, and so now you see it helps one people, it helps 10 people have 100. And then once you get to the 10,000, and the 20,000, and you start having millions of people listening, then you go, Okay, this really power this works, right, like so keep it simple, like keep the ideas simple. And now now I'm completely comfortable telling you that I could see somebody get diagnosed, be lost, and inside of those same handful of months that you're talking to just understand it, and they can use the insight. So if that's what they want, I'm cool with that, if they want to use those same tools to eat low carb or vegetarian or just fish eyeballs, or I don't give people I so don't care. It's it's hard for you to wrap but might be hard for you to wrap your head around. I genuinely don't care what people do.

Unknown Speaker 54:21
I don't either,

Scott Benner 54:22
right. I just want them to be healthy as they can be and as happy as you can be. Whatever.

Unknown Speaker 54:26
Yes. Same.

Unknown Speaker 54:27
Yes.

Alex Quinn 54:28
So you know, you mentioned tools. And honestly, to me, that is the most important thing that I got from reading Dr. Bernstein's book, and, you know, listening to his teleseminars and YouTube videos and stuff. It wasn't the, you know, the regimen to do this. Do that. It was here are the tools to understand how to make these things work for you. Yeah. You know how you manipulate the insulin dosing to match what you're going to eat or your activity level and how to do Basal testing and cover meals. Like, those were essential skills that I didn't learn in that way. Until I was like 26. Yeah. And I think those are, those are more important to me than, you know, cut out the carb only eat protein and non starchy vegetables like, I mean, if you can learn how to understand the insulin, and how to interpret the data, you've got, like, that's the leg up you need.

Scott Benner 55:38
That's exactly what I say all the time. Just to understand how the insulin works. I tell people, Type One Diabetes is about understanding how insulin works. And moreover, the timing and amount that you should use. You need to have your basil, right, understand how to Pre-Bolus meals and the difference between the impacts and different carbs. And that's pretty much the whole game right there.

Alex Quinn 55:56
Yeah, for sure. And protein,

Scott Benner 55:58
right? And then you go eat protein, if you want in fat and protein, get a rise later from that kind of stuff. It's I mean, but at its basis, if you were like I always say like if I was falling off a cliff and you're like, Scott, the secret to diabetes, I just scream those four things out before I splattered on the chair. If I was falling an extra 500 feet, I'd be like, and fat and protein will make your blood sugar rise two hours.

Unknown Speaker 56:22
Right. But

Scott Benner 56:23
I just don't see. I Well, I am lying. I do see. I do see how people get embroiled in the thing. I do see how the thing looks bigger than it is. And I understand people's fervency behind it because I imagine that the way you feel when you see somebody say I can't control my blood sugar's my Awan sees 10 is the exact same way that I feel when I see somebody say it.

Alex Quinn 56:51
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because I've been there, and I know what that feels like. And I want those people to have that same profound moment of realizing that stability that I have, because it changes your life. And if you want to do that by eating blueberry crunch bagels, like get after it, you know, but let's figure out how to make that work for you. 100%

Scott Benner 57:15
I don't just don't care what people eat. I care if they're healthy. And I'm thrilled that you're the one that ended up here. Because Because you're you have the exact you have my aesthetic You are in my Viber exactly the same. Yes, totally from two completely different places, as far as the the input of what food is. And that's why I think that's exciting. And that's why I want people to hear conversations like this because you're not mad at Alex because she eats the way Dr. Bernstein describes. And by the way, the man should be lauded for figuring out what he did. Because, right, especially at that time, when the tools were, what they were, as far as insulin was and technology and everything. He really figured out a thing that saved people like listen to you, right, you did what you were told to do, and you have gastroparesis, and other issues coming along. And if you don't meet this man's ideas, I gotta think your heart starts getting funky in your 40s. Right. not pretty, right? Yeah,

Alex Quinn 58:18
yeah, totally. I mean, I started to go blind when I was in my 20s. Like, if I hadn't found Bernstein's methods, I would probably not have any eyesight left. And, and that's profound. It is, yeah, it really is. So, you know, I understand if, if it's not the choice that somebody else wants to make, but it is the choice that made my life better. And that's just the message I keep blasting out into the ether. Like, this works. For me, okay. It worked for me.

Scott Benner 58:53
100%, I say all the time, if you if you listen to this podcast, then go eat low carb, actually, there are some pretty successful low carb eaters that listen to the podcast. And I mean, their their health is a reflection of their success. It's amazing. It doesn't, you know, it takes a while because dogmatic might be one way to think of but everybody just gets on a team. Like all of a sudden, if you say Bernstein out loud, that just means you're some militant, no car beating person. And if

Unknown Speaker 59:20
Oh, I know.

Scott Benner 59:22
And I didn't recognize Alex until more recently that if somebody said, oh, there's a podcast, they say bold with insulin, that meant that I think you should eat everything in the world. And I was like, I don't think that I've never even said that. But it's I'm sure that there are things attached to Dr. Bernstein and other people that they've never said or intended out loud. Just like it happens to me as well. You know? Yeah.

Alex Quinn 59:45
It's for sure. It's I mean, there are some groups on the internet where you mentioned Bernstein and they will mute you and kick you

Scott Benner 59:51
out. Yes, you are not allowed to share the podcast on almost every Facebook group that exists. If you haven't talked about it. It just gets you Like shutdown. And then if people come back to my Facebook page and say, Hey, I tried to, you know, somebody had a thing, and I said, Oh, you should try this podcast, I got kicked out. If they start talking about it on my Facebook page, people from that Facebook page will come and ask me, please stop them from talking badly about my Facebook page. And I'm like, you guys have way too much free time. just way too much free time. You know, I

Alex Quinn 1:00:23
mean, like, I love talking about diabetes, because I enjoy the intellectual exercise behind all of it. But like, as far as my day to day stuff, like, I don't have time to care like that.

Scott Benner 1:00:38
Yeah, well, you know, the wall, tell us a person who's you know, who created the thing that we're talking about, right? Is that it took me I had to swallow hard The first time I saw it happen. So imagine, I have, I've always had a public Facebook page. It's always just sort of been like, there's an episode out here the links, I don't put, like, I'm a 50 year old guy. I'm not really into Facebook. I don't know if that's obvious or not. But I'm just like, you know, here it is. And one day listener said, Could you make a private group because we'd like to talk more about like, like, management stuff? And I was like, Yeah, sure. I said, but I'm not going to moderate it. And I'm not your mom, you know, so I made it. And there it is, right. And today is You and I are talking I think it's about ready to go over like 10,000 like, and it's incredibly active, like 85% of the people are active. Like, every, it's amazing how many people are, right. It's very nice. But the first time someone came in, and somebody said, Hey, I'm having this issue, what should I do? And someone left a link for something that wasn't the podcast? I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm not the only person with information about this. But I do have an episode about this. And it's hard not to jump in and be like, Hey, I see you're directing them over here. But what about Episode 295? You know, and it took me a little while I didn't do it. But I, I laid back and I'm like, this doesn't matter. If they go somewhere else and find out about it, it doesn't matter as long as there. Okay, so people will will say, you should try this low carb thing, or you should try this, or you should try that. And I'm like, cool. That's fine. Just I want everybody to be okay.

Alex Quinn 1:02:16
But make sure. I also feel like my approaches is all information is valid, but not all information is applicable. Sure. So, you know, I want to be aware of all the ways in which people go about doing things and, you know, I think that there's just as much merit in you know, protein focused, low carb eating for Bernstein as there is in the, you know, Whole Foods plant based no fat thing. Yeah, I wouldn't make that choice. I don't agree with it. But it exists, and I can't deny that it exists. So at least I can be aware of it and and learn enough about it to understand why somebody would make that choice. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:04
If you ask me my personal opinion, I think that rush, restrict is not the right word specific, specific eating is has a likelihood of falling apart over time, no matter what it is, like, if I if I told you I was gonna eat ice cream every day, I could probably make it like a day and a half. I was like, oh, Christ, I can't come every day.

Alex Quinn 1:03:28
Okay, so I wrote out some talking points for myself before we started this. And the word restriction is one of the things I wanted to talk about, because restriction and deprivation get thrown around a lot in the conversation about eating low carb. And I feel like that sort of takes away the autonomous choice of the individual. If you if you look at it as I choose to eat this, I consciously am aware of what I am about to eat and I am deliberately making this choice for myself for an intended outcome. Yeah. You're not restricted, and you're not surprised. What's the word then? So

Scott Benner 1:04:15
help. Seriously, here's it. Here's a real world issue. If I go to a thing, and I speak at something, I have about three sentences, they put in a blurb, Scott benders those to the Juicebox Podcast, a va, his daughter's a one C has been between five, two and 6247 years without any diet restrictions. Now that those are all the words I have, I get that the word restrictions not great, but how do I say she eats anything she wants? Without using that, like, what's the word I need?

Alex Quinn 1:04:43
That's a good question. That's I honestly, I don't have an answer to that. Um, you know,

Scott Benner 1:04:48
because I don't mean it the way you just said it. But I get why you heard it that way.

Alex Quinn 1:04:55
Right. Right. For sure. I mean, I don't know. Does you No telling your kid regardless of whether they have diabetes, no, you can. subsist only on grilled cheese and candy every day. Like, is that restrictive? Or is that just like parenting for better health?

Scott Benner 1:05:13
100%? Yeah. And do you think that when I told you I used an example of the bagel that my daughter eats bagels every day, now cuz she doesn't like she has bagels, like every once in a while, I just know how to Bolus for them. Like they're the day before she had a chef's out. So it's like it really is. And I try to be careful too, when I talk. This is the one thing that I it took me a minute to say, in the podcast, but I finally saw how important it was. I started telling people look, just because you've learned to Bolus for tiramisu doesn't mean you should eat it every day. Like don't confuse good blood sugars with good health.

Alex Quinn 1:05:54
Yes, yes, I wholeheartedly and adamantly agree with that. I also feel like, you know, just because you can eat the tiramisu doesn't mean that you should have a boatload of insulin floating around in your system, like those lead to long term and potentially short term like detrimental consequences. And, you know, so I can also make a tiramisu out of ingredients that don't cause me to have a boatload of insulin in my system and the potential for a major spike and then drop later,

Scott Benner 1:06:32
right. And that's where you start getting into the weeds. And it's hard to like sort through the whole thing, because I've had very respected people on here that said that, that have said that using more insulin, it's not dangerous. And they're not connected to a pharma company or anything weird like that, right. And at the same time, I mean, if you mitt unbalanced the insulin and have a whole bunch left over, when the impact of the carbs goes away, you are going to drop down really low. So that's the short term you're talking about. I also feel like the podcast does a pretty good job of describing how to not let that happen. But at the same time, I would be lying if I didn't tell you that my favorite brownies are a gluten free mix that is made by like King Arthur bakery, I like I like them better than brownies that you would make with flour. And at the same time, I mean, they're not low carb or anything like that. I'm just trying to use the example of like alternate ingredients can sure can sometimes make the same exact thing. For sure.

Alex Quinn 1:07:29
I think I think that choosing the alternate ingredients part is something that kind of gets left out of the conversation. Like when you bring up low carb, what I find most common is people hear what they can't eat. And they're like, but if you take away my bread, and my pasta and my potatoes and my cake, what's left. And you know, I had to go through that mental shift, too. And when I first went low carb, I made myself a promise. And I said, you know, my food has to taste good. It has to look good. And it has to be good for me. Otherwise, I will set myself up for failure. So how can I make these changes in such a way that I still enjoy my food? And I mean, I've been eating low carb for six years now. And I still eat like brownies and pasta, and cake and ice cream. And, you know, was Anya, I still have all of those things. I just change what goes in it a little bit

Scott Benner 1:08:31
right. Now, I don't disagree if anyone listening has ever thought like I've heard people say you just get lost when you're trying to quantify something. And there's so much I mean, you're going to be on episode like, I don't know, like 480 you know what I mean? Like, so there's so many words that have been spoken already. And when you ask somebody to like, real quick, what's that Juicebox Podcast about? I have to be honest with you. If you asked me what it was about. I can't quantify it. So I don't know how someone else would. So I hear people say that. Oh, you know, most, most often I hear people say he talks about how to use insulin so you can eat what you want. And I'm like, that's fair. And I've heard low carb people say he pushes carbs on people. And I'm like, that seems unfair. But okay. Like, I also, you know,

Alex Quinn 1:09:19
my interpretation of that question is you talk about living with diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:09:26
Yeah, that's it. I'm gonna tell you right now that I don't see any other established diabetes hub. And so I think of the podcast as a as a as its own sort of media hub, right? Like it's, that's no different than a television channel that only has one show on right. It's like any other established hub, whether it be in print online, or audio or whatever it is. I don't see anybody else having a diversity of conversations like this. They pin thing and they stay in their lane, and I get right Like I get the fear, like I understand like shark, you know, the idea of like, people are so scared not to be canceled and stuff like that. But

Alex Quinn 1:10:08
I think also they stay in their lane because a lot of people want what they're doing to be the right way to do it. And it sort of takes out of the equation that there is no like one right way to do anything because you lose your clickbait. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:10:29
that is really how it feels. I'll tell you that. The part I left out about the Facebook page thing is the my real belief. And I'm this is just me speculating. But I think that the reason most people don't want Dr. Bernstein's name, or this podcast or anything else to be left in their Facebook group is because they are very afraid that somebody will click on a link, go find something that works for them and never come back. And I just don't have that fear. Like, I am confident in what this podcast is. And by the way, if you don't need it, or want it, that's also fine with me.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:01
Yeah, for sure.

Scott Benner 1:11:02
But that confidence comes. So it's not real confidence, it's, it's I get to be confident because of how popular the podcast is. If it's a smaller group of people listening, I can honestly tell you, I might be more fervently trying to keep people in my little group. But I don't feel like that. Personally, I have to say, I don't think I would do that. I really, I really do want people to do what works for them. But I can see the draw to I started this thing, I built this thing. I you know, think of them think of a listener or reader as a customer for a second, like imagine you had a gas station. And the guy a guy pulls in, grabs the hose, and right before he's about to put the gas and the guy at the gas station across the street screams over with a bullhorn. You don't want to be at Alex's gas station. It's a bad guest. But I put all this effort to get him this close. Like you can't steal him now, like it could feel that way. But you have to have people's better interest at the core of what you're saying and just say, Alright, look, if you want to go find something different, and it works for you, then I need to be happy for you about that.

Alex Quinn 1:12:07
Yeah, for sure. That's why you're allowed to go get a second opinion. When you get a diagnosis at a doctor's office, you know,

Scott Benner 1:12:13
go figure something out. And if you and by the way, too, if you go out and you see other stuff, and it works. That's great for you, I miss you goodbye. And if you go out and see it and gone, like go back to the podcast thing. Well then Welcome back. Like I've no harm, no foul, like you don't even like you and I completely agree. I even eat steak the way you do. I don't like a lot of stuff. I just I'm gonna make a statement eat the steak. I don't need it to have stuff with it. Look,

Alex Quinn 1:12:39
I don't know if we eat steak the same way because I go to Costco and I get monster steaks and I put them on the grill and then eat that. Well, that's what

Scott Benner 1:12:47
I would do. I would go to Costco, I would get a steak. I would smoke. Yeah, I would smoke it and then I would see it. And then I would cut it open and I would put a little pink salt and some crack pepper I would eat.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:57
What kind of wood Do you like to smoke your steaks with?

Scott Benner 1:12:59
I just use a it's just like a competition blend? I don't I don't pick like a specific flavor. Not that far into it. All right, gotcha. But I might also if I'm being honest, I might make a little compound butter the day before.

Alex Quinn 1:13:14
Yeah. I went to the farmers market probably a couple of months ago. And this guy that I go to who makes hot sauces have this thing called black garlic. You know what black garlic is?

Scott Benner 1:13:27
No, but I'm listening.

Alex Quinn 1:13:28
Oh my, okay, it's a fermented garlic and basically, they just take a whole head or a bunch of them. You put it in a low heat like rice cooker, and you put the lid on top and you let it ferment in that warm environment for like a month and it takes the garlic and turns it into this sort of like caramelly like rayson sort of flavor but it's got garlic notes to it and it's it's really popular in like Asian dishes, but it's just got this like rich depth of flavor to it. That is phenomenal. And you put that in some butter and put it on a steak oh

Scott Benner 1:14:09
I made ribeyes like i i splurge I'm incredibly cheap. So I splurged on Father's Day, and I made revised last year. And I you know they came off the smoker. I sear them. I soaked them in butter as I was eating them. Like this is literally taking a year off my life and I didn't care. I was like this is the greatest thing ever. It must have been a pound of butter, like so.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:29
Oh, man,

Scott Benner 1:14:30
it was so good. It was good. Yeah, so you know, I'm right there with you. Having said that, you know I also might go make a pizza at some point and you should say whatever you want, but a low carb pizza crust. You it's not I can't tell you wouldn't be good or that it couldn't be enjoyable or whatever. But it's not pizza in in my context of what pizza is. So

Alex Quinn 1:14:54
I understand. Like, don't get me wrong, man. I grew up on eating right Little pizza. And if I could eat regular pizza and not experience terrible effects from it, trust me, I would. But I have to make choices for my long term benefit. So there's actually Um, there's a chain restaurant called blaze pizza. Have you ever heard of them? I haven't. Okay, so there's a chain restaurant called blaze pizza. And they have a keto crust. And I discovered this, thanks to Facebook. And now we do Friday night pizza night with my stepdaughter on the regular and it's great because it brought pizza back into my life. It's excellent.

Scott Benner 1:15:35
I don't have it a lot. But when I have it, I I turn it into a thing. I make dough, I cold fermented over news, and then I could you know, it's it's an event, not a natural meal. If and having said that, if if I was a person eating pizza three times a week, I would look at myself and go, I have a problem.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:52
Totally.

Scott Benner 1:15:54
Okay. Because you had no, it's all ask you. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we didn't? And I will tell you why you're looking that I'm incredibly happy with this conversation. I thought it was.

Alex Quinn 1:16:06
Yeah, for sure. Oh, okay. So one of my things was the social aspects of eating a particular way. And this, I feel like can translate across the board, you know, be it low carb, vegan, high carb, whatever. Um, there's a lot of questions about how do you handle eating at a restaurant? How do you handle parties or holidays and this kind of thing? And that takes us back to one of the points we made earlier in this conversation about you have to not care what other people think. Yeah. Because when you stop caring what other people think then these questions to me become a moot point. You know, if I, like example, I went to a Thanksgiving holiday dinner with my partner's adopted brother's adopted family.

Scott Benner 1:17:07
Go ahead, people. I gotcha.

Alex Quinn 1:17:09
Yep. People, people I'd never met before they live out in rural Georgia. So they're not going to eat the same way that I do, you know. And I respect that. So what I did was I brought a dish that I could eat, that everybody would enjoy. And then I stuck to Turkey. And that, and I had a great time, and everything was wonderful. And like nobody even questioned what was on my plate. Yeah. And, you know, that's how I do it at parties to like, you know, I'll bring a baggie of bacon in my purse and eat that at a party if I have to, like, um, I don't know, I'm just not afraid of people thinking that it's weird to do what I'm doing or feel like I have to justify any of my choices to somebody else.

Scott Benner 1:17:57
I don't I don't get I don't get feeling that way at all about anything. Like, I here's the way I think about it. Imagine your mind right now everybody's listening. All the people in the world you'd go to with a life or death situation, how many people do you really know? You'd be like, I what you think is important, right? Yeah. A list of 100 people has not popped in everyone's head. Oh, yeah. I know all the people. There's three people who you're like, yeah, this guy is bright. That one's a little stupid, but seems to make good decisions for some reason. And, and you know, and I got a common sense, friend. And that's pretty much it. But yet, you'll let you'll let a stranger make you feel weird about how you eat, how you look how you smell who you are. I don't understand that. I just don't get there. Right. So

Alex Quinn 1:18:41
like, even my own parents, when I went low carb were like, what are you doing? And I was like, I don't care. Trust me, you know.

Scott Benner 1:18:49
And when it's the internet, I don't know, if you're all aware of how the internet works. You don't have to look at it. It's not like it's not seared in your eyeballs, you could just look away and go, Oh, look, it's not there anymore. Like you can literally make the internet disappear. It's as if it doesn't exist.

Alex Quinn 1:19:05
Right? I mean, isn't that funny how we have such like, amazing relationships with people that like, aren't in our reality, like they don't exist, it's a relationship through a person in your phone,

Scott Benner 1:19:19
everybody should get the benefit of doing something like this once and what I mean by that is like, I wrote a book one time, and it was interesting to see people review it. And and once you realize that somebody is going to like it, and somebody is not going to like it. And that doesn't make it that doesn't change what it is or how you felt about it or what your intention was. It's a freeing feeling like even with this, even with this podcast, you know, people will like joke with me all the time. Like they'll say like, I'm in my house, and I'll say to my husband, the guy on the podcast said or Scott would do it like this. And And listen, I'm not you know, I'm not Don't know, like pick the most famous person, you know, right? I'm not being spoken about all around the world with the with the same, you know, frequency as those people, but there are people saying something I said or my name out loud in their homes and almost unaware of it, you have to be able to just think, okay, whatever. Like that's good. Like, if it works for them, I'm glad if they're saying it because they don't like me, there's nothing I can do about it. Like I like to be able to have that freedom is is I wish everybody could could experience something that would force them to give up on caring about those things.

Alex Quinn 1:20:34
Yeah, for sure. Much. Well, look, I've I have, I don't know if you've experienced it to this level, but I've legitimately gotten death threats in my inbox about what I had to say about managing diabetes. And like, it rattled me for about a day. And then I blocked that person and went on about my life.

Scott Benner 1:20:58
realize they've now gone Yeah, I No one's ever threatened me. And this is not a this is not a an offer for you to start. Please don't do.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:06
Yeah, no, don't

Unknown Speaker 1:21:07
invite.

Scott Benner 1:21:09
But I mean, I I'll get an email once in a while. It's mostly about my, are you gonna make me say this out loud? It's mostly my personality, Alex, like, I get periodically, from adults with type one, generally ones who have had a tough go. I don't think it's I don't think it's very comfortable sometimes to hear a person who does not have Type One Diabetes tell you that they understand how to manage it, when you are struggling with it. And you. And I understand that I've and I do my best to do my best to make sure that people know that. But I get caught up sometimes in language like I'll sometimes I'll be doing like something with Jenny. And I'll be like, so say I have diabetes. And this happened. I'm just trying to set up a scenario. And I don't mean to say I have it like I don't. It's a colloquial way of speaking, you know, right.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:58
Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:22:00
And but yeah, it has happened and people have really horrible notes to me. And I read them and I try to take from them what I think is valuable. And then I let the rest of it go cuz

Alex Quinn 1:22:14
you can't please everybody.

Scott Benner 1:22:15
You know, like, you can't, that it is what it is right that some of my favorite reviews are the ones that are like, I love that podcast and hate that guy to me.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:26
That's funny.

Scott Benner 1:22:26
I love that so much. Because here's what it says to me that the podcast is so valuable that they're willing to listen, even though they hate me. I'm like, that's fantastic. All right, you were terrific. And the birds behind you were an added bonus. I thought,

Unknown Speaker 1:22:41
are they I love it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:22:43
yours is the second episode that will have bird singing in the background. And people really liked it the first time so I thought it was very cool. Well, I appreciate you very much doing this. I really don't I'm sorry. We had some trouble, like sinking up at one point. But

Alex Quinn 1:23:00
well, my fault my email is full. Well, then I'm not sorry. Yeah, no. 100%.

Scott Benner 1:23:06
Actually, Alex, what I meant to say is I would appreciate if you would apologize.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:10
Well, I'm sorry. And you're welcome.

Scott Benner 1:23:12
They're excellent. Couple things First, let's thank Alex for coming on the show and talking to us about how she eats. Thank you Alex. Then let's thank Omni pod and Dexcom Oh, and you're not really supposed to use n twice but I don't feel like editing this out so end touched by type one. Checkout touched by type one.org find them on Facebook or Instagram. Look into the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox or check into those offerings from Omni pod at Omni pod comm forward slash juicebox links of course in the show notes of your podcast player worth Juicebox Podcast comm also let me remind you very quickly I mean number one out music I'll just remind you quickly if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes there diabetes pro tip calm or at Juicebox Podcast calm. Let me tell you this too. If you're looking for some really great people talking about type one diabetes, the way we talked about it on the show, you are looking for the Facebook page for the podcast. It is of course completely free. I know some places like the charger to be in their Facebook page. That seems weird to me. It's called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. It's a private Facebook group. There are 11,000 people in it. And it's great, really is a wonderful place to talk about type one. Check it out, head on over if you're on the Facebook. Last thing I enjoyed this conversation about the way Alex eats and timely because I just saw online, somebody I would love it if Dr. Burns theme came on the podcast. Meanwhile, I don't know if Dr. Bernstein knows about this podcast or not, I wouldn't imagine he would man in his 80s. But if he did, or if somebody knew him, I have to tell you, I'd love to talk to him. It's a fascinating conversation. Even if you don't eat the way, Alex does or want to eat the way Dr. Bernstein talks about, I still think it's a great, great story. And I'd love to hear it. So if you know Dr. Bernstein. Get him on the podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe in the podcast app that you're listening in. Did I just say in twice? It's not important. I'm just saying if you're listening in a podcast app, and you're not subscribed or following the show, could you do me a solid and subscribe? If you are subscribed, thank you. That's lovely. Tell a friend, tell two friends, tell people you don't know, grab people's cell phones when they're not looking. Open up the podcast app and subscribe to my show. And then just give it back to them. I don't think that's illegal. I'm not a lawyer. So don't take my word for it. This is not like legal advice, obviously. But I would like you to do that if you could. I'm not asking you to just saying that. If you told me like if I got an email it said, Scott. I have a friend has diabetes. I picked up his phone. I opened it up, listened to all these podcasts. I was like, boom Juicebox Podcast, and I just subscribed. I'd be like, No, thank you. That's how I would respond to that email, if you like thank you. And then I say something nice. And that would probably be the end of email correspondence. This has gotten away from us. But anyway, subscribe to the podcast and a podcast player. If you listen online, it's alright with me. But come on, right. Let's get a podcast player. By the way, they should be free. I shouldn't even say a podcast player. You could listen anywhere you get audio like Spotify for example. Or Pandora do people still use that's not the point. The point is if you get audio in a thing, you can probably get the buy cast in that thing. And buy that thing. I mean an app. It's an app world, people.

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