Danielle discusses the four stages of blood sugar dysregulation that occur before a person is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing these signs and symptoms early to prevent and reverse diabetes. Danielle also highlights the various health issues associated with insulin resistance and encourages listeners to take control of their health by incorporating regular walking into their routines and considering her four-week program, “Diabetes No More,” which offers evidence-based holistic approaches to reversing or preventing diabetes. The episode serves as an informative guide to understanding the early warning signs of insulin resistance and the steps one can take to lead a healthier life.
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Transcription
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Welcome to the crying in my cheesecake podcast where we are in pursuit of living life abundantly not held back by our body size or symptoms Nor are we held back by our hurts habits or other obstacles in life? Learn the secrets to crush it in your health wellness relationships in spiritual life I am Danielle your host and practitioner and in this episode we are going to do Something that no one else is really discussing and then that is that there are four levels of blood sugar dysregulation before you’re even diagnosed with diabetes.
And that means that there are signs and symptoms that tell us that we are experiencing insulin resistance before our A1c and fasting glucose numbers on our blood work even begin to show us that we are in a diseased state. And I think that this is so important because so many millions of people are affected worldwide with insulin resistance.
It’s so common now to have insulin resistance that we think that being diagnosed with diabetes is just a normal part of aging. And I’m here to tell you, Diabetes is not normal and it can be reversed and prevented. Now, I shouldn’t have to say this disclaimer, um, but I’m going to have to. I am talking about type 2 diabetes, not type 1 diabetes that happens and is an auto, more of an autoimmune disorder.
Um, I actually had someone on my social media try to tell me, um, that all diabetes is not the same. And I’m like, I know, I know, I know, clearly I’m not talking to you. Um, I’m talking to those of us who are. are predisposed to diabetes because our families have it in our background. I’m talking about those of us who have extra weight on our bodies.
I’m talking to those of us who have, um, been diagnosed pre diabetic or had gestational diabetes in the past. I’m talking to those of us who have, Um, who are diagnosed diabetic. I’m talking to those of you who have Hashimoto’s or a thyroid problem. I’m talking to those of you who have no gallbladder. I’m talking to those of you who have heart disease either in your life or in someone else’s life in your family, like in your blood relatives.
Diabetes is not normal and we can see our body was given symptoms. to kind, to tell us and point us in the direction before we had to experience disease. Again, diabetes is not normal. It can be reversed and prevented because there are so many subtle signs of it that go unnoticed. They go unnoticed. And we’re going to talk about those here in just a minute.
But it leads up to all of these symptoms lead up to the diabetes diagnosis, though. And we’ll definitely cover those here in just a minute. So before we get into the details. I want to just Off the bat, start talking about the four stages of blood sugar imbalance that precede diabetes. And I said four.
That means that there are five levels of blood sugar dysregulation. The fifth one being diagnosed type 2 diabetic. And we know that it is so important to understand this. It’s so important to understand the signs and symptoms of insulin resistance so that we can prevent it because there is a correlation.
We can’t say causation right now. But there is a correlation between imbalanced blood sugar, so these symptoms I’m going to talk about, and heart disease, diabetes. There is a correlation with cancers, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Hashimoto’s, autoimmune, all of the diseases out there. And I’m going to add in too that these symptoms are all correlated with people who struggled getting over COVID.
Or who continue to still struggle with getting over COVID. And you know it, I think about this future and again I don’t try to be like this conspiracy theorist and I’m thinking here ahead, but if COVID could knock us out that hard as a society and as a culture of in this current generation, something worse is going to come along.
Something harder is going to come along and I’m not saying that that our days aren’t numbered because they are. And I’m not saying that there’s not a miracle that can happen. There’s not something that can happen, but I’m saying it’s time to take our health and wellness seriously. And I don’t know about you listening, but here in the Western culture, at least in my worldview, like the way I grew up and things, and I grew up, I’m in the Midwest, uh, Midwest American and where corn fed were big people.
And there was a Roseanne episode that said this, that You know, we are poor. The only thing that we can celebrate with or get joy out of is food. And while that seems like so weird to talk about now, it’s the truth with so many people. Why else would we have Bible studies or parties that center on food?
Why else would we not just center on food, but why would we think we have to be gluttonous at food at with food around us? Let’s just say you go to a work event and there’s a buffet. And you feel like you have to have everything on there. You have to try everything to make it worth it. Maybe you spent 50 on the, that we call it the meat buffet, the Texas Brazilian places, the Brazilian meat houses.
You’ve spent 50, 60, 70 on your meal and you feel like you have to eat it all and try it all. And there’s that piece within us that’s that scarcity. If we’re going to pay that money, then we better have something to show for it, right? Even if it is that we have to be barrel rolled out of the restaurant or out of the event and unbutton our pants and whatever.
We are gluttonous people for many reasons. We are a group of people who will eat ourselves silly. You know, I find it interesting. So I had a miniature dachshunds. My husband and I raised miniature dachshunds while I was in college and our last one just passed away, um, last summer and she was 17 or 18. I can’t remember.
And I was thinking about this. Like people always said, well, dachshunds will eat themselves to death. And it’s true, but we taught them that they didn’t have to be scared about missing a meal. We taught them that if we left food out at all times that they would have plenty. It would always be refilled.
And sure, if I gave my, if I gave my dog carrots and ranch or something like that, she would love that and not know when to stop and I would have to stop her. But I kind of look back at that and I don’t know when to stop, or I used to not know when to stop eating my carrots and ranch. I didn’t know when to stop eating.
Is it a carton? Yeah, a carton of strawberries. I had lost track of where I was when I was eating, how I was eating, why I was even eating. I did not have access to my hunger hormones. And you’re probably like, Daniel, why are we talking about food? Why are we talking about all this? And it’s because we lose track of what is normal.
versus what is common, and it is so common today to just accept our symptoms as part of getting older. So I’m going to walk you through the stages of blood sugar dysregulation, and I’m going to start with stage one. In stage one, everything here appears quote unquote normal. And we see others dealing with similar things that we are and, and you know, they’re fine and we think our concerns are maybe just because we’re in a busy season of life, or maybe we chalk it up to a change in our lives.
But really these things that we’re experiencing are not normal. So phase one is called, or like phase one, a blood sugar dysregulation is called compromised blood sugar regulation. This, these are what you would feel. During phase one, increased cravings for sugar and refined carbohydrates. I want you to think about this a minute.
When we have increased cravings for sugar and refined carbohydrates, maybe it starts with the afternoon. Maybe you’re at work and in the break room there’s donuts or someone brought in something or a company brought in something and you want a little something something in the afternoon. You need a little pick me up.
You go and get that coffee in the afternoon because coffee just sounds good. You might have increased hunger and reduced satiation from meals. Maybe you, what you normally ate just isn’t satisfying you anymore. The portion sizes aren’t satisfying you anymore. So you kind of have a little something sweet after you eat or a little something salty after you eat or you get hungry for snacks later.
Remember, we’re still in phase one, right? We’re still in state phase one. Phase five is diabetes, type two diabetes diagnosis. That’s just two things here. The next thing is weight gain. How many people just assume that their weight gain is. from not from eating too much or, or what it is, but weight gain just kind of quote unquote happens as you get older, your metabolism slows down.
We blame perimenopause. We blame our hormones. We blame all the things. And that is quote unquote normal. We’re still in phase one, mind you still in phase one. We start to have increased blood pressure. Maybe it’s just a couple of points. Maybe it’s just a couple of things here and there. Maybe it’s just once a month, things just seem a little wonky, but our blood pressure starts to increase.
The next thing is impaired beta oxidation of fat. We don’t use, we don’t have access and we don’t know to use our body has stopped using the fat on our bodies for energy doesn’t have access to it. We have that difficulty burning fat for weight loss. Okay, that’s phase one. We think all of this is just normal.
Like I said, we can chalk all of these symptoms, the increased cravings for sugar and refined carbs, increased hunger and reduced satiation from meals, a little bit of weight gain, increased blood pressure, difficulty burning fat for weight loss. We have, we can, we can blame all of that on our circumstances, our situations.
It’s just the season of life. Oh, this is happening to every quote unquote, everybody around me. So this is normal, but it’s not my friend. These are the first signs of insulin resistance. Okay? And if I can be very honest, this phase one happened to me probably before I was in kindergarten. And I was already dealing with blood sugar issues before kindergarten.
And I see it on my body in pictures back then. So let’s move into phase two. Phase two is called hyperinsulinemia and reactive hypoglycemia. So phase two, again, there’s five phases to blood sugar imbalance or dysregulation, bef total, and phase five being diabetes, type two diabetes. So phase two, some common symptoms can be, this is when we start to feel tired.
Our energy levels start to feel low. We have stronger cravings for caffeine and sweets, especially in the afternoon. Our hunger in the evening, oh my gosh, I can’t even describe to you this, this hunger, and I’m sure maybe I can, but maybe you’ll understand this. The increased ravenous hunger, like when you get home and you need a snack while you’re cooking dinner, or you find yourself grazing and then you have a full dinner and you can’t stop eating.
That ravenous hunger is phase two. of blood sugar imbalance or dysregulation. Next is irritability. Hello, irritability. We talk that up to women getting older or women’s hormones, don’t we? We talk that up to women just being emotional. It’s not anxiety, nervousness, and feeling lightheaded if meals are missed.
This is still in phase two. Phase two is longer guys. Phase two is even longer feeling jittery or shaky between your meals. Um, skin tingling, especially around your mouth sweating. I sweat all the time and I can sweat on a dime. Literally as of recording this, I went out with some friends on Friday down to run, to do some scooters around Cincinnati.
And we got in, it was not terribly warm out, but I had gone, I had saved up some calories so I could have dinner with them, a longer dinner with them, and I knew I wasn’t going to eat necessarily super healthy, so I wanted to make sure that I had control over my food and my calorie budget and so forth.
But I’ve really been working on my own insulin resistance, my own blood sugar. Not that I’m diagnosed diabetic, not that I’m diagnosed pre diabetic, not that I have any diagnosis other than Hashimoto’s and a family history of diabetes. And I did have gestational diabetes twice. Got off the scooters, we walked around a little bit.
Nothing crazy, nothing fast, we weren’t doing anything. I wasn’t out of breath, nothing. I was in jeans and a t shirt, um, a t shirt like a, I don’t know, it was a, it was a t shirt. And I got into the building for the dinner and they looked at me and they were like, oh my gosh, you’re sweating. Well, my blood sugar was dysregulated, it was super low.
ready to eat. And so I went ahead and ordered an appetizer and so forth and all of it went away. Rapid or irregular heartbeat is also another one. Headaches, memory issues, difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly, blurred vision, insomnia, and crying out during sleep. Guys, this is all phase two of blood sugar resistance dysregulation.
These things that we think that when we get older, it’s just normal to have memory issues or difficulty concentrating and thinking, especially in the afternoon. Headaches. Oh, it’s just that barometric pressure or, oh, it’s just, it’s just. When we start giving an excuse for things, that’s when we need to start looking deeper.
Because we’re going to move into phase three of insulin resistance arms, which is called insulin resistance. And phase three is like, let’s just take all those things I talked about in phase one and phase two. Phase three takes it even deeper. Increased hunger, increased lethargy, increased brain fog and difficulty focusing.
This is when we might see all of these women that are self diagnosing themselves as ADHD. If we’re having difficulty focusing, I would check the blood sugar first before taking ADHD medicine because that’s going to mess everything else up as well. Increased weight gain, especially around the abdomen, increased blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
So let’s say you’ve been getting your blood sugar, your A1C done, you’re at your yearly appointments, you’ve been getting your cholesterol levels checked and they’re just continuing to go up. Like they’re not staying steady, but if they’re continuing to go up, it’s, it’s a sign of insulin resistance.
Continued increased blood pressure. If you have hyperpigmentation of the skin, especially around the neck and the armpits, you guys, I had stained what I would call stained armpits. I thought because, you know, social media taught me, I thought it was because I was using, oh, like antiperspirants with aluminum in them.
Now I’m not saying that’s healthy by any means, but it wasn’t. That yellowing and almost like greenish yellow in my armpits. That was signs of insulin resistance. Do you see what I’m saying here? I’m taking you along my journey. I’m telling you, I have dealt with phase three insulin resistance and I have reversed all of that and my pits are normal skin color now.
Um, but you’ll notice that there are some people that have like this, this like weird ring around their neck that just kind of looks a little different color. Maybe even has like these weird like lines in it. Uh, that would be the hyperpigmentation of insulin resistance, depression and mood disorders. If you are depressed, if you have mood disorders.
You have insulin resistance. If you have endocrine imbalances, including your thyroid and fertility issues, you have insulin resistance. If you are, if you struggle with slow healing and like, let’s just say for example, um, say you have an injury and it takes you a long time to heal. That’s insulin resistance.
If you have a, um, scan or, you know, like a, you cut yourself open, like say even on your toe or your leg, for example, and it takes. Months to heal or even weeks to heal. That’s insulin resistance. If you’re noticing premature aging, if you have like really deep set wrinkles, if you have, um, Brittle bones, if you’re easy to break bones, if you are, um, I’m trying to think of something else, but yeah, like deep set wrinkles in your skin looks very, uh, what do you call that?
Like, what is that called? Um, like crinkly, what is that crinkly skin called? Shoot, like crepe paper. Crepe paper. Um, so if you have that kind of skin with the deep set wrinkles and that you have insulin resistance, no one talks about this, do they? No one talks about the third phase of insulin resistance, which is where many, many people sit for years until they move into phase four, which is metabolic syndrome.
This is a new diagnosis, I think on the diagnosis codes for doctor’s offices. Don’t hold me. Don’t hold me to that. But phase four is abdominal obesity. Hello, that’s most of us here in the Western culture, systemic inflammation, high blood glucose levels. So if you have fasting glucose levels above 100 milligrams per deciliter, if you have an a one C above 5.
5, if you have dyslipidemia, which means low HDL, high LDL and high triglycerides, you are in metabolic syndrome. If you have high blood pressure, you are in metabolic syndrome. Do you see how you can find yourself in all four of these phases? If you’re listening to me, you probably know someone, if it’s not yourself, that can identify with each of these phases.
This is why I’m so passionate about blood sugar issues. This is why I’m so passionate about, because this is the place where we can do a lot of preventative care. Because when we are type 2 diabetic, type 2 diabetes, The signs of that is extreme hunger and thirst. I’ll never forget when my brother was diagnosed diabetic.
He was, I think, don’t quote me, I think he was like in his early 20s. It was like 22 at the most. He was, he went to Dairy Queen and got one of those misty freezes and he still was thirsty. He was drinking Mountain Dew, still thirsty. He was drinking so much water and still thirsty. He had persistent hunger even after the meals, there’s frequent or increased urination, tingling sensations in the hands or feet, chronic or persistent fatigue, frequent infections, and this includes viruses, this includes bacterial, this includes getting sick often.
Another thing to think about with type 2 diabetes is the anger and aggression for no reason. You cannot control yourself. It’s almost like you pull yourself out and you’re like, who is that? Why am I doing that? Oh my gosh, stop. And then you can’t. Extremely high blood glucose levels at reading 200 milligrams per deciliter, um, or an A1C above 6.
- These are signs of type 2 diabetes. Do you see how we can? Have signs and symptoms before we are actually diabetic. It doesn’t just come on and just happen like we’ve been taught. And I just want to remind you that type 1 diabetes is caused by destruction of beta cells in the pancreas by a virus or autoimmune reaction.
It is not chronic dysglycemia like type 2 diabetes, so that is the difference. I approach type 1 as an autoimmune disorder, disorder, or disease, and type 2 is purely preventable and reversible. So why does this matter? Why take care of ourselves? Why am I telling you these things? There are these, these are the symptoms of these phases.
Why am I telling you these things? I’m telling you these things because you don’t want to be on insulin. You don’t want to be controlled by a lifetime of medication. A lifetime of frequent blood sugar monitoring and frequent means fasting an hour after every meal or two hours after every meal and then before bed.
I’m telling you this because there is a risk of heart disease and kidney problems and so much more. Alzheimer’s, cancers, all the things, thyroid problems, infertility, crazy menopause symptoms that we like all the nightmares all the ladies talk about. Those don’t have to be your symptoms either. Daily lifestyle restrictions, decreased quality of life.
Who wants that? That is not living life abundantly. And so, I want to give you a moment here to think. What would life be like? What would change for me? If I had control of my hunger. If hunger didn’t control me. What would happen if I had a little, a little less weight on my body and was able to move and do more and be physically present in more places?
What would happen or how would I feel or how would I show up differently? If I wasn’t irritable, anxious, nervous all the time, if I wasn’t sweating profusely at dinner with my friends, it would sure save me money on, on primer for my makeup. That’s for sure. How would you show up different if you didn’t have difficulty concentrating or thinking clearly?
How much money would you save if you didn’t need your afternoon coffee? What could you do with the money that would be spent at doctor’s offices and, um, on insulin and the pharmacies and all of the things?
What can you do with that money now instead? Who can you serve? Who can you, what memories could you be making?
So something I would suggest you doing Takeaway, I want you to take some action from this podcast episode, not just know all the things I want you to actually do something in response. I want you to incorporate 30 minutes of walking into your routine. I know it sounds to me like if you know me and you follow me on Instagram, you will realize that I recognize like why this is a thing.
I hate walking. I hate walking. It is the most boring thing for me. Unless I’m in nature and hiking like that’s, I don’t count hiking as walking because on my hikes I choose ones that have elevation changes and make me sweat and have fun. But just leisurely walking. 30 minutes a day. You can break that up 10 minutes three times a day.
You could break that up however you want. Get one of those under the desk treadmills or one of those Amazon treadmills. I can even link one below. Um, that you can just throw it on, watch a TV show and save a TV show for you to just watch that. Watch when you’re walking. Thirty minutes a day of walking is a simple yet effective way of managing insulin resistance.
And I hate it. It is so boring. It is so frustrating and seems so easy. But it’s the people who do the easy things that have success. It’s the people who make things more complicated and overhaul and all of that that they see short term success and then they are quote unquote off the wagon because it was too hard to do the overhaul forever.
But bare minimum, the best practice is to get 30 minutes of walking in. Now does that say steps for the day? No. Did you know that 10, 000 steps a day? Was created because, or the idea of 10, 000 steps a day was created because the person that made the pedometer, pedometer, their language used, oh shoot, um, the, like the Chinese characters and the Chinese character that it was like the walking symbol, it made, it looked like a guy walking, that actually was the symbol for 10, 000.
There is no necessarily benefit of 10, 000 steps a day. My. My recommendation is 7, 500 steps a day, except for one day of the week, we should take a break. We should have a break. So simply walking 30 minutes into your routine can help with your symptoms. And there are a few symptoms that it can help with right away.
That would be brain fog, that would be energy, sustained energy throughout the day, and better sleep. Those are three symptoms that walking can support and improve for you. So, if this is something that you are interested in, if this is something that you’re like Danielle, you’re speaking my language, you just identified me in multiple levels of those, of those symptoms, what can I do more than just walking?
I hear you and I see you. In fact, this, this thing I’m going to talk about, this opportunity I’m going to talk about here in just a second is born out of my desire to help just one person. Thank you. Not have to experience what I have from my family, from my dad’s experience, or from mine. This program is a four week program.
It’s called Diabetes No More. Because I want to end diabetes. I want to give you an opportunity to be the last person in your family to carry on diabetes. And we know diabetes has to do with habits, has to do with learned behaviors, has to do with learned things about food and all of that. But I want to be, I want to be the person to lead and guide you and change generations to come.
So this program that I’ve created is called Diabetes No More. It is a four week program to be running from currently as of this recording it will be running from November 6th, 2023 to November 30th, 2023. There will be two live calls with me. There will be expert, um, advice and guidance. It will include your supplements, it’ll include meal plans, it’ll include, um, chat access to me, my team and the others of the members.
It will have effective workouts. It will have accountability and so much more. Inside, there, this is, this is for the person who wants evidence, evidence based holistic approach to their wellness. This is for the person who is tired of temporary fixes. The person that is seeking a deeper understanding of their body, not the ideal body.
The person who is dedicated to improving their health and well being. And the person who recognizes the connection between weight and their health. So if you want to learn more about that, you want to get started on that, Uh, down at the link, down at the link below in the show notes, I will have the information that will lead you there.
You can simply send me an email as well, or find me on Instagram at cryinginmycheesecake. com. You can send me a message there as well. But here’s the thing, I want you to take control of your health today. I want you to go out and take a walk. And kudos to you if you were listening to this while taking a walk.
Cause I probably wasn’t. I’m actually probably driving, um, at the moment, cause that’s when I listened to this to make sure I didn’t make any errors, but kudos to you for listening. Now it’s time to take what you know, what I’ve taught you and do get that walk. And if it’s, and if it is right for you, and if this is the right season for you, I would love to invite you into my diabetes, no more program.
In November, take a look at the show notes. Thank you so much for coming to the table. Thank you so much for joining me here to understand the symptoms of insulin resistance. And the possibilities that stand, that you don’t have to become a statistic. You don’t have to normalize diabetes and all of these symptoms that happen before diabetes.
Your health is your most valuable asset. And with the right knowledge and action, you can lead a vibrant and healthy life until next time, stay healthy and take care.
Thanks for listening to the crying in my cheesecake podcast. I hope it encourages you to make the next best step for your health. Take a look at the show notes for more information or other links I mentioned in the episode. And if you got to this point, come find me on Instagram and send me a DM at cryinginmycheesecake.
Tell me you listened to the episode and what you got out of it.
