Sugar Hacks for People Who Hate Diets | Glucose Goddess EP 532

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0:31Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the daily motivation show.

0:42There's something that I've been fascinated about with your work and your message around something that's related to me, which is sugar. I've never been drunk. I've never been high. I've never tried mushrooms. I've never done any type of psychedelic. It's just been something I've never done. In sports, a lot of my teammates were drinking all the time. They're doing drugs, marijuana. And I saw that it made them slow-minded. And it gave me an advantage on the athletic field. So I was just like, oh, this is hurting them the next day when they drink. They're not as fast. They're not as sharp. They show up sloppy.

1:17They're not on time. Therefore, the coach is not going to put them in the game. How can I have the edge or the advantage? And it just stuck with me. I was like, why start in my 20s after sports was done when there was so much benefit to not ingesting those things that are poisonous in your body. It's very evolved of you. The thing that has not evolved of me is all the sugar that I have consumed most of my life. I feel the same. I don't drink alcohol, and people, when they say, why don't you drink? I'm like, I have another poison I prefer. It's chocolate ice cream. I know, right? I could eat a gallon of ice cream.

1:51Same. Gallon. When I'm here in L.A., I order Van Leeuwen's chocolate fudge brownie. So good. And I eat it by myself on my couch at 11 p.m. I'm like, what am I doing? I know, right? It's so good. It's so good. I think one of the greatest addictions is sugar right now. And it is linked to so many different mental health challenges, diseases, weight gain, all these things that cause harm on our bodies, our relationships, and our lives. Ideally, we would stop eating sugar altogether. But to me, that is impossible and quite painful. I don't want Brussels sprouts for my birthday. I want a triple fudge chocolate cake.

2:26So my work has been about how do you help people eat the sugar that they love in a way that is less damaging to their health. So you get the dopamine, you get the pleasure molecule in your brain, but you don't get the glucose spike, the addiction roller coaster, the inflammation, etc. And I think that's why this work has resonated so much with people. Nothing is off limits. You can still eat the carbs and the sugar, but in a specific way so that you also help your health at the same time. Yes. I'm a very disciplined human being with everything else. and to think about cutting out sugar completely, even though I know that it has some damaging effects on me, just makes me feel like, well, what's the point of life if I'm going to cut everything out?

3:08You know, it's like I want to enjoy something. Yeah, I mean, I could eat every type of ice cream, sugar, cookies, candies, all the processed sugar you can think of, I enjoy it, which is not a good thing because when I eat non-processed sugar and I kind of stop eating the candy bar processed, I guess, essence of sugar, and I have more dark chocolate with some honey or something or some sea salt, like I enjoy that too. So it's learning how to enjoy it differently. Yes. But what I've heard you talk about is the thing that is cool about your method. Because I was kind of worried as I started researching about you originally.

3:43Number one is because there are so many different methods, strategies, diets, hacks in the food, nutrition, health and wellness space that I think cause a lot more harm than they do helping people because it is so restrictive. One of the first pages of your book talks about this is not a restrictive diet. First of all, this is not a diet. Right. These are basic common sense strategies that probably your grandparents already had implemented into their lives, but now backed up by this modern science that allows us to see why they're so powerful. And to me, the hacks that I share, they're not on the same level as the paleo diet, the keto diet.

4:23For me, they're on the same level as drink water, brush your teeth, wear sunscreen. We're talking about just basic physiology, basic health, stuff that should be taught in schools. It's not a diet. It's not a fad. It's just how your body functions and it's understanding physiologically how and when to eat your carbs with less impact on your health. But it's not restricting you from eating anything. You can eat whatever you want. So of course sugar is not good for us, right? Sugar causes glucose spikes that leads to inflammation, aging, insulin release But the solution to this crazy Food landscape that we live in food environment is not to cut out stuff I don't believe in that.

5:02I think you try that for a week or you know You're like this year. I'm never gonna eat sugar at all. That doesn't work. It never does So what I recommend people try is try some of these techniques for example if you really want to eat some sugar, let's say a cookie, a donut, whatever. The best time to eat that sugar so that you have maximum dopamine from it, maximum pleasure and less impact on your body is going to be after a meal as dessert. You want to always avoid eating sugar on an empty stomach and always avoid eating sugar in the morning. Okay. So yes. So breakfast should be savory. Okay.

5:37In the morning, nothing sweet. Really? Yeah. Man, those pastries though, chocolate inside and just, oh man, the donut in the morning keep them for dessert after lunch because if you have them in the morning then what's happening in your body as you digest that sugar and those carbs they turn into glucose molecules and these arrive into your bloodstream really quickly and cause what's called a glucose spike so blood sugar spike and then about 90 minutes later luis your glucose levels are going to drop you're going to feel a crash and now it's 10 a.m 11 a.m and all of a sudden you feel more cravings for sweet foods.

6:11You're like, I need a cookie. I need some chocolate. I need a snack. I need that spike again. And then you spike again. And then all day you're on a roller coaster where you feel addicted to sugar. Because your brain, when you're experiencing a glucose crash after a spike, the cravings center in your brain actually activates and says, Lewis, find a cookie, find a cookie. And you want to avoid that because then you cannot fight against the craving center in your brain. So hard. Yeah, that center is very powerful and it's linked to evolutionary responses that we have to low blood sugar. So you want to avoid that from happening.

6:46The way you do it is have sugar after a meal as dessert, never on an empty stomach, never as a snack, never for breakfast. Eat something first before you have the sugar. Exactly.

7:07Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:57Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.