#801 How We Eat: How Jenny Eats

How Jenny Eats

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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 801 of the Juicebox Podcast

today, I'm going to add to the how we eat series. Now, so far in this series we've covered vegan, carnivore plant based gluten free low carb, Bernstein FODMAP keto flexitarian intermittent fasting and today, I thought it would be interesting to find out how Jenny eats. Now you know, Jenny, she's from all the management episodes, diabetes, pro tip, defining diabetes, bold beginnings Jenny, it's Jenny. Today I'm going to talk to Jenny about how she eats. I thought you might find it interesting. She is a person with an astonishing amount of control over blood sugar, and I thought it would be valuable for you to hear about. So while you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you'd like to find the other how we eat episodes, just go to juicebox podcast.com and scroll to the bottom there's a whole cascading list of them there. You can also find them in the private Facebook group in the feature tab. That's Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Ian pen from Medtronic diabetes, if you don't want an insulin pump, but you want some of that functionality that comes with insulin pumps, you might want the ink pen. Learn more and get started today at ink pen today.com. You may pay as little as $35 for the implant. Listen for more about that in the ad. Today's episode of Juicebox Podcast is also sponsored by Omni pod. The new Omni pod five automated insulin delivery system is here. Go get it at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox tubeless and automated oh my goodness, what else could you possibly want? Start the recording. Cool and say hello, Jenny. How are you? I'm great. How are you? Good. You look casual today. Like I like cash. Like maybe you have plans this afternoon where you're not going to be working or something like

Unknown Speaker 2:26
that. Um, no

Scott Benner 2:30
relaxed. You're not relaxed today. I don't know you have a certain sound maybe you're happy. It's Friday. I have no idea.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:36
It's Friday. It's Yes. It's it's Friday. It's actually should I was colder today. Our temperature has changed like 40 degrees overnight.

Scott Benner 2:47
Oh my god. Seriously,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:48
yesterday, it was 72 degrees. It was beautiful last night when I got home from taekwondo with my kids. And then I woke up this morning and the thermometer was like 34 degrees. Like, kidding me.

Scott Benner 3:04
You live in a hellscape. It's terrible. I mean, it was like 80 here for a couple of days. And I mean, it's November, and you're like what is happening? But then very quickly, overnight, it's getting cooler and cooler. And it's gonna happen really fast. Yes. Anyway, it's

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:20
coming to you. Well, it's spreading. Let us

Scott Benner 3:23
let us let us do this today with the people and then we will go on our way. Oh, freeze your butt off this weekend. And I don't know what I will do. It's supposed to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:30
be in the 40s this afternoon. So better.

Scott Benner 3:33
That's a Wisconsin answer. Better. I just had, I just had a an organization invite me to come to Montana to speak in March. And I was like March in Montana. I'm not sure about that. I guess. Yeah. Well, I need snow shoes and, and I said, Look, I started saying, Look, I really would like to do it. The event sounds great. I say Can I fly straight in? And they're like, No, you'll probably have to get on like three different planes. I was like, I yeah, I don't know if I'm okay with that. Can we? Virtually. So they weren't sure that the last plane would be a jet. And that's that threw me off for some reason. You get the puddle jumper. Oh, it was like I'm not doing that. I'd love to see Montana, but not that badly. Anyway, Jenny, I thought today would be a great day for you and I to talk about how you eat. We've been talking about this for a number of years. Actually. I always say to Jenny, like at the end of the year, I'll do an episode with you. And we'll talk about how you eat because I have a whole series where people come on and they're like, I'm keto. I'm a flexitarian. Actually, I think I learned the word flexitarian on this podcast, you know, and all that stuff. So today, I just wanted to go I wanted to go through that. Are you comfortable with that?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:47
Yeah. Basket way.

Scott Benner 4:51
So I guess my first thing I should do just for people who may be, you know, come in and out of the podcast and don't know you as well. If at diabetes for let's test my memory, are you up to 33 years now or 3234

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:06
and a half 34. My gosh, Jimmy,

Scott Benner 5:09
and that made you how old when you were diagnosed? I was 1313. All right, we won't do the math 34 plus 13. That's no one's business, but yours. It's 47. But so you've had diabetes, since you were 13 years old, you were diagnosed a very long time ago, we've talked over and over again, about your you know, how your management was when you were coming up. But we don't talk as much about how you've eaten through different segments of your life. So I'm gonna go back all the way to you being 13. And ask, did your mom adjust eating when you were diagnosed? That you know of a long time ago?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:51
No, I and I was old enough to know or recognize the change or the difference, right? Did she change how she cooked? Not really, because, I mean, my mom grew up with four siblings. She was the oldest, they lived on a farm. So she ended up doing a heck of a lot of the cooking. Yeah. So they she always was a cook. I mean, the amount of times that we went out to eat, or even fast food or something were very minimal. So she was used to already cooking, the biggest change, I think, was that I don't think I ever remembered measuring cups outside of making cookies at Christmas and cakes. And you know, where you have to use the measuring tools to obviously get it all right. But man, we got more measuring tool, tools and the bouncy like scale that we put the meat on to weigh the perfect portion. And all of that kind of stuff. My mom did change all of the desserty types of things. I mean, they all became sugar free pudding and sugar free jello, and, you know, that kind of stuff. But she didn't. She didn't make that specific just to me, it was if we're going to have putting it sugar free for everybody. Okay, if we're gonna do this, it's this way for everybody.

Scott Benner 7:16
But your management at that point is two shots a day.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:20
I did two shots a day I did the really old school because there was not what we now have as long acting insulin a 24 hour, we had intermediate which was the cloudy and or NPH. I actually use Lily's, which was called Al or lenti. And so that had to be mixed in the syringe with our insulin or regular insulin wasn't even rapid. And I only dosed it twice a day breakfast. So the regular covered breakfast and then the law, the intermediate acting peaked at lunchtime. So I didn't take insulin at lunch. Okay, I did get a snack in the afternoon as well, which was an uncovered snack, kind of curving the downside shift of that intermediate acting insulin. And then dinnertime I did the regular and the lead day mixed in the same syringe again, and that regular covered dinner. And then I always had to have a bedtime snack because it covered the peak in the intermediate acting overnight. So for

Scott Benner 8:23
people who have a Dexcom now and are operating with you know, I don't know modern insulin, excuse me once with modern insulin, even if they see a peak at dinner and everything goes well, their their their bell curve probably goes over like two or three hours, right? I mean, they might spike up a little bit. But you were basically running two bell curves a day morning. So you were mixing make sure I understand this right because I'm I'm Arden comes into diabetes long after this. You're mixing two different insolence into a syringe, shooting it in the morning. One of them is handling breakfast, and the other one's going to come online in time for lunch. Then you shoot for dinner the same mix, one of them handles dinner but then you have to come around at the end of the bell and eat again to stop yourself from getting a little before bed

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:13
are into the midnight hour. Yeah, because intermediate acting was really like a peak of about five to seven hours. So again, breakfast time I'd eat somewhere between six and 7am. So the regular insulin covered that and then the intermediate acting was peaking by lunchtime at about that same five to six hour mark. So lunch would get covered or that in that intermediate would cover lunch and the same thing for the evening. There is no way to cover in all over over the night basil need because there wasn't anything besides intermediate at that point. So in order to hit the the kind of insulin the way that it needed to at its peak without getting low overnight, I had to have a snack before I went to bed.

Scott Benner 9:58
I see and I No, I remember this from our previous conversations your mom was the one thing she was a stickler about is the time you ate. Is that right? Yes. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:08
I think the reason that I literally cannot sleep beyond like I will wake up even before my alarm clock goes off at like, six 615. Because it was, that was the time it was breakfast. It was time Jenny had to have her like first dose of insulin because that was a 12 hour window. until dinnertime, when I got my next dose of insulin. Yeah. And they had to be spaced apart enough. So I think the reason I wake up so early. Like, I was just wired that way. Yeah. So So

Scott Benner 10:39
she, she, your mom was looking and saying, If she eats at 6am, than the way this shot works, we'll be good for whatever lunchtime is at school. And then it'll be out of her in time that we can shoot it again for dinner, or dinner. That's why your later snack almost. So were you up late at night as a child?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:58
I wasn't I mean, again, child wise, I was 13. So I was probably going to bed. In fact, I know I wasn't going into bed until maybe like 10 o'clock, and I'd have my snack around like 930 ish.

Scott Benner 11:12
And then after that, carry that off to bed. No one tested you overnight or anything like that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:18
Nobody tested. Oh, no. Oh, my goodness. No, that wasn't even like a thought unless I woke up and didn't feel good. Which did happen. Or for some random reason my mom was up overnight and wanted to check on me. But outside of that, no, there were no checks overnight, it was bedtime. fingerstick wake up in the morning, do it again. And

Scott Benner 11:39
the way you ate during that time was more about almost kind of food pyramid thinking. Like a little bit of this, a little bit of that a little bit of this at certain weights more than anything else.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:50
It was and you know, I think I think there's some practices that do okay with this with kids. And other times I've talked to people and they've said, you know, nobody focused on what my kid needs nutritionally. They just told us that we can eat whatever we want to eat. As long as we cover it with insulin and your blood sugar stays here, then that's fine. Were when I was first educated, the dietitian and educator I worked with looked at what are my nutritional needs based on where I am in life and what my activity level is like. And then they planned out sort of a caloric plan and fit the macronutrients in a certain percentage into that plan. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, I got certain portions of food that got covered with what's called a standard amount of insulin just for the food at that mealtime. I mean, I can still remember like lunch and dinner, I got two starches, two vegetables, a fruit, two to three proteins, one or two fats and a milk. And you did you that was lunch and dinner every single day?

Scott Benner 12:55
And did you have to finish it all every time? Did you have that pressure? Like I need to eat all this or no, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:01
in a way, yes. And you know, being as active as I was, I was probably hungry enough for it all anyway, but I also wasn't, I wasn't nibbling on anything in between, because that just wasn't there wasn't additional insulin, at least not in the first I guess two years after I was diagnosed. And still I until I was taught carb counting, and dosing with insulin to cover a certain amount, then things shifted and became a little bit more flexible in terms of portion.

Scott Benner 13:29
So when that happened when they taught you carb counting? How old were you then do you think? Um,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:35
I was in high school? So probably six to finish, I would estimate.

Scott Benner 13:42
All right, so you did that the one you did the first play for three years or so? Did did having access to the idea of carb counting covering meals for how many carbs at work? Did it change how you ate at all? Or did they just sort of eat the same way?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:59
I don't think that it changed. What my food choices were because I still had certain preferences, obviously. But it gave me more flexibility in terms of how much okay, right? So if I didn't want to eat all of that food at a mealtime now we had wiggle room to play with, you know, I only really want the peas and grilled salmon for dinner. Great. We could adjust for that a little bit better than saying well, you always have to take three units of regular insulin. So you have to eat this much because this is what your insulin is covering.

Scott Benner 14:36
Yes, that was the big shift is that you had more autonomy over the amounts of food and I could drop I don't want to bake potatoes or something like that. Right? Right. Okay. How long do you think you and what insulin I'm sorry, what insulin was that at that time?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:51
That was still regular insulin. Okay. I did not have rapid in getting real excuse me rapid acting insulin. until I was in college.

Scott Benner 15:04
Okay. So so so this first step that you took basically took away the cloudy and you were just counting carbs for and using regular for it. Is that right or no, the first

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:16
step I took was switching from intermediate acting. And if I had to estimate, when did I switch to Lantus? I think it was 1999. Actually, it was right around the time that Lantus came to market. I was switched from using my intermediate acting insulin to Lantus insulin. And then and I had been switched to rapid acting before the change to Lantus. Okay, so I was using intermediate acting the cloudy along with rapid acting.

Scott Benner 15:55
Okay. I don't know, what was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:57
the first change? Oh,

Scott Benner 15:57
how old are you?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:00
We just said, I'm 47. I

Scott Benner 16:02
know. But why do I think of you as being? I think of you as being so much younger than me? I don't know why that is. But the data is because I've got younger

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:10
kids. Maybe. Maybe that is it. You know, I mean, my husband and I just we did a lot of other things before we had kids. And a lot of people do it the opposite way. They get married, and they're like, let's have kids and we just didn't do it that way.

Scott Benner 16:24
I don't know why, like, if you're telling me the times, and you're like, you know, in 1999 I'm thinking 1999. Kelly was pregnant. Like, Cole, I'm like, This is crazy, but I look at you and I'm like, but she definitely said she was 47. So I'm like I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:38
did. Yes. In fact, 99 is Gosh, 99 is when my husband and I got married. Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 16:45
Okay. Yeah. This is my fault. Forgive i for getting married too early. I'm throwing off the balance of this conversation. Not you. We were still young, we got married. Really? Okay, so you see, you're covering carbs. It doesn't change doesn't change what you're eating. You're still eating. But what I'm what I'm going to call like a very like 1950s through 1980s Like American kind of blend of foods. Just blade some vegetables and starches, some protein chicken beef. Probably all that stuff was happening.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:21
Okay. Yes, absolutely. It was all and you know, growing up in the Midwest. I mean, our starchy things were typically typically potatoes, some noodles, rice occasionally. I wasn't really a big fan of rice as a kid anyway. But I would say more of my like, grainy kind of carby stuff was probably bread. We didn't have cereal was just not something my mom made or purchased. I mean, it was either oatmeal for breakfast or something like toast with peanut butter toast with eggs or you know, something like that for breakfast time. So yeah, I think what really changed was once I went to college, I didn't have to eat what my mom cooked anymore. And I am, I personally am not a meat eater outside of fish, okay, I don't enjoy me. I never did even as a kid. I would, I would have sat at the table for four hours trying to like choke down a burger. That was just not a preference of mine.

Scott Benner 18:35
Did they still give them to you.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:36
Of course. This is what you're eating.

Scott Benner 18:41
I want to gently set for an entire evening, five o'clock, six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock in front of a plate of French cut green beans that I did not want to eat. And the colder they got, the more good. They were. And you know, I'd be like every 15 minutes. I could get one of these. I couldn't do it. And I remember waking up on a Saturday morning after that. And my mom bringing the green paints back to the tea.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:09
Oh, my parents never do that.

Scott Benner 19:11
I was like, Oh God, I'm never gonna eat again. Because like these green beans and and I think I just went into like full on like, I don't know how old I was a tantrum. Probably. I'm thinking I was just probably child abuse, you know, but as far as like a young, young teen, I was like crying. I was like, I can't eat these like you have no idea. I have such trouble with how some things feel in my mouth. Like I'm just not okay with how some things feel. So I wouldn't even know how they tasted like I couldn't get past the part where it's like It's touching. And so, but that's interesting that you didn't particularly like red meat.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:52
And as you say like a texture thing. I mean other other textures really. They don't bother me so much and fat I have textures that I really actually prefer in food. But maybe that was it. I mean, even just like thinking about eating meat, and I don't know why fish is so different. Maybe there's a moisture to fish or it's just a very it's definitely different, right? I've never had a problem with fish. But other meats I just saw I got to college

Scott Benner 20:21
last night. Oh, no, no, no, I'm dying to know because I now have some context for what it means to send a person with type one to college and it's not terrific. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:29
yeah, for one, I learned that mom's home cooking with all of the measurement and the skill that my mom put into what literally went on my plate was very different once I was choosing things in the cafeteria.

Scott Benner 20:47
Freezy did you start like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:49
I don't, I wouldn't say I went crazy. Because I was conscious of what I needed to do. Again, I had no CGM. I had no pomp. I went to college on MDI, and, and finger sticks, essentially, while I was doing a heck of a lot more finger sticks. To get more information, I still really kind of had to stick with what I knew about what my experience with food at home did to my blood sugar. And so I use that in terms of figuring out what to choose from the school cafeteria. I often in fact, by the end of my freshman year, I realized that the salad bar was probably my best friend. Okay. Because it was the easiest place to find things that were good in terms of what I saw happening in my blood sugar. And actually tasted like food.

Scott Benner 21:44
Type raise everyone, everyone who now is looking $14,000 a year in the face for room, board and food at a college. It's like great. So my son my son's senior year. He's he just he called us one day. He's like, I'm so sorry, I can't do this anymore. Can I start buying food outside of the cafeteria, but we had to pay for the food. Like you couldn't regardless. Yeah, you couldn't not pay for it. So I'm like, okay, like you don't even like you know, there's a few 1000 more dollars. I'm like, sure. Yeah, go ahead. He's like that. It's horrible. He's like, it's absolutely terrible. So when we took Oregon to college, and the cafeteria was so much nicer Arden's college than it was at Kohl's. We were so excited, like, Oh, she's gonna get real food. But the truth is, it's like she's eating at a cut rate restaurant. As far as blood sugars go every day. You know how people say like, oh, it's tough to go to a restaurant because you need so much more insulin for this food. Three times a day. That's the situation Arden has been in, like so much. So Jenny, that she contacted me a month ago and said, I'm gonna run out of insulin. And she's only there for a quarter. It was it was 10 weeks. And I sent her enough insulin to be like, plus to be off to be fine. Yeah. And she's like that we got to do something, I'm gonna run out of insulin. And I was like, okay. So I called the doctor. And I'm like, you know, I think this is what's going on. But how long did it take you to adjust to bolusing for that food? Because for the first five weeks Arden was there, I would get a lot of text that said, I'm working on it. I'm trying, you know what I mean? Like, and I'm like, No, I know. You are like I could see, you know, because isn't it interesting Nightscout. Like I can see she's Bolus thing. I can see what's happening and everything like that. But she was not having a lot of luck in the beginning. It took her a number of weeks to figure it out. She's finally starting to get it in her like last three weeks of this 10 weeks. And she's doing a good job now. But it took her a month and a half to learn how to Bolus for that food.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:52
It's definitely adjustment. I mean, while they're not, by any means the healthy choice, I figured out, or at least I think I did, you know, again, only having finger sticks. I figured out french fries, like at school. So when we would go and you know, food is one of those things that becomes very visibly a social piece of your life in college. If it wasn't in high school. It it definitely is there in college, and especially with the later evenings and like whatever else you're doing. Like who wants to eat carrot sticks when you're sitting around with your friends like studying, right? And so I guess those were some of the things in terms of I wouldn't have gotten that at home as much as I probably ate them at school. But the other things just ended up I figured out they they just weren't even worth it.

Scott Benner 24:47
I just I'm I think I'm watching art and follow the same path to work. There have been a couple of times that I'm like, Look, if you just tell me what you ate, I can help you adjust this and she's like, I don't want to tell you what I ate I'm okay. And I'm telling you, french fries are at the core of that. She's like, you know, you get there late at night all the food's not there anymore, but there's always french fries. Yeah, you know, and then I think you're right. Like, it's the end of a day they get around. They're her roommates, and they sit there and they've got friends. They're chatting and talking about boys and girls and whatever else. Yeah, and, and they're eating french fries. So. Alright, so you. I mean, you obviously made it through and you ate a pretty classic college cuisine. When do you become the Jenny I see before you before. When you become a woman who just says quinoa? Like it's just nothing like like it's a thing we all know about.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:50
It's a yummy grain for those of you who don't know. Although I think it's pretty mainstream at this point.

Scott Benner 25:57
I'm not saying that I'm saying that you say keen, while the way other people say chicken nuggets. Just flows. So do you get Do you meet your husband? Do you do like what shifts your eating style?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:13
I think? Well, certainly learning to cook for two. And be aware of another person's desires and like preferences in food makes a difference overall to especially when you're trying to follow a budget. I mean, my husband and I did not live together before we were married. So again, it's a, although we knew each other, you know, enough, obviously. Clearly, I wish together for a long time before we actually got married. But in terms of cooking for two people, again, that does shift some things, I think the biggest thing that I learned is that men can eat a heck of a lot of food. So when I'd sit down, I'm like eating, you know, the portion that I had gotten used to eating. I was like, I you're still hungry. Seriously, like what I don't understand, like, where are you putting all this food, you know, so from a visual or just a perspective of of, like my own management, that's something to kind of overcome is seeing what somebody else can eat compared to what you know, is works for you, as well as for your blood sugar control, and that kind of stuff. So I think in terms of what you what you see today, in what I choose, and what I talk about eating is definitely been like an evolution, right, right over our marriage in life with kids and all of that kind of stuff. And I think, while for a good portion of years before we had kids, I had made a lot of the changes that I currently, you know, still use in terms of food, I think it became even more important for me to improve. For the majority of the time once we had kids.

Scott Benner 28:07
Why do you think has to start thinking like, I want to teach these kids how to eat? Well?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:12
Yeah, yeah, really. And because, again, with all of the knowledge that I have, about what is in food, and not meaning bad stuff, but like, what's the value in food? Food is fuel, it's like putting gas in a car, right? So if you put in quality stuff, you're gonna get quality health out of it. Well, you know, yeah,

Scott Benner 28:38
so we'll mention that here. Because so when you're in college, what is it you're learning to do? Survive what you do for a living after?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:48
All right? And that, that, I guess, that's another big difference. You know, I went to college, knowing where I was going, I had a very clear, I thought it was a clear career path. I was going to go to school to be a dietitian. And then I knew that I wanted to move on and become a diabetes educator. And, you know, the road there, kind of windy and whatever happens, but I learned all those things along the way in college too. Whereas other tracks, I would have never been exposed to the information about nutrition and food and what it does in the body and human biology and physiology. I mean, all those things I would have never known about.

Scott Benner 29:31
Yeah, but it's still even though you learned it in college, it becomes a slower transition as an adult, right, you just start applying what you know, as you go. And correct. And so now

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:42
well, and to put one more point to that in terms of saying, you know, I think it became more important to me and to really do that after we had kids was because I know what kids aren't taught in school, especially where I really think that needs to begin in terms of overall healthy lifestyle. Some of that information in science alone could easily be taught in terms of this is why you eat an apple, or these are the main food groups and then expanding kind of every year so that children grow into well rounded lifestyle

Scott Benner 30:21
and health consumers really

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:23
consumer. Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 30:27
So, so you're trying to it's interesting, isn't it? Like most of the people I talked to on this podcast, when they make big life leaps? It's almost always for somebody else. Almost always, they almost always say, Well, you know, I was getting by with my agency in the 80s. But I got married, and I started thinking, like, I want to be healthy for our relationship, or I'm gonna have kids, so I gotta lower my UNC or, like, that kind of stuff. Right? It's interesting.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:53
And I think something there too, in terms of asked, you know, well, we ended up bigger shift to like what I'm doing now kind of happen, it actually happened right before we were planning to, like, try to have kids, I started to see a naturopathic doctor. And which they're amazing. If you find the right person, I mean, the amount of time that they spend with you, and the really in depth that they look at your life and kind of everything that works together. It's, it's really amazing. But just some of the things that I brought to the table in terms of concerns. I mean, besides type one diabetes, I also have rheumatoid arthritis, which is really well managed. And but some of the things that I learned from this practitioner changed some of the ways and some of the things that I ended up, including in my diet, okay, because we did some allergy testing, and we did some sensitivity, you know, evaluation and kind of, like, how do you feel when you eat this food, like a gut health kind of analysis and all that sort of stuff? So I did, I made some really good transitions from that into kind of where I currently am and I've stuck with, you know, 99% of those shifts and changes do you think

Scott Benner 32:05
because your your, I mean, I think of your diabetes, as well managed throughout your life, for whatever the management style was at the time, right, your your returns, your agencies, and that kind of stuff fit in a healthy a healthy level for whatever the management was at the time. So how much of your eating is about the RA? Is is like are there things you're trying to avoid for that?

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Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:09
The biggest thing, honestly, that I I find affects how I manage it. And when I know I've had more than what I can kind of tolerate is cow's milk dairy.

Scott Benner 37:25
Okay, that's,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:26
that's the biggest thing. I mean, I went through all of the different like, sort of you you take foods out of your diet, you evaluate you add some things back to see how you react to some things. I mean, many times RAs are also very sensitive to what are called the nightshade vegetables, things like peppers and tomatoes and eggplant and that kind of stuff. And I ate a heck of a lot of tomatoes. And I see no difference whatsoever. When I did my food kind of elimination sort of plan. The biggest shift was definitely around dairy specifically, again, cow's milk based, because I can do like the cheeses that I will buy or either sheep's milk or goat's milk again. I don't eat them every day. They don't bother me if and when I do eat them. But I can tell like, if we go out for pizza. There's like real cheese on the pizza. I mean, even though I don't eat the whole pizza, I can tell the next day that I'm stiff. Okay. I can tell in my joints quickly that I've had dairy.

Scott Benner 38:30
Yeah, that's really interesting. So so so Okay, so let's let's go into the homestretch with, let's kind of go through one of your weeks and really find out how you eat so Okay, let's just start today because you've, you've woken up today already what you have for breakfast.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:46
So I had raspberries from my mom, my mom's garden. So they were frozen raspberries. Obviously. It's freezing outside right now. There are no raspberries left on the bushes.

Scott Benner 38:59
I want to be clear, you met your mom pick the raspberries earlier froze them and you ate them that they froze overnight with the temperature.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:06
Correct? Yes, absolutely. So frozen raspberries. And then I had a it's a sheep's milk yogurt with it. And then there is a really awesome grain free granola that I like it's made by nature's path. And that's literally what it's called is grain free granola. So I mix that all together and I had that this morning. I mean other breakfasts are typically like old fashioned oats, a small amount and then I use things like chia and hemp seed and ground flax, some coconut oil and cinnamon. spoonful of like nut butter in it, mix it all together.

Scott Benner 39:47
How many carbs do you think your average breakfast is?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:51
Yeah, I can absolutely tell you so for my breakfast I had this morning. I count 18 grams for it. For my typical oatmeal Well, I count 26 grams for that.

Scott Benner 40:03
Okay, do you see spikes?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:07
Not unless I have a bad site. Or sometimes when I know it's a couple of days before I get my site, my period, I'm more prone to potentially having more of a rise up after the oatmeal. It doesn't typically happen with the the granola and the berries. So,

Scott Benner 40:32
yeah. Do you ever get up in the morning on a Saturday and go crazy? Do you ever make a stack of pancakes or french toast or bacon or something like that?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:42
I I wouldn't have bacon, but I get what you mean. Yeah, we we do pancakes. But again, the pancakes that I make are tend to do much lower carb, lower glycemic pancake. And my kids don't. They don't complain about them. They eat them. So does my husband. So I'm like, Well, I'm gonna cook them the way that I cook them because they're good for me. And so clearly, they're good for them too. I mean, I usually use like an almond flour and a coconut flour. I've got a couple of good recipes that I follow. I might put some pumpkin puree in them or some of what's the lily brand like the low sugar like mini chocolate chips kind of in maple syrup. I just don't I don't even eat. I don't eat honey. real maple syrup. I figure why. And that's just my choice. You know? Do you like your maple syrup, have it but I usually use the Lecanto maple syrup, which works really nice and it doesn't affect my blood sugar. So I have to say,

Scott Benner 41:47
I don't love maple syrup either. If I'm not we use like a low carb syrup on the house. I think we use Karis most of the time.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:56
Yeah, that's a that's a common one. Yeah.

Scott Benner 41:58
And, but if I, I'm, I'm perfectly happy with it. Like, it doesn't bother me at all. If I'm gonna go crazy with syrup, which might happen once or twice a year, I want like, I don't know, I want something that could also be like motor oil or something like that. Like, when you're when you're eating it, you're like, This isn't even a natural flavor at all. Like I'm in a diner where we're all going to die. When was the? And even at that, it's like, wow, it's a lot. I can't really do a lot of that. And I'm saying, We haven't made a ton of adjustments to I mean, you know, I guess I'll do an episode one day about how I eat. But I grew up very badly around food. Like nobody understood food around me. And my wife and I took us years to our 20s to like even make sense of like, fire we I still joke my wife is like, I shouldn't say this here. But my wife like is like, the sheets like she's homeless. And she's happy about it. Like, like, we have, like we have 10 cents in the bank is how she eats and that's when she's happiest. But she grew up broke. And eating that way. And I don't know, it just it's what occurs to her, you know. But anyway, my question and the reason I brought that up is your kids have your palate, do you think you taught it to them? Or do you think that it was theirs all along? And you just met them there?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 43:23
That's a really as a good question, because I I don't know, I think some of it might have transitioned from what I ate while I was pregnant. Because, you know, broccoli for a really good example. Broccoli is both of my kids will always eat broccoli, they will eat it steamed, they will eat it raw, they will always eat broccoli out of any of the vegetables. And I think it's because whether this is true or not, I think it's because it was one of the few vegetables in both pregnancies in my first trimester that I could actually stomach. Okay. And I eat a lot of steamed broccoli with Dijon mustard. That's what that very well for me. Why I know that's very bizarre, but that's what worked. And as soon as they introduced it, you know, once they started doing like table foods and that kind of stuff. They had no complaints. It didn't come out of their mouth. So maybe some of it is but I think some of its learned Yeah,

Scott Benner 44:25
I don't want to make you feel sad. But Kelly was pregnant with call and she had a very her palate while she was pregnant with Cole was very clean and healthy. And Cole is it's more like a boy. You know what I mean? But with Arden Kelly a crap like a lot of like for some of it and art and eats very, very well. Like like art and art is the one who's like, well, I'll sit and eat carrots or I'll do this right. You

Jennifer Smith, CDE 44:52
know, like, do you think some of that though for Arden is relative to such an early diagnosis.

Scott Benner 44:57
But I will gently I didn't Oh, like the the person who you're talking to now is not the person who grabbed that two year old baby was like diabetes, okay? Like, I mean, we were, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 45:08
I was theater carrot.

Scott Benner 45:10
We didn't go that way, like I spent two years going like why can't I figure out how to Bolus for cereal, you know, like, like, like what you see online people are just like, I didn't adjust at all. And it didn't occur to me at first. Because like I said, we didn't grow up well around food that some of these foods were better than others or whatever. I mean, I know now and excuse me, we made you know, adjustments. My first big adjustment as a parent was not buying frozen chicken nuggets. That was the that was my first lightbulb moment. I thought like if I'm gonna give these kids chicken nuggets, why the Hold on I go get some chicken and bread in the oven and give it to them. Right and, and I did that, like if it wasn't easy, because by then they knew what um, like a nugget was from McDonald's or from a frozen bag and it was cut like a dinosaur or something like that. So at first they're like, this isn't chicken. I was like, oh, god, look what I've done to you. You know what I mean? Like, like, you don't think chicken is chicken. You think whatever that crap is this chicken. Okay, so, alright, so you will have a splurge. But your sport stays more in a clean lane.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 46:20
For the most part, yes. And a splurge really, like we're talking about breakfast foods. And again, we don't we don't eat out very often. But there's this place here. It's called short stack. It is if I'm gonna get pancakes out that are not by any means. anywhere close to being low carb or low glycemic or anything at all. I mean, it's it's served with like this sweet mascarpone sort of like yumminess on the side with strawberries. They're probably the healthiest thing on this plane. But they're super they're they're like these Oat. They're oat pumpkin. Pancakes. Sweet potato pancakes. They are. They are the best pancake I have ever had. Honestly. In fact, after my my second son was born, the next morning they came in and they asked they're like, Well, what do you want? I'm like, oh, no, my husband's gone out. And he's

Scott Benner 47:21
so the guys bringing it in? Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 47:26
So, you know, splurge? Absolutely. I will.

Scott Benner 47:30
But, but but I like you telling the story because you splurge on pancakes. You're not at IHOP you're not like Yeah, right. Jenny made a face that you guys can see that said Oh god, no. So okay, so

Jennifer Smith, CDE 47:44
for people who are like I have I just Yeah, I wouldn't choose it.

Scott Benner 47:48
So So lunch today, what are you going to do?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 47:51
So lunch today is typically vegetables. I mean, I usually have some type of raw vegetables, cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and cabbage chopped up hummus. This time of the year I really like sauerkraut. Usually an apple or again some berries.

Scott Benner 48:20
What do you think? Carbs? I mean, I can try guessing.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 48:25
Yeah, my vegetables in the portion that I eat I count 10 grams for my portion of vegetables raw vegetable, they have about a cup and a half ish of raw vegetables. And the hummus I know because the labels right on the container with 11 grams of carb. And then my apple I weigh it because the apples we have are still from the orchard and we picked and so I mean the Apple could be really teeny tiny or could be like the ginormous huge. You could like softball sides, right? So I weigh it. But on on average my lunch is with the with the apple, probably somewhere between 28 and 35 grams of carb. Okay.

Scott Benner 49:12
Yeah. You don't consider yourself low carb at all right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 49:15
I don't know. No, in fact, I'm not. I am not worried about I don't aim for a certain amount under carb amount to certainly eat. I also am not, you know, the opposite end high high carb either. I would say I'm more consistently my daily intake is probably somewhere between 80 grams, 7580 grams on the low end to maybe 110 to 120 grams on the high end. That's crazy.

Scott Benner 49:49
I mean, that's a lot more than than then I was imagining how long it's like. Yeah, sorry. That was more than I was imagining. So you got So close, I have a word written down here. As I started today, I'm like, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna see if Jenny says this word, right? You have not said it yet, but you got so close, I'm gonna go, I'll tell you what the end. Okay, I got so close, it's still might happen. So we'll say, okay, so middle of the day, your is kind of your lighter meal

Jennifer Smith, CDE 50:21
of middle of the day tends to be my lighter meal. Now that's on a week, day, weekends, especially Sundays will tend to be a little bit heavier probably on lunch. Mainly because, and I again, it's not necessarily a conscious effort, I just know from experience what I can get away with at certain times, right? So my weekday is tend to be you like lower impact type of meal mid day, because I'm most often while I have a desk treadmill, which is awesome. It's still real low pace. And otherwise, I'm just sitting or standing here. And some by mid day, even though I exercise in the morning, and still been sitting or standing around. Right and so I also I usually have a couple of hours of work to still do after my lunch. So I tend to do something that I know is going to be easier.

Scott Benner 51:22
So it's it's fair to say that you match where some people would match a meet with a wine you're matching a meal with your activity level.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:32
Yes, exactly. Like for Sunday's then these are usually my long run days. I go for a long run in the morning. And so the whole rest of the day I can kind of quote unquote get away with a little bit more because I've got just a much heightened much more heightened sensitive. kind of stay.

Scott Benner 51:54
Okay, all right. So what's for dinner tonight?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 51:59
Oh, you know dinner tonight. I haven't planned yet.

Scott Benner 52:02
That's dinner last night. I'll make it easier for

Jennifer Smith, CDE 52:05
ya. So dinner last night was a corn squash and like a mixed green vegetable kind of salad. I made a Caesar dressing to go on top of it. And then we had salmon.

Scott Benner 52:18
Okay. And the kids boom. Or you have young boys. Acorns their acorn squash cut in half in the oven. Little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. That's that idea for that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 52:29
Yeah, my boys like them. I do it with a little bit of like more savory seasoning on like a sage and kind of like a mixed season. My husband I like it that way. My boys really like it with cinnamon and a little bit of coconut oil on because it gives it a little bit of its a sweeter kind of flavor to it. So they like it that way but yeah, they they love they love the acorn squash the delicata my littlest. He really loves spaghetti squash. He thinks it's so fun that when you scrape it out that it looks like new Italy.

Scott Benner 53:04
Do you guys need any pasta?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 53:06
Yeah, we do. And the pasta that we typically eat is like the bonza type of pasta, the lentil or the chickpea type of pasta. The one that I really like, because it's the lowest impact is the Explore Asia brand. It's made either black bean or edamame a or I think they've got a green bean one. But I mean a really good like cup cup and a half cooked portion. It comes out once you kind of reduce it by the fiber amount. It's only like 10 or 11 grams of carb for a really big plate of pasta. So I will often do something like that on a weekday type of dinner where I'll give my kids the bonza Prost pasta, which got some good protein quality to it. I'll do the other one and just good marinara and a salad on the side. It's really nice complete meal.

Scott Benner 53:58
Okay, yeah, I was gonna say cuz you don't do any cream sauces, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 54:02
I don't do any cream sauces unless I make them myself more from like a vegan kind of approach. Like if I have a really good recipe that's got like a cashew nut, you sort of soak it in blended and puree it and make it into like a creamy kind of sauce. It's very tasty. You wouldn't couldn't imagine there's no dairy in it. But

Scott Benner 54:21
as you're talking, I'm thinking I am going to get notes where people say Jenny should write a cookbook with all of her recipes in it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 54:28
I have been asked that. So why don't you put all the things that you eat together into this really nice cookbook and as like, if somebody could just keep notes for me? Sure.

Scott Benner 54:40
Let me ask you a question. If we're driving the Jenny families in the car, we're going to another state we're visiting people whatever we pull over on the side of the road everyone's hungry. Do you bring food with you? Or are you in a gas station going I guess I can eat this ring thing.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 54:58
I know I have to credit my Mom with this, whether it's made my life busier or not, I am definitely the parent that will pack. They pack things that I know, not only snackable depending on how long the trip is, but also if we're going to be on the road over a meal time. Because usually one I know that by the time you end up stopping someplace, you're usually over hungry. Yeah. Right. And then you're more likely going to make the Ring ding choice than something else. And so I packed I packed not only from my only my benefit in terms of driving and the sedentary nature and what that does to blood sugar. I know what the foods that I've packed do for me. And I can also we don't actually have to stop. I mean, not as much as

Scott Benner 55:55
we used to get a bathroom. That sounds like a great, that'd be fabulous. Yeah. It sounds like it would be fabulous. right until you realize that one of the people in the car was going number two while you were driving. Thank you. Maybe this isn't fabulous.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 56:09
Not a good idea.

Scott Benner 56:10
You have a couple more minutes or do you have to go? Oh, of course. Yes. Okay, so, snacks. I mean, I've we've said on here before it's funny. We kind of said when Arden was looking for different ice cream. You You pointed her towards oat milk ice cream, but she she loves now. Which is fascinating because before she tried, she didn't love real sweet stuff. Like if you know Arden she's Arden's not about like real sugary stuff. So she was like using the lenti at some point, like a brand and she's like, this is still too much. Like she's not the kind of kid who's gonna eat like Ben and Jerry's. You know, she might have a spoonful of it, but she's not going to go crazy. But when she when you told her about the oat milk ice cream, like that was a big deal for her. Oh, yeah, she loved it. So when you're snacking, this is kind of the lane you're in. I'm imagining. So I want you to just kind of throw out a few snacky things that you have around the house for yourself.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 57:07
nuts, nuts. That sound weird nuts.

Scott Benner 57:12
Nuts in your mouth. Jenny is your business.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 57:16
Yes, no, I like mix nuts. I think they're, they're great. Boiled eggs are really awesome. Some of the mug like sort of the mug cake or mug muffin kinds of recipes are pretty good. Actually found one the other day that's really super yummy. It's like a, it's like pumpkin pie in a mug without the crossed. Okay,

Scott Benner 57:38
it is brand thing or you made it yourself.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 57:41
Oh, you make it yourself. It's like pumpkin pumpkin puree, like out of a can not up not the pie stuff, the stuff without sugar added to it. And it's an egg, some baking powder, some vanilla extract, and a no sugar sweetener of your choice. Like I just use the vanilla stevia to sweeten it. A pinch of salt. And I think that's it and then you literally like mix it all up in the mug and you put it in the microwave for three minutes. It is it's so yummy. It's like it all the carb that's in there is the portion of pumpkin pie that you put in comes to eight grams of carb.

Scott Benner 58:19
All right, I'm gonna ask you to send me that when I'm gonna try that. I want to try. Okay, good for ya. Because, like, for instance, if we've just got past Halloween here, there's no bowl of candy corn in your house. Is that right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 58:34
There's no bowl of candy corn, there's no bowl of candy. We just don't. Not from my perspective, because I I'm an adult decisionwise I can choose or not choose right. But I just don't think it's necessary to have that as a potential option. I mean, if you really want to go into also why we don't have any Halloween candy despite it not being very long ago and our kids having come home with like four buckets full of of Halloween candy. Our children got to pick five pieces that were chocolate. Not the like sugar, you know, sugar stuff. I mean, not that the chocolate doesn't have sugar but and then I paid them to give me their candy, which they were all excited. I was like these are your options. You're not eating all this candy. That's just how it is. It's going out of the house but if you willingly give us then I will pay you each this amount of money and you can use it as you like for something you want. Where did the candy go? Oh, the candy went. My husband plays soccer. So he took it to the soccer field for one of his games and he just left it there. Okay. We brought like the Rubbermaid just like plastic things and we put it in a couple of them and we left them on the tables there and they're adults, they can make a choice right

Scott Benner 1:00:00
sec. Okay, so a lot of this really is then about options in front of you. Yes, like you, there's no way for you to have a bad day, I'm making quotes and put my fingers in your house. Like you can't you couldn't get up today and just be like, I'm gonna go find some sugary candy that doesn't exist in the house. I'm gonna like, that stuff's just not there. Right? I could

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:00:23
choose to over eat some of the things that are here. Absolutely. I mean, if I chose to eight, chose to eat, you know, eight apples in a row. Clearly that bad day

Scott Benner 1:00:34
impact. So let me ask you this question. If I picked you up, and took you to someone else's life, where today you got up in the morning, and had a bowl of cereal, and at lunch, you had a sandwich on bread, and there were potato chips with it. And it dinner? I don't know what you have like that. Could you Bolus for all that for your body? Do you think?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:00:55
Having enough experience? I could? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I could, I could figure it out. Obviously, just having hindsight from having stuff like that in the past. I mean, we've had, you know, family gatherings and whatnot, which I haven't obviously put all of the work into all of the food that comes to something like that. So I do have to make choices. And certainly will I indulge? Absolutely. At certain points in time? I don't make it regular though, right. It's like, what's in our house and what I choose to eat, and what I choose to kind of prepare and what not for our family is like 80 to 90% of that is its fuel, it's what should be going in to my body. And I can tell a difference in how I feel, depending on what I eat not only blood sugar wise, just in general, you know?

Scott Benner 1:01:46
I'm guessing on to the in between meals, you're not overly hungry, right? No, no. Okay, I'm not weird carved desires and stuff like that, because you haven't been eating that stuff to begin with that kind of sugary stuff that wires your brain to say, like, go get more

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:02:02
true. I mean, at times when I do want something like chocolate again, I do more like real dark chocolate is absolutely like my favorite. So but I don't eat again, it might be here, but I'm not eating the whole entire bar or 20 pieces of it. I just don't need that. And the one little piece that I do eat might have, for me, you know, something like three or four grams of carb. I don't even have to Bolus for that. I mean, it is what it is. Somebody else may have to obviously cover and considerate, but

Scott Benner 1:02:35
sound work that way. So two more questions for you. My first one is that through your life, you haven't, I'm assuming had to worry much about your weight, like your body style stayed fairly consistent.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:02:47
It has, I would say that the time period that I probably gained the most, which is not odd, I'm quite sure you can guess it was in college. I mean, it just was right. My activity level change even though as we're walking around campus and playing like rec volleyball, it still was just very different. I think that this shift in your sleep schedule, and I'm sure the french fries didn't help me.

Scott Benner 1:03:14
Tries just tape them right on your thighs, don't even yourself. But I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:03:18
think outside of that, no. And that's certainly while I work to stay healthy. I haven't thankfully been somebody who has struggled with weight, right? And whether it's because I've just paid attention to what my body wants, and I feed it. And I do good things with what I'm feeding it. I also learned pretty early on because of because the manner of instruction that I started with when I was first diagnosed was very tied to portion. Yeah, it was this amount is this much. This is why you need it. And again, today, not a lot of portion is really taught outside of just how many grams of carbs in the portion, right?

Scott Benner 1:04:04
I can't tell you like I clearly don't eat as well as you do. But how often I see things people are eating. And I think it's like how do you eat all that? Like, I don't understand how you can like, like, physically the amount, even with liquids. One of the reasons I don't think I drink is because when I see somebody drink three or four beers and like, I couldn't drink three or four cups of water like that, like how are you doing that? You know, I'm impressed by it. Honestly, I'm like, how do you get that in? I can't do it. So yeah, so my last question to you is, obviously with what you do for a living. You're helping people who eat in all varied ways. Even though you and I don't really ever talk about it. I assume we're like minded and as much as that I just want people to know how to use the insulin for what they're eating. Like I'm not I'm I'm not here telling anybody how to eat like I know. I don't imagine that's the thing you could do for A for a stranger through a podcast one way or the other. So. So then, do you feel like, like, are you almost like a video game character with your, your understanding of diabetes like these are like, I'm imagining a spinning dial on you and I hit D and the dial pops up. And I spin it around to like high carb, low carb, vegetarian, like, and you're like, Oh, I know how to think like this. Do you think of it that way? Like, when you get a person on the phone, you don't I'm saying?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:05:30
Yeah, no, that's absolutely, because I think I've worked with so many different fueling plans, if you will, right. And it's great that you bring in, you know, we're not really about talking, you should always be eating this one way, the idea is really just navigating management. And that's how I approach any new person that I work with, right? You have these options, this is likely to potentially be a little bit easier if we swip swap do this versus this or a little bit more of this a little bit less of that kind of thing. But everybody has an eating style. And it's my job to help you. If that's really what you want to keep doing great, then we need to figure out how to navigate that and make sure you know your glucose is staying where you want it to stay and your insulin is well managed or your other meds are well managed. So that's, I guess that's an interesting like, spin the dial and it comes up this person wants to be vegan. So then my brain sort of Yes, absolutely. It sort of navigates into like my vegan train of thought like, what, what do I have to consider? Where are you getting your nutrients from? Are you getting enough of these vitamins and whatnot? Absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:06:39
I mean, I think that a lot of my skill comes from the fact that we mix and match so many different kinds of food styles at the same time. Like Like, that's where my that's when I see a food I'm like, well, that's a slow impacting carbon. That's a quick impact the I think that's why I'm good at Chinese food and things like that, because I don't look at it as I don't know I don't look at general, the general chicken and think Oh, general chicken, I think sauce. Deep fried breading you you're breaking it down. Yeah, in my mind. I break it down into different thoughts. So it's, I mean, in my mind, if you're eating generals chicken as an example, you're eating four different things. 3d, you're eating protein breading fat, and sugar. Like that's, that's how it seems to me. I don't think of it as chicken. I know that if you put like rice on top of it, I think okay, well, if this is white rice, it's one thing if it's fried rice, it's different. You know, like, I don't know, like, it just that just makes sense to me. But if Arden ate more like you, like say Arden just came out of the womb, like I'm gonna say the word that you didn't say, Jenny, I'm so let down. You didn't say this word. Oh, that was a quinoa.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:07:50
Do you want me to say quinoa? I

Scott Benner 1:07:52
was just say kimchi.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:07:54
Kimchi. Oh my gosh, I love kimchi. I can't show you when I commented about sauerkraut before I'm

Scott Benner 1:08:02
that's I haven't written right here. So I wrote down kimchi when we started. And when you said sauerkraut, I wrote down sauerkraut. She got so close.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:08:11
Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, we have. It's funny because we've got friends around the corner from us. That are our little boys are the same age and are in school together. And they make kimchi and it's it's so good. Like, so so good. My mom who makes sauerkraut, which is probably the reason that we've got a lot of it right now because we just

Scott Benner 1:08:32
that sounds good. I love sauerkraut. I've never had kimchi. Although I was in a store the other day, I saw a jar. And I thought if I didn't know, Jenny, it would look to me like somebody threw a handful of grass and weeds in this jar. But instead I know what.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:08:48
Oh, good. I'm so glad that I provided some education.

Scott Benner 1:08:50
Well, not only that, you know, I'll tell you this before I let you go. I saw someone online the other day, who said I had a banana but it was overripe. So I had to Bolus more for it. And I thought she knows that from the podcast. And she knows that from Jenny. And I was very proud of that. Like I really was I was like oh, this is wonderful. So that's super awesome. I appreciate you sharing with us with all this how you eat this is gonna go into the how we eat category.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:09:18
Fantastic. I'm sure there are things that I don't even know if I missed saying anything. I don't know. I

Scott Benner 1:09:23
mean, no, but I think the important thing about the conversation is it's a vibe, right like here's what I didn't hear you say I didn't hear you telling me that you eat anything deep fried. I didn't hear you very rare. Yeah right. I didn't hear you tell me that you have processed sugar. I didn't hear like you know that kind of stuff like that's the you know, I didn't hear you telling me I eat like this unless I ended up you know at the store and then all bets are off or something like that. You know you I heard you tell me how you eat when you get away from your house. I heard you told me that you don't go to a lot of restaurants. See, that's how I mean, this is how you eat. You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't fit into a category. You're not low carb, you're not flexitarian you're not, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:10:10
I don't write i, this is like Jenny's fuel plan. follow you, right? I don't fall into a category. I mean, if we go out to eat, we've we've picked some places that both Nathan and I have decided are just, they're really good options. You know, I mean, there's a place here that it's a really good like, salad place that's got really good quality, super awesome stuff that you can that our boys even love. Like they love to make their build their own salad from the options. And so those are more the places that we will often go.

Scott Benner 1:10:47
I didn't hear a lot, a lot, a lot of white flour. Like that sounds like something you don't get.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:10:53
I don't know. In fact, I think the last time I had white flour was probably sourdough bread this past summer that we had when we were we had gone to see Nathan's dad and his stepmother, and she made some good homemade sourdough. And I was like, Can I have a piece of that? Yeah, that sounds no good. I'd like that. Yes, that sounds

Scott Benner 1:11:17
good. Yeah, I listen, I made chocolate chip cookies the other day that are just kind of sitting downstairs. And I realized that as a, as a younger person, if somebody would have made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, I probably would have eaten lunch every time I walked past that. And I don't feel like that anymore. And I don't know if that's because I'm older, or if it's because I don't eat as much of that to begin with anymore. And so I'm not drawn to it the way I was like, There's part of me that thinks that I didn't have a chance. I woke up on Monday morning, I ate a bowl of sugary cereal. And that drove my desire throughout the day. Nobody made a meal to send with me somewhere. So even as an at 19 or 20 year old out of, you know, out of high school and on my way to work, I'd stop it like a store and grab, by the way what I could afford, which was never quality either. You know, like so there's, and then you're sort of, I don't know, like, it's like you're trapped in a in a hurricane that at that point that you just kind of can't break out of the walls of anymore. Like this is the world like my body desires this sugar, and flour, because this is what I can afford to eat. Even if I get afford more because when I got older and we could afford more, I didn't know what to do. Right? You don't I mean, I wasn't like, oh, we have some money now. I'll go buy good things. I didn't know what good things were versus bad things. No one even thought about it that that? Yeah. So I don't know. It was interesting to hear your path through all this. Your parents or your body style ish?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:12:53
Um, my dad was more. He was more the exercise. person in our house. Definitely. I mean, he's the one that got me interested in biking. My mom, now older is a little issues heavier than she was growing up. But yeah, I mean, in terms of body size, I don't have tall parents. And I didn't have extremely big parents by any means.

Scott Benner 1:13:27
It was my situation where I, when I'm with my children, people don't think they're my kids. Like we were able to do the thing that you were worried about, to some degree, like we were able to take our kids and like lift them out of the swamp that we grew up in, and kind of throw them up on the shore. And we're like, I mean, they still eat things that I wish they didn't eat. And I and I know that's because we eat those things like or that they brought around the house when they were younger before we wrapped our head around completely, you know, but for the most part, I mean, on any baseball field, or softball field I've ever been on, when people come up to you and they're meeting you and they're like, is that your kid? People always like point to the I don't know how to say this. Like the fattest kid on the team know if that's your kid there. And I'm like, I'm like no, my son's that. Gizelle and centerfield. And then they're like, Oh, I know your wife slept with the mailman. I understand that Kelly said all the time, people would come up to her at a softball game and point to the catcher and say is that your daughter? And Kelly be like, No, that's my skinny girl at third base. Are you there? Yeah. And so like that, but you match like if you stood with your family you guys all look at the reason I'm bringing

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:14:43
we would look much more visibly, I guess facially much more similar than body type like my I got the short jeans in the family. I did. I mean my brother's like six to

Scott Benner 1:14:57
I'd love to like, Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:14:59
I'm like, you know Five, three, I didn't get the tall jeans.

Scott Benner 1:15:03
I just think that what I'm hearing from your story is that your mother was willing to cook and do a good job of that, and your father was active. And you kind of took those two things and blended them together. And I'm gonna guess that you ended up in nutrition or health care, which I think of being a nutritionist as healthcare, because you had diabetes, right? Like you probably grew up with people taking care of you that you I mean, I hear it all the time. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:15:30
I did it became an interest after after I realized what a what I thought was a really good job that my dietitian, especially diabetes educator, like, I never felt like I couldn't do something. After I was diagnosed, like I never I've never had this. Well, God, I like this has just been so horrible my whole entire life. I mean, would I give it away? If somebody was like, Here? Take this pill and you don't have to? I'd be like, Sure. Give me the pill. Tomorrow or, you know what a ring the I don't think it's like a doughnut, right?

Scott Benner 1:16:12
It's, I don't know what it is. It's chocolate with chocolate cake with like white cream and chocolate icing around the outside. Okay, there

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:16:18
you go. Yes. I'm assuming you would take a bite.

Scott Benner 1:16:21
You'd go. Oh my God, that's insane. And then you would never eat. I'm at the point. Now, by the way, were processed foods. Tastes plasticky to me. Yeah. But when I was growing up, I didn't know the difference between them. Sure. I thought that was sweet. And now I'm like, This isn't good. You know? Or if you get if you took me to McDonald's, for example, I understand what a McDonald's cheeseburger tastes like. But I don't match that in my I haven't had a McDonald's cheeseburger in a really long time. But if I had one, like, I know what I think it tastes like right now in my head. But if you asked me what a McDonald's cheeseburger tastes like, I would tell you that it tastes like a McDonald's cheeseburger. Not like that, like a cheeseburger. Yeah. So I didn't have that. I didn't have those measurements in my head when I was younger. I thought that's what a cheeseburger was. Sure, yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:17:10
There was always a like, I can probably count on two hands. The number of times as a kid we went to like McDonald's or Hardee's was like card theme. You know, but I don't even think that I've ever had a McDonald's cheeseburger. Because I didn't I didn't like I always chose the fish was the fillet of fish. It's called fillet

Scott Benner 1:17:31
o fish, I believe fillet o fish, Diego. I would tell you that I haven't had one in years, except once. And it was like six months ago. And Arden and I were out late. She had a bit of blood sugar. That wouldn't like it just wouldn't break. And when we finally got it to break, and she had missed dinner, and everything was gone. And it was like midnight. And I was like Arden. Like we are going Yeah. And so we sat like, like to giddy children in the dry like outside the drive thru like EDA. God, this is terrible. And it was, but it was really good. And it was terrible at the same time. And so I don't know, it was just something. All right, I appreciate you doing this with me very much. Thanks for asking. Everything you need to know about Jenny was just in the inflection and her voice when I said thanks for doing this with me. And she said of course. Thanks for asking. That's who Jenny is. She's delightful. Let's thank Jenny of course and remind you that she works at integrated diabetes.com. If you'd like to hire her, you can also want to thank Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and the Omni pod five and remind you to go to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box Do not delay go now. Find out if you're eligible for that free 30 day supply of the Omni pod dash. I'd also like to thank my other sponsor in pen from Medtronic diabetes and remind you to head over to Impend today.com Ford slash juice box alright everybody, that's it. I am time shot. I gotta be honest with you. I haven't felt well in weeks. And this took a lot out of me. But I'm happy happy happy that you're here with me. And I will not die I promise. Even though it is trying to kill me. First the COVID then I got rid of the COVID then bronchitis then I got rid of the bronchitis. Now, I don't even know what this is. This just seems cruel at this point. But uh, I will not be I will not be thwarted. I am a little woozy. And I'm hot. But I won't I will not be third party. Sorry. I will not be the word. I will make this podcast. It will I will not be stopped. I want to feel better so badly and get this. I'm not nearly as sick as my wife. That poor girl. She's told me Stover, you know what I mean? Like, she's beat up. It's crazy. As soon as I feel better, and I mean, as soon as I feel better, I got to start doing the setups because I need somebody to take care of these kids. And you don't I mean, it's not looking good. You guys can hear the sarcasm, right? I mean, she's really sick, but I don't think she's gonna pass. But seriously, really, really sick. If you've been ill with all this. You have my you have my compassion. All right, everybody. Here I go watch this. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. I got it when I need it.

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#516 How We Eat: Intermittent Fasting

Author and podcaster Gin Stephens explains Intermittent Fasting.

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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 516 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On this episode of the podcast I'm joined by fellow podcaster and author Gin Stephens. Jen is the host of intermittent fasting stories, and the intermittent fasting podcast. She's also the author of a number of intermittent fasting books. her newest one clean ish, eat mostly clean, live mainly clean and unlock your body's natural ability to self clean comes out in January of 2022. I've been looking for someone to come on for quite some time to explain intermittent fasting to me, Jen does not have type one or type two diabetes. But she is a person who is very well versed in talking about it. And I've had some interesting run ins with the fasting idea, and I wanted to understand more about it. Maybe this will help you with your life with type one. Or maybe you're the parent of a child with type one who's looking for a new way to eat one way or the other. This is the next in my series of how we episodes. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. It is incredibly difficult to compile the data needed to help people living with Type One Diabetes. That's why the T one D exchange has asked me to ask you to consider joining the T one D exchange. All you have to do is answer a simple survey that only lasts it's a number of minutes. If it took you more than 10 minutes, I'd be surprised it took me like seven when I filled it out. You need to be a US resident who has type one, or a US resident who is the caregiver or person with type one. That's all you need to be. And you go to P one d exchange.org. Ford slash juice box. When you get there, everything is 100% HIPAA compliant. It is completely completely completely anonymous. And the questions aren't that difficult. They're not deep probing personal questions. They're kind of simple overview questions. But when they get answers from enough people, that data becomes important for people with type one. I'm going to tell you a little more about it later. But please consider going to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box. You'll be helping people living with type one diabetes, and you'll be supporting the podcast. I'll tell you more about it later. For now, I'd like you to meet Jim.

Gin Stephens 2:50
Well, hi, I'm so glad to be here. My name is Gin Stephens and I was an elementary teacher for 28 years. So I retired from that. Just before I retired, I wrote a little book called delayed on deny about living an intermittent fasting lifestyle and ran some Facebook groups and it turned into a full time career. So I love teaching and now just manage intermittent fasting support groups, and wrote another book that came out in June of 2020 called Bad speech repeat, which was a New York Times bestseller. So I am loving my intermittent fasting lifestyle and have maintained an over right right around 80 pounds loss since I first lost the weight in 2014 to 2015. So intermittent fasting has turned into my lifestyle and my career. And I just love it. Wow,

Scott Benner 3:44
I have to say I've been looking for someone to talk about this specific subject for a while. And it took me a lot of picking around because you'll reach out to people who were like I do intermittent fasting and I have this or that you think okay, well, they must be used to talking about it. And then you reach out to them like nah, I'd rather not like cheese, how can this be your thing and you don't want to talk about it. But I am so happy to have found you. What's the name of your podcast?

Gin Stephens 4:08
Well, I actually have three podcasts. Okay, the podcast are now you're gonna think I'm crazy. Well, that's a lot of podcasts. Right?

Scott Benner 4:15
You know what, then let's go backwards first, for a second. We'll get to the internet people a listener, like right away, this guy's gonna start talking is that asking about intermittent fasting? But so I want to understand first, you're a teacher. Right? And are you a teacher who's looking to change their lifestyle and finds this thing and then opens up the support group?

Gin Stephens 4:37
Yep, that's exactly what happened. I was even like many of your listeners, I'm sure. I was a chronic dilator I mean, I started dieting in high school before I even needed the diet, right? Because my mother was a dance teacher. And so I was always obsessed with issues counting calories like out in my 11th grade year. This was back in gosh 1984 85 This is how long ago it was I took a computer programming class with words learning basic, that was the name of the programming language. And I programmed a calorie counter program. So I've always had my head and diets. But over the years, you know, as I went to college graduated from college, my weight continued to yo yo, up and down, you know, the yo yos got higher, you know, would go up more than I would go down more. And so it started to look like a big roller coaster over time. And eventually, in 2014, I found myself at 210 pounds, which was officially obese. You know, I had a doctorate and gifted and talented education, and you have a master's degree in natural sciences. And I thought, you know, I'm smart, Why can I not figure out really how to lose the weight and keep it off? And so I just always was in search of that. Thank goodness, intermittent fasting has been the answer, because I have maintained in my goal range since 2015. Even as I've gone through menopause, I'm now on the other side of that, and still maintaining, but you know, it's what I was looking for all those years. And I just didn't know it. Okay,

Scott Benner 6:02
so I have I'm just for context, how tall are you? I'm five, five. Okay, and now you weigh more like 130 ish.

Gin Stephens 6:12
Yeah, right around there. I haven't weighed myself in years, because I just go by the fit of my clothes now. Right? So you must be close to fit.

Scott Benner 6:21
Is that? Is that a freeing idea to not step on a scale?

Gin Stephens 6:24
Yes, it really, really is. Like, in context, I'm coming from the beach. I'm at the beach right now. And I've been here for two weeks, I'm going home tomorrow. And you know, I know my weight would be up. If I were weighing the scale, just because I've eaten differently. You know, it's been a week, your family, I ate out a lot. And so you know what it got to me. But all this lifetime of dieting, you know, I would get on the scale and see that the number was up intellectually, I know, well, it's because they ate differently. I didn't gain, you know, fat, all this fat over the course of two weeks at the beach. And it goes down over the next few days. But then you start having those diety thoughts, like, Oh, I better go on a diet. And what I learned with intermittent fasting is it all takes care of itself, you know, you live the lifestyle. It just all works out, like I said, so I've been maintaining my weight since 2015. You know, if my honest GPS get a little tight, then I just realized that our time to maybe tighten up those eating windows a little bit, and it all works out? Well, it's so much more freeing, and I lose that diet thought that I was so trapped in before,

Scott Benner 7:25
how much of being a teacher helps you organize a support group

Gin Stephens 7:30
100%, I'm gonna tell you the very best preparation for working with a large group of adults, as well as being an elementary school teacher, because you learn classroom management and how to deal with, with people, you know, little people are, you know, grow up to be big people, and they have the same personalities. And so, you know, my skills is managing groups of people really has helped me with running the Facebook groups. I've since left Facebook, I'm no longer there. But which is a whole different story. But it really is very helpful. And also, I realized, being an elementary teacher, it helps me write books. You know, people are like, Wow, you've written this in a way that I really understand it. And one of my friends said, Gosh, I think all books should be written by teachers. And I think, yeah, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to deliver content to people in a way that makes sense. That's my whole background, you

Scott Benner 8:26
and I talk in pictures. And I think that's why this podcast is positive for people. Because I'm explaining how to how I use insulin for my daughter and a number of other things. And what I hear back more often from people than not is that I really understand it when you explain it. It's very easy to grasp. It's not very technical. It's in my head. Yeah, it's just your boy.

Gin Stephens 8:50
Yeah, I was had an endocrinologist. I mean, think about this. I'm an elementary teacher, I had an endocrinologist, email me and say, Wow, your explanation of I don't I don't even know what probably I was talking about insulin and the type two diabetes and fasting this of course, very different from type one diabetes, as you know, but he said, it really helped me understand in a way I'd never understood it before. I'm like, well, that's just wacky.

Scott Benner 9:16
Yeah, I just had an endo. I just recorded with an endo last week who came on to tell me that the podcast changed how they talk to their patients. Wow, is very cool. But it's it just goes to show that some people are good at delivering a message and some people aren't. And I suspected maybe the teaching part helped you? Yeah, I'm just gonna stay here for one more second before we get to the fasting thing. You said you're not on Facebook anymore. Did you create your own group off online somewhere else? It's not through Facebook.

Gin Stephens 9:42
You know, I did. I did. And it's it's small. I had gotten up to almost 500,000 group members across my combined Facebook groups. But you know, Facebook started making a lot of mistakes with their artificial intelligence. In fact, just this morning, and I haven't been on Facebook since March, I left March 29 is the day I walked away. You know, recording this, gosh, three months later, almost Well, almost to the day. But just today when I left one of my Facebook groups still active, but run by moderators, but I haven't been there just today I got a deem by Facebook me. Obviously, it's something I posted months and months ago. But they said that I posted something that went against cybersecurity. I mean, I have not been posting on Facebook, like I said, since March, that's been over three months. And today, and because I'm the quote, admin of the group that goes against group studying against the group, if we get too many of those, they shut down the group, right. And, you know, we're intermittent fasting support group. And so my fear was, in the fall, they started cracking down on health groups. And, you know, we all know, you know, the spread of quote, misinformation is something they're trying to go against, but they were shutting down, like essential oil groups and things like that, like a friend of mine had a cooking group, and it got shut down overnight while she was asleep. And she didn't know why. And she was also, you know, off of Facebook, like she had her account had been deactivated. And then her group of 10,000 had been shut down. So I started thinking, you know, I did all of my work on Facebook, and with one click, they could shut me down,

Scott Benner 11:17
right? From an algorithm.

Gin Stephens 11:19
Yeah, yeah, based on I mean, I don't what did I do months ago, or even I may put it in a post I made years ago, I,

Scott Benner 11:26
someone in my group was once reported for bullying by the algorithm. And I looked, and they were just sarcastically saying something to someone that everyone involved in the conversation completely understood.

Gin Stephens 11:36
Oh, we got a Dang. And on the group, I'm one of the moderators, and it counts more when it's a moderator and admin, that's what gets your group shut down. But one of the moderators got a ding for saying, it was it was called bullying. And she had said this to a group member, she's like, well, don't worry, once you're fat adapted, fasting gets much easier. Okay, well, the AI saw your fat that's in contact, your fat adapted? Yeah, I mean, that's a perfectly good contact. And then she appealed it, and she got like a Facebook Jail for like a week. And it counted against the group. Because she was a moderator. And we're like, wait a minute, this is crazy. So I, you know, I started feeling the threat of I could really lose everything I've built, you know, you don't have email addresses of the group numbers. So I walked away, and it feels great

Scott Benner 12:25
for you. That's excellent. So and I agree, I that my Facebook page, I mean, I don't have 500,000. But there's 13,000 people in there, I only started at maybe a year and a half ago, and much more niche group of people, obviously. But, uh, I have that thought sometimes like, what if I like, what if this just gets taken from me by an algorithm? Or by something like that it's helping all these people? How do I find them to say, I don't even know what to do. So maybe I'll have to, in the back of my mind, start figuring out what you learned. So people can have a safer place. But nevertheless, I asked you on the show, because I am probably I am not a good eater in general, meaning that if it's green, or natural, or in any way reasonably good for you, I probably never had it before or eating it under protest that when I was 12. And I, my body retains water, like I'm in the seventh month of a pregnancy. So if I, if I eat too much of anything, I can wake up in the morning, four pounds heavier. It's absolutely right. It's It's crazy. So I'm always and forever and the people know listening, I'm always in forever just like messing with one thing or another, but I never do anything specifically. And then one day I run into intermittent fasting. And I have not kept up with it for I guess reasons that have nothing to do with how well it worked. But I went to a schedule of like eating from, I guess 11 to seven maybe 11am to 7pm. And I started with like a I don't I think I might have started with like a 36 hour water fast. And I went right into intermittent and then I must have lost 15 pounds in like a week. Wow. waterway 100%. And but as I was going and then I kept moving. I started testing the theory, I started acting like a like a scientist, I was like, I'm gonna eat everything in between this gap of time. And it was stuff that I don't even normally eat stuff that I would not consider Good for you. And I couldn't gain weight. Right? And so I don't understand that. And then here's the other side of it. My daughter's had type one diabetes, and she's two she's 17. Now this podcast reaches a lot of people who use insulin and have type one and type two diabetes. When my daughter wakes up in the morning, and overnight her blood sugars are absolutely fantastic because there's no fast acting insulin in her and there's no food, that kind of stuff. And it hit me one day. Arden fasts my daughter Just not on the schedule you would think of she basically goes to bed at 10pm and doesn't really wake up and start eating till nine or 10am. She's basically a 1212 eater, right. And her blood sugars are super stable in that time and no lows, like just very stable. So I'm looking for somebody to really explain the nuts and bolts of intermittent fasting, how it works. And I think you might be the person so whatever it is, you tell people about it, I'd love it if you could tell my listeners now.

Gin Stephens 15:30
Well, you know, you've seen it in action and your daughter her blood sugar is very stable because she's not taking in any any fuel wants to sleeping. And our bodies just running right along. You know, our bodies can can be fueled by what we're taking in. you're consuming or our bodies can be fueled from within, right. So within, like, let's say your fasting, there are two places your body can get your fuel one would be glycogen stores. I mean, how basic Do I need to get into this?

Scott Benner 16:05
Like in your liver, your liver, your liver holds glycogen

Gin Stephens 16:08
up? Yeah, your liver, your liver holds glycogen, your muscles hold glycogen, right? So you know, if nothing's coming in, that's the first place your body's going to turn. And it's gonna you know, it days since to save the glycogen in your muscles for for activity, but it'll it'll dip into that liver glycogen. And it's still nothing is coming in. Oh, and by the way, that's why you may see during a fad that you may see blood sugar go up. And you might think, well, how is this possible, I haven't eaten anything was my blood sugar up? Well, that's because your liver is releasing the glycogen. And it's going in your bloodstream. So you have to be aware of that your blood sugar can go up while you're fasting because the it's coming from within your body. So once your liver gets depleted of glycogen, to a certain degree, your body's like, Alright, dude, we got to do something else, we got to get some more fuel. And that's when it starts tapping into your fat stores for fuel for fuel. Sorry, you drink some coffee, I'm drinking my black coffee right now. So you start tapping in your fat stores for fuel and your body really has a lot of fat stores on board. And it can keep you going for a long time. And it can also make ketones out of your fat stores that fuels your brain very well. This is not the same as you know, diabetic ketoacidosis, obviously, which is something you'll have to watch out for. But you you feel great. So your brain has a steady source of fuel from the the ketones that are being produced. And you know, a lot of people think that you only make ketones if you're on the keto diet, and that's not true. Fasting is very ketogenic. And so, you know, I carbs my eating window every day. But during the fast, I find myself, you know, dipping into ketosis, you know, as I get into the later part of the fast, you know, before my eating window opens. So I have great mental clarity, and great sustained energy during the day, you know, for whatever I need. So I really think our bodies are meant to be metabolically flexible like this, if you think about the standard way that we've been really told to eat for the past few decades, you know, breakfast is, quote, the most important meal of the day, and you need to eat to boost your metabolism. And all these things, we've been told that people are eating like six times a day snacks in between, we're constantly putting sources of energy into our body. And so we never have to tap into our stored fat for fuel.

Scott Benner 18:33
Right, you're just always staying on, you're always keeping the gas tank full. So you don't know

Gin Stephens 18:37
exactly, we're always in the Fed state. And so we never, we never have a chance to even you know, to dip into our fat stores. Really, and you know, we're meant to be metabolically flexible, which means we're able to, you know, change our fuel source as needed, once your body adjusts to intermittent fasting courses doesn't happen on day one. But once you adjust, your body can just do what it needs to do and you don't feel terrible.

Scott Benner 19:03
You feel great in the fasted state, your body just makes that shift naturally like it's supposed to do. It's funny, as I was doing it, it occurred to me, I've been talking about this a lot lately that because of the internet, you have to name things because if they don't have a name, you can't look for it. Right? But if if you would have eaten like this 30 years ago, what somebody would have said, like, how do you eat, you would have said, Oh, I skipped breakfast and I don't eat when the sun goes down. That might be all you'd say. Yeah, you know, and that really is what you're doing right? And you're creating this, this thing that you're describing this time where your body can kind of just say, Alright, now I'm going to work on your fat. I'm going to take the storage and then at some point, I guess you get the storage depleted down where physically you appear more of the way you're hoping to. And then you eat during the eating schedule, which puts it back in and then you stop eating during the fasting schedule and then your body He pulls it back out again. And then you're in this kind of nice back and forth

Gin Stephens 20:03
all this. Absolutely, that's what happens. And another name for intermittent fasting, that's a little more sciency time restricted eating, you know that that sounds a little bit better to some people, you know, oh, I follow time restricted eating, which means you just eat within the window of time. And you know, the cats out of the bag, a lot of people are like, I'm not gonna call intermittent fasting, you can call it whatever you want that I mean, it is called fasting, you know, in the general landscape, but time restricted eating just maybe sounds a little better to some people. But even though it's the same thing,

Scott Benner 20:32
and I gotta tell you, I don't care what it sounds like, I there's, there's a whole series inside of the podcast mind called how we eat and somebody with Type One Diabetes comes on, and talks about their eating style, so that people can see that people eat in all different ways. My theory, my theory being everyone with type ones using insulin, they just need to understand how to use it for their style. And so I just couldn't find a type one who intermittent fast. And it seemed more technical than just explaining how they did it. So that's why I asked you to come on. And I presume

Gin Stephens 21:05
Have you ever read the book mastering diabetes? Have you seen that one?

Scott Benner 21:08
I don't read as a general rule, because I'm a boy. No, because I'm very busy. And I and I have seen people on the Facebook page talk about that. But to the extent that I understand what it is, I think it's they eat like a lot of fruit and vegetables and the

Gin Stephens 21:24
type one that that that's what's what's why I brought it up their type one. And they are I don't know if they're completely vegan, but they're very plant based, low fat plant based. But they talk about, you know, why that works so well, in for type one, and also, but the intermittent fasting, so they do intermittent fasting and like that plant base,

Scott Benner 21:44
my my thought around eating is that it's sort of like my thought around everything, but you can't, there might be a perfect solution. But I don't think you can make everybody do it. So I prefer to just say, look, here are all the options. Maybe one of these fits you.

Gin Stephens 22:01
Well, we're all different when it comes to what foods work for our bodies. And science is actually telling us this more and more. You know, the whole field of personalized nutrition is popping up. They're doing a lot of really interesting research on it. A lot of it comes from our gut microbiome. And like we've found, you know, I get like, let's just say glycaemic index, you know, we've all heard of the glycemic index and glycemic response, probably your audience more than most. But it blew my mind when I realized when I finally understood that we all have individual glycaemic responses, like the way I respond to a potato might be different from the way you respond to a potato. And, you know, it, there's not a universal glycaemic response to any food.

Scott Benner 22:41
Yeah. You know, if I, if I completely cut sugar out of my life, my gi system doesn't work as well. Really, I don't need a ton of it, but I need a little bit of sugar and then the entire process start to finish goes better. That was a really I

Gin Stephens 22:58
need to eat starchy, starchy carbs, I feel better when I eat starchy carbs, you know, I tried to do keto, back in the day before intermittent fasting the whole summer of 2014. I was like, I'm gonna lose weight with keto because then I'll never have to quote diet again. I'm just gonna eat this. I'm just forever by lose any weight. And I felt awful. And I never felt satisfied. I never felt full even though I was eating so much fat, so much food. And then that was when I said, Forget it. I'm just gonna do intermittent fasting. And I'd heard about it, I knew about it. I dabbled in it, but I couldn't make it stick as a lifestyle. Then finally, in 2014, when I switched from keto to intermittent fasting, I reintroduced carbs. And I finally started losing weight. And I felt so much better. And I'm like, Hmm, I really do need to eat carbs. And you know, when I try to try to avoid them, I do not feel satisfied. So I believe that we're really are all different. goes back to what lives in your gut microbiome.

Scott Benner 23:56
Well, let me ask you this when you're not eating when you're in the fasting part of the intermittent fasting, so the intermittent is I'm intermittently eating and the fast thing is, I'm also intermittently fasting when I'm in the fasting part. What if forget, type ones for a second? Okay, type twos and people who don't have diabetes is is fasting lessening your need for insulin?

Gin Stephens 24:20
Well, it would Yes, because you're our bodies know people whose bodies produce insulin are in our bodies when we release the insulin in response to food in our blood sugar going up and so with those of us who have have a working pancreas, insulin is coming out. Like if I were to drink a diet soda right now, for example, my brain says Oh, we got something sweet coming in. That means sugar because our brains don't understand Oh no, this is made in the lab. This is artificially sweet because all throughout history, everything that came in that tasted sweet was fruit or honey or sugar or you know it was going to give us a blood sugar was going to go up. Doesn't happen with with the diet sodas. So our bodies release insulin in response with this valic phase insulin response. And so high levels of insulin are actually anti lipolytic, which means keep us from tapping into store fat. So, like if I just drink diet soda all day long and had no food coming in, I would not be tapping into my fat stores very well, because my insulin would stay up even though my foods coming in because I'm sending that food signal. You know, we don't want to send food signals to our body when we're not really eating.

Scott Benner 25:42
Interesting. Okay,

Gin Stephens 25:43
it is very interesting. I learned all of this from reading Dr. Jason funks. work. I didn't understand that before. You know, we all have been taught that oven has zero calories. It's diet, it's good for you. And when I read the obesity code, I was like, Oh, no wonder we all have all these problems. Yeah, type two diabetes is really a disease that starts with too much insulin. You were were insulin resistant, it follows you know, a pattern of insulin resistance. Insulin is too high, our body becomes more resistant. It all just breaks down over time. And leading to insulin dependent type two diabetics, you know, my dad is in that situation. But I actually read a great article. I think it was written by a nurse practitioner, I can't remember but it was when I was researching for fasciae strappy that talked about hyperinsulinemia and our fasting insulin levels. And again, this is not going to be the same thing for someone with Type One Diabetes, but for someone on the way to type two diabetes. And basically she said we're testing the wrong thing. You know, we track your a one C, and blood sugars, but really, fasted insulin starts to go up even before your a one c starts to go up. So that would be the thing to actually track your tracking unit. She said the wrong thing. If everyone knows what their fasted insulin is doing, you could actually take care of that and maybe prevent your one C from from going up prevent the the progression to type two diabetes, my mom and I'm not a doctor. So yeah, listen,

Scott Benner 27:17
people listening to this know this. They're not getting medical advice here from me. Yeah, bad for me. Yeah, don't worry. There's a big disclaimer at the beginning. So you just didn't hear it. I so my mom is 78 years old, and I'm adopted. So she's not biologically my mom. But she started about a year ago, seeing her a one seat rise, and her father had type two diabetes. And I said to her, like, we're in the middle of a pandemic. And I'm like, Mom, listen, here's what I want you to do. was like, I put her on an intermittent schedule, and a lower carb than she does maybe not more than maybe 30 carbs a day. And her a once he came. I mean, she's 78 and she wasn't being active and ra once he dropped down like a point, awesome.

Gin Stephens 28:01
Intermittent fasting does that. Also, you know, you got to make sure that during the fast you're not doing anything that would make your body think foods coming in so you avoid anything with any kind of sweetener. No matter what they tell you. They're like, Oh, no glycemic response. Well, not right now. Avoid any kind of sweetener or food flavor. Don't put lemon in your water. Don't put cucumber in your water, avoid, you know, fruity herbal teas like Apple Cinnamon delight, that kind of thing. You don't want your body to think foods coming in.

Scott Benner 28:29
Can we talk about this on another episode where a CD who's on named Jenny said that when a person who doesn't have diabetes, smells food, or even believes they're about to eat that their insulin starts to work? Yeah, to help keep your blood sugar levels true.

Gin Stephens 28:46
Yeah, it's true. It's your body sensing these food cues. And that cephalic phase insulin response, you know, your body's like, Alright, food is coming in. So you know, we don't want to worry about things we can't control. Like if you're walking through the mall and you smell Cinnabon, you don't need to freak out but

Scott Benner 29:04
I just pictured someone throwing themselves off the second floor into the planter,

Gin Stephens 29:09
where the clothes pan on their nose. You don't need to do all that right? Just you know, don't put anything in you can control what you're drinking, you can control that very easily.

Scott Benner 29:17
Yeah. So if I'm intermittent fasting, I don't even want to have tea before my my eating time starts

Gin Stephens 29:25
you can have you can have black tea, plain tea, green tea, anything that's made of actual tea,

Scott Benner 29:30
that I put sugar into it or something like that. Boom, I'm done. Yeah,

Gin Stephens 29:34
I don't want to add anything to it. So a bitter flavor profile like it's found in black coffee because I'm drinking my black coffee right now. I had to learn to love it because I used to be a heavy stevia user I would put vanilla cream stevia and cinnamon in my coffee and it was a delicious treat. My brain thought it was a delicious treat to but switching to black coffees made all the difference because the bitter flavor profile is not associated with, you know, calories are coming in. So your brain does not see that as a food cue.

Scott Benner 30:04
Does, can the schedule move about? Like, can I, I can do 10 to six one day or noon to eight, like if I'm gonna go out to dinner later like it does that work?

Gin Stephens 30:13
Absolutely. And, you know, you can, you're talking about an eight hour eating window and an eight hour eating window is a great schedule for someone who is not trying to lose weight. Someone who just wants my husband, for example, he never needed to lose weight. He's a PhD organic chemist, and he does a loose 16 eight, he eats lunch, he eats dinner, that's it. And on the weekends, sometimes you might shift a little earlier and have like a really like a brunch kind of lunch, if it's gonna be doing a lot of yard work or something. And it's flexible for him. Now, if you're a woman like me, or if you're trying to lose weight, you may need a shorter eating window, you know, five hour eating window was my weight loss sweet spot. And waiting till later in the day to open my eating window worked better for me, but it's really your your study of one, you've got to figure out what feels like a lifestyle to you. Because intermittent fasting is not something that you want to start and stop, start and stop. You know, your metabolic flexibility can be affected. If you go long stretches without doing any intermittent fasting, you'll have to go through the adjustment period again. And that's the hardest part. So you want to you want to find a lifestyle that is the right amount of fasting for what feels good to you, and allows you to meet whatever the goals are the path,

Scott Benner 31:31
that adjustment period. I am obviously it's probably different for other people, but is there an average on how many weeks until you're not you don't feel hungry, and it feels normal to you.

Gin Stephens 31:41
It really does vary from person to person. So if anyone is starting intermittent fasting, I would encourage them to read or Scott, listen to my book fast, please repeat. It's on Audible. And I actually read it to you, I have something in there called the 28 day Fast Start, and that is your adjustment period. And so that's kind of an average. Now, if you're, you know, pretty metabolically healthy, you might adjust more quickly. Or if you've dabbled in intermittent fasting before, if you're eating, you know, a low carb diet that would also help your body probably make the transition more quickly. versus if you're someone who has been battling your weight for a long time you know, your type two diabetic, you've been obese for a while, it might take your body a couple of months, and maybe 28 days is not going to be enough, you may need to tweak what you're eating as well. Over time, it's really going to be different for everybody, you need to ease in as much as you need to. But understand the goal, you know, you fast clean, which you avoiding any of those food cues, you stick to plain water, no flavors added. You can have sparkling water as long as it's unflavored black coffee, plain tea, stick to the clean fast. And then even your eating window, close reading window, do it again tomorrow. And you just really learn to listen to your body. If you ever feel shaky or nauseous during the during the adjustment period, or really anytime that that may be a sign that your blood sugar is too low now that your audience would be testing their blood sugar so they would know you know in that case, go ahead and eat Don't be a hero. Don't push them through something that your body's telling you eat and you eat.

Scott Benner 33:20
I also have a fairly big caregiver audience too. So a lot of people who don't have type one that you know our parents and you know, might need the information as well like this. This is a an interesting episode for me kind of crosses a lot of different different audience members that I don't normally do. What what are their you said the fast clean What about when you're eating?

Gin Stephens 33:50
When you're eating you know, you eat what what you how you want to eat. You know, as I already said, there's no one way of eating that works for everyone. You know, they're there for I'll use two books for example. One is mastering diabetes that I already mentioned, written by two guys are type one they eat. Like I said, it might even be vegan like that vegan, and that's what they recommend. Well, then on the on the flip side, we've got the diabetes code written by Dr. Jason Fung and he represents our he recommends that you use a high fat low carb approach. And both approaches they're like 180 from each other, but they're working for different people. But what both have in common is the fasting. You know, so that's that's a commonality between both books. You have intermittent fasting in there. And then during the eating window, you find a way that works well for you. I mean, I eat all the foods. I'm also metabolically healthy, I don't have diabetes, and I never was diagnosed with pre diabetes or anything. Although I was probably on my way at 210 pounds. I had a lot of abdominal fat. And you know, that's a big sign of metabolic syndrome. So I'm pretty sure I wasn't you know, especially Looking at my dad, I was on that path. But you know, I eat all the foods. I feel better when I eat real foods and avoid ultra processed foods, although I still eat ultra processed foods every day. Like I love crackers and chips. I just do fit them in around my whole foods instead of making them the centerpiece.

Scott Benner 35:18
Yeah, so you're not having a bag of chips? Oh, gosh, no. So what if I'm gonna go down the other side of the spectrum for a second? What if you're a person is like, I can eat on a schedule, but I'm not going to eat well? Will there be any benefit for them? If they're, like, literally at McDonald's during their eating window?

Gin Stephens 35:37
Well, you know, yes, I like to say the magic happens during the clean fast, although what you eat is important. You're gonna be, you're gonna be better, you know, we need to nourish our bodies, because that's really what makes them work well, but they did a study with rats, I believe. And so I'm just talking about at the top of my head here. I don't have the details in front of me, but they fed different groups of rats different ways. And they also did intermittent fasting with the rats and the ones who continue to eat. I think they called it the cafeteria diet. It was, you know, ultra processed foods. Those rats had health benefits from the fasting even though they they ate the junky food.

Scott Benner 36:18
I made it I go, you stumbled and you use two different colloquialisms and you blinded them. You started I said, I'm talking out of my head, which I believe is I'm talking out of my ass and talking off the top of my head put the

Gin Stephens 36:29
guy did. I'm also in the south. And we don't say we don't say bad word. I know. Of course, we're trying to women not to do that. Also, I taught school for 28 years so often and changing what I'm saying.

Scott Benner 36:44
I like I said, we don't say that you just don't say that more people can hear you.

Gin Stephens 36:47
Well, we say around our trusted people. And really, things have changed over time to almost 52. So it's hard to unlearn those habits. And again, you have to be super careful in a classroom full of kids.

Scott Benner 36:57
It was delightful. When I heard the two colloquialisms get blended together and you rolled right through it. I was like, that's so interesting. Am I not asking you anything? I should be asking you because I really don't know enough about this?

Gin Stephens 37:09
Well, you know, the one thing I guess you might want to ask is, is it different? Or I'm just gonna tell you, I'm gonna just answer it, you know, the different for you, whether you're type one or type two? And the answer is yes, obviously, you know, you're going to if you're type one, you're going to really need to possibly work with your endocrinologist. Hopefully, your endocrinologist is is knowledgeable about intermittent fasting more and more of them are. But you may need a different plan than someone who's type two, of course,

Scott Benner 37:40
right? Well, I just going off of that and telling you something you might never need to know, but might find interesting. So my daughter uses less Basal insulin overnight than she does during the day. Right? And so I'm imagining that if people want to try this with type one, they're gonna run into a similar situation, but it might not be as Stark and helpful as they think. Because there's still other things at play that when you have the pancreas where any

Gin Stephens 38:10
factors? Yeah, I mean, right. And be aware that your blood sugar might go up, you know, like after the workout, for example, if you're fasting, and you work out, you might see your blood sugar pop up, because your muscles are dumping that glycogen, you know, and so you still have to be on top of that, even though no food has come in, you do have to keep your eye on it.

Scott Benner 38:34
I just recorded a variable Episode The other day that may or may not be up by the time this goes up that discusses the difference for type ones between anaerobic exercise and aerobic exercise and what happens to your blood sugar in both situations. And when you tax your muscles lift heavy weights, you are most definitely going to see a blood sugar rise afterwards. Yeah, right. I'm even talking about growth hormone for kids. Hormones from you know, menstrual cycles. Like all this stuff is not going to be completely squelched by as far as I can tell through my daughter through a fasting schedule. But what I can tell you is that, that during my daughter's eating schedule, she eats about like every other 17 year old kid on the planet. Yeah, some days it's a salad and she looks like a dainty lady and Downton Abbey. And other days. She's like, I need nachos and cheese. And I was like, Okay, and then you end up at some like fast food place and she's dipping nachos into a giant vat of what I don't even know what it is. They say it's case. Oh, but I mean, come on. What does that even mean? But, but so she eats sort of, you know, off and on like that, but her weight is very stable. That's good. Yeah. And a lot of times her age as she gets older. No, no, I know. But but but I'm just saying that. I also know children her age that don't eat on a fasting schedule and mix stuff like that in and they don't have the amount of success. She also exercises and You know, you know she, I don't want to paint her as a babysitter. She's a, I would call her an American eater, right. But if there's a more healthy side to that she's, she's off to that side a little bit. That's gonna show snack on carrots.

Gin Stephens 40:15
Right? Oh, that's good. Yeah, getting getting in the vegetables. That's important. You know, I, I was raised, you know, during the time when we just thought if you just took a vitamin, it'd be fine. You know, who needs to eat vegetables, take your vitamins. And so I've had to learn a lot about food. I have a new book coming out, called clean ish. It's coming out on January of 2020. It's available for pre order now. But it really you know, it's I was doing research for that book. It really helped me see, oh, gosh, we need more than just that vitamin pill. You know, we need to nourish our bodies with the, you know, fruits and vegetables. And so I'm making even more of an effort than I was before I eat the rainbow. Not the Skittles, but a real rainbow Rainbow.

Scott Benner 41:02
Well, I tell people all the time that you know, you can, you can figure out how to use insulin for almost anything. But just because you know how to Bolus for Fruity Pebbles doesn't mean you should have them every day. Right? You know, right. And that eating less processed food. Also, I bring it up here a lot, Jen, I cut out oils. And it made a big difference in my life.

Gin Stephens 41:25
Oh, yeah. Those inflammatory oils? Really. I mean, I have a co host on the intermittent fasting podcast. And she's been talking about those for a long time. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. I don't want to hear about that. But when I started really digging into the science, she was right that 70 of those seed oils that are the modern oils are just not good for us. So I picked the olive oil at home. You know, an avocado oil is also a better choice.

Scott Benner 41:55
All I have is I only use cold pressed, not processed olive oil. That's the only thing it's in the house with the exception if I want to be honest for a second, there is a small can of canola oil, which is not I found not good. But I needed to pop popcorn. And other than that it has no use in our life. I can't drink. Yeah. So and popcorn is a thing around here. So and I make it like it's 1948 in a pot with a lid, you know? Yeah, and put real butter on it. Oh, you're gonna have popcorn? I don't understand going halfway.

Gin Stephens 42:30
No butter and salt. That's delicious. But But yeah, ultra processed foods are a problem. You know, I really think if we could, if we could do cheap things for the world, everyone stopped eating ultra processed foods. And when we stopped drinking all these garbage beverages, which really actually, point one would take care of because, you know, you go to the beverage aisle of any grocery store mega Mart, Costco anywhere, be that right? There is so many of our health problems, everything. We've got artificial flavors, sweeteners. It's just It's terrible. But if we all just started eating real food,

Scott Benner 43:05
I think the health of the world would just be changed, just boom like that. So the people who listened to the show mostly probably know that a number of weeks ago, I had to go, you'll probably enjoy this as a person as a podcast. My son had to go from the east coast to the west coast. And he had to stay there for five weeks to work out. He's training for a baseball thing. And the first week he was going to be there. We didn't have lodging for him. And I was going to be with him the first week and we just couldn't set up lodging. And a listener of the show put us up in their house for a week. Which I know even probably sounds crazy to you. But I had

Gin Stephens 43:45
no it does not sound crazy to me because I've had events with my community we've on cruises, and so Yeah, no kidding. It's free. Free COVID

Scott Benner 43:54
so the reason I'm telling you this is because my son and I lived with this, this beautiful family for a week. But they don't drink anything but water. Yeah, and by the time we were there five or six days, I started looking in the mirror and thinking like I'm losing weight. Yeah, but they eat more than I do. And so I was eating on their schedule not like times a day but like they have big they have a big meal every night for dinner like kind of thing like their nights I don't eat very much and things like that. And I was like losing weight really quickly. Right so I got home and I said to my wife I was like can we make one small change? There's always Snapple in the house diet snap, I was like, Can we stop buying that? Oh,

Gin Stephens 44:35
yeah, that's that. Yep. I would absolutely not drink that. Just drink water. Really? I really think if every person whether you're fasting or not only drank plain water with no flavors added black coffee, plain tea, don't add anything to it. I think the health of the world would just blossom he amazing. Yeah.

Scott Benner 44:53
Well, so then I got a little I got a little sneaky. And I was like well let me like try to make this a little better for the people in the house and I brought in like a bubbly water, but it has a flavor in it. Yeah. And I'm not losing weight the way I did when I was at those people's houses,

Gin Stephens 45:06
I promise you stick to the stick to the unflavored. The plain like I have, you know, the lucky boy in the blue can. That's unflavored. Okay, I'll drink that. I also like sanpellegrino mineral water in a flavor added. You know, I like the bubbles. How about that?

Scott Benner 45:22
I just all occurred to me as you were talking, honestly, over the last 15 minutes. I was like, Oh, I cut out the Snapple. Yeah, didn't replace it with just pure water. How about that? Yeah.

Gin Stephens 45:32
And even you know, forget about what I talked about before with the Alec pays insulin response, you know, then the diet sweetener, or the artificial sweeteners affect our gut microbiome in a negative way. We're learning more about that. And so much of our health stems from the gut, you know, even like what your glycaemic responses, it's related to what lives in your gut. So, you know, we want to encourage a healthy population in our gut and they thrive on the real foods, and the ultra processed foods cultivate an entirely different gut microbiome, that it's going to lead you towards, you know, unhealthy outcomes. Will you see that over and over and over? Every study confirms that there's never been a study that shows that ultra processed foods lead to better health outcome. Over time, two things

Scott Benner 46:21
come to mind at once. I had a really beautiful doctor on and she talked about just thyroid stuff, because right, autoimmune things kind of travel in packs. So if you have type one, you might have a thyroid, you might have celiac, like there's other things that would pop up and they'd at least be in the family. So I add them into the show. And she was talking about gut health. And she's like, it's one of those things we can't really quantify yet the way we want to. But there's something there. And it's really important.

Gin Stephens 46:51
It really is. I'm following a researcher. His name is Dr. Tim Spector. He's out of UK, the UK and he is doing a lot of work with personalized nutrition right now. And you know, he's studied identical twins and a lot of genetic research, but he's really focused on the gut now. And it's just astonishing how important it is.

Scott Benner 47:11
Well, I don't know how much this connects. But I told you, I stopped I took all the other oils out of my life, which means now I won't eat something that's deep fried, you know, you know, that kind of stuff. But we ended up in a, you know, one of our like, kind of local bar restaurants recently. And I just stayed away from things that were fried. But then someone didn't finish their chicken wings. And I had a couple of them. And I recognize that I'm sorry if this is too much information for people, but I recognized after I ate them, I am now on a countdown to need to be near a bathroom. Because my stomach is not accustomed to the oil anymore.

Gin Stephens 47:50
That's true. I went You know, you're at the beach with my family. We went to my dad really wanted to go to a seafood buffet. And I was like, Okay, well fine. Keep the dad happy. And so we had the whole family and we went and you know everything there was fraud, pretty much and the crab legs dipping them in that fake butter. It was you know, not the kind of food I would normally eat. But you're right. The next day I was in the bathroom more than normal. Yeah, it was that food and then I was so puffy, I felt inflamed. But you know, I'm, as I talked about in my new book title, clean ish, I'm clean ish. I'm not, you know, obsessive, like gonna sit there with my family and refuse to eat because this is not what I normally eat. Or, you know, go munching just, you know, Iceberg lettuce off the salad bar. I was like, Okay, this is not what I do normally, but I'm going to, I'm going to eat this food and it'll be okay.

Scott Benner 48:39
I'm learning a lot from you. Because you and I are really similar except I didn't stick to the intermittent fasting. I I'm, I'm ish around it like I'm not your intermittent fasting ish. I'm not Yeah, I'm not eating after dark kind of things. But I am eating earlier in the day than I should be. But I was gonna say about the ish part this weekend coming up, July 4, right. And we're getting together at my mother in law's house for the first time in a long time. And I said, Well, I'm gonna bring a pizza oven. I'll make pizzas but I'm gonna make the dough from hand like like actually from scratch. I'll use double zero, like finely milled flour, which believe it or not, impacts me differently than buying like flowers that are milled the American way. I do believe that. Yeah. super interesting. And so when you come down to it with this one that being is the flour the dough is going to be nothing more than flour, salt, Eastern water, and then I will spend a little extra money to put a higher quality cheese on it. Right and and you know, a couple of toppings they'll be like mushrooms they have some might be a little sausage for somebody that's really going to be it and my body will process that pizza. No problem.

Gin Stephens 49:47
Absolutely. You're so right that I actually know my own wheat into flour on occasion and, and bake from Super scratch and it's just such a different experience that really makes a huge difference. You know when people are like a pizza is so bad for you? Well, not not if you're making it like this, right? I mean, if I ordered like a Pizza Hut pizza with Lord knows what they even put on that right? I

Scott Benner 50:10
know exactly what I'm thinking like I thinking of that pizza right now building it in my head. And I know every base ingredient that's in there and I mean down to the fact that it's only that thing that's in there, there's nothing right involved in it. And it's easier on my system.

Gin Stephens 50:25
100% it really is astonishing. So, you know, that's the thing you can eat all the foods you love. I mean, I eat potatoes all the time. But you know, when I when I make them at home, I'll cut a potato up, toss it in olive oil, throw it in the oven, roast it, and it's like Kevin frost, but you know, roasted in my oven. Yeah. And I don't feel bad. However, the first night I was at the beach when I drove here. I went over to the little beach bar because I always like to go there one time and I had a burger and fries and I felt like garbage. Yeah, there's got to be my stomach. Like why did I need these fries with me? My stomach hurt? Why did I do it?

Scott Benner 51:01
Jim, do you? Do you ever talk about that on the on your show? Do you ever think about it your personal life? Like I know everything you've said today makes 100% sense to me. I've seen it happen in my own life. Why will later today I walk past the candy dish and put a gumdrop in my mouth? Like Why? What happened to me when I was little Jen?

Gin Stephens 51:22
Because we're humans, and you know, we, we were not living the life of perfection, right? It's not easy to do that. And it doesn't feel good. And but you do start like I've gotten better at the, you know, thinking about how will I feel later if I have that? Do I really want to go through that like like I've gone through recently, and we're going through menopause. alcohol affects me more dramatically now than it used to. So you're used to every night at the beach? Definitely, I would have at least a couple glasses of wine. But I don't sleep as well when I drink alcohol. So now I'm like you're at the beach not drinking anything. Yeah. Because I want to feel I want to sleep well. And I want to wake up and feel refreshed. So you know, we just start to prioritize wanting to feel good. I feel

Scott Benner 52:06
like I'm gonna mature right when I die. And then it's gonna be late. Like, you know, like, what my wife said the other day, like, they were out shopping my wife and my daughter, and they found this little restaurant and they were like, come over. So I came, and I'm eating and I'm all the entire time eating all I can think is this isn't gonna work out. I then I couldn't sleep that night. Yeah, I was up at like four in the morning awake. And like, I still felt like I was processing my dinner that I had nine hours before that. And it just was I all I could think when I was laying there is like, you're pretty bright guy. Like, when are you going to like, stop?

Gin Stephens 52:40
Well, yeah, we can be slow learners, because, you know, food is a sensory experience. And there's so much more to it than just what you're putting in your mouth. If you're there with your family, and you have these feelings associated with it. And, you know, like, like me and that beach bar, you know, I come to the beach, the first thing I do is head over to the beach bar and have a burger. My wife will say, you know, if I didn't have the fries, I would have felt Okay, I just know that. Yeah, in the next time,

Scott Benner 53:06
I won't order the fries. So it really is about some like real like memories that just the food like relates to an obviously foods relatable to memories. It's when it's when it happens too frequently, that it ends up being unhealthy for you like my wife, say, if I'm at a movie, and there's not popcorn, I might as well not be at the movie. And I don't understand that. But obviously there's a way she grew up that that just that makes a movie for her. Yeah, again. Oh, yeah. That's interesting. It really is. I really I genuinely appreciate you doing this. But I don't want to miss anything. And like I said, I feel like a bit of a neophyte here. But do you think we covered? Did you if if somebody listened back to this? Will they understand intermittent fasting enough to understand if they wanted to know more about it?

Gin Stephens 53:50
I think so you really It's not scary. It just sounds scary. And there's there's a saying I didn't make it up. I don't even know where it originated. But your diets are easy and contemplation and hard and execution. We all know that from diets we tried before. Well, intermittent fasting is the exact opposite. It's hard and contemplation, but easy and execution. You know, you're it sounds like it's going to be so hard and you're going to you know, be starving and hangry. But once your body adjusts, it is so much easier than trying to diet all the time or eat frequent small meals. It frees up your mind to do other things. You have great sustained energy. And you're like, you know, why have I not always eaten this way? In fact, one of the things I hear from people all the time, is that, you know, this is how I used to eat when I was a teenager or when I went to college, but then everybody said you got to eat breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day. So I forced myself to eat it. So I would be quite healthy. And that's when my problems all started that a lot of people really look back to that and they're like or you know, I had a grandma and she just would sit for coffee all morning and then She had a tiny little lunch and a dinner with Grandpa and she was healthy until she died at age 95. And so, you know, everybody's got, you know, stories like that.

Scott Benner 55:09
You make me think that of something I said to my wife was like, we were healthier when we had less money. And I, yeah, and the money is about being able to afford food and end up in this context and being able to have something around always that you mean to have, like having options in your refrigerator.

Gin Stephens 55:28
Well, yeah. And we've also had been trained to fear hunger, like, you better have a snack in your purse in case you're like out shopping and you need to eat something real quick.

Scott Benner 55:36
I have to agree with what you just said before. And I'll tell you, I'm motivated to do this and stick to it better because I, after a couple of days, had to almost remind myself to start eating at noon. Right. And, and I did feel terrific. I will be honest, my back.

Gin Stephens 55:53
Start eating at noon. You know, are Would you like to lose a few pounds or you feel like you're exactly where you'd like today?

Scott Benner 55:58
Oh, you're delightful. No, I should lose a few pounds.

Gin Stephens 56:05
If you would like to lose a few pounds, and maybe you don't open your window till three. You know you have a little snack and then later a great dinner.

Scott Benner 56:14
Okay, listen, I'm up for doing something. I'm 50 gin in a couple of weeks. And I do have that underlying fear that I'm going to tip over some edge that I can't crawl back over again. Well, when is your birthday? July 12. Damn July 23. Happy birthday. My daughter's the 22nd. Okay, yeah. Awesome. Almost birthday twin. Yeah, we're so close. Close enough. Well, I let me first say I really appreciate this. And I will absolutely put links to your books in the show notes. And and when I do an intro, I'll I'll I'll do a nice, awesome buttoning

Gin Stephens 56:50
here. And I think you'll you'll enjoy clean ish. I know that you said you don't read but listen to I'll be recording the audio eventually. It'll be out at the same time. It'll be out in January as well. I just haven't recorded it yet. But you listen to parts of fast paced repeat on audio. And when clean ish comes out. It really I learned so many things. You I thought I knew a lot. But as I was researching, I learned so much more. And it really just inspired me the subtitle is eat mostly clean, live mainly clean, and unlock your body's natural ability to self clean, and you know, talk all about our toxic load and even the things we're putting on our bodies and how that affects us. We're just in a different kind of world now than you know, 100 200 years ago.

Scott Benner 57:33
Now I agree. You just said I'm gonna let you go about put on your body's meaning of like hand creams and stuff like oh, yeah, effect. Yeah.

Gin Stephens 57:39
Yeah, it all you know, goes through the skin, we know that it does, you know, because everybody's seen someone use a therapeutic patch for something or other. It's a great medication delivery system. So if if medications can be delivered through patches than what you put on your skin is delivered in the exact same way. So you know, our toxic loads are just crazy these days, and babies are born with toxins in their cord blood. Then we go down this rabbit hole forever. But it really what I learned was shocking to me, even though I thought I knew a lot. And it really inspired me to make a difference with you know, like I said, I'm clean ish, but I make changes where it wherever I can. So I can still live a life where if I want to go to the beach bar and have fries I can and still be healthy. The fasting helps with that with the clean and self cleaning that happens during the fasted state. But there's other things but fruits and vegetables help our bodies self clean to Well,

Scott Benner 58:37
I've really enjoyed this.

First, let me thank Jen for coming on the show and sharing all of her knowledge about intermittent fasting. For anyone who cares on the day this episode comes out and I don't know what the date is, you're gonna have to look at the calendar. Actually, that won't help you because if you look at it the day after it comes out. Anyway, I think it's about like the end of July 2021. I'm going to start an intermittent fasting lifestyle. I'm going to start it back up again. And I'm going to stick with it for at least 30 days. So if you're on the private Facebook group, I'll be reporting there about it. So I'm using this to hold myself accountable. The first 30 days goes well, I'll extend it

Oh, you might not know where the private Facebook group is. It's called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. I think there's a link in the show notes if there's not definitely you can get to it through Juicebox Podcast comm or just searching Juicebox Podcast Type One Diabetes on Facebook. Don't forget to check Jen out. She's got like she said three podcasts I said to at the beginning but I think it's three. She's got a ton of great books. They're all available on I'm on what they call the amazon.com. You can head over there and just type in her name Jin Stevens it's with a Ph. I could do it with you real quick. You people are so needy Hold on a second. I know no one asked ci g i n s t e p h e n s and then when you hit enter, it's all your keyboard. pops right up all of her books, fast feast repeat. She wasn't wrong. It's the best seller and others don't delay living in intermittent fasting lifestyle clean ish. Wow. She's prolific this Jen Stevens. Now if you go to Juicebox Podcast calm and do a little scrolling down. You'll see all of the how we eat series right there. Vegan carnivore plant based gluten free. Low Carb Bernstein fodmap keto flexitarian. Today, intermittent fasting, and there are more coming. People have all different kinds of ways they eat. And I find each and every one of them interesting. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Juicebox Podcast. Thank you for sharing the show with friends, doctors, thank you for sharing it with your patients patients. Thank you for sharing it with your doctors. You guys are terrific. I couldn't do this without you. All the great ratings and reviews and emails and messages. They mean the world to me. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast.

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#499 How We Eat: Flexitarian

Sarah is an adult living with type 1 diabetes and she eats a Flexitarian 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 499 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is with Sara Sara has type one diabetes, and she has a very specific way of eating. And so today's episode is another in the how we eat series.

Sara is here to talk about a flexitarian diet, who don't want to say that that's what I thought too, but it's the thing flexitarian at some point, I just realized that people eat in all different ways, and that they should all be recognized, and we should talk about them because if you have type one diabetes, it doesn't matter if you're a vegan, carnivore, or somewhere in between, you need to know how to use your insulin. And it's helpful to hear other people living similar lives. Very proud of the Halloween series, and I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin.

Today is the eighth in the Halloween series. Go look for the other seven.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo Penn. Find out more at GE Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. If you're interested in finding a community, people who are helping people with type one diabetes, look no farther than touched by type one.org touched by type one.org find them on Facebook, Instagram, or right there on their website. And if you're looking for an incredible meter, a blood glucose meter to put on the Mount Rushmore of blood glucose meters, you are looking for the Contour Next One. Find out more about it at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox

Sarah 2:29
My name is Sarah. I've been a type one diabetic for about 15 months now. I was diagnosed when I was 29 it was a complete shock because I don't have any other like end or endocrine issues in my family or anything. I live in Texas. And yeah, I'm talking to you about the flexitarian diet today.

Scott Benner 2:50
Yes, you did something I didn't expect. There's the noise. What just happened? What was that? Whatever that was?

Sarah 2:57
It might be it might be my sweatshirt, but I can hold the wire out so it won't touch cool again. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:03
I was gonna say you could actually what I was gonna say I'm not gonna say because it's inappropriate.

Unknown Speaker 3:08
Okay, we're just talking about the take my shirt. It was gonna be

Scott Benner 3:12
just do the podcast topless, and then there won't be problems like this. Yeah, yeah. Or keep your sweatshirt on. Just please let the wire not touch the thing. Okay, so you did something I didn't expect when I reached out and said, I want to know how everyone eats right? I'm like, I'm gonna do this. How we eat episodes. And no matter how you eat, like, thrown at me, you threw something at me I had never heard of before. Oh, what was it? Whatever. I don't know what flexitarian means. Oh, so when you were so I must you were probably like always so excited to get a flexitarian on I was like, What the hell is that? You definitely have to come on the podcast. But you eat you also eat intermittent too. Are those the same things? No, they're different. Alright, let's go. For context, are you MDI, you pumping? Do you have a CGM? Oh,

Sarah 4:03
I have a Dexcom and the G six and then I'm on Omni pod.

Scott Benner 4:08
You have the best stuff.

Sarah 4:10
Yeah. It's really though and that's what I got, like from the get go. So it's it was pretty smooth transition, you know, after diagnosis, so yeah, it was nice, not having to like jump around and go from MDI, to pump to whatever it was just really nice. My doctor was like, Yeah, I think you'll really like this based on your lifestyle. So yeah, he just

Scott Benner 4:34
kicked it off. And he's been right about that it's working for

Sarah 4:38
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm pretty active and so not having a tube has been really great.

Scott Benner 4:47
I just want to get this out of the way before we start you are transplant you have to be right you weren't born in Texas where Yeah, I was Why do you sound like you're like in New Hampshire or something like that? Or what? Why are you so why? Are you so waspy? When you're talking? What's going on? Sir? Would you go to school? What happened?

Sarah 5:04
Well, I from I'm from the DFW area, which isn't known necessarily for always having like swaying and their voice, but it does come out with certain words. So when I say Jaguar, like, most people say that's when they can hear it, or when I say y'all, of course, but when I was younger, like the word Jaguar was always just Jaguar. Why then when I got older, I met people from from like, the Midwest or the East Coast, and they were like, no, it's Jaguar. And I was like, I don't know what that is. But this animal is a Jaguar.

Scott Benner 5:37
I don't think it's Jaguar. That's First of all, but secondly, why do you find yourself saying Jaguar so much?

Sarah 5:44
There were there was a school in our town. their mascot was the Jaguars. And so to say jaguars? Like, I just was pretty normal because it'd be like, Oh, yeah, it's the Jaguars versus like the Tigers or something. But I didn't. It wasn't like an everyday occurrence. I guess the way made it sound?

Scott Benner 6:01
Well, yeah, you've just had it 1000 times now. So I'm wondering, maybe just oh, I just that was a fascinating poll for words. And by the way, I've been googling furiously trying to figure out where DFW has been a means the Dallas Fort Worth area, I wanted to come. Don't worry, I was just, I'm sure everyone else is like it. We all knew that. But you didn't. Okay, so you don't? And that didn't mean like 20? I just meant like, You don't? Is Texas just becoming a very diverse place?

Sarah 6:28
I would think so. Because the last like, couple years, a lot of companies have moved into Texas because it's a little bit cheaper living however, still a lot of like, really great, like economy and like resources here. So a lot of people from a lot of different areas, like in the US and outside of the US moved in like I think I heard recently that Texas has I think in the last five years has grown or the the Dallas Fort Worth area alone has grown by like a million people. Just because all these companies are moving. And so it's becoming pretty diverse. But I don't think it has been until the probably past decade. Interesting.

Scott Benner 7:09
I hear that there's tax reasons to live there as well. But I don't know.

Sarah 7:12
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like we don't i don't know for sure. But there's like, we just have to pay federal taxes. We don't have like a ton of state taxes. So that's kind of nice. Well, I'm

Scott Benner 7:20
on my way. I mean, if I can say Jaguar any way I want and not pay taxes, this is the place for me. I'm thinking, yeah, it sounds like it perfect place. They won't want me there. It's okay. What the hell is flexitarian?

Sarah 7:36
Yeah, good question. So I actually had to explain this to my endocrinologist as well. And we were talking about, you know, some of my blood work numbers, and I was like, I, and this is a couple months back, and I was like, I really want to try my diet before we do medication. This was for cholesterol. And so I was like, how about I try the flexitarian diet? And I'll just see how that goes. And my doctor was like, What is that? So it's a newer term. And it's like, it's like vegan light. Or like, vegetarian light is like an easy way to put it or like mini mini vegetarian, I don't know. But the best way to explain it, I think, is that he, you know, fruits and veggies, whole grains, legumes, you know, but mainly getting your protein from other sources than animals. But still being flexible enough to where it's like, you can have eggs, you know, beef, chicken, but that not being like your main focus of protein or the main focus of your diet. So it's kind of like flipping the standard American diet, which is typically like, focusing on meats and animal products. And then you know, smothering your vegetables and in fats and oils, it's like trying to it's like switching it's like, Okay, what, what do we want to fill our plate with as far as like, lagoons and vegetables go and then if you want to, you can add in an animal product.

Scott Benner 9:08
Okay, so you're not against eating animals. Right. Okay. And so you're basically see it's funny you said a standard American diet, which is kind of flipped. I think a standard American diet is more like cupcakes from a convenience store. Sandwich. Anything else is really fast and in a pack I think of when people say American diet, I think of packaged foods, like the packaged ramen or anything, anything that I made that doesn't, doesn't cause you to need to start with basic ingredients and build something is to me what a more American diet is, like Joking aside like I that's how I think of it is. Somebody has taken food, you're hoping and mixed it with edible chemicals and put it in a bag for you so that when you eat it you go This tastes like a tortilla chip. Even though it might not be that sort of an idea, but Okay, so how did you eat prior to so I'm assuming you saw a cholesterol thing and that's what set this all off.

Sarah 10:10
Yeah, so before I eat, I guess like, I don't know, I think I we had me at most meals. I ate eggs all the time. I love eggs. That will be the last thing I give up if I happen to go like, full vegan, but we'll see. But anyway, and can we add me and all our meals chicken? Beef Turkey. Yeah. And it was that all our meals it was just like regular you know, whether it's like in pasta or a casserole or whatever it was, but still pretty healthy. Like I really enjoy vegetables. So but yeah, so that's how I ate before now. It's just less animal products, mainly less less meats. And yeah, I did. I did start on it because my cholesterol was high. Like when I was first diagnosed. I couldn't tell you the exact number but it was really high and my doctor was like we really need to focus on that. Also, you know, my ANC was like 14

Scott Benner 11:16
because the diagnosis

Sarah 11:18
right at diagnose Yeah, it went to 14 my cholesterol I want to say it was in like the three hundreds or something like that like something really, really high. So they went ahead and put me on a Staten mn livalo. And I was like, you know, I have always believed I guess, too, that you should eat your food, like it's medicine or you'll end up eating your medicine, like it's food. And so yeah, I was like, let me see what I can do with my diet to help this I don't have to rely on medicine for this anymore. And so I started eating flexitarian and my doctor was like, whatever you've done, like you have made, you know immense progress. And so I'm still on a stat and for now because I'm still on the higher range side I guess. But she my doctors just like I love it. Keep doing what you're doing. You know, if you want to play around with your diet somewhere you can but she says that she's seen really great results from it.

Scott Benner 12:18
Well, I have to be honest with you. I just spent a really embarrassing amount of time figuring out how to spell a GM

Sarah 12:28
it is kind of a funny word. Like is it two O's Is it like a you like what is it? Yeah,

Scott Benner 12:33
okay, I'm gonna get a little embarrassed, you know, after I said it, I was like, Oh, I should have said that because it you know, in the first minute, I was like, What am I doing wrong here? And then like in minute four sites like no one should be listening to me. can't figure out and I'm not gonna tell anyone how to spell it. Because for those of you who don't know, you have to figure it out the way I just Yeah, they shouldn't have to go through the same trials. Yeah, yeah, you need this too. But a lagoon is a plant in the family fabric going let's just not say that or the fruit or seed of such a plant. The seed is also called a pulse lagoons are grown agriculturally primarily for human consumption for livestock forage and silage, which I don't know what that is. And is a soil enhancing green manure and they were eating this on purpose. Like what's an example of a lagoon?

Sarah 13:24
I'm I'm pretty sure that lentil or I'm not really sure. I used to have a list whenever I first got it, you know, whenever I was first looking into it, but now it's like, well, I don't need to know specifically what a lagoon is. Because now I know, like all the things I can eat. So like, yeah, it's I keen wa and lentils, a lot of chickpeas, but I don't know if, if those are all necessarily No,

Scott Benner 13:51
you're doing it. You're doing it green. See, I might not have been able to spell lagoon but I didn't know how to spell example and put it next to legroom. So now I'm all set. green pea soybean lentil chick pea, pigeon Pea, which Yeah, I know that sounds like pigeons. But that's fine. mung bean. Asian pig pigeon wings. All right. Oh, I have never had some of those things. A peanut. A peanut? Oh, yeah. All right. See, we're learning here. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what these episodes are about, because I don't know what a cow pee is. But I know what a black eyed pea is. I know what a cow pie is. While you're from Texas. Yeah, of course you did. And you know, now that I've seen this black eyed Pea, it begs the question, What happened to that poor Fergie person? Yeah, it looked like she got hit by three different trucks. One round I saw Yeah, what happened? But anyway, that's way off the subject. Unless Fergie is a flexitarian. And then, in fact, I'd like to speak and then we need to get in contact with her. Yeah, I gotta be honest with you. If she's a flexitarian. I think you should switch your diet. So so you're so you're basically it's funny, you're in the 70s version of a doctor looking at you and going Hey, can you cut out meat eat more vegetables please?

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Oh, I guess I don't know anything about the seven well the 70s is when nobody called anything anything. Like everything has a name now like like because of branding and you know the internet Everything needs a name because it has to be it has to be categorized so that we can Google it. Like you can't Google Could you please cut out a lot of meat in your diet please and come up with this he had for call it something so it's a it's a flexitarian diet.

Unknown Speaker 18:20
Yeah. Which is better.

Scott Benner 18:21
I've lived through the 70s this is better in case you're wondering. Oh good. Okay. Yeah. The music was it really hit or miss although now it's just bad. Alright, maybe it's mostly bad. What is with the music? You're just old enough to hate it? I would imagine right right now.

Sarah 18:38
Yeah, yeah. So it's like the stuff on the radio. It's like, like, I know, I can't like yeah, the radio certain to irritate me. But that's only been past like couple years. No

Scott Benner 18:49
question. Yeah. Do you have Sirius Satellite Radio by any chance? I don't. Okay, so there's this woman on Sirius Satellite Radio. She's an announcer and I believe her name is Jenna Marbles. But it might not be. Every time I hear her speak. I have an impulse to find where she is. Go there. And beggar never to speak out loud against that anyone can hear her voice makes me upset. I don't know. It's It's terrible. And I'm sure she's a lovely person. Or you know what? Maybe she's not. I have no idea. I'm just saying that. When she speaks i right now I'm imagining people listening to me going you know what, I have a similar relationship with you. I just really liked the content. But I saw I live through you but I just jennamarbles person she's like, Hi, I'm Jenna Marbles. Oh my god. Send off Stop, please send then she starts talking about nothing. It's it's the worst kind of filler anyway.

Sarah 19:41
Oh, I think I think if it's the same person she started out on YouTube and so I think I know who you're referring to. Even though I don't have a serious

Scott Benner 19:50
it's her name really horrible. Right now we're googling her name can't be jenna marbles. Jen. Oh, Jenna Nicole more right. Just be Jenna Moray. Oh or best Not the same as not the same woman. I was thinking when she talks it makes me feel like there are marbles hitting me in the forehead. So that's why that's how you made that. Yeah. Imagine if this led to a war between me and Jenna Marbles. Wouldn't that be crazy? Oh my gosh. Anyway, Jenna, I don't know how you eat, but come on in the podcast, tell people about it. Okay, so you're so you had a higher cholesterol? It did bring it down, but not all the way. So do you think maybe some of your cholesterol issue is genetic?

Sarah 20:31
Um, yeah, my does run as far back as my just my grandparents is all we know. Which is probably makes sense, since we don't really have like, you know, the medical technology past them. But yeah, they had high cholesterol. My mom's cholesterol isn't necessarily super high. And there's my dad's but you know, they're just being monitored right now, you know, as they go on for their appointments. But yeah, so it's, I think it is partially, excuse me, partially genetics. And then of course, partially just being a diabetic.

Scott Benner 21:01
Did you hear? Did you hear the guy that came on and talked about the carnivore diet? Because

Sarah 21:08
I didn't listen to him? I don't think was that no, Matt was

Scott Benner 21:15
Matt was Matt was plant based it, try it. His name's Paul Saladino. And the only reason I'm saying that not because I want you to eat meat, nothing but meat. But because at some point in there, he spoke about what he believes is a misunderstanding of cholesterol, with doctors. And I don't know, I can't remember off the top my head to tell you about it. And so if you heard it, it might be valuable for you. I'm not sure I don't even know if he's right. I'm just saying, that's kind of the cool thing about these how we eat episodes, is that everyone comes on and tells an absolutely delightful story about their eating style. And then someone else comes on talks about a completely different eating style. Like it's literally a mirror image of the last one. And like, this is amazing. And I'm like so. So I think that I think the key is to eat how your body. Yeah,

Sarah 22:05
enjoys. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And I can Yeah. And so whenever I was first diagnosed, my primary care physician was the one that was like, hey, let's get your bloodwork done for this. And she said, and you're gonna go on a diet that's similar to keto, but it's, it's essentially it's low carb, but generally explain it after that, just that's all she said about it. And so I, I was like, okay, so I guess I'm low carb. And I was eating a ton of like meats and fats and things like that, and I just felt so bad on it. And so that's whenever it was like the, the, I think, the first endocrinologist appointment, whenever they are going through everything with me, and they're looking at my blood panels. That's when I was like, I'm going to try something different. You know, I'm gonna try flexitarian. And then so I completely agree with you. I know there's some people that feel great on a really low carb diet, or you know, the keto diet, or something like that. So I definitely agree with you that it's just like, whatever you feel best on and whatever, like your body, like performs the best on you know, or you feel good and all that and like, is everything check it out. Okay,

Scott Benner 23:20
right, right. I feel better with with more like more beef, protein, chicken, turkey, that kind of thing in my diet, a little fewer carbs. But I can't do it for more than about three or four weeks. And then something happens where I'm just like, oh, should I have like a piece of bread? You know? Right? Shouldn't be something else. Couldn't there be one piece of toast with these eggs once in a while, like not every day and I'm not saying every day I'm saying that once in a while I mixed them back through. But the real key for so let me ask you before I move forward. You feel the best this way and this is sustainable for you.

Sarah 24:02
Yes, yes. And I like have been talking to different people about their experiences being a vegetarian and being vegan and I know I'm on here to talk about being flexitarian but I have been considering you know, just seeing what happens if I do a full vegetarian or full vegan to see what that does one for you know, my cholesterol and then to just for my body and how it feels but yes, I do feel really great on the flexitarian diet. Yeah, it's it's much better than that low carb that I did for like two months at the beginning and it's definitely better than like, I definitely still feel better even before I was diagnosed. Yeah, I feel like I have a lot of energy. I don't rely on food. It's kind of like get me through the day, if that makes sense. Like I don't rely on like a high just need like, you know, like a sugary something to help help sustain my energy. Or you know, things like that. It's like I am eating to fuel my body. And my body's like, thank you. This is excellent. We love it.

Scott Benner 25:08
Two questions when you tried low carb, was it very greasy food? Because I wouldn't be good with a lot of grease? That would

Sarah 25:16
know. Yeah, it wasn't greasy foods, it was mainly just like more more me essentially more meat and more fat. And I left it up to my husband to try and help me with that, because I was really overwhelmed in the beginning. And so he was like, yeah, let me like, this is definitely something I can help you with. And like, take off your plate. No pun intended, but I guess kind of. Right. And, and so he you know, was kind of in charge of like groceries and our meal planning and stuff like that for a little while until I was like, You know what, I want to try this out. And I want to do more research. And I'll take over, you know, like groceries and just kind of being like the the main leader, I guess, for for that for our diets. And yeah, so it wasn't greasy foods, it was just more more animal products, essentially more fats and meats.

Scott Benner 26:12
Is he eating with you now? Or is he just is he doing his thing? And you're doing yours? And because flexitarian so close to just normal eating with different amounts, like, does it just work?

Unknown Speaker 26:25
Yeah, yeah, it's

Sarah 26:26
actually it's kind of funny when we were. So we've been married for two years now. And we dated for about a year before getting married. And so when we were dating, he looked at salads. And he was like, that's rabbit food. And he just like didn't eat salads. But now like, he'll pack a salad for lunch. And he's like, super pumped about it. And he'll be like, whenever we're making a grocery list, he's like, Can we get the salad supplies, you know. And so he's like, super pumped about it. And so he basically does eat with me, we make some meals that are essentially they're vegetarian because they don't have any animal products. Or any meat specifically, they might have cheese, but they don't have any meats in it. But we'll make meat separately so he can add it in. So pasta is a really good example. We'll make a pasta and then we'll make whatever meat he wants to add to the pasta separately. And so whenever he like packs it for lunch, or for eating it for dinner, he just adds in whatever he wants. But the meal is like a complete meal without it. So we do eat together, essentially. But whenever he feels like adding some meat and he does so and it's really it's really easy. It's not a big hassle or anything. And he's been really great about you know, whenever I'm like, okay, I want to consider this or I want to think about this or I want to try this new recipe. He's like, Yeah, let's do it. His I guess idea is like whatever's good for you is probably good for me. As far as like, strictly health goes, like

Scott Benner 27:58
five seconds if he didn't just look at me and go Hey, man, happy wife. happy life. I eat the sound. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 28:02
me alone.

Scott Benner 28:03
I don't like salad. But what am I gonna do?

Sarah 28:07
Yeah, he's and he's, he's awesome. He's just like, whatever, like, makes you feel best. And yeah, he's he's super great about it all and just really has an open mind about it. Which I'm really glad for it. Because if it was the same guy that I was dating that was like a cell, it's a rabbit food I need, you know, steak and potatoes every day. Like it would probably be a little bit harder to like, you know, do to dine together. But

Scott Benner 28:31
it's interesting, isn't it? when we when we put food together in a classic way, they're always foods that on their own would be okay, but together, like cause each other probably like steak and potatoes. Who wouldn't want a baked potato with the steak? Every Yeah, right? Everyone wants this. But, you know, if you could just have the steak without the potato, it'd be a different like, physical, like health experience, the way your body would process the steak, the addition of the potato and, and conversely, I once because I like messing around with different things just to see I once did something called a big potato fast. If not for just to find out. And it was fascinating. Like I lost like, I think 10 or 12 pounds in like five or six days and I only ate baked potatoes for like a week.

Sarah 29:15
Oh my gosh, it sounds it sounds delicious. But also like exhausting.

Scott Benner 29:21
day four, I just didn't eat on day four. day four. I was like, I don't want to bake potato and you couldn't put anything on it. You couldn't put salt or pepper. It was like it was a Oh, so I know that. It's like it was like it was almost like an experiment that taught me that I don't love big potatoes. I love salt and pepper and butter. All this stuff that comes on it Yeah, but you see what you look like a weirdo if you just take the butter and then you salt and pepper on it and melt it and drink it and people talk so you know as they should cuz that is weird. It's scotch drinking salted butter again. You know so the potato really is the delivery system for the for those items. And it did teach me to about being full, because you could eat as much as you wanted, but you didn't, I didn't end up eating very much like after like the third or fourth day when the hunger disappeared. I was like, well, I'll just have a half a potato here. Like, I don't need the whole thing, you know. And then before I knew it, I was just like, That's fascinating. And I think I could have done it forever. I got to that, like, do you know the Jetsons? Are you too young for this? You know that? No, I know. You know, when the Jetsons sit down for dinner and the the, the computer spits out this little like bean and they cut it in half once and eat it and get up. Yes, that's what eating turned into on the baked potato diet. It was just a sustenance program. It had nothing to do with flavor or anything. I felt fine. My energy was great. I wish I would have had a CGM. I would have liked to check my blood sugar. But even that, yeah, I felt great. So

Sarah 30:50
well, you know, I've heard that we like we can survive on a diet of potatoes only but you also then just have to make sure you have a dairy source. And then you've gotten all of your like vitamins and minerals and everything that you need. There's protein, fat and carbs in that and we can just like exist off of that,

Scott Benner 31:09
sir. Not to be contrary to you. But I got this idea from magician.

Unknown Speaker 31:15
magician, from a magician.

Scott Benner 31:17
You know, Penn and Teller. Oh, yeah. I got this from a pen. And he was like 150 pounds doing it so and he said that the potatoes have everything you need. So I was like, I'm listening to him. He's a famous. Yeah, I'm gonna die one day, you guys are just gonna come on. And you're gonna be like, wow, the podcast feels produced by someone else all the sudden, because I've left my wife instructions. Give this folder to an editor. And these are all the episodes that will be left if I ever dropped dead. Please produce them all and put them out. And one day Kelly Oh, come on. Should be like, I don't know how this thing works Scotty potatoes for two weeks and he died. died because some magician told him Yeah, yeah. It's an amazing magician. So anyway, yeah. So he's probably really great adventure of other things. Yeah. Well stands to reason. Right? Yeah. Come on. Don't Don't question my thought process. You're sorry, you're gonna poke? Well, anyway, I just I mentioned I'm so I'm just incredibly interested about how people eat. So people who are going to have heard me say it on the podcast before. But as COVID-19 approached, I was 100% certain I was going to gain weight. And I went to an intermittent fasting schedule. And because I wanted to, like really test it, I didn't just go to an intermittent fasting schedule. I ate whatever I wanted inside of that window. Oh, wow, just to see how it would work. And I was losing weight. So eventually, I stopped eating like a lunatic inside the window. I was just like, hmm, let me see what this does. It was sort of doing that. And losing weight, no lie over a couple of weeks, probably close to 15 pounds, just by eating, I was eating. I started with noon to eight. But it was hard to get to noon slice flip flop to 11 to seven. And I did it most of the way through the pandemic. And I'm talking to you right now in November. And I my weight stayed incredibly stable. I could eat a lot or nothing. It didn't seem to matter. I could have whatever didn't literally whatever. And my weight didn't move. I felt terrific. And then about a week ago, I'm lying two weeks ago, I started having weird muscle pains, like aches and pains. Like I'd sit like on my leg for a minute and stand up and my leg would be stiff. And like all this weird stuff. And I was like what is this and it lasted for like a week. And just as it started to like go away. I'm like, I don't know what that was, but like, I'm gonna be 50 next year, Sarah, so I was sort of like, I'm just probably old, you know, and, and, and we're all trapped in our house and like I'm moving around at the speed of light or anything like that. And I and I thought that's what that is. But then I got a head cold. And I'm wondering if the muscle aches weren't the beginning of a cold. So then the head cold held on to me like I don't get sick, Sarah it's like, like four things going for me that are related to my body. And two of them are my hair and my eyes. So there's not a lot going right for me with the body that I've been given. And but one thing is I get sick. It doesn't matter how sick I get. I go to sleep I wake up I am not sick anymore. That is a rule of my life. It's just how it goes. Well I get this little head cold. And I feel this like, like a node you know, like on the on your neck when like the the white blood cells kind of like ramp up in your Yeah, there's like a bump. Yeah, I get this giant note on my neck. Now I'm in bed. I'm like my wife when we touch that touch that and she's like, what are we doing? I'm like, No, my neck here, touch this, touch this. And I said that's a node, right? And she's like, yeah, I'm like, Am I dying? Is that neck cancer? I was gonna cancer right away. I was like, Earlier in the week, I said Do I have leg cancer, my legs getting stiff. She's like, I don't even think like cancer is a thing. And I was like, Alright, I was just checking. So this big node had this horrible head cold. I'm just all like flipping. I'm like, Well, what I'll do is go to sleep and wake up and my cold will be gone. And I went to sleep and woke up the next day, and I slid my head cold, and I got kind of woozy. And I had to lay around for like three days, which I don't think I've done since I was a kid. Like, I started feeling bad about it. Like it was it was so long. And now I'm fine. It was my only symptom was my head was like woozy. And I was lethargic. Like, I just I was a little low on energy. But yeah, within this time, I stopped eating on my schedule. And Sarah, can I curse? I'll bleep it out later. Yeah, absolutely. I gained six pounds, six pounds, just not. Right, just not being on my schedule. My gosh, that's all that's really surprising.

If I told you, my body's a disaster, like, I start to retain water, like a pregnant lady at the drop of a hat, like whenever I do, like, any food that you would think of as enjoyable will is trying to kill me constantly. My whole life but but but seriously, six pounds in ended up being like five and a half days of being ill. And I was hungry. So I leaned into it. I was like, well, as long as I'm hungry, I'm gonna eat. But I got out of my schedule. And just like that, six pounds of back. Oh, my gosh. So tell me about you eating on the on this kind of intermittent fasting schedule. What led you to that?

Sarah 36:39
Sure. So I when I was first diagnosed, I did a lot of research. Because I am someone that like if there's something that I'm like, nervous about or afraid of typically, like the more information I have, I feel better about which I think is most people, but I don't know if most people realize that they just need more information. And I know that for some people, it's probably more overwhelming. But anyway, so I went into research mode and learned as much as I could. And I'm still learning, of course. But something that I read about was how intermittent fasting lead to better insulin sensitivity. And so I was like, yeah, I'm gonna try that out, just to see what happens. And there are a couple of things that happened when I was trying it out. So first, I didn't jump into, like an eight hour eating window. I started slow. I was like, Okay, let's see if I can do 12 hours, and then 11, and then 10 hours for the for the eating window. And that was I think that was really great. Because if I would have tried to jump in, I just I don't think I would have done well, I would have given up. But um, anyway, so I do think that I have experienced more insolence sensitivity. But then also, I realized that like, it kind of makes my day a little bit easier. Because it's one less like, essentially, you're you're not eating, you know, in the morning time, that's mine, I do about 11 to seven for when I eat when I but it's like one less meal to have to worry about doing insulin for. And so essentially, it's like it gives me some extra time in the day where I'm not, you know, making all these calculations in my head and trying to think about it. And my blood sugar's more stable. And I really like that as well. You know, so instead of trying to do insulin management for food, you know, for 10 to 12 hours a day, it's really more like seven or eight hours. And so like it I feel better like mentally with that it. It almost feels like I get a break. Diabetes. I do have Yeah, it's like a break from diabetes. Like for breakfast time, essentially. Yeah. And then insolence and sensitivity. Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:56
Well, I realized that Arden is not particularly a breakfast person. on most days, more on the weekend than the weekdays. And I it took me a long time to realize but she was basically fasting to. Yes, right. She'd go to sleep, but I don't know, whenever and but she hadn't eaten past like 10pm, probably. And then she'd get up in the morning and not eat until lunchtime. So she was basically eating like 12 and 12 or, you know, 14 and 10 or something like that. She was kind of on that schedule. And you're 100% right, obviously not eating in the morning makes managing insulin easier. It's just sure it is and for reasons. I guess in in a person who's not aware of their insulin needs, you know, you don't realize the benefit you're getting in that that lower insulin resistance and creating more stable low blood sugars for more hours of the day.

Unknown Speaker 39:53
Yeah, I

Scott Benner 39:54
think it's fantastic. I have to tell you all the different ways I've tried to eat Eating on that schedule, I think is the most valuable and definitely the thing that I'd want to stick with the most. Yeah, I don't have any real like, I'm gonna eat more vegetables now many more meat now. None of that none of that's like, Really? I mean, I have to be honest. Like, I'm more like your husband like I'm not Yeah, I don't love vegetables very much. I blame my mother who's still alive and hopefully she'll hear this and, and hear how giving me a 49 cent can of green beans and then letting them get cold and then asking me to eat them was probably not the greatest way to make me. vegetables. You know what I mean? Yeah, but, um, but I don't like them. I hate the texture. I hate the memories. I hate the I remember gagging on like, cold green beans when I was a kid and just being like, Please don't make me eat this. Like I just yeah, I need a therapist to eat a vegetable. I think not a Yeah, not a good. Oh,

Sarah 40:49
yeah. And we get so much of our tastes like growing up, like as an adult, like most of our like, tastes and preferences do come from when we're younger. Like you said, from the memories and just, you know, like, if you remember vegetables being cold and like slimy or mushy, then like, of course, you know, that's all your brain is going to associate it with. Even if it is like warm and crisp. Like, you're just not going to taste that you're always going to taste the cold. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:14
no, I've done my best to learn how to cook them for everyone else. But it's even difficult because when I eat them, I'm just like, Oh, no, sounds terrible. It's not I know, people love that. I know, it's not, don't get me wrong. But I just I've been traumatized point is, is that I don't I don't have an affinity towards any real style of eating with the exception of eating in a certain timeframe that I've just found to be really a spectacular idea. And unlike you who did it in a healthy way you can ease into it. I did a 36 hour water fast and went right into intermittent fasting schedule.

Sarah 41:51
Oh my gosh. So you were like you were like, if I'm gonna get wet. Might as well jump in. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 41:58
And I just was like, okay, like, I got up one morning thinking I'll do I'm going to start the intermittent thing today. And I got to noon. And I was like, hmm, I'm not really hungry yet. I wonder if I could do a whole 24 hours, I'll just do water today. And then like, kind of like, flush my system out and start over again. Because I mean, I don't want anybody who hasn't eliminated carbs just to try it. For me, about 12 hours are so into it, your body just like it's almost like somebody flips a switch. And it's like, you have no carbohydrates left in you at all. And your kidneys just start to work and work and work. And before you know it like you know, we're talking about stuff that I feel bad, but like you're passing like clear urine, and you're just like, wow, like I am the start getting clear eyed, you're potty because I'm assuming your body's not breaking down food anymore. It's not busy with other stuff. So right, you kind of have that, like, you get that little euphoric feeling that comes from you know, starving. And then, and then I just was like, I got to the evening and I was like, Alright, well, all I got to do now is make it till I close my eyes. And then I'll get up in the morning and start this this fast. So I think I ended up going about 36 hours. And then I started the fast and then I started the intermittent fasting at noon. I've met a lot of people who do it. Since then I've met a type two, who significantly reduced their medication needs by doing it. I've met people who do it for like, like Uber seriously. And they, you know, you look at them, and they just they're like a piece of like, they look like a bunch of muscle wrapped in skin, you know, and they're like I intermittent fast. And I'm like, I do too. And they're probably like me, do you because I can't see the muscles that are wrapped into your skin. And I was like No, they're under there. Don't worry. Or they're they're there. Look, I can move my hand up in there. They're still there. But But no, seriously, like so you're doing intermittent fasting with a mostly veggie vegetarian lifestyle, a little bit of like protein from meat and chicken, beef and stuff like that. What is the outcome for you? Like how are your blood sugars? How are your a one sees? How do you find it helping you?

Sarah 44:11
Sure. So my blood sugar's are pretty, pretty steady. I typically stay between 80 and 160. And, you know, the times that I do go up to around 160 it's not very long, I come back down pretty pretty soon within maybe like 20 or 30 minutes without having to, you know, give more insulin. My agency I just had, I just went I think like two or three weeks ago, my agency was 5.7. And my doctor was like, that's so great. We just want to keep you under a 6.5 and I was like, in my head. I was like, Oh my gosh, like that. That would be high for me like I just but I know that that's like how some people live and I know that the The doctors have to kind of like, be careful about the advice that they give, so that you know, you don't sue them later. But I told her I was like, just so you know, like, my personal agency goal is always under a six. But essentially, like, I'm trying to even work my way down from a five, seven, you know, just slowly to like a five, five and just as close to five as I can get. But yeah, so within 15 months I my agency went from, I'm pretty sure the blood tests that they ran for within a Wednesday and a couple other things that they were checking, I'm pretty sure that they just said 14 plus. So it's possible I was higher than 14, but I just say 14. But yeah, so over the last 15 months, I went from a 14 to I hit six, and then a five, eight and a 570. And so I've just kind of been around five, seven, the past, I guess, like six months or so. So yeah, and so everything's great, except for the cholesterol. I'm just trying to get that down. I'm on like the lowest dosage of this Staton, which is the cholesterol medication, I'm on the Rebollo, I'm on the lowest dose that they can give. And so we're just trying to wean me off of that. But like I said, I was like, please let me try a diet first. So that, you know, we don't have to keep taking this. And I'd rather you know, make those changes now, while I'm more open to it. And also, I think just the earlier you make healthier changes, the easier it is, versus like, when you get older, it's probably harder, you're less willing. Yeah, so if you're let's go ahead and try and see what we're doing. So just like you, you know, saying like, oh, let me try a potato fast or not eating it at all for like a day and a half. Like, I'm like, let's see what happens if I eat like this. Or if I do this, so I have enjoyed, you know, more stable blood sugars. They're pretty predictable. And being able to, like eat the foods that I enjoy, like, I still have, you know, like chocolate and candy and whatever, of course, but yeah, so I just really enjoy the flexible part of the flexitarian diet as well.

Scott Benner 47:13
What do you do for exercise? Because you I've, I've stalked you while we're talking and you've seen lean, and reasonably fit. So I was wondering, like, thanks. Yeah, meet me.

Unknown Speaker 47:25
But yeah, so

Sarah 47:26
I do a couple different things. And it kind of changes sometimes I go through like phases of what I'm doing. But essentially, I'm always doing some type of cardio. Sometimes it's more of like a lower intensity, like steady, like if you go for a walk like a mile Walker. Or sometimes it's a hit or a high intensity interval training, mixed with weights. Typically, that's what I try to maintain. I do some rock climbing sometimes. I haven't since the pandemic because everywhere is just you know, shut down. Yeah. But I do jujitsu as well. regularly. I go about two or three times a week. So that's mainly what I do. I used to ride my bike a lot as well. But someone saw my bike over the pandemic, and I've just been really bummed about that.

Unknown Speaker 48:20
Someone stole your bicycle. Yeah, someone stole my bike. syrus pike back, what are you doing? Where did you leave?

Sarah 48:27
What? Okay, we're in an apartment complex. And we both had bikes. And my husband and I and we had him locked up with those like industrial strength you locks sort of pretty thick. On a patio, on the first floor, and they weren't really easily seen, because they're lower than the patio. But I guess someone must have just been like going around looking for those types of things. And they must have like, ready with like, you know, industrial strength like bolt cutters or something. And we just like woke up and they were gone one morning and yeah, it was pretty sad day. I was like getting ready to go for a bike ride and

Scott Benner 49:09
I could have this bike cost you about $400 unbelievable. You're a young person that's not easy to find $400 or am I right?

Sarah 49:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't know so that's kind of a bummer but where you're where like you know what, we will just save some money we'll get new bikes those bikes were a couple years old anyway.

Scott Benner 49:33
Yeah, there's no silver lining so it's like your bike. Yeah. Looking for the silver lining of having your bicycle stolen. We get to have new bikes. Yeah, it helps you not murder somebody you know learning how to hold your anger in. Oh my gosh, it's Texas. They could have like stolen it. They probably were like gunned up and everything. You're lucky didn't catch them.

Sarah 49:59
Oh my gosh, probably Yeah, like I wrote has a gun like, I Miss Congeniality. Yeah. And the I forget there's one lady that's like it's Texas. Everyone has a gun. My florist has again. Well, I used to work for a florist. She was a good friend and she did have a gun. Yeah, everyone has a gun.

Scott Benner 50:20
I just had an image of Yosemite Sam shooting your lock off your bike, just so you know, popped into my head. And I realized that's probably insulting, but that's exactly how I thought about it. I was like, oh, guy probably just came up and shot the lock and took her bike. I imagined him riding your bike away. Like it was a horse. There's a lot going on in my mind. It's a new ha, Yeah, something like that.

Unknown Speaker 50:39
Meanwhile, you know, probably Yeah. Probably. gangster just came collecting bikes, selling them for money.

Sarah 50:48
Yeah. So and it's just like, what a time to do it. Especially like during the pandemic, when it's like, Man, that is like the last thing like anybody needs. But do you

Scott Benner 50:56
think the guy that stole your mind? And let's be honest, it was a guy. Let's let's do you think the guy that stole your bike, at any point thought to themselves? I feel bad about this because people really do need more exercise during the pandemic.

Sarah 51:09
No, he definitely didn't. He was like a bike. It's locked up. But I think that means it's mine. I think

Scott Benner 51:16
I think he thought I'm gonna sell this bike and buy weed. I think that's what he was. Yeah, yeah, most definitely. I'm sorry, that sucks.

Sarah 51:24
Okay, I still have other outlets for exercise. Like I said, so yeah, jujitsu. And then cardio and weightlifting are like my main forms of exercise at this point. Can

Scott Benner 51:34
you do jujitsu right now with restrictions or no?

Sarah 51:37
Yeah, so our gym, you have to like, register for the classes. And you're just basically saying this is the only class or two, you're only allowed to come to two, I think each week that I'm going to come to we do face coverings, and you have the option of keeping like the same Bahrain partner so that we're not like mixing each week, like who's with who or whatever. So I feel pretty safe with those guidelines and restrictions that they've put up. But yeah, it's still they're still open. That's a good idea.

Scott Benner 52:13
I have to be honest, I was baffled that I got a head cold. I was like, How did this happen? By the way, listen to me talk about it. I had a head cold. I complained about it. Like I was like trapped under a car. My wife is like What's wrong? Like I am ill leave me alone. And my, I can't, I can hear them talking about me. I just want the sofa watching my new favorite TV show. justified with Timothy Olyphant. And which I'm almost done with it. I'm going to need a new favorite TV shows. And anyway, that's not the point. I'm laying on the sofa. And I can hear them talking about me in the in the kitchen. And Arden's like, he never gets sick. So he's not used to it. And they started mocking me and I was like, I can't hear you why it hurts. And it just, you know, I am really a baby about it. I'm not gonna lie and and not being sick very often makes it I have no, like, I have no tolerance build up for being able to minute, my turn my head and I feel like a little off balance. I'm like, that's it. It's over. Sit right down. Just leave me here. I'm fine. Although I have to tell you, I did an interview. I'm gonna I'm gonna stamp this is for people in here with Sean. And Sean. And I got on to record. And I started by saying, Man, I don't feel good. I was like, just you know, like, I'm a little loopy here like this is this closest it's gonna come to you hear me drunk or high? Because I'm like a little spacey. And yeah, I can't wait to go back and edit that show. Because for the life of me, I do not know what I said during that time. I mean, I was really like, kind of out of it. I was like, Oh, I wonder how this will go. But we'll see. So So what would you tell people? If you had to take one, would you? Like if I gave you the you know, unreasonable choice of you can only be a flexitarian or eat on an intermittent schedule, which would you take?

Sarah 54:04
Oh, wow. Um, I guess it kind of depends on what their goals would be. Because if their goal is for insulin sensitivity, I might suggest intermittently fasting. If their goal is maybe like, easier to manage blood sugars when they eat, I would definitely suggest flexitarian Yeah, so it just depends on what their goals would be. But for me, if I could only keep one, I would keep intermittently fasting.

Scott Benner 54:31
Yeah, that's interesting. You said that I'm trying very hard for someone to come on who understands intermittent fasting on a more technical level. But yeah, I've been reaching to people and I'm not having a lot of luck. It's interesting how some people who are like I'm an expert in this, like, can you come on to talk about that man, like, well, I guess you're not an expert, because you're not an expert isn't you're afraid to say it out loud. Like, you know, yeah. So I'm still working on that. Because like whether you want to eat carnivore or not, I liked having Paul on because Paul's like, he's all in on it like he's gonna tell you like he's, you know, absolutely all in on eating a carnivore diet and so let him talk about it from that perspective and, and you know, people who are interested in it can hear about it and people who aren't, and then it can go I didn't know somebody else ate like that. And you know, it's something else. You're so you're eating like pasta and bread and things like that. Probably not a lot of bread though. Right?

Sarah 55:25
Right. So I tend to stay away from starches. So not a lot of potatoes or rice or just like white breads or like white pastas. And we do like the the alternatives that are made from like plants, I guess, like there's the chickpea pasta, and they now make a chick pea like rice and stuff like that. And like whole grain bread and things like that. But But yeah, a lot of I mean, it's essentially it's a lot of carbs. Either way.

Scott Benner 55:54
Yeah, I have to tell you, if you I say sometimes, like if you forced me to, like yell out everything, I could tell the person in five seconds about diabetes that I would say like get your basil right, learn to Pre-Bolus figure out the glycemic index. And then you know that that's how I would break down the very basics of managing insulin. I have to say, I think the very basics of eating, if you gave me one second to scream out, I yell don't eat processed foods.

Sarah 56:18
Yeah, I think that's very key like and that's for anybody, like whether you're a diabetic or not, is really key. Yeah,

Scott Benner 56:25
I think that in the end, that's the like, I know how I eat now. I've gotten my body isn't in as good of a place as I can get it through eating. And through the management of the time I eat. My last hurdle is exercise, honestly. And I need to add more exercise. But I've been suffering with plantar fasciitis for so long. And I just finally got it to clear up in a way that's meaningful, and like the last three or four months, so I'm excited again, again, but I have flat feet, and I couldn't figure it out. And I finally found an insert that that holds my arch up and made the plantar fasciitis go away. So I'm super excited, because every time I would get rid of it through stretching and resting, I'd be like, oh, cool, that I go out and do something. And I'd take two hard steps. And I'm like, and it's back again. six more months, I'll stretch it out again. And then two more steps. Like I'm not gonna add exercise like that. Yeah, but that really is like, for me, I think the difference between me right now and me 20 pounds, toner, and lighter is just exercise at this point. I don't eat. I really eat nothing. I'm down to nothing. Just Just potatoes. Right? Well, no, I haven't had that in a long time. Now. Like, you know, I when Paul was coming on, I was like, I'm just gonna eat meat to see how that goes. He yelled at me a little bit. He's like, that's not the way to start. Just trying to get some background information. But I remembered really liking that. So I stuck. I stuck with that for a while. And then like I said, and now I got sick. And you know, I I was I was at the mercy of like, whatever I could grab before I wandered back to the sofa and collapsed again. Yeah, you know, so, but I'm gonna I figure Thanksgivings in two days. So I'll wake up Friday morning. You know, I'm back on my back on the on the intermittent part of the diet. Now, I figured Friday morning, I'll just roll closer to more proteins and stuff like that for a few days. And then I'm assuming those couple pounds should probably drop right off. And then I'm going to start exercising like I just I don't know what I'm even going to drag my son in the basement and be like, Just show me for things that because he's my son looks like you play softball in college, by the way. No, I played in high school high school. Okay. Because my son's like a, you know, it looks like an underwear model. Like he's just, it's embarrassing. When I'm saying I saw I know people are like, I heard Scott was adopted, but maybe the kid is too, you know, anything like each other. And, and I know he can help me, so I'm just gonna put it on him. That seems fair, right?

Sarah 59:01
Yeah, yeah. And the start start small and like whatever you can do, like, Yeah, what are in like, something that like I had to learn was like, don't do exercise just because you think you have to find exercise that like you enjoy doing and that's like the best way to be able to keep up with it. So there might be an exercise I like works well, like if your foot does start to hurt more. I don't know.

Scott Benner 59:25
Yeah, but I have to find a way. Yeah. Maybe I can use yours. The one I took from you. Oh, okay. I see. That'd be a lot of effort to make a bad joke on a podcast to fly to Texas to steal someone's bike. Oh my gosh, yeah. No, I wouldn't say well, that would be very worthwhile. Let me ask you. I know we're getting up on time. But I have a question for you. So I found you because I was in the private Facebook group. And I was like, hey, how do people eat and you were there? What were you there doing? Like, well, how come you found the podcast and the group and everything.

Sarah 59:56
So I okay. So I'm going to kind of go into like my diagnosis story just a little bit because I actually found you guys before I was officially diagnosed. And before like, I really kind of knew what was going on. So I was becoming an EMT over the summer, and we were practicing, like using glucometers. Because that's something you have to do. Like if someone's acting kind of funny, or if they've, like lost consciousness, it's just like, you always check their blood sugar, or they checked mine. And it was like one evening class and my blood sugar came at, like 520. And they tested it again, because they were like, Oh, the glucometer just needs to be calibrated. And I checked it again. And it was like 515. And my instructor was like, Oh, you should probably go see your doctor. And I immediately just, like, jumped into research mode. And Juicebox Podcast was like, one of the, like, first one or two things I had found. And I couldn't even tell you how it was either through a Google search, or, or Reddit or something like that.

Scott Benner 1:01:05
Sorry, what I said, my SEO is tight as the kids would say, my so yeah, yeah.

Sarah 1:01:11
Search Engine Optimization. Yeah, got it. And so I found you guys. And I first I found, you know, the blog and the podcast. And then then I joined the Facebook group. And that was all before I was like, officially diagnosed. Well, yeah. And then and so whenever, like, I went to my endocrinologist, and they were explaining everything. And they were like, this is how you do this. I kind of had in the back of my mind, okay, but this is how I want to do it. Or this, I'm gonna try to do you know, because they didn't really talk about, you know, Pre-Bolus scene, they were like, yeah, just right before you eat, like, maybe like five or 10 minutes, you want to give yourself insulin. And then they gave me like an insulin to carb ratio. But I didn't really follow that. And then yeah, so that's how I found you. It's just like a search. And that's how I was like in the Facebook group, and I go to it every once in a while just to see if there's like, anyone that I can maybe help or I posted a question in there a couple weeks ago. I think it's just a great community.

Scott Benner 1:02:14
They're amazing group of people. Honestly, I'm yeah, I'm beyond stunned and just happy about it. I'm also kind of thrilled that you found the podcast before anything and knew enough to be like, yeah, I'm gonna listen to that, but not that. And you know, coming from your doctor, and it was it a nice, easy start for you because of finding it sooner.

Sarah 1:02:34
Yeah, actually. Especially since I got the Dexcom and Omni pod, it was like really great, being able to listen to how you use it. So I was like, Okay, I know what I'm going to do. And it was really nice hearing people talk about like, how insulin isn't scary. So it was just like, just have some, you know, apple juice or whatever around in case you go low while you are trying to figure things out. And so it was it seemed pretty seamless. I mean, as it could be. Obviously, it was a shock. And it was tough, and you know, very frustrating and annoying and just all sorts of emotions at first, but because like I already had an idea probably I had like a two week Head Start. Yeah, it just felt like I kind of knew, like I had a direction versus like getting everything all at once and being like, I have no idea what's going on.

Scott Benner 1:03:32
Wow, that's really cool. I've that you're the first person that found it basically, before having diabetes, a little bit of unity, although I realize you had it, but you'd before you really dove into it. I've heard people finding it on day one. Which is which is very cool. And and they've got a similar story to yours. But I like that you were just aware and moving before. Before even. Wow, I don't know. That's very cool. I'm kind of excited to know that. That's that that happened to you.

Sarah 1:04:04
Yeah. And I think it's because like the way that I found out like I think if I like my doctor really surprised that I'd never gone into decay and like had to be hospitalized. But I think the way I found out was also really helpful so it was like in class and then I took two weeks for me to be able to get an appointment with my doctor. So like in those two weeks, like I just was in, like heavy research mode, just like okay, I wouldn't I need to know everything. I wouldn't know how to best manage this. I want to know like what it means for like, now and in the future and just like oh my gosh, like I probably spent like hours and hours each day just like looking into everything. And then once I found you Juicebox Podcast and the Facebook group and everything. I was just like reading over like everyone's suggestions and like what kind of problems they had run into and things like that and like listening to all the podcasts. You know, I was going to the pro Tips and everything so Oh, yeah, I was just like a really? I mean, just a really great time, you know, things considered.

Scott Benner 1:05:07
I made me very happy. Not the part of it you haven't diabetes, but the rest of Sure. I'm sorry that you that happened. Did you ever become an EMT or a medic? What were you trying to do again?

Sarah 1:05:17
Yeah, so Okay, I was a teacher for two years. And I, my doctor and I are pretty sure that I had had diabetes for two years. I was undiagnosed, or, you know, before I was diagnosed, and so I just felt crappy while teaching. And I was like, man, maybe this just like, isn't for me, like, maybe this is just my body saying, teaching isn't for us. And so I was like, you know, I'm pretty interested in medical things and helping people and I have a brother in law, that's a firefighter paramedic, and he was like, you should look into this. And so I went through an EMT course over the summer, it was very accelerated. And then, you know, I found out while we were going through, like our finals, and like our testing and all that, and that I had diabetes, and I was like, Okay, I cannot be doing this EMT gig and figuring out diabetes all at once. It just felt like that was the wrong move to make for me. And so while I am a licensed CMT, I'm a teacher and everything feels much better. I'm just like, oh, okay, teaching wasn't really bad. It was just because I had like, an diagnosed type one diabetes, and that's why I felt so bad. But teaching itself is like pretty okay,

Scott Benner 1:06:34
I'm blown away that that was your, your example. Because my I had a secondary question for you, which was going to be Hey, did you ever become an EMT? And can you tell me how the transition was from having diabetes to untreated to having insulin on board? Can you tell me how your body felt differently after you had insulin, but then you just ended up doing it without me asking. That's a thank you. I like it, you can intuitively understand what the next question is going to be. And so it really was a night and day difference between how you felt after you got the insulin and prior?

Sarah 1:07:06
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So I don't I'm like you, I'm very similar to you, or as I don't get sick that often. But in the two years, from, you know, the probable onset of type one diabetes, I was getting, I don't know, I don't even know what you'd call it. I don't even go to the doctor that often. But it was just like a bunch of nose, throat head stuff. But it was way more intense. Then when I'd had it before, you know, the probable onset. I just, it took me a lot longer to recover from it. And then it kind of lingered. And then just my day to day, I was just exhausted. And I just really assumed it was teaching Middle School. Because

Scott Benner 1:07:51
it sounds exhausting. Yeah. So had you not decided to try to be an EMT, you might just like fallen into DK eventually.

Sarah 1:07:59
Most likely, yeah, that's my thought. Because Because my agency was so high and you know, randomly testing one night it was 520 like I am because I were, you know, probably two years without being managed by insulin. Like I'm pretty certain like within the next couple of months, I probably would have gone into DK and that's how I would have found out I

Scott Benner 1:08:22
wonder how they chose you. How many people were there when they were like, hey, let's test their blood sugar.

Sarah 1:08:29
So we were actually in groups, they had glucometers. They had a glucometer for each group of like three or four people and we just had to take turns. So

Scott Benner 1:08:39
I was like, wow, that's Yeah, I wasn't sure if that was divine intervention where they were like, and there's 40 people in here, we're gonna check Sarah's blood sugar. until everybody got their blood sugar check at some point. Did you hear the episode 387 somebody call nine one where the paramedic ginger came on and talked about being a paramedic and what it's like to roll up on calls around type one diabetes?

Sarah 1:09:02
No, No, I haven't. I honestly fallen behind because with teaching and I've had Oh,

Scott Benner 1:09:07
whoa, slow down. Don't be making excuses for why you're not listening to the podcast. If you start to get divorced, or those kids can't learn as much or whatever has to happen. That's not my problem.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:18
Okay, you're right. You're so right. I apologize. I'm sorry. Do you see me saying and I didn't feel good. So you didn't get a podcast this week? No, I was sick and I made a podcast. And now you want to tell me you're busy? What the hell? I'm so sorry. Right. I please. I apologize for my disrespect.

Scott Benner 1:09:35
Well, let me speak honestly to everyone listening all you ungrateful mother. Like what do you I am making this podcast for you listen to it. And at the very least, at the very least you subscribe in your app and you continue to download new shows and tell people that I cannot be mistreated like this.

Sarah 1:09:52
You cannot and you just can't do it on your own. Like we have all of us we are like your your minions trying to push the podcast on people and listen to As many times as possible, so right?

Scott Benner 1:10:03
Not a good word. Let's call us partners. Okay? We're partners. Think of me as the partner that gets the money from the ad sales. And you're the partner who, you know, helps me charge more for the ads by getting more people listen to the podcast, like that's your part in this. I give you the diabetes information. And in turn, you helped me make the Sarah This is not hard to understand. I really sorry, I'm thinking about putting your episode out now.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:29
Oh, no as a punishment

Unknown Speaker 1:10:30
until you wasted your time. You're, like at least 20 episodes behind. I know. I'm just kidding.

Scott Benner 1:10:39
I put out so many of these that I'd be stunned. If you listen to all of them. I'd be like, Well, you've heard of every one of these. Sarah, you have to find like, like a life?

Sarah 1:10:50
I have not I have Honestly, I haven't had a life since school started. It's been rough. We are doing a hybrid. So I'm teaching online and in person. So it's like I have two full time jobs. It has been insane. Can I take

Scott Benner 1:11:01
a couple extra minutes for me before we say goodbye? Can you tell me about that? Yeah, absolute train wreck, it's going well, somewhere in the middle,

Sarah 1:11:09
somewhere in the middle. So it started to feel better, probably like, beginning of November. So today's November 24. And it started feel better. But then our school had four new positive cases and the health department forces to go online. And like for everyone to go online. And that has kind of been a bit of a mess. Because the students there were students that I had in person that had no idea what to do once they got online, even though like I have set aside time and showed them, like it just doesn't make sense for them to like, store that in their memory because they're like, whatever I'm in person, and I don't need to worry about, you know, going online and learning online. So it's been a little bit of a mess, connecting with everyone. And there's kind of some uncertainty as far as like when we'll come back are supposed to come back Monday after Thanksgiving. But that could change depending on what the health department wants, and you know, what our school decides and all that. But yeah, it's been pretty stressful for everyone, you know, students, teachers, administration, parents, you know, families as a whole, it's just been, it's just stressful for everyone,

Scott Benner 1:12:16
the process of teaching kids virtually, is it worse than in person? Better? no different, just different for you. So it feels odd, like, what's your finding?

Sarah 1:12:29
Yeah, I think it's worse for the students. I think school has a lot of benefits besides just, you know, an education, I think they actually learn a lot of different things. And I think being in person is the best form of them learning as far as you know, learning like math and science. But you know, they're also learning other things like social skill, and just you know, how to live life and how to interact with their peers, as well as adults. And so being online for the student. I just, I don't think that's very beneficial. At least not at this age, I teach 10th and 11th grade now, yeah. And I just think at this age, there's some students that might do fine. But the majority of my students, I can tell a difference, and just their learning and the way that they're interacting, you know, because I've had a lot of the students before, and other classes and, you know, to compare them in person to online, it's just night and day. And then it's also kind of, it's also kind of weird as the teacher to try and figure that out. It's like, how do I teach this lesson without being able to, like, get them to do hands on things, which is like, the best way to do it? You know, for the majority of students, it's like hands on. Because Sure, it's like, okay, I can have you go and watch this video, and then answer some questions about it, or write a paper about it. But I, there's just not absorbing anything, you know, because they're on a screen all day. And so to have them have an assignment that's on a screen, or to watch a lesson on a screen, it's just, it's a lot of screen time, and they just kind of like zone out their brain. I don't know what it is. And it's to no fault of their own. It's just you know, how humans work, but their brain just starts to like, lose that. I don't know that the reality of like that they're at home, and they're supposed to be at school, but it's just like, there's a connection that's not being made there.

Scott Benner 1:14:30
Is your expectation lower for them? Like is the schools in general lower? Like, I know, nobody would admit that out loud, probably, but is, you know, like, is the amount of stuff we're trying to pack into someone's brain lesser than it was prior?

Sarah 1:14:47
I think it depends on where you go. And then like for what school district and then even then what school you're in for my school. Essentially, the feel that I'm getting is that the expectation for teachers are the same however, the expectation for students has been lowered. And I'm definitely on board with, you know, lowering expectations because we have no idea what the students home lifes are like, you know, for some students, it's like their worst nightmare to be at home. And then to try to learn from home. Yeah, so, my, my personal as a teacher, my personal expectations for students, I've lowered them a lot. And I also teach history. So it's also kind of like, history comes last. It's not, it's not like one of the essential skills you need to have or central knowledge you need to have at this age level. So, yeah, there are some other teachers though, who, in my school, their expectations have not changed at all. They're about the same. And then I can see that that's been kind of rough on students. So just like I said, kind of depends.

Scott Benner 1:15:52
Yeah, Arden, put a table in her room. She's like, I need somewhere to sit. So we got her like a small table and a chair. And on most days, she sits up and she's like, but still like, you look at her. She's in her pajamas. And her hair's like going in six ways, and she doesn't care. And yet she looks like today station feel while she laid in bed and went to school today. Like at noon, we were like erh just one more class, then I'm going to get a shower. And we're like, okay, yeah. But she's doing like, her grades are really good. My son hates it. My son's in his junior year of college. And he's like, he's like, if they want us to do this again next semester. I'm not doing it. Yeah, he said, He's gonna take a gap if it happens again.

Sarah 1:16:31
Yeah, I totally understand that. I totally get that. Like, there's for to some students, it's like, whatever I can do this I can, I can be online and to the majority of students. So it's just such a, it's such a difference. And it's just not helpful. And they just kind of turn into like zombies almost like, it just, yeah, their brains aren't actually functioning on the learning level that they need to, because there's just that just enough of a difference like being at home than in person. Here's

Scott Benner 1:16:59
the good that I can imagine coming from this, then I'm gonna let you go. Because this is my long shot bet. Okay. And everybody falls into their phone. Right? We've been doing it now for a decade or so. There's an entire generation of kids who, you know, don't know a life they What is that? They say? Like, you're always within arm's reach of your phone or something like that. Like, you know, people have their face their phones. I'm thinking that if this pandemic goes on long enough, we are going to successfully rewire a generation of children, not the one to look at a screen. Maybe, maybe maybe it's like, you know, when when your parents caught you smoking a cigarette, and they may just smoke the whole pack. See it gets sick. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'm thinking this might be that for screentime.

Sarah 1:17:45
Yeah, I mean, that's a good thought. And maybe not. Yeah, I could see that happening. I could see that happening. Just Yeah, kids just being like sick of the screen, and then finally returning to play like outside do something.

Scott Benner 1:17:57
Yeah. Yeah. Like go have sex like regular kids. And like, yeah, they don't even know each other. Like, they're, like, 11th 12th grade. They're in college, like, Oh, no, I don't have friends. I'm like, friends. What about girls? What are you people doing? You know, have you? Are you aware that now there are text chains going around during your class that you're not involved in with the class? Do you know the kids talk that way to each other? Do you know they're probably talking about you while you're doing your thing? Like, are you aware of all that? Or you don't have kids? You don't know about that part? I guess? Hmm.

Sarah 1:18:31
Well, I don't have kids myself, but I am aware like I yeah, I'm aware that they talk about me. They talked about other students they like yeah, our school has a really strict no cell phone policy. But I know that it still happens. Like if their cell phones are out or whatever, even if it's like in their pocket. And you can see the outline in their pocket, where we take their phones up, and they have to pay $20 to get it back at the end of the day. And then it increases like $5 each time. But it still happens. Like they hide the phone. Somehow they take it to the bathroom or you know, in the hallway and passing periods. Like I yeah, I know that that happens. Because it distracts and it's like, it's like the other day. I saw it in real time. So we had an advisory and my advisory students, I'm like, yeah, take out your phone. I'm fine with that. Like, you know, whatever. As long as it's school appropriate. Don't forget you're on the school Wi Fi. So you, you know the school can see everything you're doing. And I saw it happen in real time. Someone walked into advisory and they were like, Hey, did you hear what so and so said to this teacher? And everyone in the class was like, no, what did she say? And they were like she said this and this and then I had the student that said something to the teacher. I had her later in the day, and she just seemed like different from how she normally was from her normal personality and I I was like, Hey, what's going on today? You seem just, you know, like, a little down or just like little different and you have a good weekend. And she was like, No, I just like, I don't know, some people were talking about me and they're texting about me. And I know that I watched that happen, like in my class. And I was just like, That's insane. And I definitely was like, maybe like even an advisory. Like, I shouldn't allow them to have phones out for reasons like that. Because like, yeah, that that. I mean, now that girl now that students like distracted for the rest of the day. Yeah. And she's just Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:20:31
they're getting good at it. They're like, multitaskers. Like, it's it's really incredible. They're having multiple, like, the level the conversations about different topics at the same time on different like, devices.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:44
Yes, fascinating.

Scott Benner 1:20:45
They are at it. It's, it's crazy. Yeah, you should see some of the ways they they've like figured out how to cheat on tests and help each other with homework. And these kids are really good at using this technology.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:57
I think really, I

Scott Benner 1:20:58
think, I think schools teaching kids a lot of things. They don't think they're teaching them. Right. Yeah. They're bad kids. They're gonna be amazing adults. Yeah. Well, I think at the end here, we figured out who stole your bike, some kids phone to you talk,

Sarah 1:21:13
probably from the others, like, Alright, we can easily find out where she lives.

Scott Benner 1:21:17
I know where she's at. Let's take her bike. Yeah. Yes, we solved it. Yeah, I think we did just go figure out which kid you took the most money off of for the cellphones. He's got your bike? Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you doing this. And, and seriously, I'm, I love this series of people talking about how they eat and just have a nice conversation. So I'm, I'm thrilled the podcast found you and that has been valuable for you. And, and in turn, I'm, I'm very grateful for you coming on and sharing this part of your life with us. Thank you so much.

Sarah 1:21:47
Oh, of course, I'm so grateful for the podcast, like, as I just explained, like, I it was an integral part in, you know, learning management. And I think because of that, like, it has just been that much easier. You know, that much less stressful, especially when it comes to insulin, because I think a lot of people are just so nervous about using it, and just kind of like the dangers of it, which are very valid and real concerns. However, we don't necessarily have to live with blood sugars that are super high, you know, we can we can make small changes and be healthy. And, you know, just finding the podcast was just like such a blessing to be able, you know, to transition so smoothly, you know, from from diagnosis just right into it. So I'm really thankful for you, Scott, and just, you know, the blog and the podcast and everything. It's become like, it's so great. And the community on Facebook, I think is like also one of the best resources out there. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I hope flexitarian diet makes sense for some people to try out. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:22:50
it's definitely worth looking into. And Google calls it semi vegetarian, which made me laugh. a vegetarian, okay. Oh, you were so sweet. Just now it's not me from making a stupid joke, because I was just gonna be like, so I saved your life. Sara, is that right? Is it can you just say those words, please. So we have a clip for the trailer. But no, no, it's fine. No, but seriously, you were just that was really kind. I appreciate it. You made me made me a little, you know, I'm not I didn't cry or anything like that. But it was it was really touching. I I'm just thrilled that anybody's finds value in any of the stuff that I've got set up so but to know that you basically slung right from not having diabetes to having Type One Diabetes without experiencing any weird social, psychological or physical blips is very gratifying to hear. So I appreciate you sharing that with me. Thank you. Of course, of course. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, g Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo hypo Penn at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box. you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com. forward slash juice box. Warm handing out thank yous and propers Sara, thank you so much for coming on the show. And Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You're not a person but I appreciate you too. Contour Next One comm forward slash juice box. And of course don't forget touched by type one.org. Also on Facebook and Instagram. Thank you so much for listening. If you're enjoying the podcast, please share it with someone. Leave a great rating and review where you listen or subscribe in a podcast app. These are the things that help the show the most. Thank you so much for listening for supporting the show. I'll be back soon with another episode.

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