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TMHS 681: Get Clearer Skin, Less Cravings, & Reduce Body Fat With These Glucose Hacks – With Jessie Inchauspé
Did you know that balancing your blood sugar can impact nearly every aspect of your health? Your skin, mood, inflammation levels, body composition, and much more are influenced by your glucose levels. If you can learn how to eat in a way that consistently supports stable blood sugar, you can transform your health.
Today’s guest, Jessie Inchauspé is a biochemist and international bestselling author who is on a mission to share cutting-edge science in an accessible, approachable way to help people gain power over their health. In this interview, she’s sharing her best science-backed blood sugar management hacks from her new book, The Glucose Goddess Method. Jessie is sharing realistic and practical ways to stabilize your blood sugar levels – without completely overhauling your diet.
You’re going to learn the science behind blood glucose and how it impacts various functions in the body. You’ll learn the science behind cravings, the connection between mental health and blood sugar, and four scientifically proven glucose management hacks you can implement to begin improving your health today. Jessie is incredibly knowledgeable on the topic of blood sugar control, and I know you’re going to love the accessible way she shares her expertise. Enjoy!
In this episode you’ll discover:
- How chronic glucose spikes increase cravings & increase the likelihood of weight gain.
- The role of insulin in the body.
- Three negative consequences of a glucose spike.
- What it’s like to be on a glucose rollercoaster, & how it affects your mitochondria.
- How to encourage your body to go into fat-burning mode.
- The connection between inflammation and blood sugar.
- What glycation is and how blood sugar spikes are connected.
- The fascinating biology behind cravings.
- Four science-backed glucose management hacks you can use to improve your health.
- How switching to a savory breakfast can change the course of your entire day.
- Four main components of a blood sugar-supportive breakfast.
- How consuming vinegar impacts glucose spikes and insulin levels.
- The connection between blood sugar spikes and skin health.
- How Jessie improved her mental health by stabilizing her blood sugar levels.
- Why feeling good should be your primary health goal.
- How low glucose levels create a stress response in the body.
- The science behind how fiber in vegetables can lessen glucose spikes.
- How moving your muscles after a meal can impact your blood sugar levels.
Items mentioned in this episode include:
- Beekeepersnaturals.com/model — Save 20% on raw honey & other natural remedies!
- Organifi.com/Model — Use the coupon code MODEL for 20% off!
- The Glucose Goddess Method by Jessie Inchauspé
- Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspé
- Connect with Jessie Inchauspé Website / Instagram
Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Model Health Show. If you haven’t done so already, please take a minute and leave a quick rating and review of the show on Apple Podcast by clicking on the link below. It will help us to keep delivering life-changing information for you every week!
Transcript:
SHAWN STEVENSON: Welcome to the Model Health Show. This is Fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. On this episode, we're going to be diving in deep on how our blood sugar deeply impacts our state of health, including our body composition, our mental health, our proclivity towards a variety of different diseases and so much more. This is a true masterclass on BS or Blood Sugar.
Now, before we get to our special guest, I've got to share with you, obviously there are a plethora of different sweeteners that have been popularized in our world today, but there is one. There is one sweetener that has been utilized for thousands of years, that not only doesn't have the same negative ramifications on our blood sugar as conventional sweeteners like that Cocina. Excuse me, like cane sugar. All right. It looks the same, but this particular sweetener, again, not only does it not have those negative impacts, but it also has been found to improve your fasting blood sugar.
A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal, Nutrients, detailed how raw honey intake can improve fasting blood sugar levels, improve lipid metabolism, that's fat metabolism and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in our world today. Additionally, the scientists noted that vast antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties are well established in raw honey, keyword, raw. When you take honey and you cook it, pasteurize the honey, you are essentially getting rid of all of these bioactive compounds and creating a very dense source of, again, glucose, sugar.
And this variety, it is an interesting ratio of different types of sugar, but again, it's really the Enzymatic benefits. It's the antioxidant benefits. It's the variety of micronutrients that are found in honey that makes it so special and so unique as a sweetener. This isn't saying to go out and start dumping down chug of lugging honey like Winnie-the-Pooh or some sh*t like that. You're not a bear, all right? You're not Pooh Bear. But if you're going to use a sweetener, this is the ideal sweetener to use.
So, for me and my family, we want to make sure, number one, that our honey is indeed raw, but for us, we utilize a superfood honey that not only includes this high-quality raw honey, but also Bee Pollen, Propolis. Royal Jelly is all combined in this amazing, delicious honey from beekeepers, and they're the only honey company that is dedicated to third party testing for toxicants that are common in conventional honeys, even organic honeys on store shelves. They're going above and beyond to make sure that you're getting the very best honey possible and they're deeply, deeply dedicated to regenerative beekeeping.
Our population of bees has been steadily declining in recent years and now we're finally starting to turn this thing around because of companies like Beekeeper's Naturals. Go to beekeepersnaturals.com/model. You're going to get 20% off storewide. That's B-E-E-K-E-E-P-E-R-S naturals.com/model. Again, 20% off storewide. I absolutely love their Royal Jelly, their Brain Fuel. That's their Nootropics based on Royal Jelly and obviously Superfood Honey is a staple in our cabinets. Head over there and, check 'em out beekeepersnaturals.com/model. Now Let's gets the Apple Podcast review of the week.
ITUNES REVIEW: Another five-star review titled “Guiding Light” by Greenhead420. “Shawn, you finally made me see, health and food are not about fat and skinny, but health. I had a huge health scare, bad appendectomy. I almost lost my life at 39. A mom, wife, daughter, believer in kindness and lover of hip hop. I had started a journey for me and loving myself before my health scare. Thank goodness the knowledge you share is spot on. As a hairstylist, I try and share little tidbits of your knowledge. Thank you.”
SHAWN STEVENSON: No, thank you so much for being who you are, for sharing your story and for being a model taking this information, applying it, and also sharing it with people that are around you. This is truly special. This is how we create a real movement. So again, thank you so much for leaving your review over on Apple Podcast. If you have to do so, pop over to Apple Podcast, leave a review for the Model Health Show. And on that note, let's get to our special guest topic of the day.
Jessie Inchauspé is a French Biochemist and Bestselling author. She's on a mission to translate cutting edge science into easy tips to help people to improve their physical and mental health. Her first book, Glucose Revolution is a mega hit number one International Bestseller is now translated into over 40 languages. Jessie is also the founder of the wildly popular Instagram account Glucose Goddess. Check her out at Glucose Goddess where she teaches over a million followers about transformative food habits. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from King's College in London, and a master's degree in Biochemistry from Georgetown University. And she's here on the Model Health Show to talk about all of the science around our blood glucose. Let's dive in this conversation with the amazing Jessie Inchauspé. All right, Jessie, welcome.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Pleasure.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So happy to see you.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Thank you for having me.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Of course. You saved the best for last on your podcast tour.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: I did.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Here in LA.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yes.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And you're headed back home to France?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: No, I'm going to New York, actually.
SHAWN STEVENSON: To New York?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: For five days.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, wow. And then home.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: And then Paris and then London. I'm doing a whole like World tour right now.
SHAWN STEVENSON: I love it.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Talking about the new book. Yeah, it's fun.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Just like your idol growing up was on a World tour, Britney Spears.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh my God.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So now you're doing your own thing, it's similar. It's a parallel universe.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: When I was younger, I wanted to be a singer because of Britney Spears. I had like posters of her all up in my room and stuff and my best friend and I, we made video clips.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: On her songs. Like we would like tape ourselves and do like... I mean, it was a thing. I was deep in the Britney stuff.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh my gosh.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: We're about to get deep into Blood Sugar. All right?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Perfect.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So, can you start off by talking about how Chronic Blood Sugar spikes can predispose us to gaining excessive body fat?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Interesting that you would say predispose. So, the way I see it is that, so glucose spikes are something that your body doesn't like, and your body knows that those spikes are bad for you. So, when those spikes happen, one of the ways your body protects you is by taking the extra glucose and storing it away in your muscle and your liver and your fat cells. That's one of the ways we gain fat on our body. On top of that, the more spikes you have, the more you're going to increase your cravings, your hunger, the more you're going to be tired and reaching for some sugar for that dopamine hit. And the more your insulin levels are going to be elevated over time. So, we know from the studies that even if you're eating equal calories, just eating in a way that creates a lot of spikes will make fat gain more likely.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. This is a perfect segue into discussion about insulin, insulin can seem kind of like a bad word in some ways today, but also when we hear the word conventionally, people immediately think about diabetes. That's kind of like the popular narrative when you think about insulin, but it's so important for our survival.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: It is.
SHAWN STEVENSON: As a species.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: I love insulin. She's great. She just gets a bad rep when there's too much of her. Like insulin at its core, if you don't have insulin, if your body doesn't have the ability to make insulin, you need to inject some, otherwise you will die. That's what happens if you have type one diabetes. So, insulin is, at its core, extremely protective, extremely helpful to protect your body against those glucose spikes. But over time, if insulin levels get too high themselves, then that leads to type two diabetes and other issues, like fertility issues are very tightly linked. So, it's a little bit like, some of it is good. Too much of a good thing is bad. And same thing for glucose, right? We need glucose. Our body loves using glucose for energy, but too much of it over time creates issues. And I love using the image of a plant. So, you have some nice plants behind you. And if you gave me one of these to take care of while you went on vacation, I would know to give the plant some water to keep it alive. But if I gave the plant too much water, then it would drown, and you'd be back, and the plant would be dead. So, a little bit is good. Too much causes problems.
SHAWN STEVENSON: That's a perfect analogy. We have a snake plant, by the way, for those who don't see the video version. And these are great because they're not kind of nocturnal. They do a lot of activity when the lights are off.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: What kind of activity?
SHAWN STEVENSON: Like producing that kind of translation or conversion, oxygen, and carbon dioxide.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh yeah. Carbon dioxide.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Converting it for us. Kind of cleaning the air in a sense.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: And you know how they do that. I mean plants creates glucose. Photosynthesis is the creation of glucose molecules. And all the plants around us are fully made out of glucose that they then transform into other types of substances. But glucose is really the core of life. Plants make it.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Amazing, amazing. Well, I want to dig more into this conversation about insulin. And actually, in the book you detail and it's another good analogy the glucose rollercoaster. So, what's happening actually when we eat a food, let's just say we eat a banana for example. What's happening with when we're eating that food, our blood sugar and how is that affecting insulin and kind of this glucose rollercoaster?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah, so if I may I think I'm going to use a food that would create a bigger spike than the banana. Like maybe some orange juice and some granola.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh wow.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: That would be a bigger spike.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Carb heavy baby.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah, so just to go to the extreme, so we see what's going on. So, when you eat starches or sugars, so starcher being bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, cereal, grains or sugars, anything sweet from fruit juice to chocolate cake to a banana, those foods turn to glucose as you digest them. And so those glucose molecules make their way into your bloodstream. And the concentration of glucose in your blood starts increasing. And the faster it increases, the more it increases, the bigger the glucose spike that happens after that meal. And so, when a glucose spike takes place, there's a few bad consequences in the body. Number one, it increases inflammation. Number two, it increases aging. And number three, what happens is that your body produces insulin, sends out insulin from your pancreas to store a way that extra glucose.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Clean it up out of our blood stream.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Essentially yes, to protect you. Because if glucose stays too high for too long, a lot of damage starts happening to your cells. So, your body with this very important insulin grabs the extra glucose and stores it away. And that's the relationship insulin is released in response to these glucose spikes.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. It's like, it's so incredible, the intelligence of the body.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: I know.
SHAWN STEVENSON: But over time doing that again and again, this kind of chronic glucose spikes and crashes.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh, yeah. And so, let's talk about the crash. So, when insulin puts glucose away, then your glucose levels start going down. And so, they decrease. And if they decrease too quickly, sometime is because your body is just sending out too much insulin, then you experience a crash below baseline. This increases cravings, hunger, fatigue, all sorts of symptoms that many of us think are just normal. We just think it's normal to crave something sweet two hours after a meal. We think it's normal to be tired at 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM. That can often just be the result of a glucose crash happening because your previous meal led to a spike therefore a crash. And so, I like taking the image of people being a high functioning glucose rollercoaster. So, a lot of people they go spike, drop, spike, drop, spike, drop all day.
And they manage these symptoms with caffeine, with eating sugar to combat the fatigue and the hunger they're feeling. But overall, they're really victims to that rollercoaster. And on the inside, the longer the rollercoaster goes on for, the more damage your mitochondria become, your mitochondria are the things responsible for making energy in your body. And so that can lead to chronic fatigue among many other symptoms. And so, my whole work is to teach people to step off that rollercoaster and steady their glucose levels so they can get back to thriving physically and mentally.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Perfect, so with insulin being active, we're essentially having this signal of energy storage. And so, we're definitely not burning fat at this point, 'cause insulin...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah, when there's insulin around, your fat cells become one way. So, stuff can get in, but nothing can come out. So, when there's a lot of insulin around, it's like your body's like, okay, we're in storage mode. We're not in fat burning mode, we're in fat storage mode.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Now there's a couple of things to unpack here in this glucose-body fat equation. So, you already mentioned the impact we have with insulin. You said this in passing, you said inflammation and inflammation is a huge, kind of goes hand in hand with being overweight and obese and a lot of people aren't talking about it. So how does blood glucose or these chronic spikes impact inflammation?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: There's two mechanisms. So, the first one is that when a lot of glucose arrives in your cells, it goes to your mitochondria because that's where it's supposed to be transformed into energy. So, glucose goes straight there. Unfortunately, when glucose spike happens and you're delivering too much glucose to your mitochondria, your mitochondria just kind of shut down. They go like, "Whoa, too much glucose, cannot deal." And they just stress out and they're like, "No cannot." And when they are in that state of stress, they produce what's called reactive oxygen species, which are very small molecules that have very damaging consequences. They can snap your DNA, they can poke holes in the membranes of your cells, and they can damage your cell so much that the cell becomes what's called under a state of oxidative stress, which just means the cell is damaged. And when that happens that leads to inflammation in the body.
So that's the first pathway. And you mentioned that inflammation is so key. The World Health Organization says that three out of five people today will die of an inflammation-based disease. Three out of five people. The second pathway is that, well, actually there's three, but the second pathway is that the more glucose is in your body, the faster glycation is happening. Glycation is the process of aging. It's also similar to the process of cooking. Like when you put a chicken in the oven and it goes from pink to brown, it's being glycated and the human body slowly glycates from the moment you're born. And then when you're fully glycated or fully cooked, you die. Okay? That's aging. The more spikes you have, the faster that process happens. And that process also increases inflammation in the body.
And then finally, insulin itself is inflammatory when there's too much of it. So, you end up in a state of chronic inflammation. Which just has so many damaging consequences to the body. And if you look at like Alzheimer's, heart disease, type two diabetes, whatever, like acne, eczema, psoriasis, like all diseases, all chronic diseases usually have an inflammatory base. And so, the higher inflammation is happening in your body, the more likely you will develop it and the worse they will get if you already have them.
SHAWN STEVENSON: This is bananas. Literally, going back to really being empowered and understanding what's happening in our bodies is so important. And so, we've got the impact on insulin. We've got the inflammation equation and also even our fat cells just dealing with all of that excess glucose. And as they're growing in little not so fun fact, our fat cells can actually expand like a thousand times their volume and hold quite a bit of content. It's kind of this protective thing with the intelligence of the body. But as they do so, they start to send out this false distress signal essentially, which is inflammation, and the immune system is going to be in a tizzy and we're putting ourselves into the state where we're kind of pre-inflamed already. And so, then we add into the mix, an infection of some sort or heart disease...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Psychological stress.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Psychological stress yeah.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: For females, for example fasting too long, too often during high intensity exercise, that's too intense, too often that can also become a stressor on the body. And so, you're adding all these different kinds of stress. You're doing fasting, cold plunge, sauna, high intensity interval exercise. You have inflammation going on, you have a stressful job. Your kids are stressing you out and you're just like, your whole organism just becomes this ball of stress and inflammation. And that's the root cause of a lot of issue.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, oh my goodness. So, the last component in this kind of weight gain, fat gain equation I want to talk about, and you said this in passing as well, is the craving aspect.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: This is fascinating.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And you shared this in the book in 2011, a research team from Yale University uncovered new insights about cravings by placing people into an FMRI scanner. Talk about that.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh yeah, I love this study. It's one of my favorite ones. Shout out to these amazing scientists that we learned so much about... Learned so much from. So, the scientists took participants and they put them in an FMRI scanner and while the people were in the scanner, they one, were measuring their glucose levels, and two, they were showing the participants photos of "high calorie foods" that people often crave like burgers, chips, cookies. And they were asking the participants to rate how much they wanted to eat the food. So how much they were feeling a craving for that food. So amazing. And the scientists were also looking at images of the brain scan going on. This is what they found. When the people's glucose levels were normal, steady, they didn't really rate any of the foods highly. They were just like, meh, burger, meh, salad, meh, cookie, meh. However, when their glucose levels were low, which can happen after a spike, remember spike crash, then all of a sudden, the participants rating the cookies and the burgers much higher on that scale. And the scientists saw that the part of their brain that is in charge of cravings started activating.
So that low glucose levels was activating the biological response of craving. And so that's what can happen when you are on this glucose rollercoaster. You feel these strong cravings for sweet foods. And if you're feeling that, trying to resist them with your willpower, you're going to lose, don't even try. Your body's ancestral programming is telling you from really deep inside your brain to go and find something that has a lot of calories in it. So, the solution is not to feel guilty or ashamed about this or to try to fight against it. It's more fixing the root cause so that naturally they go away. And sometimes, I mean, now I never have anything in the morning that creates a glucose spike, but sometimes, rarely, I don't know why, but I'll just want to eat something sweet in the morning.
And then inevitably, my whole day is this big rollercoaster and I feel cravings all day. And it's just so amazing to experience that. It's just like clockwork. You eat something that creates a spike in the morning for breakfast, bam, two hours later you want a cookie, bam, two hours later, you want pasta or a burger. It's the programming in your brain.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, so fascinating. We don't realize that we're doing it or that this is happening.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Exactly.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And pitting our willpower against our biology is, it's grounds for absolute destruction eventually, like your willpower is finite and this is also, we're getting into that feedback loop of learned helplessness in a sense, and also guilt and shame and all these different things instead of stacking conditions in our favor. So, this is great because I want to talk to you about this. Why is it that our culture today, kind of modern culture, especially in the Western world, why do we start our days off eating things that are so high in sugar to start the day and what should we do instead?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Instead.
SHAWN STEVENSON: You actually talk about this in the book.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Well, this was an invention. We didn't used to eat this way. We used to eat for breakfast, whatever we ate for lunch or for dinner, I don't know, some meat and potatoes. The fact that we're now eating dessert for breakfast is an invention of the food industry, but now it's become so commonplace. People believe that, oh, in order to have energy, I need to eat sugar in the morning. Such amazing marketing campaigns around this, right? Like on all the cereal boxes and all the fruit juices, we've been told over and over again that sugar is good for you because it's going to give you energy, but actually...
SHAWN STEVENSON: But they say carbohydrates.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yes, carbohydrates, right? So, like starches and sugars, you're totally right. Anything... But generally, when it's sweet, it means there's sugar in it, right? So, I make a little shortcut, but you're right actually what's going on when you eat carbs in the morning, if you just have carbs for breakfast, you are getting dopamine in the brain, which is a pleasure molecule, which might make you feel a little bit like perked up. And you might confuse that for energy, but it's not energy, it's dopamine.
On the inside your mitochondria, which are in charge of making the energy, they're stressing out. And so over time, as you keep doing this, chronic fatigue sets in, even though you're eating carbs in the morning, thinking that that's good for your energy levels. So anyway, so my very first most important hack that I teach people is to switch from having a breakfast that is just carbs, to having what I call a savory breakfast, which is a breakfast built around protein. Very, very important.
So, the components of a savory breakfast that keeps your glucose levels steady, unlocks energy, reduces cravings, helps you feel better, helps reduce inflammation too, is as follows. Number one, build it around protein. Number two, add some healthy fats. Number three, if you can, add some fiber, although in the morning it's not usually very easy for people to add fiber. And then you can eat some starches for taste. Like you can have like a slice of bread or whatever, or potatoes for taste. And if you want to eat anything sweet, it can only be whole fruit. No jam, no juice, no cereal, no granola, no muesli, no nothing sweet. Except if you really want a sweet taste, some whole fruit. And if you do that, and in the book, I have a bunch of recipes to help people actually get started, you will unlock a new experience of your day.
Instead of kicking off that rollercoaster first thing in the morning, you will actually get a lot of power back, a lot of connection to your body. Your body will thrive, and it will really change your experience of your day. And I know this for a fact. I grew up eating nutella crepe and orange juice every morning. So big glucose spike. And I thought it was normal that at 11:00, I was exhausted. I was so hungry, my stomach hurt. I had no idea. But now I know I was just... It was just a big glucose spike.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. And again, this is the norm here. I remember when I was in elementary school, I had the... I was on the free lunch program. So, we get this little red ticket and I remember being in line, I was pumped because we didn't generally have breakfast stuff at my house. And every day, the main option would be cereal, frosted flakes, in a single served bowl. And then milk, also milk sugar. It's another form of sugar that we're delivering. So, it's just all carbohydrates and a little bit of protein and fat sprinkled in. And that or French toast sticks or donuts. Sometimes we would get these two glazed donuts in a little package as well. Like this was the school lunch program, school breakfast program that we're getting fed.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Even string cheese would've been so much better, you know?
SHAWN STEVENSON: And again, if we take a look at some of the results since that time when I was in elementary school, childhood obesity has tripled in this country. It is insane. And instead of addressing the root cause, what's altering? Because even when we talk about gaining weight or becoming obese, our bodies are just adapting to the conditions that we are exposing it to.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Listen, your body's trying to protect you. Like your body's not doing that to be mean. Your body's just responding to what's going on. And in fact, putting on fat is, as you mentioned, a protective mechanism against these elevated glucose levels. And if genetically you're not able to grow the number and the size of your fat cells, you're protected for far less time against type two diabetes. Right? So, I mean, it's complicated, right? The relationship to fat is complicated, but at its core, remember your body is not fighting you if it's putting on fat, it's just responding to what's going on.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Absolutely. Absolutely. And also, today in our culture, there's things like Ozempic and there's this new... It's being added to the standard of care, even to treat children who are struggling with their weight. And again, not addressing the root cause.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Dude. It's wild. It's just like a form of band aid on top of this really broken food system. And I just hope things change and that we actually go back to eating in a way that's more normal.
SHAWN STEVENSON: To know this, that would remove a lot of profits.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: A lot of profits.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Profiting from people's ignorance and pain and their struggles essentially, with the... There's a farming of sick people happening. And having this included in a school lunch program, for example, is just already setting me up on a path towards degeneration and disease.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Absolutely.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Which I experienced in my teens, my bones were so brittle. I was at track practice, and I broke my hip.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Stop.
SHAWN STEVENSON: At track practice. Yes.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Stop.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, yes. And so eventually I get diagnosed degenerative bone disease, degenerative disc disease. My proclivity, as you just mentioned, to frame obesity as something genetic, which again, and we'll put a study up for everybody to see, very rarely are genes found to be causative of actual problems. They're correlated. But we're in this field now, epigenetics is the leading science.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Listen, I worked in genetics for five years. I can tell you that your DNA does not predict what disease you get. It might increase your likelihood by a few percentage points, but it's not at all the major determinants. Like when people say, oh, diabetes just runs in my family, so I'm going to get it. What they don't realize is that actually, it's not the DNA causing it, it's the habits that they're inheriting that's causing it.
SHAWN STEVENSON: See, and this is leading right into my point, which is my family, so I have a different father than my little brother and sister. And there is going to be a genetic milieu that I'm getting that's slightly different. Whereas they have more of a proclivity outwardly towards the development of obesity. Like you just said, it's kind of an insulation or protection against the development of type two diabetes. But some other kind of disease program is going to set in and we're just labeling it as a disease. So, my thing was degeneration like arthritic condition of my spine and my bones.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: It's inflammatory based too, right?
SHAWN STEVENSON: Exactly. Inflammation is going to be tied into all of this stuff. And so, it's just going to depend on how your body is going to manifest in its dealing with, it's trying to adapt and create an alternative way of functioning under an ideal circumstance.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah. Fundamentally, your body just wants to keep you alive. And I think that's something that we just know that's for sure. Right? Then the issue becomes can you break free from all the things around you that are making your body sick in the first place? Can you break free from all the marketing, all the unhealthy food landscape and stuff? It's hard because most people want to feel good and they're just listening to the marketing messages, or they can't afford the healthy vegetables. It's just like the environment is setup in such a way that it is really challenging and sometimes feels overwhelming. Like a doctor might say eat better, exercise more, which is very vague advice.
And so, my work is I'm trying to fix that first step, that motivation gap. I'm trying to give people really easy, attainable tiny little goals with big impacts on your health that you can start today. That's really what motivates me the most is like getting people to that first step.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, you just said something, you just dropped in little profound nuggets in here. But you said something that most people unfortunately are not really educated about, in particular when we're talking about healthcare practitioners who have so much influence. You said that most people want to feel good.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: But in our field, we condition ourselves to think that people won't listen. They're just going to do this thing. They want to suffer; they're going to create disease. So, I'm just going to try to save their life with this medication that's...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Dude, that's insane.
SHAWN STEVENSON: I haven't met one person who doesn't want to feel good or be healthy. They might have a story as to why it's not likely for them or why it's hard or whatever the case might be. But if they had a choice, they would be disease free. They would feel good in their body.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Of course, but the issue is the advice they get is vague and a little bit unhelpful or feels just too overwhelming. They feel like they have to change their entire life, which is not the case. You can do small things, but it's a jungle out there. It's really difficult for people who are suffering to find a way to change. Yeah, it's what I'm doing, what I'm trying to do.
SHAWN STEVENSON: That's exactly what you're doing. Like, you're giving these small, simple things to just add into the mix. One of the things I really love about your work is you're telling people, like, listen, I like pasta.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Dude, I love pasta, I love pasta and chocolate. Like pasta, chocolate, and cats. Those are my favorite. Not to eat the cats but...
SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay, just for clarification. All right.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: No, listen. Yes, of course, it would be better for our body if we totally cut out anything sweet, right? Sugar is literally just for pleasure, but I want to eat it, I want the triple of chocolate cake fudge thing with the cookies and this chocolate syrup on top. Like, I love that sh*t, I love it. So, when I discovered that the glucose spikes that I was experiencing were harming my health, and specifically my mental health, I had to find a solution because I didn't want the spikes. I wanted to feel better, but I didn't want to give up the cake and the pasta.
So that's really how my work crystallized. It was like, let me find in the science some tips that allow me to eat the carbs with less of an impact on my glucose levels. And I think that's why it's resonating so much, because I'm not telling people to cut out anything. It's like, I'm going to teach you how to eat the chocolate cake in a way that doesn't create the glucose rollercoaster as a result, in a way that doesn't increase sugar addiction or make you have more cravings. Right? I want people to be in a state of, like, maximal pleasure, minimal impact on your health.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. And so, with that said, obviously with your new book, you're providing a variety of vast array of wonderful recipes. And in those times when you want to have something that might historically derange your glucose, you're providing these very simple hacks that funny enough, like a lot of this stuff has been done for thousands of years.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Exactly.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk about one that is just popping on the streets right now, which is utilizing vinegar.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah. So, in the new book, I have this sort of... So, in my first book, I shared ten hacks, right? And then people were like, okay, I want a more step by step plan to get started. So, the second book, The Glucose Goddess Method, is you introduce one hack per week for four weeks, and then you're sort of taking the on ramp, the fast track, the steady glucose. So, week one is savory breakfast, as we talked about, and week two is vinegar. So, the science is really interesting. Vinegar, it turns out if you have a tablespoon of it and some water before a meal, you can reduce the glucose spike of that meal by up to 30% and the insulin release by up to 20%. You can reduce it without changing what you're eating afterwards, just by harnessing the power of this molecule called acetic acid, which is in vinegar that has a powerful effect on your glucose level.
And so, in week two, I give people lots of different ways to try out this hack for themselves. It doesn't have to be just vinegar and water. Most people find that not very appealing. I love it now, but to each their own. And you could have it as tea, you can make little mocktails, you can use it as a dressing on your food. And just by adding this very small little ingredient, you can have a powerful effect on your health. And interestingly, vinegar has been used for centuries in countries like in Iran, where they just know it's a healthy thing to add.
In the 18th century, vinegar tea was prescribed to people with type one diabetes. So culturally, we've known these things. For example, the breakfast, we've known that breakfast should not be dessert, like we've known breakfast should be a regular meal. But now we've lost touch with a lot of this stuff. And now, because we have the science to show us how it actually works in our body, we can decide to bring those things back. And they're really, really powerful.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, when you say acetic acid, immediately makes me think about apple cider vinegar. So, is that one of the vinegar choices?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: So, any type of vinegar works, any type, white wine vinegar, red vinegar, balsamic, rice vinegar, cherry vinegar, whatever, and apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar, ACV, is the most popular one, but they all work the same. For a lot of people, ACV is just more palatable, they like the taste more, but you can use any vinegar you want except, avoid the very syrupy balsamic glaze, which is really not vinegar anymore. It's more like sugar with a bit of vinegar in it. So as long as you're not using that, you can use whatever you want.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Got a quick break coming up, we'll be right back. Did you know that there's a spice in your spice cabinet, that can very likely improve your insulin sensitivity and help you to burn more fat? This spice has been utilized for thousands of years and now today we've got tons of peer-reviewed evidence, showing how incredible it is for so many aspects of human health. I am talking about the renowned spice turmeric. A turmeric is actually in the ginger family, but it has its own claim to fame today.
Researchers at the Department of Neurology at USC found that one of the active ingredients in turmeric, curcumin, is able to help eliminate amyloid plaque in the brain, slow down the aging of our brain cells, and also help to remove heavy metals and reduce inflammation in the brain. By the way, I'm talking about its impact on body fat. Turmeric has been found to both improve insulin sensitivity, reduce blood fats, and directly act upon our fat cells.
And to take it up one more mental notch, research published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, points to turmeric's potential to reduce both anxiety and depression. Turmeric functions like a Swiss army knife for human health and benefits. And today more than ever people are going beyond the casual curry and doing one of the most remarkable teas that you're going to find, and that is having a turmeric latte. And my favorite turmeric latte... My favorite turmeric drink is coming from Organifi Gold.
And this is because it also has other wild potentiators that make turmeric work even better in the human body. I am talking about cinnamon. I am talking about ginger. And also, here's the thing that makes Organifi's Gold so remarkable. It also has a medicinal mushroom, rishi, which according to research published in pharmacology biochemistry, and behavior, they found that rishi was able to decrease our sleep latency meaning that we fall asleep faster, it was found to improve our overall sleep time and also improve our deep sleep time and light sleep time. So, our REM sleep and non-REM sleep. Pretty remarkable. So, I highly encourage you to check out this incredible Organifi Gold-blend.
Go to organifi.com/model, that's, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/model. You get 20% off their incredible gold blend as well as their green juice blend, their red juice blend and actually store-wide. So, definitely take advantage of this and make yourself your own turmeric latte. I love the turmeric blend, the Organifi Gold with some almond milk or milk of your choice. Warm it up if you're feeling spicy and it's one of those things that really helps to add another layer to your health well-being.
Check them out, go to organifi.com/model for 20% off, now back to the show.
Now to go back, there was something that jumped out, it stuck with me since you mentioned it, in this process of aging. Right? And essentially, we're slow cooking, thanks to your dictation...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Glycation.
SHAWN STEVENSON: About this. You know...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Isn't it wild though.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, it is.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Benjamin Button though. You know.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: I know...
SHAWN STEVENSON: He was referred in Nevermind. Alright. Now, with this said, I want to talk more about this aging process.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: You talked about glycation and one of the kinds of outward things when we talk about aging is the health of our skin. And you specifically talk about that too.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yes.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So, how does... And I don't think we think about this at all.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: How does chronic glucose spikes and being on that glucose rollercoaster affect our skin health?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Well, two things: Number one, the more glucose spikes you have, the more wrinkles you get. Because that glycation that takes place when there's a lot of glucose spikes happening also affects your collagen. When a molecule of collagen becomes glycated, it becomes brittle and broken, and less flexible and that leads to wrinkles. So, if that's the biggest motivator you take away, for a lot of people it is, with fewer glucose spikes, aging slows down wrinkles slow down. Now another clear correlation between glucose spike and skin, is in these inflammation-based skin problems like Acne, Psoriasis, Eczema. These things are inflammation based. So, the more inflammation is happening in your body, the more symptoms of Acne, Psoriasis, Eczema you're going to get. So, if you suffer from any of these conditions, getting inflammation down is really key. So put it in remission. So, your skin is really a good messenger for what's going on the inside.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. We really... I... I kind of had an insight many years ago when studying how we're developing in the womb when the egg is fertilized, like what's happening first, like what are the kind of the most important foundational things getting laid down? And obviously the nervous system and our skin is developing in a certain way as well as kind of again, it's this interactive force with the outside in an internal world, right? So, our skin is kind of the outermost portion of our nervous system in a sense.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Woo, yeah!
SHAWN STEVENSON: And so, when you talked earlier about stress and inflammation, I was immediately like I was tying in the skin equation. Like stress really does show up on our skin.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And one of the most stressful things we're doing every day in our culture is going on this glucose roller coaster. And we don't realize it. When we're looking at and we see the commercials take proactive... Whatever, it's just again it's not addressing the root cause.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah, you can put stuff on your skin and that can help to some extent like having you know good skincare routine is important. But really fixing the inside is going to be the most powerful thing you can do.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Inside and outside. So, work both directions become to our skin for sure. So, in the book, you actually... I'm going to share a direct quote in your discussion about acne and rosacea, etcetera. You stated, "In a study in males aged 15 to 25, the diet that resulted in the flattest glucose curves led to a significant reduction in acne".
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So, we've got some peer-review data on this.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And again, it just might make sense when we start to unpack what's happening inside our bodies when we're throwing in these particular foods without your intelligent hacks as well that are just sending us on this glucose rollercoaster every day.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Totally. And I wish I knew this in high school, I was like, "Oh, my skins so bad. How can I make it better?" So, I was doing all these masks and creams and I was like, "Aaah." But had I known that the Nutella crepes were contributing, it would've been a different story.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, you mentioned earlier one of your motivations was how this was affecting your mental health. Can you talk a little bit about that?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: So, when I was 19, I had an accident that really changed my life and the course of my life in a way. I broke my back jumping off a waterfall. So don't let your kids jump off waterfalls.
SHAWN STEVENSON: What?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: What? Wait a minute. I just need a moment.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: That is crazy.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: What?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Mm-Hmm.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. Continue. Continue.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: It was crazy, total freak accident. Two of my friends had jumped off before they were fine. And just hitting the water a little bit at a wrong angle on my tailbone, just one of my vertebrae exploded. So, I had super intense surgery, have a lot of metal in my spine now. Was really scared for my life. Was in so much physical pain you can't even imagine. But then in a few months, like my physical health actually healed pretty well. And I started working out and making sure my core was strong and I was okay. But my mental health completely changed. I started getting a lot of these weird episodes of what I call depersonalization, which is the feeling of being a stranger in your own body.
So, I would look in my hands and be like, that's not mine. Or I would look in the mirror and have a panic attack 'cause I was like, "Who is that person?" Just like, complete the opposite of embodiment, right? I was just completely afraid of being alive and being in this body. It was really horrible. And lay onto that. Some anxieties, some depression. I could never be alone. I mean, the whole thing got super, super, super dark.
And so, I went on a journey to try to figure out how my body worked, because at that point in time, it was like a black box that I didn't understand, and I needed to get better. Like, otherwise, life was too difficult, you know? So, I just was like, "Okay, I need to figure some stuff out." So that's why I switched from... At the end of my mathematics degree, I then switched to biochemistry in grad school. So, I was like, "Okay, let me understand the cell, let me understand the body." And that's also why I went to the field of genetics. Just to try to figure out does my DNA really affect my health? It doesn't. It doesn't.
And while I was in the DNA world, that's when I came across glucose and I started discovering that I was experiencing these glucose spikes, even though I don't have diabetes. And that the days where I had the most spikes were the days my mental health was the worst. And I started seeing this correlation between steady glucose levels and feeling so much better. And at the moment, it was because I was testing a continuous glucose monitor that I was able to see this. And so, I dove into the science, and I was like, "Damn wow. Like, most people who don't have diabetes actually have these spikes." It was brand new science that had just come out.
And then that's when I had that realization of, "Okay, I don't want the spikes. I want my mental health to improve, but I don't want to give up chocolate and the pasta." And so that's what led me down this path. And once I had fixed my glucose levels, I felt like I had a foundation. I felt more connected to myself. I felt more empowered. I was like, "Okay, I've been able to actually help my brain." So then on top of that, I started layering EMDR, craniosacral therapy, emotional processing, like all this stuff. And I got to a point where I actually healed, but it took over 10 years.
And so now I just want to give people the fast track to getting that base layer of steady glucose done. Because if you don't have that, it's going to be really hard to heal anything that's going on. For most of us healing that heals a lot of things or everything. It's the place you need to start.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh man, thank you for sharing that. That is a wow story. It started off...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: I'm so glad it's over, man.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: I'm so glad I'm on the other side. Wow.
SHAWN STEVENSON: That's the thing too. It's just like you've overcome such a tremendous obstacle.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Dude.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And you did it, right?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: But when we're healed, it's just like, "I can't believe I did that." And of course, I would never want to do that or if I had to do it over, I wouldn't even choose to do that. But when you're in it and you have the audacity to decide, like, I'm just going to keep moving forward. I'm going to find a way; I'm going to figure this out.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah. But to be honest, like when you're in such a dark place, you feel like this is going to be your life forever. It's really hard, if anybody listening is in a dark place right now, just remember your brain is tricking you into thinking this is going to be like this forever. It's not. Know that it will change. It will get better. This is not how you're going to be forever. 'Cause that's how I felt. Now I'm on the other side of things, but yeah. Super awful dark stuff.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, the relationship here with our mental health and our diet is finally gaining some traction. Right? And one of the simple on-ramps to understanding this is that our minds, our brains are not separate from the rest of our bodies. And so of course, they're going to affect our perspective. Of course, they're going to affect how our brains are working. And we're going to put up a study on the screen. Even with schizophrenia, there's several peer reviewed studies on how gluten exacerbates schizophrenic episodes, for example.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: What?
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. I mean, there isn't really a disorder or a mental health disease, right? This again, but we're putting labels on these things, which are just the bodies adapting to an ideal circumstance and just kind of changing the way that it's operating. But right now, there isn't a disease that isn't linked to diet in some kind of way because scientists finally are asking the questions and looking into it, and we keep... We open up the hood and we find, oh, sure does. We had...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: 20 years ago, like when you said, oh, your diet is linked to cancer risk, people were laughing like...
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Even with type 2 diabetes of all things.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah, I know.
SHAWN STEVENSON: It wasn't even considered to be something that was curable for a phase. But also, there was a time when it was known as adult-onset diabetes.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yep.
SHAWN STEVENSON: They either changed the name.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Now, five-year-olds get it.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Yeah. It's insanity. So, with that being said, right now, this is also your work is it's, I think it's also a pleasant surprise or pleasant side effect. Like people might be employing these things to lose weight or to improve their body composition, but they find out that their mental health is better.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Exactly. And actually, I think most people come at this, I really don't promote this as a way to lose weight because I think there's so much unhealthy just stuff around weight loss. I tell people, this is not a diet. Okay? The objective is not weight loss. If you want to study your glucose levels, it's because you want to feel good. You want to get more energy, cut your cravings, sleep better, improve your fertility, your skin, slow down aging, reverse your diabetes. That's what you're here for. It's for health. Now, often, a consequence of steady glucose levels is weight loss and fat loss specifically. But I want to teach people that it is a welcome consequence. It's not the primary objective, right? Because if your only focus is losing weight, you might go into really unhealthy territory and one person can have a very small body, but be very unhealthy on the inside, right? So, I just want people to focus a bit more and like, actually they want to feel good. You want to feel good, you want to feel happy, you want to improve your mental health, your energy, and as a consequence, the fat loss does happen.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's the thing too, is just, I've been on a mission to help to reframe these things. Because also the weight loss piece, it puts it into, it's like a silo or like a little pithy box. And if you don't achieve that thing. This is like, oh, f*ck it. Right? You just throw the whole thing away. When we start stacking, like adding more legs under that belief about how diet affects our lives, all of a sudden, it's just like, "Oh, this is one of the most important decisions that I make."
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Exactly.
SHAWN STEVENSON: With what I'm putting at the end of my fork. And now I want to loop this back to our mind and how we are perceiving reality. One of the most common side effects of chronic glucose spikes and crashes is how it affects our personality.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And also, how we interact with other people.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk about that.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh man. Another incredible study. So, these scientists took married couples, and they gave each person in the couple a voodoo doll, and they told them, every time your partner irritates you put a pin in this voodoo doll. After a few weeks, the scientists got the dolls back and they also measured the participants' glucose levels. And they found that the people who had the most irregular up and down and high and low glucose levels, they had stuck the most pins in the voodoo dolls representing their partner.
All this to say that your glucose levels can affect how irritated you are about the people around you, can affect how nice you are to those around you. And that's just like one part of how glucose affects your brain. The more spikes you have, the more brain fog you have, the more symptoms of anxiety and depression you have. So essentially, if you are on a glucose rollercoaster, you may think you're a certain way. You may think you're a person who gets angry, who's irritated, who's just like short tempered, who's hungry all the time, who doesn't sleep well, who has acne, etcetera. Actually, these may just be the symptoms of the glucose rollercoaster happening within. So just in an effort to figure out who you really are, setting those glucose levels can be of great help.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. What if your hungry version of yourself was like yourself that the world sees all the time? We think that everybody was an asshole. It's just understanding again, what's happening in our bodies is just part of that. And if you could unpack this a little bit, there's a sense of emergency response when our blood sugar crashes like that.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yes.
SHAWN STEVENSON: That's going to release Catecholamines in our body, stress chemicals as well to kind of help to get that rebalanced.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Absolutely. So low glucose levels is a state of stress for the body. So, if you're spiking and then you're dropping really low, your body responds to that low by releasing stress hormones in the bloodstream. And what this does is it tells your liver to pump out glucose really quickly to get that level back up. For you as a human, you're experiencing that stress. It can be nausea, it can be anxiety, it can just be shaking sweats, like there are a lot of symptoms connected to that. And then in and of itself, a glucose rollercoaster is a chronic stressor on the body, which can infect your thyroid, your adrenals, etcetera.
And so, if you layer onto that other stressor, as we mentioned, like fasting for too long, if you're a female having a stressful job, doing a lot of high intensity exercise, like all these things, you can put your body in a state of chronic stress without even knowing you're doing it. And that state of chronic stress can lead to fertility problems, mental health problems, inability to lose fat on the body because your body is just like so stressed out. Yeah, it's quite remarkable.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, in your first book, you covered 10 of this science backed hacks, and in this new book, so this is the Glucose Goddess method, you're doubling down and actually helping people, walking them through how to employ four specific ones. We already talked a little bit about savory breakfast, the vinegar hack. Can we talk a little bit about the other two and the next one being veggies first?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Absolutely. So, in week three of this method, we start having a veggie starter at the beginning of one of our meals. So, most people do it before lunch or dinner, some people before breakfast, although in the morning, have a hard time at vegetables. So why do we do this? Why do we add this plate of vegetables to the beginning of our meals? Well, because vegetables contain magical ingredient called... Shawn, what's it called?
SHAWN STEVENSON: It's a F word, isn't it?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yes. It's called fiber. So, fiber is really amazing. And when you have fiber at the beginning of the meal, fiber has time to go to your upper intestine and deploy itself onto the walls of that intestine, forming a protective mesh. So, the intestinal wall becomes less porous. Okay? And as a result, any glucose molecules coming down after the meal will make their way more slowly into the bloodstream. So, reducing the spike they create. And very importantly, in this four-week method that I designed, you don't have to cut out any foods.
Nothing is off limits; you don't have to stop eating carbs. We're just adding these four hacks in and the rest of the time we do whatever we want, and we still get fabulous results. And I think that's one of the reasons this has been so popular is because nowhere would I tell you never eat chocolate cake again. It's like no, no, no, eat whatever you want, but add these hacks like gentle giants in your life so they protect you and you can still eat what you love, but have some benefits on your health too.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Immediately I'm thinking just logically with fiber and how fiber in nature and the common foods that we have fiber is going to tend to come along with foods that are going to be higher in carbohydrates and/or naturally occurring sugars. Isn't that interesting how those come packaged together to try...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: But in processed foods.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, that's...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: All the fiber is gone.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, it’s making sense, it's making sense, is devoid of that...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Protective substance, yep, exactly.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So interesting. All right, so what is a veggie starter look like if we're going out let's just say you didn't have to run to the airport after this and we're going out and we're having lunch, all right what does a veggie starter look like?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Well at the restaurant you can order any side you want, a lot of restaurants have like you can order like a side of spinach or a side of beans or a side of roasted broccoli or whatever.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Asparagus.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Asparagus yes, it's asparagus season. Any of these vegetables if you have it at the beginning of your meal that counts as your veggie starter and I also teach people like, okay if you're not at home and you're not cooking these easy recipes how to do this hack while you're out and about of course it's really important so I would say my favorite veggie starter if I were at a restaurant would probably be like roasted something if they had like some roasted broccoli, roasted brussels sprouts I like that a lot but you can just have a side salad. And if you want to do two hacks in one you put some vinegar on that, therefore you have the veggie starter hack plus the vinegar hack.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And that's been done culturally...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Exactly.
SHAWN STEVENSON: For a long time.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: In France, we have this concept of crudités. Which means raw veggies that you're supposed to eat at the beginning of a meal, and this has just been done for a super, super, super, long time and now I'm like oh wow there's actually wisdom in all these cultural traditions, but we don't really do those anymore. We've been so globalized that we don't really do that stuff anymore.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: We should bring it back because now we know that fiber is helping our glucose level.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Crudités at the La Plage.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh yes. Crudités La Plage. Yes absolutely.
SHAWN STEVENSON: All right so I'm showing off my French too.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: You're pretty good actually...
SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, thank you.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: At French, yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Come on, that hit my heart.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: It's true, it's true, it's true.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you, all right, thank you.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: You have to come visit.
SHAWN STEVENSON: All right, with this being said, this is a little fun fact I've never talked about this before.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh, spicy.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So whenever, not every time but the majority of the time when I'm having a meal, my wife maybe she whips up some things or I make a plate of food. We'll just say if it's an omelet and maybe there's some kind of a starchy thing there and then some sauteed spinach, my... And this is before we've ever met or again, I've never talked about this, I'll go right for the veggies first.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Really?
SHAWN STEVENSON: Sauteed veggies, but I'm doing this out of a palate thing because I know that this vegetable isn't going to taste as good after I have the thing that is more...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Okay, you save the best for last.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: You're saving the starches for last.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So, I think it's just like I have this thing that I've trained myself to do this little delayed gratification, but it's also... It's just in a moment we think things are so serious and it's like I got to... My wife is very different, she's going right for the thing that she wants, all right? And then the other stuff will be like, it is a side piece essentially and that's fine, that's a way to go about it, but I've just because I want to enjoy that veggie as well and I know it's going to taste the best when I'm hungriest so that's why I eat that first.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh smart. I see what you mean, yeah, I mean listen its super cool that intuitively or through whatever past programming going on here that you're doing that because your body is going to be thanking you. So that's really awesome. I hear a few people have this habit. I definitely didn't I was like pasta first baby.
SHAWN STEVENSON: You and my wife get along perfectly.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: But now what I do is I try to make my veggie starter like actually good, so I actually enjoy it.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. That's the thing too of course.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Right.
SHAWN STEVENSON: That's the secret with when it comes to...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: That's the secret.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Any kind of vegetables and things like that, it's just like a brussels sprout, me growing up as a kid and seeing a brussels sprout or even having the... Having being forced to eat one.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh, man like boiled...
SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh my.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: And gross.
SHAWN STEVENSON: It's ridiculous, but...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Can I tell you one of my favorite recipes of the veggie starters in the book?
SHAWN STEVENSON: Absolutely.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: It's called backwards broccoli, okay, it takes five minutes to make. It's super cool, so you take a head of broccoli and you chop it really, really, fine like almost like rice and then you put it in a big bowl and then you pour boiling water from a kettle into the broccoli bowl and you leave it for two minutes then you strain it so you drain all the water out, and you plate it on some Greek yogurt and some harissa and you put the broccoli on, backwards broccoli super good veggie starter, it's my new obsession.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, my goodness.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: And in the book, I have all the... So many examples of these easy things you can do so it's not... We're not talking like complicated like 15 ingredients one-hour stuff nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, we're talking like minutes.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Simplicity. We need that.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: We do.
SHAWN STEVENSON: We need that so the final one of these really important glucose management hacks and this one just makes so much sense and it's growing in popularity now, but this is like you're putting the icing on the metaphoric cake with this one, which is to move after eating. Talk about why that's important.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: So, your muscles need energy when they're contracting. And the more they're contracting, the more they're going to need energy and the first place they look for that energy is in free-flowing glucose in your body. And so, in this hack, we just use that to our advantage, the concept is after one of your meals during the day use your muscles for 10 minutes now this can be as easy as walking for 10 minutes as easy as the now famous calf push-up you know this guy the soleus muscle in your calf is really good at soaking up glucose try it, Shawn.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So just...
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: There you go.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Sitting in a chair we're just... If you're just... If you're listening to the audio version even sitting in a chair.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah, and doing calf raises.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And just doing some calf raises.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Exactly.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Toes on the ground.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: And so, this activates your soleus muscle in your calf.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Get those calves mowin’.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah, exactly. So, it can be that it can be cleaning your apartment, walking your dog, doing a dance video, ice skating, I don't know. You can go to the gym, whatever you want. If you do this, your muscles will soak up some of the glucose from the meal you just had. So, it will reduce the spike of that meal without you needing to change. Again, very important, you don't need to change what you're eating, you just add these, and you see a big impact on your energy levels, your cravings, inflammation, etcetera. So that's week four. And by the end of week four, you're now a glucose god, glucose goddess, non-binary deity, whatever. And you're ready. You're on the fast track to study glucose levels. And what I love the most about this book is that I ran a study, well, a pilot experiment, no control group, just a pilot experiment on 2,700 people in October 2022.
As I was writing it, it was a secret experiment. And so, 2,700 people went through the four-week method, just started doing savory breakfast, vinegar, veggie starter movement. And the results have been incredible by just adding these hacks, we have 90% of people reduce their cravings. 70% of people have more energy, 40% of people improve their diabetes numbers, 40% of people improve their hormonal health. The stats are fantastic and it's really approachable and easy to start.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Oh, my goodness, this is so awesome. So, can you let everybody know where they can follow you where they can pick up a copy of the book?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: And just get more into your universe.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: So, the HQ for all things Glucose Goddess are on my Instagram @glucosegoddess. My new book is called the Glucose Goddess Method. It's out May 2nd, and we're all starting the four-week method on May 22nd. So, if you want to join us, that'll be really fun. All you need to do is pre-order the book and come to my Instagram while starting then, I'm really excited.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Where's the best place to pre-order?
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Anywhere you get your books.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Perfect. So, Amazon, Barnes & Noble.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Anywhere. Yeah.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Hit 'em up, get a copy. It's going to be a huge, huge hit. And also, I love the fact it had these really power packed facts. If we are struggling with our mental clarity and brain fog, you're given the stats on that your given some facts, PCOS is a huge issue right now.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Oh, yeah, we didn't even talk about that, but a huge issue.
SHAWN STEVENSON: Menopause, cancer. You're addressing all of these things in the relationship with blood glucose. We just... We're just scratching the surface here.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: We are, we have to do another episode, man...
SHAWN STEVENSON: For sure.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: To go deeper.
SHAWN STEVENSON: So, when you're back in LA or when I come to France. Yes. All right. We'll do this.
JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Again. Thank you so much for having me, Shawn. It was a pleasure.
SHAWN STEVENSON: My pleasure. Thank you so much, Jessie. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for tuning into the show today. So many amazing things happen when you get your BS together. All right. We're talking about blood sugar. Of course, we're talking about reducing our risk of cancer, of diabetes, of Alzheimer's disease, and of things that can be seen as a nuisance for some people. They're deeply imprisoned when battling issues like skin disorders and things of the like, these things that might seem superficial to some folks are controlling how they perceive themselves and the world around them. And so all of these things are deeply influenced by our blood glucose levels. And these are things that we have some dominion over. So, I really hope that you enjoy this conversation and also share this out with your friends and family. You could take a screenshot of this episode and tag me.
I'm @Shawnmodel on Instagram and tag Jessie, she's @Glucosegoddess. Just blow up her inbox, let her know that you love this episode. It's really going to, I'm sure, hit her heart. And most importantly, make sure to pick up a copy of Jessie's new book. It's called The Glucose Goddess Method. And pre-order it right now, because this book is going to fly off the shelves. Right now, you get access to pre-orders so that you are getting this book first as soon as it hits the store shelves. And actually, little fun fact, it actually comes out a little bit earlier when you pre-order the book.
You've got some incredible masterclasses and world class guests coming your way very soon. So, make sure you stay tuned, take care, have an amazing day. I'll talk soon.
And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the modelhealthshow.com That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions, videos for each episode. And if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much. And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful and empowering great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.
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