Episode 141
Laurie Villarreal:The Role of Blood Sugar in Autoimmunity with Laurie Villareal
Laurie Villarreal:
The Role of Blood Sugar in Autoimmunity with Laurie Villareal
I am joined by Laurie Villareal, aka The Blood Sugar Maven, to talk about the role of blood sugar in inflammation and consequently autoimmunity. We explore the reasons behind this link and she shares actionable steps to keep an eye out on your blood sugar regardless whether you've been told you're diabetic, have autoimmunity, or "feel fine".
First Aired on: May 27, 2024
Episode 141
Laurie Villarreal:The Role of Blood Sugar in Autoimmunity with Laurie Villareal
Laurie Villarreal:
The Role of Blood Sugar in Autoimmunity with Laurie Villareal
I am joined by Laurie Villareal, aka The Blood Sugar Maven, to talk about the role of blood sugar in inflammation and consequently autoimmunity. We explore the reasons behind this link and she shares actionable steps to keep an eye out on your blood sugar regardless whether you've been told you're diabetic, have autoimmunity, or "feel fine".
First Aired on: May 27, 2024
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Blood Sugar Dysregulation:
- Importance of maintaining balanced blood sugar levels.
- Symptoms of dysregulated blood sugar include fatigue, unexplained weight gain, cravings, and sleep disturbances.
- Dysregulated blood sugar can cause inflammation and exacerbate autoimmune conditions.
Personal Experiences:
- Laurie’s experience with high stress levels impacting her blood sugar.
- How tracking her own blood sugar helped Laurie understand the connection between stress and blood sugar spikes.
Monitoring and Managing Blood Sugar:
- Benefits of using continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) to track blood sugar in real-time.
- Tips for maintaining stable blood sugar levels:
- Include protein, fat, and fiber in every meal.
- Stay hydrated.
- Ensure good sleep quality.
- Engage in regular movement, particularly post-meal walks.
Stress and Blood Sugar:
- Impact of stress on blood sugar levels.
- Techniques to manage stress, including the “legs up the wall” exercise.
Practical Tips:
- Consider using a CGM to get detailed insights into your blood sugar levels.
- Work with a practitioner to personalize your approach to blood sugar management.
- Simple lifestyle changes can have a significant impact on blood sugar regulation.
Notable Quotes:
Blood sugar dysregulation is not something that a doctor is going to diagnose unless maybe you have insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, diabetes. But before that, we can have a lot going on with dysregulated blood sugar before we even get to that place. - Laurie Villareal
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Laurie Villarreal
Connect with Laurie Villarreal
Watch this interview:
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Laurie Villareal:[00:00:00] My blood sugar was so high from stress, I could feel it in my body. Like my body felt, shaky, nervous, weird, I could feel the effects of that high blood sugar.
Laurie Villareal: And then also the next day, you know, like I felt very inflamed the next day.
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with auto immunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today I'm joined by Lori Villareal, [00:01:00] AKA the blood sugar Maven. Lori is a national board certified health coach, functional nutrition and lifestyle practitioner and longtime endurance athlete and movement educator turned hormone specialist.
Julie Michelson: In today's conversation, we're talking about blood sugar regulation and the connection between blood sugar and inflammation. We explore how blood sugar may be contributing to your symptoms, even if you don't know it, and discuss tips to monitor and improve your blood sugar regulation.
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Julie Michelson: Lori, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me. I am excited for our conversation. This is such an important topic. And I think the level of understanding out there is like minute. So, um, I'm excited to have the blood sugar Maven on the podcast and I have lots of questions for you, but first I'd love for you to share a [00:02:00] little bit about your journey.
Julie Michelson: How did you become the blood sugar Maven?
Laurie Villareal: Yeah, well, um, my fascination with blood sugar started when I was a kid, actually. Ah! Um, surprisingly, but because I had two parents with type 2 diabetes, and I could see them pricking their finger, um, to check, you know, not very often, but occasionally pricking their finger, um, they had a glucometer at home, and I was very curious about health.
Laurie Villareal: Um, I became very curious about diabetes because I, I cared for my parents and also wanted to, as a kid, help my parents out. Um, and I would say that's when, where my interest in health and also fitness began, uh, was in my teenage years. And I also began tracking my blood sugar with them because I particularly remember doing it with my mom's.
Laurie Villareal: Um, because I would get out the glucometer and think like, Hey, let's all check our [00:03:00] blood sugar today. Because I thought that, I thought that's what, you know, diabetics are supposed to be doing on a regular basis. And, um, and then I began, Getting really into exercise because I learned a lot about, you know, what it took to be healthy as a diabetic, but also to prevent diabetes.
Laurie Villareal: I was very interested in that. And, um, so I went down a path of actually, um, getting into endurance sports. So I became endurance. I became an endurance athlete in my early 20s, beginning of my 20s. Um, prior to that, I was really also into fitness, um, mostly strength training, but it was in that, um, you know, in that period, I just thought like, I want to be as healthy as I can be so I can prevent diabetes.
Laurie Villareal: Um, which also ran in my family. Um, especially one side of my family. Um, so I knew that there was a potential for me to have those genetics, [00:04:00] uh, but it wasn't until I was in my mid thirties that I began to discover my health wasn't You know, like my health seems like it was kind of falling apart and I was active and I ate well and I was doing all the things that I thought were supposed to be good for my health, right?
Laurie Villareal: I thought I was taking care of myself. Um, so it was at that point when I started to dive into kind of other, other methodologies, uh, around health and I discovered, um, functional medicine and functional nutrition and just this idea of root cause medicine. And, um, And it's through that education and that interest that I began to realize that I actually, I was probably overdoing, I was overdoing it.
Laurie Villareal: And even though, even though as a trainer, because I was also training, I ended up becoming a trainer, a fitness trainer and a endurance coach. And, [00:05:00] um, and I was performing at a very high level. And so were all of my clients. And I knew a lot about how to balance stress in order to recover well. Right. So that was very important.
Laurie Villareal: Um, so I was able to maintain a pretty high stress load because of my focus on recovery and doing everything, the sleep, doing everything you needed to do in lifestyle to be able to recover from that stress load. It wasn't until other lifestyle stress really began to pile on in my life. Um, so, so like, you know, I, my dad got sick and died and some other things were going on in our family that, um, the stress of that combined with tip center.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah. That was my tipping point. Right. That was my tipping. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was just committed at that point to like, to look at health and from a whole new lens, right, which was not, and I must say, even for a while, it was mostly with a focus on outward appearance [00:06:00] than inner health. Hi. Um, so that was my shift.
Laurie Villareal: And then I've. I've been interested in blood sugar ever since I've been tracking my blood sugar ever since because I, I wanted to always check in on how I was doing and was my, how was my health evolving towards diabetes or was I, you know, keeping myself in the safe zone. But it was through this that I began to use these tools with my clients because I knew the importance of blood sugar health.
Laurie Villareal: I was beginning to learn the importance of blood sugar health and how important blood sugar was. Um, as I. As keeping blood sugar healthy, because that could be a determinant, um, you know, if you have a disease state or not, or inflammation, or, you know, it could be an underlying root of a lot of conditions.
Laurie Villareal: Um, so we began to check in on blood sugar, and actually, I started to see some interesting things using real time data, and how different people can have such [00:07:00] different blood sugar. Like, sure, yeah, there's Yeah, and even somebody, even somebody who, who looks and appears to be very healthy and very fit can have a very different blood sugar profile from somebody who maybe doesn't, um, and that started really to surprise me.
Laurie Villareal: And then I, I also started to learn with this, with using data with my clients and seeing how it, how related. It was to their symptoms. And when we were able to dial things in and make adjustments that are appropriate specifically from them. So not just generalized because we're individuals. Exactly, exactly.
Julie Michelson: I want to touch on tracking and collecting data and stuff in a bit. Yeah, sure. I want, I want. everybody to understand that this conversation is for them. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, somebody who maybe doesn't have any diabetes in their family, has never had any kind of diagnosis around blood sugar.[00:08:00]
Julie Michelson: Let's talk about blood sugar regulation and, and what is balanced blood sugar versus not. And, and the not is, is where we're creating all kinds of problems. But like you said, we might not know. And so I really want listeners to know, like, this is really important, even if no doctor has ever mentioned blood sugar.
Laurie Villareal: Absolutely. And I would say, if you have symptoms, it's If you have symptoms, if you're a woman, especially if you're a woman in middle age, um, especially if you're a driven, ambitious, high achieving woman, right? You probably got a lot on your plate. I would say checking in on your blood sugar is a smart thing to do.
Laurie Villareal: And the reason is because, um, Because blood sugar dysregulation is not something that a doctor is going to diagnose unless maybe you have, um, insulin resistance, pre diabetes, diabetes. But before that, we can have a [00:09:00] lot going on with dysregulated blood sugar before we even get to that place. And it's actually the dysregulated blood sugar that gets us there.
Laurie Villareal: So What that looks like is, um, blood sugar fluctuations throughout the day and high swings from highs to lows throughout the day. And this can affect people differently, um, Because some people can really feel symptoms when they have hot, you know, blood sugar highs and they have blood sugar lows, but also the body is constantly trying to bring the body back into balance.
Laurie Villareal: And it's also trying to bring your blood sugar back into balance. So that's a job all day long is to bring your blood sugar back to your more or less baseline is what I start with is what I talk about the baseline. But with somebody with a lot of blood sugar dysregulation, they, one, they may not have much of a baseline because their blood sugar might be up and down all day long.
Laurie Villareal: So the body is, the body can struggle to figure out where that baseline is. And [00:10:00] it's constantly using different levers, different hormones to bring your blood sugar back into balance. And some of those hormones, for example, are cortisol and adrenaline. Yep. So even people who have, um, who maybe have a little trouble with stress or having, you know, uh, turning down the stress, I always think like blood sugar is an important thing to look at because if your blood sugar is like up and down and up and down and up and down all day, and you're constantly calling upon cortisol and adrenaline, um, then you might have a hard time calming down from that stress.
Laurie Villareal: And then the
Julie Michelson: opposite. Yeah. I was about to say,
Laurie Villareal: the stress is elevating your blood sugar. So sometimes I see that actually a lot of times, cause we, I think we have similar clients.
Julie Michelson: Yes we do. High
Laurie Villareal: achieving driven person who is often, you know, experiencing stress and not that stress is a bad thing, right?
Laurie Villareal: Um, [00:11:00] we stress can, can also be good. But it's one of my favorite,
Julie Michelson: like, I feel like you can say things to people over and over and over again, but when they can either feel it and if they can't feel it, when they can see the data, it's one of the things I love about continuous glucose monitors because I've had students So many clients be like, Oh my gosh, I saw it.
Julie Michelson: You know, I had this like really frustrating meeting and my blood sugar just like shut up. And I'm like, yes, it's not just food.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah, it's not just food. And often I find it's the stress. Yeah. And then when you, you have a lot of stress and you have a lot of blood sugars. peaks because of stress. It also makes your body, it makes it harder for you to regulate the foods.
Laurie Villareal: Right. So, so this dysregulation creates more dysregulation. So the better balance you have, the better your blood sugars are balanced, [00:12:00] the easier it is for your body to have, um, maybe a treat and not have the same impact. So, um, so it's, I think it's interesting to look at your blood sugar and see what your triggers are, how, How dysregulated it is, how you can bring it back into balance.
Laurie Villareal: And then also too, there's that inflammation piece, which I don't know if we're going to get to. Well, we
Julie Michelson: have to, I mean, that's, this is the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. So yes, please let's connect this blood sugar regulation or dysregulation to inflammation. How is this, how, how is blood sugar dysregulation driving inflammation behind the scenes?
Julie Michelson: Thanks.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah, the, it's the, the, the peaks, the spikes, um, are contributors to inflammation. So somebody that's having very dysregulated blood sugar, that's having these highs and lows, um, is having [00:13:00] like little hits, you know, of, to your inflammatory, little inflammatory hits throughout the day. You know, like these, like what I've seen, for example, for myself, I've had, um, my My highest on my continuous glucose monitor, so I track my own blood sugar sometimes, but the highest Spike that I saw for myself was quite high actually And the highest one I've ever seen and I was very surprised was at like 11 p. m At night when we had to go to the emergency room for a family member in the middle of the night I hadn't eaten in like eight hours Yeah. My blood sugar was so high from stress, but not only that, I could feel it in my body. Like my body felt, um, like shaky, nervous, weird, also cortisol. Right. But I could feel the effects of that high blood sugar.
Laurie Villareal: And then also the next day, you know, like I felt [00:14:00] very inflamed the next day. Yeah. Um, and
Julie Michelson: I love when baseline is so good that you can feel. That,
Laurie Villareal: you
Julie Michelson: know, and you can put your finger on, you know, Oh, you know, I know this is exactly what happened.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah. And then the next day, the foods, like the foods that, that maybe weren't inflammatory for me suddenly became inflammatory, right?
Laurie Villareal: Everything seems inflammatory the next day because I had that really high spike, um, that lasted for a little while. And I actually didn't, I wasn't looking at it. I wasn't looking at it while all this stuff is going on. I'm not like, let me check my blood sugar. Well, which is good because
Julie Michelson: sometimes cortisol higher.
Julie Michelson: And you know, it was actual data. You were not interfering with the data. And I, you know, we talk about this so often when we talk about sleep and people have that wake up, you know, two, three in the morning and it's like chicken or, you know, having an unravel. [00:15:00] Are you getting a cortisol spike, which is driving blood sugar, or is your blood sugar dropping, which is creating a cortisol spike, which is, you know, is so playing, playing with that.
Julie Michelson: But the, the, the stress response and blood sugar are so, so connected. I want to touch on, you mentioned, you know, we may not, you're in a place where, you know, What you're feeling when you're feeling it, um, and, and so we can have dysregulated blood sugar and not know it for the people that maybe do feel some things, what are, you mentioned, you know, that, that kind of shaky feeling, but what are, what are some symptoms that people may discount we all, you know, we only live in our own body, right?
Julie Michelson: So what are some things that, that. might create that question mark of like, huh, I wonder if I, if I should check my blood sugar. [00:16:00]
Laurie Villareal: Well, fatigue is a big one.
Julie Michelson: Oh, well, that's everybody who has any kind of active autoimmune stuff going on.
Laurie Villareal: Fatigue is a big one. And I would say another big one I do see is, um, weight loss resistance or weight gain.
Laurie Villareal: Gain unexplained weight gain. Like maybe I'm doing the same things as I've always been doing. I've been doing the same workouts, eating the same foods and gaining weight, particularly around the midsection can be another one. Um, things like getting up to pee in the middle of the night. It, it can be actually quite disruptive to sleep, getting up to, to pee in the middle of the night or even just waking up in the middle of the night.
Laurie Villareal: Um, I have seen be related to blood sugar. And I'm sure
Julie Michelson: listeners are like, wait, I thought all, all of those things you just said also are, you know, could be connected to hormone changes. And we have to remember [00:17:00] insulin is a hormone, like our, this is all connected to our hormone system. So
Laurie Villareal: absolutely. Yeah.
Laurie Villareal: And then cravings, cravings, like feeling like you just, you're, you want maybe carbs all day or you're snackish or hungry or even hangry. Um, not feeling like you can go very long without food.
Julie Michelson: Grazers gotta be great. Yeah.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah. Um, but then you can also see it in other ways. Like I've seen I've seen it show up in period problems.
Laurie Villareal: I've seen it show up in hair loss. I've seen it show up in skin issues, digestive issues. Um, because, because we talked about how that creates inflammation, having dysregulated blood sugar. And then also over time, dysregulated blood sugar can turn into high levels, like your baseline and your levels can just start to creep up as well.
Laurie Villareal: So those higher levels of blood sugar can create just inflammation, you know, [00:18:00] like levels of inflammation all day long. Once they start creeping up. Um, and so having a look into blood sugar can also help calm some of that, which helps calm other symptoms.
Julie Michelson: Wow. So, you know, I, I I'm like, Oh, okay. Again, because we know there's never one cause of anything.
Julie Michelson: And we're having this conversation because every symptom you just mentioned, people also can have. when their blood sugar's fine, right? And so again, that's how it can become overlooked until, you know, you mentioned insulin resistance. Um, and I'm thinking, but like Western medicine docs, like general practitioners here, they don't, They're not catching anything until somebody has full blown metabolic syndrome, like they're just, they're not even looking for it.
Julie Michelson: We do in functional medicine, you know, we're, we're looking to make sure things [00:19:00] aren't giving us any signs that we're heading in the wrong direction. Um, So, because I don't , I, I always feel like it's, it's kind of turned into, um, when we talk about toxins, , you know, it becomes so overwhelming. It's like, holy moly.
Julie Michelson: Um, so let's shift to like, things we can do. First of all, how do we investigate? What is a, a great way, you know, people can, you don't need a well. In this country a little bit. I don't know about where you are. Um, things like CGMs are mostly prescription only in the United States. Yes. Still. Are they there?
Julie Michelson: I know in the, they're not uk. No. You can go into the grocery or drugstore and get one yourself.
Laurie Villareal: It's the same.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's the same. Yeah. Because you're allowed to have your own data.
Laurie Villareal: Mm-Hmm. , um, .
Julie Michelson: But is that where you tell people to start? Or, or, you know.
Laurie Villareal: I, yeah, I'd say checking in, like you had mentioned, you could [00:20:00] be told by your doctor that your blood sugar is normal and you still have blood sugar dysregulation, right?
Laurie Villareal: So checking in on a continuous glucose monitor could be a smart thing to do. I always like to say, check in on it with a practitioner, because it's, you know, It's nice to know a little bit more about what you can, what the data means, what you can do with the data, and also to not freak out from the data, right, to be, to be Googling things and not understanding exactly because, you know, certain things like exercise can elevate blood sugar.
Laurie Villareal: Like I said, stress can elevate blood sugar. And also there are strategies. There are a lot of strategies. So once you have the data and you can see. see what your triggers are, maybe what your levels are, what you look like through throughout the day. And I especially like the data at night, especially if anybody's struggling with sleep, yes, quality sleep or quality restoration.
Laurie Villareal: Um, I'd say the data can be very helpful, especially when you're using a practitioner like yourself. Um, um, And then having [00:21:00] that, those strategies that the practitioner has as well that can help you look at the data objectively and then decide, okay, like, this is happening in the middle, you're having a blood sugar dip in the middle of the night.
Laurie Villareal: So let's look at your whole day. Um, and maybe that's a shift. There's a shift that's needed in the evening, or maybe there's a shift that's needed in the morning. But also aside from just having data with continuous glucose monitors, you don't even need. A continuous glucose monitor to get started with really you could start with just paying attention to um to your food intake and Um noticing if you have protein fat and fiber with your meals, I would even say, you know um, sometimes Fat.
Laurie Villareal: Sometimes fat is enough. Sometimes fiber, fiber is enough. We respond a little bit differently, each of us, but protein, fat, and fiber can help slow down the release of blood sugar into the bloodstream. And having that with each meal or snack can help keep your blood sugar levels a bit more stable.[00:22:00]
Laurie Villareal: Everybody's different. Um, but that's a good place to start. Um, I would also say something as simple as staying hydrated, staying hydrated. I love that. Yup. And also help, um, keep your lip, your blood sugar in better check, um, having a good night's sleep because a disrupted night's sleep can also create more disruption in your blood sugar the next day.
Laurie Villareal: Um, so good sleep and movement, movement throughout the day, um, especially after meals.
Julie Michelson: I love the, all the studies and there's a lot of data about just taking a walk after a meal on how that supports blood sugar regulation. It's amazing.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah, and I, I see it for myself. I see it for clients, my husband. Just to something as simple as a walk is enough to bring, um, glucose levels down.
Laurie Villareal: Um, and also there are, like, there are things like, um, [00:23:00] a simple exercise, like legs at the wall, who would have thought works so well for me if I just lay on my, if I'm feeling a little bit, maybe a little bit stressed, or I just had a workout and I know my, you know, my heart rates up and I was a bit excited.
Laurie Villareal: And, um, um, I could just lay on the floor, lift my feet up, put my legs up against the wall, and that alone helps bring my body into a more relaxed state. So it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. For me and for a lot of people that I suggest this to and can help Bring your stress levels down and therefore bring your blood sugars your blood sugar down as well, which is interesting to see so Bring in
Julie Michelson: great those kinds of inversions are really good for sleep too.
Laurie Villareal: Exactly
Julie Michelson: for the same reasons
Laurie Villareal: Yeah, inversions. So you mentioned inversions. So inversions and any kind of restful, um, restorative moments you can have in your [00:24:00] day can also have a great impact, a positive impact on your glucose levels as well.
Julie Michelson: It's such gold, you know, again, because we're so trained. We have all been so trained to think, you know, we're back to like calories in, calories out.
Julie Michelson: But like sugar in is the, you know, end all be all for blood sugar regulation and it's just not true.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Julie Michelson: Ah,
Laurie Villareal: so much you can do.
Julie Michelson: So much you can do. I love that. So, oh my goodness. paying attention. It was where you said people can really, really start. And I love the, the, and again, if you're experimental, you know, find some, find a practitioner, you know, reach out to Lori, reach out to me and, and, um, you can gain so much data just by being curious.
Julie Michelson: You know, if you decide to, to go [00:25:00] the CGM continuous glucose monitor route, um, it is really fun to, and I encourage people. Like, okay, I know I've always said, you know, eat your fruit with some fat and some protein, but you know, while you have the CGM on, eat it once without, or, you know, so that you really can understand what's going on.
Julie Michelson: And I love, you know, none of us get to. Live in a stress free state. So I love that you're sharing, you know, your personal techniques of like, Hey, if I work out a little too hard or I'm a little too stressed, like here's a, a way I can get my body back in and, you know, and, and I say, visit the parasympathetic state like you mentioned throughout the day, because it is, that is an exercise.
Julie Michelson: Um, and so, you know, it's not only going to help you regulate your blood sugar, but bring that inflammation down, digest your food, all the things. [00:26:00] Absolutely. Um, so I, I love that you brought that up because I had no idea we were going to talk about legs up the wall while we were talking about blood sugar.
Laurie Villareal: It's my favorite, I mean, it works
Julie Michelson: for me.
Julie Michelson: Certain tests or if somebody is curious, maybe they don't have a practitioner, they're, they're, um, maybe not ready to go to the CGM, you know, checking things out, um, anything for them to, to test. I mean, the problem I know with tests is it's a snapshot in time, so, um, I don't really know of a better way or another way that's nearly as good unless you want to, like, prick your finger a million times.
Julie Michelson: But, um. I don't. Yeah. And even, well, and
Laurie Villareal: even if you do that, I think it's not going to be, you're missing
Julie Michelson: stuff.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah. And it's not going to be any, actually, I think you could just as easily get a continuous glucose monitor if you're going to get the finger [00:27:00] prick and it's not different in price, actually.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah. And it's way more
Julie Michelson: comfortable and you get better data. Are there, let's talk about CGMs for a second. Um, Are there are some better than others? You know, what do if someone's like, okay, you know, this has kind of been on the back of my mind for a while. I want to do it. Um, obviously, if they're taking your advice and they're working with a practitioner, they're going to use whatever the practitioners recommending, but are there are they all good is basically my question.
Laurie Villareal: Um, so my favorite one is, I think there are a lot of them more and more out there right now. Um, my favorite is Abbott's, um, Freestyle Libre is what it's called. It's pretty small. It's like a cord the size of a quarter. It fits on your arm. Um, you can get it from a several. There are several companies out right now that [00:28:00] offer them straight direct to the consumer.
Laurie Villareal: So you don't have to have a prescription. You can also ask your doctor for prescription. And if they're. Really cool. They might say yes, um, or if they know anything about it, right? They, I think they need to know about how these work and how it can help and support you in order for them to say yes. Um, but then in addition.
Laurie Villareal: And if you work with a practitioner, of course, they can also help support you in in getting being able to use one. And some of the companies that are direct to consumer that use them have apps. They have a little bit of nutrition information. And I would say, I'd like to say, take some of that with a grain of salt, because it can be very generalized and.
Laurie Villareal: less supportive because it's general information. So that's why I think it's really nice to work with a practitioner because they can really help personalize it for you and figure out what works for you. Like for an example, sometimes I've seen things like fasting is great for blood sugar and it can be, but it can also not be [00:29:00] right.
Laurie Villareal: If it's creating more stress in your body,
Julie Michelson: right.
Laurie Villareal: So, um,
Julie Michelson: and different. Yeah. And that's such great advice. Um, cause sometimes. Some of that generalized information is. just really rubs me in the wrong way because sometimes it's just not appropriate for the individual. Um, I, I would say, you know, we also, we play with Dexcoms as well.
Julie Michelson: I mean, and there's so many, there's more and more new companies. Freestyle Libre is really the, to me, the original consumer friendly CGM. Um, but think about also what works for you. You know, there are. Some CGMs where you have to scan it to get the data. There's some where they're, you know, so you maybe miss certain windows of data.
Julie Michelson: There's some that are, you know, the app really is truly continuous. Um, so it's all a [00:30:00] matter of, and Prices really have come down.
Laurie Villareal: They have, absolutely.
Julie Michelson: Which is, which is fun. And I do notice they're always changing, too. So it's like, okay, you know, we get crafty with, you know, who's got the best prices right now in the U.
Julie Michelson: S. as far as sometimes it really does make a difference of which pharmacy you go to to pick it up.
Laurie Villareal: Uh huh, yeah. I've heard, yeah, I've heard some good news. Things like you can get deals at Costco.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, that's what I was just thinking and you can, and then, but then I had a client who literally, you know, two weeks later was going to go to Costco and it was double the price.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah, there
Julie Michelson: was something at the beginning of the year. I, and I hate to. I don't know if it's a conspiracy theory, but like all of the CGM surged in price. And maybe it's because it was the beginning of the year and people are
Laurie Villareal: health
Julie Michelson: focused. I don't know. Um, yeah. And so [00:31:00] it was like, Oh, you know, but then I think here in the U S like, you know, Walmart had the good price, you know, it just, it's always changing.
Julie Michelson: So
Laurie Villareal: yeah. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: It just gets a little crafty.
Laurie Villareal: Yeah, exactly. And those are interesting. And you had asked earlier about tests, and I would say, like, tests to look at could be the HbA1c, your fasting glucose levels, and insulin. Um, yeah. And insulin is a really good one actually to fasting, fasting insulin and fasting glucose and even doing the, I don't know if you call it the HOMA IR over there.
Laurie Villareal: I don't know, I don't know what that is. So you get both the fasting glucose and the insulin done at the same time, and so that can give you an interesting idea of how they are related. At that same time,
Julie Michelson: that's exactly what I, what is missing in standard Western medicine, at least here, they're not testing fasting insulin.[00:32:00]
Julie Michelson: If your glucose seems like it's fine and in range, they leave it at that. And why I love the A1C is because You know, I, I'm going to throw my mother under the bus because I love her and I can. My mom has been a sugar a holic my whole life anyway, um, and she's really adorable. She lives right next door.
Julie Michelson: She's, thank goodness, healthy and vibrant and knows all the lifestyle things and sometimes reverts to, you know, I'm going to live on gelato for the week or, and so she, her, her blood sugar is always beautiful on labs because she knows when she's getting labs done. Yeah. So. But the A1C does not lie. It's going to show you.
Julie Michelson: So it's what it's not going to do is really show you, you know, are you having spikes and fluctuating a lot, but it is going to show [00:33:00] you like, Hey, you think you've been, you know, eating less sugar, but yet your A1C is higher. Right. To, to dig a little deeper. So I love, I love that one in particular. Yes. For honesty.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. For honest feedback. And again, over time,
Laurie Villareal: right? Yeah, I would, I would agree. Yes. And that in a way is kind of giving us an indication of your baseline. Right. Um, and then too, when you look at that through the conventional lens, so like your doctor typically, or pathological lens, right? Like they're, um, they may not, um, They may say your blood sugar is fine and it still could be at a pretty higher than optimal level, right?
Laurie Villareal: For, for maybe for feeling your best or reducing inflammation or recovering or putting a condition into remission, right? You might want to bring that down lower. So that's another reason why it's helpful to work with somebody to figure out what that could look like.
Julie Michelson:[00:34:00] Absolutely. Because again, so, you know, and we're, we're talking a lot about the non food related drivers, stress, and things like that.
Julie Michelson: But also, um, my partner has a patient at the clinic who's always had a beautiful A1C, um, had some GI issues that we didn't know about, went to a GI doctor and they put him on the BRAT diet, um, which is bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. And this gentleman was consuming so much applesauce, he literally gave himself diabetes.
Julie Michelson: Oh, he went from totally fine. So diet does count too. Yeah. Um, but it, I mean, it is always so, and, and he's correcting it. It's all good. Um, but luckily he's has a functional medicine provider who's testing and following because. You know, another [00:35:00] doctor told him basically just, you know, live on carbs and sugar for a few months and see how you feel.
Julie Michelson: Oh, gosh. Um, so it, it is, food definitely can play a role too. Well, he,
Laurie Villareal: he learned some things from that experience.
Julie Michelson: But I can tell you're a data geek like I am. And so to have that data is like, wow. Wow.
Laurie Villareal: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And I like to also say, I love data. I've been using it for a long time, but I usually tell my clients that, you know, I, I look at the trends most of all trends over time and I, I'm not a slave to my data.
Laurie Villareal: Like I will. I will. Easily take it off, not wear it for a while. Um, check back in later. I don't have on right now. Yeah. Like I don't let my data stress me out. It's just information . Yes,
Julie Michelson: yes. Right. Yeah. But it can be fun. I if you're playful and you hold it, light it, it can
Laurie Villareal: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: It can be really fun to, it can.
Laurie Villareal: I love it. .
Julie Michelson: So we're [00:36:00] at that point in the interview where I get to ask you for one step that listeners get to take. starting today to improve their health. And it can be, it doesn't even have to be blood sugar related. Totally up to you.
Laurie Villareal: Oh, one step today. Well, we, I
Julie Michelson: would
Laurie Villareal: say it's
Julie Michelson: a
Laurie Villareal: personal favorite. So there are a lot of steps anybody could take to improve their health.
Laurie Villareal: I love finding, finding your personal favorite. Stress buffers, I call them. So dipping into the parasympathetic, um, you were saying, I think you were saying that to be into the parasympathetic mode. And, um, my favorites are inversions. Like legs up the wall. It's so, they're so simple. They're so easy. And I've even told people that like, you can get on your phone and check your email if you want to, you know, like if you [00:37:00] have a hard time turning down, you don't have to
Julie Michelson: meditate.
Julie Michelson: It doesn't have to be. You can
Laurie Villareal: start simple. You can start simple with just doing something, um, like laying on the ground and putting a couple pillows underneath your hips. Yeah. Right. That's another one. That's a great tip. Um, and, and also pay attention to how you feel while you're doing it, because if it doesn't feel good, right, if you, if it's stressing you out, okay, maybe it's not the thing for you, but find the thing.
Laurie Villareal: It's
Julie Michelson: probably being really gentle, but then again, get curious. Why would laying down for a minute stress you out? I did have a client who, when we were doing, um, some breathing techniques because she just totally always lived in a high stress environment. state. She was the first person who had given me the feedback of she was like, I'm [00:38:00] doing it, but it would bump her heart rate because it was such an unfamiliar feeling for her body to, to leave the sympathetic state.
Julie Michelson: She stuck with it. It didn't take very long, maybe like a week for her body to be like, Oh, I remember that. That actually feels really nice. So I'm not as clearly, I'm not as gentle as Laurie. You need to do it more often if it stresses you out to do it.
Laurie Villareal: Or find the one that there are lots of them. Find the one that, that works for you.
Laurie Villareal: Right.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. But I love that one because it can trick you, obviously, if you, if it's not a painful position for you. Right. Um, because as you even just said, like, You know, you're giving the grace of you can check your phone. You can. Right. If you need to. If
Laurie Villareal: you, it's a good place to start. Yes.
Julie Michelson: Yes. Oh, I love it.
Julie Michelson: For people that are listening on the go and are [00:39:00] not going to check the show notes, where's the best place to find you?
Laurie Villareal: Um, I would say the best place is probably if you just typed in your blood sugar quiz dot com. There you go. And then you can, and then you can take my quiz and check in on your blood sugar.
Laurie Villareal: Um, and you can easily. Find more out about me and, um, otherwise you can certainly find me at my website, uh, which might be a little tricky because it's my name at lauravillareal. com. So it's l a u r i e v i l l l a r r e a l dot com. So that's my website, but you can easily get there by just going to yourbloodsugarquiz.
Laurie Villareal: com and taking my quiz. Perfect.
Julie Michelson: So easy to remember. Lori, thank you so much. You gave us amazing gold today.
Laurie Villareal: So good to be here. And thank you. Thanks everybody. Who's been listening along
Julie Michelson: for everyone listening. Remember you can get those transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living. show. I hope you had a [00:40:00] great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
Julie Michelson: I'll see you next week.
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Connect with Laurie Villarreal
Laurie Villarreal
Laurie Villarreal, aka the Blood Sugar Maven, is a national board-certified health coach, functional nutrition and lifestyle practitioner, and a long-time endurance athlete and movement educator turned hormone specialist. With over 20 years of experience in the health and wellness industry and a client list spanning the globe, Laurie is on a mission to help leading women get the life-changing tools and strategies they need to play bigger in their lives and leadership using her unique data-driven methods for optimizing glucose, hormones, health, and performance.
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