Top 10 BEST Morning Drinks For Diabetics

Hello Health Champions today we're going to talk  about the top 10 best morning drinks for diabetics  

and if you're not a diabetic then let's keep it  that way and these drinks can be highly beneficial  

for General Health also as well as keeping you  from becoming a diabetic and number 10 on the list  

and these are not necessarily in rank order number  10 is vegetable juice and this is not to say that  

this is something you should drink in the morning  it is if you're in the habit if you feel like you  

have to start the day with some juice like you've  been having orange juice all your life then you  

want to replace that sugary juice with something  else so you want to make it a green juice and you  

could base that on something like celery celery  is fairly neutral it's not as bitter as a lot of  

other greens you can also put in some cucumber and  then you want to add in some leafy greens so this  

could be Roma lettuce it could be spinach could  be iceberg lettuce or arugula anything that you  

like or even kale and the reason I say even kale  is that it's pretty potent and if you do a lot of  

any of these leafy greens especially the kale then  they'll become kind of bitter and take over so you  

probably want to base it on the celery and some  cucumber and then use the others sort of sparingly  

at least until you get used to it or know what  flavor you're dealing with but the thing we want  

to keep in mind is that plants they do have some  beneficial compounds but some of these compounds  

are only beneficial in very small amounts and they  can be there because the plant is trying to defend  

itself so it's like a mild Toxin and that can have  certain benefits but it can also overdo things so  

we get too much and if you start reacting to two  things here especially the kale and you also want  

to be careful with the spinach because it can tend  to develop kidney stones because it has a lot of  

oxalate so realize that some of these things can  be beneficial in small amounts but if you react  

then you're getting too much so don't feel like  you have to have a bunch of these things or that  

more is better just because someone called it  a superfood or put it on their list so the most  

important criteria is does it make you feel good  because you should drink these and feel really  

really good and if you don't then figure out  what's in there that you're not doing so well  

with number nine on the list is a smoothie and  again this is not something you have to have  

if you watch some of my videos you will notice  that I talk a lot about eating fewer meals doing  

intermittent fasting and very often just skipping  breakfast but if you're in the habit of having  

breakfast you might as well make it a good one and  the Smoothie can also be great if you want to make  

something and take with you to have something on  the go and if you do then you could put protein  

powder in there but a lot of people they just  put water and protein powder and they call that a  

smoothie I would say it's optional if you have one  you really like and has some good ingredients not  

a bunch of artificial stuff and chemicals then you  can use it but it's not necessary to put a protein  

powder in there because you can get protein from  other things and I'd like to base it on you put  

some water in and then you can add on some milk  some cream half and half or coconut cream this  

will provide some protein but also some good  natural fats to give you energy then I'd like to  

flavor it with cocoa powder a lot of people will  put fruits and berries and bananas and things in  

there and if you like you could put a little bit  of raspberries for example but for the most part  

fruits will add a bunch of sugar which if you're  diabetic you're trying to get away from and cocoa  

powder is very very low carbohydrates and then you  want to put in more of the bulk of the Smoothie so  

you put nuts and seeds especially if you don't do  a protein powder then you'll get the protein from  

nuts and seeds but in the nuts and seeds you also  get fat and fiber so these could be things like  

pecan nuts walnuts and the seeds could be things  like Chia or pumpkin seed or flax seed and then  

of course you want some sweetener and if you  don't put a bunch of fruit in there you want  

the sweetener to be Stevia or monk fruit because  these are non calorie sweeteners but they're not  

artificial they're natural products so you can use  them safely in moderation and what I have found  

is if you sweeten something with cocoa powder  and Stevia it'll taste a little funky until you  

add salt so these are the three things you want  to balance out Cocoa powder Stevia and salt and  

play with those until you find a good flavor that  you like another nice flavor to add is a little  

bit of vanilla if you like that and you can make  these to be completely ketogenic to where you have  

5% or less of the net carbs from carbohydrates  another thing you can use is Chia water and this  

would be a good idea if you feel like you have  to have something you're a little hungry but you  

don't want to full meal or you're trying to cut  back then make some Chia water it's very very  

simple you put about one tablespoon of Chia seeds  about 10 gram into a cup of water you weight 2 30  

minutes or up to an hour if you want it really  kind of gel like and what this can do for you it  

it can help provide some satiety it'll fill you up  a little bit these seeds will swell up to a gel so  

it provides kind of a filling effect and it has a  lot of good fiber so this fiber is mostly soluble  

and that soluble fiber acts as a Prebiotic it acts  as food for the beneficial bacteria in your gut it  

also provides a good amount of essential fatty  acids the one that you getting the most of is  

ala alpha linolenic acid now that's not instead  of a fish oil but the body can turn some of this  

ala into the EPA and the DHA that you find in fish  oil but the conversion is kind of limited so you  

don't want to rely only on this and chia seeds are  also jam-packed with vitamins and minerals just  

realize that you're not going to get a substantial  percentage you're going to get a a good portion  

of some of them but not like all your vitamins  and minerals because you're only consuming 10  

grams worth number seven is Black Coffee a lot of  people cannot start their day without some black  

coffee and I am totally okay with a small amount  like one or two maybe three cups of coffee per  

day especially early in the day just don't let it  get to where you sip coffee all day long and when  

a lot of people have black coffee or a cup of  coffee they want to add something so they talk  

about they want to have some cream with it but  cream means different things to different people  

and I want to compare some of the different  things that people usually put in coffee and  

show you what a difference it is so if we look at  skim milk whole milk half and half and cream and  

realize that if you like coconut cream then that  falls closer to the cream end of things it kind  

of falls between the half and half and the cream  but if we now if we look at the fat component and  

we're talking about percentage of calories from  fat in skin milk it's only 7% so with skin milk  

or fat-free milk there's just a trace amount left  so not really any calories from fat to speak of  

there's some protein but what we're concerned  with is that in skin milk 55% of the calories  

come from sugar from carbohydrates from lactose  so if you're a diabetic and you're just having  

some coffee in the morning and then you fill it  up with skim milk because skim milk doesn't taste  

very much it doesn't whiten the coffee very much  so you'll probably be tempted to put a 1/4 cup in  

there to make a difference now you're going to get  quite a bit of sugar you're going to get a sugar  

Spike early in the morning not as bad as if you  actually added sugar but that milk sugar still has  

an effect so instead of skim milk if you use whole  milk the percentage of calories from fat jumps to  

50% right away there's some protein and then you  have 29% of the calories from carbohydrate but  

that's dramatically less if you see here there  is almost 10 times more calories from carbs in  

the skin milk than the fat whereas in whole milk  now we have more from fat than from carbohydrate  

and this is sort of how nature intended because  there's no mammal that drinks skim milk from  

their mother they put mostly fat in because that  that's where the energy should come from and then  

if we go up to half and half which sounds like  it would be half milk half cream which it really  

isn't it's more like three parts milk and one part  cream but still the fat percentage the calories  

from fat jump to almost 80% less protein and now  we only have 12% of calories from sugar so it's  

dramatically different different food because  the black coffee is neutral it's just basically  

water it has no calories so the calories you're  getting is from what you're adding and there's a  

tremendous difference as you can see here you're  going from a high sugar food to a very low sugar  

food and you think it might be almost the same  thing and then of course if you go to cream now  

we're talking 36, 37 or even 40% fat 95% of the  calories come from fat and only trace amounts like  

3% of the calories are from sugar so now again we  go in from a high carb food to a high fat food and  

if you're using cream heavy cream or half and  half you can probably get by with a tablespoon  

whereas with skim milk if you put a tablespoon  in you hardly notice there's anything in the  

coffee so as a diabetic you want to understand  the difference here so that you don't load up  

on high sugar foods that you load up on low carb  foods and this little extra fat is going to have  

a few more extra calories but it's good calories  that keep your blood sugar stable and next on the  

list is green tea so everything we talked about so  far has some calories and then you want to choose  

something that's low sugar the rest of them really  have no calories at all so how do they differ well  

they have different amounts of chemical compounds  a lot of them are going to have things like  

polyphenols and the type of polyphenol is catechin  and if you read a long big boring paper they will  

also tell you that they contain epicatechin and  epigallocatechin and epicatechin gallate and so on  

and the words just get longer and longer so please  don't memorize any of these I certainly won't and  

what we want to understand though is that they've  done the research and we know that these plant  

compounds have things in them with certain  properties so they are usually antioxidants  

almost everything that they talk about they'll  throw in antioxidant as a property but realize  

that that's not the main thing that you're looking  for your body makes most of the antioxidants that  

you need and the intracellular antioxidant that  really matters is called glutathione so that's  

not the main thing that we're looking for in  the plants but when they are antioxidant they  

usually have also some anti-cancer properties some  anti-inflammatory properties some anti-bacterial  

etc. and we'll talk a little bit more about why  that is but what you don't want to do is try to  

memorize which foods and which drinks and which  herbs have which chemicals in them because that  

just gets way too complicated and that's not what  we're looking for number five are herbal teas and  

here you can go with just about anything some  examples are chamomile tea peppermint tea you  

can do ginger or cloves in the tea those are  all very nice and among the herbal teas I also  

wanted to list cinnamon tea because you could  make tea from that and in addition to a lot of  

the things they have in common like antioxidant  anti-inflammatory antifungal antiviral cinnamon  

has all also been associated with blood sugar  control blood sugar regulation and as a diabetic  

that's the number one thing that you're looking  for is to stabilize your blood sugar number three  

is turmeric tea so you could take turmeric as a  supplement you can eat it as a whole food but you  

could also make tea from it and again antioxidant  anti-inflammatory that pretty much holds true for  

for all of these antifungal antiviral but now we  want to ask who is this for and I'm not talking  

about what type of disease would you have for this  to be suitable I'm talking about is this really  

for the human when you eat this are you really  taking it for you and as it turns out probably  

not because what they have found is that turmeric  really isn't absorbed at all hardly at all and and  

most of these polyphenols that we're talking about  they're too large to be absorbed there's a few of  

them that are super tiny so we absorb somewhere  between five and 10% but the vast majority of  

all of these polyphenols and all these beneficial  plant compounds that we're talking about they're  

not absorbed they never make it into the body so  how is it then that they do research study after  

research study and they find all these benefits  how can they be antioxidant anti-inflammatory  

all of this good stuff if we don't absorb them  and it's because they're not for you they are  

for your microbiome they have certain properties  that either fight off or build certain bacterial  

species in your gut and then when your gut is  healthier then it benefits you so we probably  

don't need plants at all chances are and I'm not  saying this as an absolute but the more we learn  

about these things is that most of the plants and  all these plant compounds they probably benefit  

the balance of microflora that we have and that is  why we ultimately benefit so it's really kind of  

funny or sad if you will that with turmeric they  have for years for decades they have been working  

on trying to make it more absorbable they add  things like black pepper and they attach little  

chemical compounds and they make it super super  expensive so that we can absorb it but we're not  

supposed to absorb it it's not supposed to be  absorbed it's supposed to stay in the gut and  

help the microflora and we're probably going  to find more and more examples and evidence of  

this in the coming years that a lot of the things  that benefit us never really make it into the body  

number two is lemon water and lemon water can help  reduce kidney stones that's a great thing because  

lemon contains citric acid that binds with the  oxalates like things in spinach that's not the  

only place but spinach for example have lots of  oxalate that tend to contribute to kidney stones  

and then lemon with a citric acid helps because  it binds with the oxalates and carry it out so  

it can't form a stone and just don't expect any  miracles because if you squeeze a little lemon  

wedge in that's probably not enough citric acid to  make a big difference but again every little bit  

helps it can also be a digestive aid and how does  that work well it is all about the pH and I have  

to laugh here because I saw a video that tried to  explain this and they said that it's all about the  

pH and they said it was the benefit was because  the lemon and the citric acid raised the pH which  

of course is the exact opposite it's acidic so  it lowers the pH but they kind of had half of it  

right because the pH is what makes this mechanism  work that just got it backwards so a low pH will  

stimulate the hydrochloric acid production and  it will activate the pepsin in your stomach and  

something called CCK cholecystokinin that makes  the gallbladder contract so every little step kind  

of signals the next step so we have a complete  process another thing that lemon water does the  

acidity again it inhibits amylase and amylase  is the primary enzyme that you use to break  

down carbohydrates so in your saliva it's called  salivary amylase because it starts already in the  

mouth and you release this and you start breaking  down carbohydrates so you get a jump start on the  

carbohydrate breakdown well if you're diabetic  that's not something you need a jump start on  

you already have trouble to keep that blood sugar  down so if you have some acid and this inhibits  

it puts a stop on that amylase it means that  you're going to prevent blood sugar spikes this  

carbohydrate is going to be released much slower  so again it's important that with this we reduce  

the blood sugar spikes but it's still the same  amount of carbohydrate so if you're carbohydrate  

intolerant which you are as a diabetic then you  want to do both you want to reduce the spikes but  

you also want to reduce the number of carbs so  it's not enough just to delay it it's still too  

much carbohydrate for a diabetic and furthermore  if you do this in the morning and you don't have  

any other food with it then there is no other  food to slow down so then this point is kind of  

moot it doesn't really make a difference so while  the are some potential benefits don't expect any  

miracles it's not going to turn your health around  by itself the number one reason to use lemon would  

be that it tastes really good and that's why I  use it in just about everything a little squeeze  

of lemon makes a big difference and number one on  the list of good things to drink in the morning if  

you're diabetic is apple cider vinegar ACV and the  reason it's a little different because lemon juice  

is also acidic but this acid comes from acetic  acid that's what gives vinegar its properties it's  

taste and characteristics and it also contains  poly fennels like a lot of the other things or  

plant compounds that can help with inflammatory  things and antibacterial and so forth but the  

main thing that sets this apart is that there are  numerous studies that suggest that it improves in  

insulin sensitivity that given all other things  being equal that it still helps people reverse  

insulin resistance and improve insulin sensitivity  and so in studies they have found all other things  

being equal that it does have make a difference  in reducing belly fat in reducing blood sugar  

that long-term blood sugar called A1C and in  doing this it's all about the insulin that that  

you reduce the belly fat and the A1C and so forth  it also reduces blood pressure and cardiovascular  

disease and most of the risk factors associated  with metabolic syndromes so unlike lemon the  

number one thing to take apple cider vinegar is  probably not that it tastes so good I think very  

few people would drink it just because it tastes  good I like it on salads and in food I use vinegar  

freely in different types of food and it doesn't  really matter if it's apple cider vinegar or some  

other type of vinegar it's the acetic acid that  makes the difference so if you like it use it if  

not maybe cook with it or find some other form of  acetic acid but here's a little bonus for you and  

I'm sure that you were already thinking in these  terms that if these things that we can drink have  

certain benefits then what if we combine them and  and you're absolutely right so why don't we make  

our chia water and then we squeeze some lemon  and we flavor it with cinnamon now we have like  

three different beneficial things in there that's  totally okay or you could make your herbal tea  

with cloves and ginger and you can put in lemon  and peppermint and all sorts of other things  

that you enjoy mix and match and see what you  like but the most important thing to understand  

about this is to get perspective on it yes all  of the things we talked about are beneficial yes  

all of them are better than something else that  a lot of people are using but don't think about  

them as medication too often when I see a video  or I read a list someplace they're described as  

medication they say take this for that if you have  a headache if you have high blood sugar take this  

that's that's not how it works because they're  not addressing the root cause they're assisting  

your body they're giving your body a little nudge  but they're not undoing the root cause the root  

cause is that you've overloaded your body with  sugar and carbohydrates and processed foods and  

there's nothing that can undo the bad that you  have done you have to take that out and then you  

can add all the things we talk about as little  nudges to assist your body and guide it on the  

way to healing if you enjoyed this video you're  going to love that one and if you truly want to  

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