Top 10 Foods You Must Eat To Lower Blood Sugar

Hello Health Champions. Did you know that  most people in the world have a problem with  

high blood sugar so today i'm going to give you  the top 10 foods to help you lower blood sugar  

but more importantly we need to understand what  normal blood sugar is and if and when it ever gets  

too low. Also despite all the attention  given to blood sugar it may not be the first  

marker you want to be concerned with. I'm  going to list these foods in categories so we  

can talk about them and understand them a little  better. First category is low carb protein and fat  

so if we look at a graph it's kind of flat there's  not much of anything there the next category is  

low carb high fat but still low protein so  here we increase the fat and what does that  

do it gives us more fuel it gives us replacement  calories but with very little impact on glucose  

or insulin and the next category is low carb high  fat and high protein because high protein can  

increase insulin a little bit but not so much  it's a good trade-off because it's also the  

most satiating it's the most nutritious if we can  only eat a few types of food this one is the most  

satisfying and the most likely to keep us alive  long-term so what we're trying to do as you notice  

is the red the carbohydrates that's the only one  that we keep low in all these categories and why  

is that because carbohydrates is another form of  glucose and glucose turns into blood sugar that's  

where we get those fast blood sugar spikes and  if we eat a lot of carbohydrates frequently we're  

going to keep triggering insulin and maintain  high insulin levels get insulin resistance  

and then that insulin resistance promotes  higher blood sugar and now we're kind of stuck  

in that loop and make sure you stick around to the  end because after the 10 foods i'll have a little  

bonus for you number 10 on the list is berries  and these are things like blackberries raspberries  

strawberries and and this thing here is pretty  common in sweden it is called a red currant and  

all of these are things you can have some  it's about five percent net carbs in them  

and what you have to remember it's not a bulk food  so the reason this is 10 out of 10 is it's not  

something you want to eat a lot of it's something  that you can eat as a treat if you want something  

sweet you want something to kind of round off the  day or the meal then this is a good thing to eat  

instead of candy instead of other fruits number  nine is leafy greens and this is something that  

you can pretty much eat as much as you like and  the reason is they're very low carbs one to three  

percent net carbs but also because they're mostly  water and fiber it takes you a long long time  

to chew through a substantial amount it's very  difficult to eat half a pound of leafy greens so  

the carbs will never really amount to anything  the drawback of course is that because there's  

so little carbohydrate and so little calories  in it you can't really live off it but it's  

very nice to have as a foundation to make salads  and also that's why there's more than one item  

on the list we want to vary things and change them  up a bit number eight is non-starchy vegetables  

and we're still in the category where these  things have very little of anything in them  

broccoli cauliflower celery brussels sprouts  they're around two to five percent net carbs but  

these are things you can eat a little bit more of  you can easily eat a half a pound or even a pound  

or more of these non-starchy vegetables and if you  add some butter or some olive oil then they become  

quite satisfying as well even though there's so  much focus on blood glucose because so many people  

have problems with it i think it's just part  of the picture and what we have to understand  

is that it's a controlled variable the body tries  very hard to keep it within a range of about 65 to  

99 and those are the outer ends of that range most  of people are going to find themselves in a much  

more narrow range than that even and i think  there's too much focus on glucose because  

it only really changes it only really ever gets  outside of this range under extreme conditions  

or when the body is failing to control it  so instead we want to look at insulin so  

if we compare glucose and insulin here we see the  yellow would be glucose and year after year after  

year it stays pretty much the same on average  after we become moderately insulin resistant  

it starts slipping a few points but it doesn't  really get out of hand until we're full blown  

type 2 diabetics whereas if we measure insulin  insulin is what the body is using to control  

it so the harder the body has to work to  control glucose the higher our insulin goes  

so while glucose stays about the same we can  see insulin increasing almost linear over the  

years so if we were to measure it we can see the  progression much much earlier some other things i  

like to keep an eye on are triglycerides and VLDL  because when the cells become insulin resistant  

they're resisting glucose but also triglycerides  because glucose turns into triglycerides and  

VLDL's is a vehicle that delivers triglycerides  so as insulin and triglycerides and VLDL goes up  

we can see how the problem is progressing  but we can also monitor these to see how  

the problem is reversing but i also get a lot  of questions from people who are told that type  

2 diabetics can't do low carb and they can't fast  because their blood sugar gets too low so what is  

too low let's start understanding that here's an  article i found in helio endocrinology diabetes  

and they're saying despite benefits intermittent  fasting increases risk for hypoglycemia in  

type 2 diabetes so people start fasting they start  doing low carb and then they see something like  

this and they stop for all the wrong reasons so  what are the benefits they're talking about? Well,  

they're focused on blood glucose but what's really  happening the benefits from lowering carbohydrate  

and lowering frequency of meals doing fasting is  you're allowing the body to return to homeostasis  

the problem is you have overloaded the  body you've sent it the wrong messages  

with the wrong kind of food triggering too much  insulin too frequently so your body is congested  

and when you eat less carbs less frequently  you're allowing that congestion to reverse  

and that does so much more than just glucose  it starts affecting everything in your body  

so everything related to metabolic syndrome and  inflammation starts getting better so the benefit  

is your body is now returning to normal but then  people read articles like this and they read  

intermittent fasting increased hypoglycemia among  patients with type 2 diabetes and that's kind of  

where their understanding stops and we really have  to understand the next sentence here which says  

who were treated with hypoglycemic medications  right hypoglycemia and hypoglycemic medications  

let's figure out those words the body has the  ability to regulate things it can turn things  

up it can turn things down medications can't  do that medications block their mechanism is  

to go in and interfere and if they're designed to  turn things up then they will do that if they're  

designed to turn things down they will do that  but they can't do one or the other they will do  

one that they are designed for so the  body can be very precise in its regulation  

a drug a medication can only go in with  the precision of a sledgehammer and sort of  

flatten things so if we have a situation of really  really high blood sugar like in a type 2 diabetic  

then we're taking medication and this medication  forces a balance so it forces it down into a more  

normal range however when you reverse the process  when you allow your body to return to normal  

now that same medication is still going to keep  doing the same thing and it's going to force  

an imbalance after you have already started to  create a balance it's the same thing with blood  

pressure medication it can only force blood  pressure down and if your blood pressure is  

too high that can be a good thing but after you  normalize your blood pressure now that medication  

will push it too low so when you are starting  to make changes to return your body to normal  

that can actually look like a short-term problem  like hypoglycemia but it is the long-term solution  

and the solution is to fix the actual problem and  talk to your doctor about changing your medication  

not to keep doing the wrong thing so that your  medication stays the same and here's actually  

a true story a patient came to me we were working  in my clinic on reversing their metabolic syndrome  

we gave them some good nutrients we had them  reduce carbohydrates we had them on a diet plan  

and then one day they came back and said that my  medical doctor is concerned i went for my annual  

checkup and he told me i had to add  more carbohydrate back in my diet  

because he didn't want to change my medication  it was too complicated and the problem here  

is that the medical doctors are smart people  they're intelligent they're well trained  

but they can be stuck in what's convenient and in  their model it's all about treating the symptom  

they don't expect anything to ever reverse or  return to balance because that doesn't happen  

in their model in their model there's a symptom  and you treat it with the medication and nothing  

ever gets better on its own but if you understand  the mechanisms you can start turning these around  

and bring balance back next category is low carb  high fat but still low protein so the first source  

here is going to be healthy fats and you can  certainly eat the fats that are in the food  

itself like avocados and meat and so forth but if  you add fat you want it to be things like butter  

ghee extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil these  are fats that are produced with very little heat  

very little pressure and no chemicals so they're  naturally made and they're shelf stable and ghee  

is a version of butter because some people are so  sensitive to dairy that even the trace amounts of  

protein in butter can cause a sensitivity reaction  but if you clean it up you remove those proteins  

now you get ghee and a lot more people can  tolerate that i was talking to someone about  

ghee and they suggest i use this meme to help  explain it a little bit better so they say "This  

butter is delicious. Actually it's ghee."  and she says "Ah, thanks for clarifying"

I don't get it. And when we eat these  healthy fats we're getting calories they  

increase satiety if we put them on salads  or non-starchy vegetables they're quite  

filling but they're insulin neutral they're  so close to zero that we can consider them  

neutral as far as insulin goes but then a lot  of people will add in that i thought the healthy  

fats were the omega-3s things like flax oil  and fish oil and there's a lot of confusion  

here so here's what we want to understand that  if we're replacing calories if we're replacing  

carbohydrate calories we want to replace  it with a fat that is suitable for fuel  

and that's a saturated or a monounsaturated  fat these other fats are very specialized  

they're very high omega-3 fats and they're not  intended for fuel they don't do very well they  

oxidize very easily they're very sensitive we  need them in very small amounts because they're  

signaling molecules and they're precursors  for building materials in cell membranes  

right we're not supposed to burn them we need a  few grams every day for specific reasons but if  

we want to get calories from fat which we do then  we want the saturated and the monounsaturated fats  

and just like we can make oil out of it we can of  course eat the olives straight up i love olives  

and they have three percent net carbs eleven  percent fat and one percent protein and  

it's not something that you would eat as a whole  meal obviously at least i wouldn't but i think  

it's great as a snack or a condiment or putting  some in a salad number five is avocado maybe in my  

opinion the most satisfying plant food that there  is it is 15% fat so rich and creamy and only 2%  

net carbs and if ever somebody wants to argue  about the value of avocado all you have to say is  

well you can turn it into guacamole what else  do you need to know but i want to share a couple  

more studies with you to help you understand  blood glucose even better and to understand  

how incredibly capable the body is so you don't  get scared out of something for the wrong reasons  

in this study they had a guy who fasted water  fast for 382 days there are other people  

have gone 6 months and 9 and 12 months  but this is apparently the world record  

it was medically supervised and it was published  in postgraduate medical journal in march 1973.  

so during these 382 days he went from 456 to  180 pounds a lot of people will tell you that  

fasting doesn't work long term this lifestyle has  temporary results but the beauty of this is this  

guy five years later he is still maintaining  his ideal weight now here's some numbers that  

will turn most people upside down blood glucose  levels remained around 30 milligrams per deciliter  

from the fourth month and on that's about one  third of what they would consider normal and it's  

less than half of what they would consider  hypoglycemic and this he kept on for about nine  

months a few months into it it was stable and then  it just kept going then they even went to say that  

values below 20 milligrams were occasionally  seen and then you might think well maybe he  

had hypoglycemia occasionally that he was feeling  bad but what they said is despite the hypoglycemia  

patient remained symptom-free felt well and walked  about normally had a normal life during this time  

and here's the takeaway first of all do not try  this at home this was very closely supervised they  

measured his minerals they measured all of his  markers and at a few times they supplemented a few  

minerals or a few vitamins but not very much at  all however don't do this on your own next we want  

to understand how incredibly adaptable the body  is that we look at these numbers that seem like  

he would be half dead typically anything under  40 starts having neurological symptoms and coma  

and he was having a normal life with a blood sugar  that sometimes dipped into the 20s or under 20.  

and the other thing is when we're  being told to eat three square meals  

with snacks so that you keep your blood  sugar up so you keep your focus and energy up  

that obviously has nothing to do with reality why  would we need to top off our blood sugar every two  

hours if he could go 13 months without doing it  the body has ways of stabilizing and maintaining  

that blood sugar it does not have to come from the  outside and the other thing we want to realize is  

that normal is going to change someone who  eats 300 grams of carbs even if they haven't  

developed any metabolic issue yet their blood  sugar is probably going to be close to a hundred  

whereas if you're insulin sensitive and you reduce  your carbs you'll probably be somewhere around  

80 85 but if you're fasting or going  keto then lower is going to be normal  

for you next category is low carb high fat but  also high protein so now we're getting into more  

nutrient dense more calorically dense food nuts  macadamia nuts pecans and walnuts are my favorites  

because they're high fat and protein but  they're also low carbohydrates some other nuts  

will have moderate carbohydrates and you can still  have some of those but you need to know which ones  

they are especially if you're trying to be on a  strict low carb diet and even though nuts is not  

like a whole meal in itself they're still very  satisfying so you could have a handful of nuts  

as a snack and they could keep you for hours and  they maintain your glucose levels pretty stable  

as opposed to many of the sugary snacks and very  similar to nuts or seeds and my favorites are flax  

chia hemp and pumpkin these are typically higher  in protein than nuts because nuts are usually  

more than 50 fat and then these are also lower  in fat and carbohydrates this next study i want  

to share because there's so much confusion about  the brain and glucose we hear all the time that  

the brain can only run on glucose 100% of the fuel  for the brain is glucose and that's not true when  

people get a little bit educated on keto and fat  adaptation they understand that some of the fuel  

can come from ketones but i want to show you just  how incredible the body is at adapting so in this  

study in the first paragraph they're stating the  purpose they wanted to find out if they could use  

keto adaptation and avoid brain dysfunction in  these people even if they went to the extreme of  

inducing acute hypoglycemia by giving people  insulin who didn't need it so as a baseline  

on day one they injected these people and they  found that nine obese subjects manifested frank  

hypoglycemic reactions and frank just means  they were direct or substantial or blatant  

and these were symptoms like sweating anxiety  tachycardia chest pain rising blood pressure and  

mental confusion so these are signs of extreme  stress and they also measured some hormones and  

they found that their stress hormones were through  the roof the catecholamines those are adrenaline  

basically and if you're secreting adrenaline you  know that also your cortisol levels are going to  

be quite high but then they had these people go  on a fast for two months and then they did the  

experiment again and they administered identical  per kilogram doses of insulin and they measured  

the blood and they were identical concentrations  but this time there was no insulin reaction  

there were no significant rise in the stress  hormones and here's the mind-blowing thing  

glucose concentrations were measured as low as  0.5 millimoles per liter equal to 9 milligrams  

per deciliter so normal blood sugar is like 90  or in the 80s and here they were at 9. typically  

people lose consciousness around 30. now here's  just my little theory that if normal blood sugar  

is around 90 and his glucose was nine his glucose  levels were 10% of a normal so-called normal  

and he was feeling fine then to me that  means that he was probably getting 90%  

of his brain fuel from ketones that's just my  way of looking at that i can't guarantee that  

number but it does show you how amazing the  body is that at nine milligrams you can feel  

normal so when would you want to stop a fast  when would you want to change something well  

your body has these nice little clues  called symptoms that if you're feeling great  

you're probably doing fine but if you're having  any of these symptoms if you have anxiety  

tachycardia chest pain mental confusion then it's  probably time to eat a little more carbohydrates  

if you're on a keto diet or if you're fasting then  probably break your fast and have something just  

use common sense and number two on the list would  be eggs and dairy and my recommendation is that  

if you have the dairy then don't do the low fat  normally they tell you that you can't have dairy  

except low fat because they're mostly concerned  with the saturated fat my only concern really is  

if you have a sensitivity to any of the proteins  so you reduce the likelihood of that sensitivity  

by eating the things that are high in fat then  the percentage of protein goes way way down  

and in a low carb high fat diet it's the saturated  fat the fuel that you're looking for for satiety  

and calorie replacement my go-to's here would  be heavy cream sour cream creme fraiche which  

is basically sour cream made from heavy cream  normal sour cream is around 15 fat creme fresh  

is more like 35 and also different forms of cheese  typically run around 30 fat and very often eggs  

are referred to as the most complete food that we  have and there's a lot of good arguments for that  

as long as you don't throw away the yolk the yolk  is part of the package with if you throw away the  

yolk you're losing 90% of the nutrition in the egg  so make sure you eat the whole egg unless and this  

is my only reservation for any of this is if you  have a known sensitivity dairy sensitivities and  

egg sensitivities are rather common but if you  do well with these then they're probably some of  

the best foods you can have and number one on my  list would be meat fish poultry organ meats etc  

and why is that because it's the most satiating  these are the most complete foods a big part of  

lowering your blood glucose and reversing your  metabolic syndrome is to eat less carbohydrates  

and fewer meals and the best way to do that is to  eat things that satisfy you because then you will  

eat less and you go longer between meals so if  i was to only eat one food if i could only eat  

one thing for six months it certainly would not  be lettuce i mean i love lettuce i love nuts and  

seeds but if i could pick one thing to eat i would  eat red meat and it would be really boring i think  

it'd be great to be able to vary it up  but what i'm trying to say is the food  

value the completeness of that food is why this  is on number one and in recent years the carnivore  

diet has been very very popular and this is where  people eat not necessarily a single food but they  

eat this single category they only eat animal  products and they probably include some eggs as  

well but the reason is if they are sensitive  to all the other stuff then this would be  

the ideal the ultimate elimination diet and if  they stop having allergic reactions they're going  

to get healthier so for some people that is a  good idea at least for a few months but most of us  

are not that sensitive and we're not forced to  stick with a single product we don't have that  

ultimatum of living on a single food so  the best thing to do is i think to eat  

some of this every day you could have meat most  days or every day but then you mix it up with  

all of the other foods that we talked about for a  good variety and if you're trying to lower blood  

glucose it's a little bonus for you that acetic  acid which we have in vinegar in apple cider  

vinegar in pickled vegetables if we use vinegar  to pickle them or anything sour pretty much  

like sauerkraut it has a number of different  acids in it it has primarily lactic acid but  

there's also some acetic acid in there and this  acid has a signaling property to lower insulin  

resistance to lower blood sugar to lower a1c  and triglycerides and all those different things  

and it's not a solution in itself but if you're  doing all the other things you're supposed to  

lowering carbs getting some exercise relaxing etc  then this can be a very very nice addition to that  

program and also keep it simple if you like apple  cider vinegar and you want to make it part of your  

daily regimen do that but also keep it simple it  doesn't have to be complicated if you have a salad  

and you put some vinegar on it that still counts  if you like pickled vegetables or you just like to  

add it to a sauce or a food or something then all  of that acetic acid is still going to contribute  

some of those benefits if you enjoyed this video  you're going to love that one and if you truly  

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