Do You Know with Dr. Dwain Woode

Embracing Mindful Eating: A Journey to Reverse Diabetes

• Dwain Woode

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Embarking on a transformative health journey with me. I  draw from my skirmishes with stress-eating to illuminate the path toward conquering type 2 diabetes.  I share how embracing mindful eating and fasting becomes a game-changer, offering insights into how these practices can reverse insulin resistance. By adopting the H.E.A.T. acronym—habits, emotions, access, and taste—we peel back the layers of our eating behaviors and discover the power of connecting deeply with our body's hunger cues.

Mindfulness, often sidelined in our fast-paced world, takes center stage in our fight against diabetes. I invite you to explore the art of mindful eating with me, from pausing to appreciate the symphony of flavors in our meals to recognizing the subtle difference between satisfaction and fullness. It's not just about what we eat but how we eat, as we celebrate community triumphs like Jennifer's 88-pound weight loss and the collective strides we've made in mastering fasting. Our gathering is not just a place for stories but a sanctuary for encouragement, education, and empowerment.

As the host of this health odyssey, I'm thrilled to share the progress of our community members who, like Jennifer, have transformed their relationship with food and fasting. Get ready to mark your calendars for a mid-March Zoom session where we'll continue to bolster one another on this journey. Together, we are reshaping our lives, conquering health challenges, and opening doors to a future brimming with potential. Join me, and let's stride confidently into this promising new year with the wisdom and camaraderie that make our community thrive.

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Dwain Woode:

We are focusing on adults with type two diabetes. That's what we do here, and we're working on reversing diabetes. And today we have an amazing show, an amazing conversation that comes on the heels of all that we've been talking about, right, we've been talking about what do we need to do to put diabetes and remission, and today we're talking about a very important, a very significant topic that enhances diabetes management and that is mindful eating. That's where we're going to be, you know. Can I tell you that I was fed up? Can I tell you that I was tired? I did not know what to do. As I got into those last years, I found myself frustrated because of the change that had happened in my life. So, if you don't know the story, I had moved from doing computer science and decided I was going back to medical school, and so I had to go back and I had to take all of those classes, you know, the organic chemistry and the biochemistry and all the stuff that I didn't do in college because I had been a math and computer science major. And I'll tell you it was tough and as I made it through medical school and got into residency and would have to, for four years, show up at the hospital and put the things that were going on in my life aside so that I can be present for patients, so I can be present for learning, so I can be present for all the things that needed to be done in residency. And then finally y'all, fellowship, fellowship, two years of fellowship and learning, all the while to take care of people who had diabetes, people who have thyroid disease, people who were struggling with other metabolic disorders, and all the time during the process of going through medical school and going through residency and going through fellowship. Guess how I dealt with the stress? That's right, I ate. And when I finished fellowship, I remember one of the faculty members saying to me Dwayne, we're concerned about you.

Dwain Woode:

At that time, y'all I was about 280 pounds. I had not learned what it meant to take the time to deal with those things in my life effectively. I had made it through medical school, I had gotten into residency, I had become chief resident of my program, I had finished the program and now I was doing a fellowship and I was leaving fellowship and was now opening up a practice. I had made it, but I had not learned some of those skills that I needed to learn to effectively manage my diabetes, to effectively manage my health. Tonight, we're going to embark on a process that will help. It's called mindful eating. If you're new to me, I'm Dr Dwayne Wood. That's Wood with an E the E stands for endocrinology.

Dwain Woode:

Here on the channel, I educate, I empower and I encourage you to take charge of your health, your life, avoid complications and go to the next level. We're creating the life we've always wanted and in this year 2024, our new theme is New Year, new Year. The last couple of weeks have been talking about our plan so very. The first thing that we did was we decided that we wanted to evaluate why we want to be healthy, why do we want to reverse diabetes? You know that's our first show we introduced we introduced our fasting as one of the keys to what we're going to be doing, one of the biggest tools that we are using, and that is the fasting, and I have had a lot of you who sent me messages, sent me questions about fasting. In fact, one of our one of the one of our viewers sent me a message just yesterday, said that she had completed her 24-hour fast and her blood sugars have not been above 120 off of her medication, yeah, so she wanted to know hey, when do I restart the medication? Right? So that's the question that we'll answer.

Dwain Woode:

Then we talked about the heat, right? The reasons that people go to food, that is, habits, emotions, access and taste. We talked about the effect of hormones on our bodies. We talked about medications that we need to try to get off of and medications that we just try to get on that can help us bridge the gap. So that's where we've been going, and, as we move through this process, there is something that is so important that we need to begin learning how to do, and we need to begin learning how to manage, how to listen to our bodies.

Dwain Woode:

Fasting is not just about, hey, let's fast, so we get those that instantly level down. It is a big way to do that. It is a major way to do it. In fact, it's probably the biggest way to do it. But during the process of fasting, there are some things that we need to be learning. Mindfulness is going to assist us, and not just during fasting, but also as we are eating. So what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is a transformative approach. It's an ancient practice that emphasizes the importance of being intensely aware of what we're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. It's something that's old and in fact, when you, if you well, let me say it this way Let me say it this way If you watch those old time karate movies and I'm a big old time karate movie you know, buff, when I was a kid we watched movies like the Five Deadly Venom.

Dwain Woode:

That, by the way, is my favorite karate movie, the Five Deadly Venom. If you've not watched it, you know I have no affiliations with the movie, but that was a big one. Okay, but karate movies and karate movies, a lot of times you'll see, you know they'll go up to a monastery and you'll see some monks or you'll see, you remember, david Carradine, carradine, carradine, however you pronounce it. Yes, I'm that old Right, and one of the things that I used to love watching those movies is that they would meditate and I thought they were actually just meditating, right to quiet themselves.

Dwain Woode:

But if you go back and you watch those movies and you read anything about how, in the monasteries, the monks work, what they're really doing is they were in the process of being in tune with their bodies. They were learning what the body was saying and often and often, they were so in tune with what was going on in their body they could do those amazing feats that you saw in the movies. Now, in the movies, you know, they kind of overemphasize some of those feats. Now there are. There are real life, real live people who practice karate and nijitsu and all of those arts that are able to do things in their body that the rest of us would think, oh my god, all right, that's supernatural. But the reason they were able to do that is not that it's supernatural, but they were so in tune with their body.

Dwain Woode:

So we talk about mindfulness. Mindfulness is that art of sensing and feeling what you are going through, what the body is saying in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Now, that last part, right there, interpretation of judgment or judgment is very important and and you know, I, you know I've said so many times on this show that we got to come back and do a show on a particular thing. One of the things that we've got to begin learning and working with in a show on is this thing that's up here, because everything that we see, everything that we do, everything that we think, is an interpretation of what the mind gives us At any one time. There are thousands of signals that are coming at us and our brains can't process all of that, and so it really basically takes those signals and it filters them, summarizes them and it gives us what we then think is our reality. And the reality that we have, the reality that we come up with after we get all those signals, is based on the, the, the upbringing that we've had, our past experiences, our memories, our emotions. Those are the things that change and alter the perception of what we see. Okay, Let me give you an example.

Dwain Woode:

I was recently in a conversation. I came into a conversation and, as the person was talking to me, right, I started getting upset and I was sitting there and you know, have you ever had those? This situation where you're, you're, you're kind of talking in your head? It's almost like somebody's talking, and I was talking in my head and in my head I'm saying to myself okay, you're getting upset, you're getting irritated, you've got a choice Now. The person didn't change what they were saying, they didn't change how they were saying it, in fact, they were very loud and in that moment I had to make a decision, and the decision I made was okay, let me just back down, back off I shouldn't make back down because I wasn't saying anything at the time and let me just listen and as I listened and as I allowed the person to speak, my anger and my irritation began decreasing and we finished the conversation, actually had a pretty pleasant conversation, and we ended and came to an agreement. And then I went over to talk to my wife and I said to her I said, hey, let me tell you this story Now. I want you to notice that nothing changed in what the other person was saying or doing. What changed was this, and so our interpretation, or our reality I guess I should say that way Our reality is based on our interpretation of a particular thing.

Dwain Woode:

So when we're looking at our bodies, when we're feeling what's going on in our bodies, we want to feel it without interpreting it. As we talked several weeks ago about heat, h, e, a, t remember, that's our acronyms for those things, those triggers that make us eat, our habits, our emotions, our access and our taste, those emotions that are there, they are the things that push us. Based on, let's just say they are, all of those things are things that push us in a direction based on our interpretation and our judgment. So, when we're talking about mindful, being mindful, we are trying to interpret what's going on in our body or not interpret. We're trying to sense what's going on in our body and we're trying to listen to what the body is saying to us. Okay, so that's mindfulness, mindfulness.

Dwain Woode:

Well, the question is, what effect does modern life have on us? All, right, so we have these external and internal factors that influence blood sugars. We talked about that, right, those hormones that come in. We don't sleep well, so our blood sugars go up. We get upset, blood sugars go up, we're happy, we're sad, right? All those things that push us in a direction. And our modern life is characterized by constant busyness and, of course, these digital distraction. As a result, we become disconnected and we eat. We develop these habits where we're sitting eating and we're on the phone, we're sitting eating, we're watching TV, we're sitting eating and we're doing something else, right, and this disconnection caused unchecked stress and it neglects our physical cues. So so, even though we're eating or even though we're doing other things, as it relates to food and blood sugars, we're not aware of what the body is saying to us, and this can exacerbate our diabetic conditions. So, during the process of fasting, for example, our goal is not just to stay away from the food. Our goal is during the process of fasting. We're now listening, we're being mindful and we're seeing what is the body saying to me.

Dwain Woode:

I told you the story of several weeks ago when I was, when I was fasting, I was getting ready to break my fast, if you guys remember that. And when I was getting ready to break the fast, I was actually thinking about the food I hadn't eaten for the last three days. I wasn't hungry, but I was thinking, man, when I get home, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna write the latest food out because I had collected it. Y'all See, that's the bad thing I had collected. I shouldn't say bad thing. That's the thing I had collected it in anticipation of when I broke the fast. So I was gonna go back and eat that. Think about this the process of going through the fast was with the intention that I was decreasing some of the calories I was putting in because I wanted to decrease our in my insulin. But yet in the process of going through the fast, I was planning to recoup, if you will right. I was planning to get all that stuff back and go ahead and eat it. So it's amazing.

Dwain Woode:

But listening to your body, listening to what the body is saying you during the fast, is something that we are going to be talking about, and it's one of the things that we have to learn. I was telling somebody in the office today that we can get better blood sugars, we can lose weight, we can improve our health, we can reverse insulin resistance, we can decrease our chances of coronary artery disease and all those things, but what happens is we never learn during the process of getting better. We don't learn what are the things we have to do to maintain where we are, and so this mindfulness, mindful eating, is one of those things. So, as you're fasting, as you're going through the fast, what you should be doing is learning.

Dwain Woode:

What is my body telling me? What is the thing that's actually pulling me to eat? Because I know I'm not hungry. I know I have enough energy stored up in the fat cells that I have that can sustain me. So why am I being pulled to eat that particular food? Am I tired? Am I frustrated? Am I happy? Did something wonderful just happen and I feel it. Well, I'm going to celebrate, right, because we do that. Ah, you know, I fasted 24 hours. Okay, I'm going to celebrate with some ice cream. I achieved that weight loss. I'm going to celebrate. Okay, what is it that my body is telling? What is it that your body is telling you that you need to listen to? Right? So, the effect of modern life. And then what about diabetes?

Dwain Woode:

So, for people navigating the complexity of diabetes management, mindfulness transcends mere stress reduction. Now, mindfulness is a great stress reducer, right? The things we talked about last week, all of those can be improved if we are mindful, if we're listening, if we and we'll talk here in a few minutes about some of the things you can do. But beyond that, for the person who is managing diabetes, it is a bridge right to cultivate profound intuitive connections with your physical self and the decisions that sculpt your life daily. There are decisions that we make that are not mindful, like we haven't considered it, we haven't thought about it, we don't know how we feel about it, or or here's a, here's a big one. We do know how we feel about it and we subjugate it, we press it down, we don't allow that feeling to come up because, oh, that's a bad fee. I shouldn't be thinking that way Now your, your brain, your body will take in a signal, take in a cue, take in something that's happening and it will interpret it based on how you are, all the things we talked about, how you were raised, your memories and so forth, the, the, the feeling that you get, the emotion that you get.

Dwain Woode:

Nobody can tell you how to feel. The question is, what do you do with it? And often we don't allow ourselves to feel it enough to then begin doing something with it because, oh, that's bad, so I'm just gonna push it back. Now, you know what happens. You may push it back there, you may put it in the back burner, you may put it in the back of your mind, but it's still there and at some point it's coming back out.

Dwain Woode:

So this mindfulness is that connection. It bridges the gap between where you are and where we want to be, Because there are all these decisions that we make every day that are going to affect how we manage our blood sugars. And if we're putting diabetes in remission, if we're reversing diabetes, we have to learn the things that we need to be able to do this forever and ever and ever right, for the rest of our lives. That's where we're heading. That's what we're doing. So, once again, it is a bridge for what what we're doing? So, when we talk about mindfulness, so adopting this mindfulness paradigm, people right, people with diabetes, people who are have metabolic syndrome, right, they are we encourage them to inhabit their bodies fully, to recognize and honor the signals, recognize and honor the feelings, the emotions, the states that you find themselves in, or you find yourselves in the subtle effects of food.

Dwain Woode:

Man, I'm going to tell you something. So there's this person who works in my office I hope she's watching right now, okay, and we are candy hollocks together. We're candy hollocks and just the other day she was in the office and she was eating some gummy bears and I, y'all, I smelled. I just smelled the gummy bear, I smelled the flavor as she was walking by and my memory, just it just flooded back. So there are all these little nuances that go on every day A smell, a taste, a touch, right, some fleeting memory.

Dwain Woode:

There are all these things that happen that we don't pay attention to. It's almost like it's almost like living in the city and you don't see the stars. And you don't see the stars because it's so bright, but if there's a power outage, all of a sudden, the stars are there and you're like man, when did those stars show up? Well, they didn't just show up. They've been there. You just have not seen them right, because other things have been obscuring them. The other things were calling more to you. And the same thing here, because there are so many things that are going on, often we don't see, we don't feel, we're not able to sense because there are so many things in our lives that are pulling at us. And so during the process of fasting, during the process of mindful eating, we get to take care of that, we get to look at it.

Dwain Woode:

Studies have shown that there is potential I shouldn't say potential. There is benefit to mindfulness, the things that aggregate or aggravate our blood sugars. But when we are mindful, when we are centered, then this is more conducive for better health. If you've not done so, by the way, we did a series that was called Living from the Center, the Art of Living from the Center, the Art of being Balanced. So this is not just hocus pocus.

Dwain Woode:

Mindfulness practices encourage slowing down, a deliberate pause, if you will. That allows individuals to make more conscious choices about nutrition, physical activity, medication, adherence. When we're mindful, we're able to do that. This heightens your awareness. When you are mindful, it allows you to feel, to know, to understand better what's going on in your body and that, in turn, helps you deal with H E, a, t, habits, emotions, access and taste, so that you can make choices, quality choices, to help with what you need to do in order to be healthy. So let's talk about a couple of things. Let's talk about some techniques that you can use, and so there are three that I want to talk about, techniques that we can use to improve health. So mindful breathing, body scans and then mindful eating, and, of course, mindful eating is what we're talking about here today. So mindful breathing, body scans and mindful eating.

Dwain Woode:

So mindful breathing involves focusing your attention on the natural rhythm of your breath. There is a natural in and out that happens right. You observe each inhalation and exhalation, you anchor yourself in the present moment, and this effectively reduces stress and anxiety. If you're paying attention to your breathing, then your brain begins paying attention to that. So things that are stressful around you they don't go away, but your body begins interpreting those in a different way because now it's concentrating on something else. It reduces stress and anxiety. Mindful breathing acts as a bridge to tranquility. It slows down the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that lead to stress induced glucose fluctuations, because remember we said that stress is the body's way of saying hey, you got to get ready to deal with something. That's dangerous. The way it does that, it floods you full of hormones. Those hormones go and they find energy, and energy in the body is called sugar. So by paying attention to breathing, we divert the body's attention from the stressful event, from forming those stressful times, from trying to get more energy to deal with that stressful event. It begins slowing that down and so blood sugars get better. Even a few moments of mindful breathing can serve as a powerful tool to reset and refocus.

Dwain Woode:

In the office I actually sometimes will have people do that, sometimes will have people do that. I'll say to them close your eyes and I want you to think and do this with me right now. If you're watching, if you're on the replay, go ahead and do this. I want you to close your eyes and I'd like you to think about a memory, a place where you've been that was pleasant, a vacation, a time when you were with your family, a time when you were happy, when you were joyous, when you weren't in pain but you were just enjoying yourself. I want you to feel it If you were at the beach. I want you to feel the breeze as it goes over your skin. If you're in your car, I want you to feel the wind as it blows through your hair or over across your face. If you're sitting in a home around a table, I want you to imagine the faces of the people that are there. Then now I want you to listen. I want you to take a big, deep breath in and breathe out, in and out. I want you to pay attention as to how long it takes you to take that breath in and how long it takes you to breathe it out. Breathe in and breathe out. I don't want you to count it, but I just want you to feel it as the air goes through your lips and out, as it comes through your nose, through your mouth, in and out.

Dwain Woode:

Now we're going to pause right there. If you take that process that we just did, and you do that for a couple of moments now you may be sitting there. You're like, well, that doesn't work, that didn't work for me. If you take that process and you practice it, you will be surprised at how just those few moments that we just did can enhance and improve your stress level. It can enhance your ability to deal with the stress, and every little bit that we do y'all helps to decrease the stress and decrease sugar. Remember, our process of decreasing sugar is not just we want to deal with the sugar, because the reason we're doing that is the less glucose we have in our body, the less insulin we're having, because the body doesn't need that much insulin anymore and the insulin is the issue. That's what we're trying to decrease Now. I heard some popping going on, so I think some folks have joined us or people are doing some comments. We're going to pause there for a minute. We'll come back. We'll talk about the rest. Let's see who we have.

Dwain Woode:

Jennifer says I made a rule for myself of not eating in the car. Stop those drive-through issues. I love it. Jennifer says I'm from Nebraska. Where's everyone else from? I love it. Jennifer's asking hey, where is everybody from? I am, as you know, jennifer. I'm in Huntsville. Jeff says my insurance offers an app Headspace which has a breathing and body scan Great to lower blood pressure. I love it, yeah, yeah.

Dwain Woode:

Jennifer said breathing isn't anything focused on really relaxing, jennifer. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. Okay, so breathing, breathing in, breathing out. Teresa says she's from Georgia. Hey, teresa, yeah, we used to live in Georgia at one time. Jeff says he's in the. Oh, jeff is in Nebraska, lincoln, nebraska. Glad that you. Yeah, jennifer, thank you for asking everybody where they're from. I love that. I love that. Okay, all right.

Dwain Woode:

So breathing breathing, one of those things that we don't often think about. Okay, so breathing, very, very important. Well, so continuing, right. So let's take a look at what this next thing is that we want to look at. So breathing, right. So mindful breathing. The next is body scans, body scans. So, body scans encourages a sequential awareness of the body. So we just talked about breathing. So one right. The very first thing we want to do is okay, we're going to breathe, we're going to pay attention to our breath, because when we're paying attention to our breath, our body doesn't focus on all the other things that are going on. Pay attention to our breath.

Dwain Woode:

This is a sequential monitoring of what's going on in the body, starting from the toes and moving gradually to the top of the head. Okay, when, several years ago, I was with my counselor and he would ask. He would say something, or he would have me tell him a story, or he would have me relay some event that had happened, or he'd ask me or put a situation and then he would say to me where do you feel that Like? What part of your body does that come in? Where does it sit? So, when you're tired, I'm asking you guys right now, when you're tired, when you're anxious, what part of your body does that sit in? Is your head hot? Is your ears hot? Are your ears hot? Do they feel like they're ringing? Is your heart moving fast? Is it fluttering? Have you ever noticed that sometimes, when you get anxious, when you finally start to try to calm down, you realize that you're breathing fast, yeah, yeah.

Dwain Woode:

So body scan says hey, I'm going to become aware now of every part of my body. What is going on in the different parts of my body? I'm going to start from my toes. What are my toes feeling? How about the rest of my? The bottoms of my feet, the top of my feet, my ankles, my shin, my thighs, my knees right? Where are my hips feeling? What's going on in my stomach Right? And we kind of work our way up throughout the body.

Dwain Woode:

Now, the process of doing this helps you now to be able if you're consistent with it once again, we're going to give you a challenge here in a little while. If you're consistent with this, y'all right. You begin now learning what different parts of your body feels like, or what it feels like when certain things happen. Are you feeling tense, right? What are the sensations? Is it warm? Is it cold? Do you feel some tension? Is it relaxing? Right? And we're not trying to change it at this point. All we're trying to do is trying to become aware of what the body's telling us.

Dwain Woode:

So body scans enhances our awareness. It reveals how stress and emotions manifest in our bodies physically, because right now, for most of us, we think it's all up in our head and in our heart, right, that's it. Oh yeah, Stress can cause headaches, stress can cause nosebleeds, stress can cause pain. Stress can cause sleeplessness. Stress can definitely cause high blood sugars, right? So regularly practicing this leads to a greater awareness of what the body's needs are and how the body responds to various things. Yep, yep, yep, right.

Dwain Woode:

Mindful breathing, body scans and then, of course, what we're talking about tonight, and that is mindful eating, mindful eating. So mindful eating transforms your meals into an exercise of mindfulness by fully engaging with the act of eating. I want you to say that again. Right, it transforms that experience into an exercise of mindfulness and it helps you to fully engage when you're eating. Most of us, like Jennifer was saying, right, she doesn't eat in the car anymore, but a lot of times we eat in the car. We go to the drive-through, we get the food and we start eating and we're not aware actually sometimes of how much we eat because we're eating doing something else. So, in the mindful eating, we want to notice the food colors, the smells, the textures, the flavors. Right, we want to chew, slowly, settle down, let it settle, put your utensils down and enjoy the experience. It enhances the dining experience and it forces a deeper connection with your body, because if you're just rushing through, you don't know what that stuff feels like. Right, it hits your lips and then it's gone.

Dwain Woode:

What does it feel like when you swallow it? What is the sensation? What is the thing that you like? Now, I don't have a bottle of Diet Coke because I drink. No, hey, hands up. And when I think about soda, right, or pop, wherever you come from, when I drink it, it's that burn that you get in the back of your throat and I didn't realize that until I started paying attention. I'm like, what is it really about? This thing that has taken me by storm. And at the time it wasn't the Diet Coke, by the way, it was like for real, for real drink. But is that burn that I got? And I would not have known that had I not taken the time to be mindful and listen and feel when I drink juice.

Dwain Woode:

I drink juice I think I've told the story here before and then it hits the back of my throat and I could feel and I like, like nectars and punch right, so I don't like I'll drink it, but I don't like thin. You know how they like watery juice. I like kind of something with a little bit more body, but that feel of it kind of going to the back of my throat, the sweetness that goes with it, sometimes a little bit of sour, right, but I like really, really sweet stuff and just the act of that going down right and just feeling and tasting and the sweetness and across the tongue and all of that, that entire experience I had to learn when I drank stuff. That's what I was looking for, that's the feeling, that's the taste, that's what I was looking for, that's what I wanted. And then the question is why.

Dwain Woode:

That's a whole other conversation, right, but being mindful allows us to find these things out about ourselves. In this case, we're talking about mindfully eating, but it allows us to find out why it is that certain things, certain foods, do these different things to us. How does our body respond to it? And mindful eating can, of course, prevent overeating. It promotes better blood sugar control, right, by encouraging smaller, more intentional portions.

Dwain Woode:

Now, you're going to always go back and get more, but when you're mindfully eating, you're like, okay, let me get this. Well, let me anticipate, or not anticipate, but let me sense what's going on in my body, let me feel it. And you enjoy the experience of that food much more, and the likelihood of eating more comfort food goes down, because the food that you ate was satisfying, because you enjoyed it. And so then now, how do we create, y'all, a mindful eating practice? And here are some things that I want to go over. Mindfully eating practice you want to pause before we begin to eat, get the food sit down and pause. This means, then. This means, then, that you have to have your schedule together so that you're sitting down and you're not just grabbing stuff in the car. You're not just hey, let me eat this cookie on the way home, let me eat these things late at night, but you're sitting down to have a meal and you're going to pause. Hey, I'm about to eat. I'm going to take a moment in our home. In our home, we pray before we eat.

Dwain Woode:

Engage your senses as you're eating. What does it taste like? What does it feel like? Do I like the crunchiness? Do I like the sweet? Do I like what is it? What does it feel like going down as I swallow, eat slowly, right. Sometimes in modern day, we like two chews, and it's gone. In the old days, they used to tell us to chew a lot. I don't think I ever did that. I don't know how many times did they used to tell us to chew. By the way, if you guys remember how many times was that? Chew it before you swallow. Then listen to your body.

Dwain Woode:

One of the things that we have to learn during the process of fasting, for example, is what does it feel like to be full? Most of us have no idea what full feel like, or satisfied I shouldn't say full. What does it feel like to be satisfied? Because what we do is we eat so fast that it packs the stomach, and the stomach most of us think that it has to be tense before we are full. I was talking to a lady the other day, and we were talking about hunger.

Dwain Woode:

The sensation of hunger is actually an interesting thing. Most of the time, what we feel is not hunger. People say well, my stomach is growling. Well, your stomach is growling because it's used to having stuff in it. When it doesn't have anything in it, it growls. That doesn't mean, though, that you're hungry. It just means your stomach is empty. A lady said to me that, hey, if I don't eat, I get a headache. Well, you probably get a headache because your body is used to having a certain level of blood sugar. It's used to having that high octane sweets running through your blood. When it drops below that, then the body responds with a headache. That doesn't mean, though, that you need the food to avoid the headache. That just means that we need to get to the point where our body is not used to having such high sweets, such high glycemic foods.

Dwain Woode:

Next, eliminate distractions. That means turn off the TV, don't have your phone, like at our house, there's a rule you can't have your phone at the table while we're eating. We go out to a restaurant. We don't have the phone. We don't use the phone. Eliminate distractions. Don't do puzzles while you're eating. Mindfully select your food. Mindfully select your food. Look at what those or, as you're thinking about what we're going to eat, then you want to make sure that you're looking at the things that are going to be healthy for you. Don't, for instance, go shopping when you're hungry.

Dwain Woode:

Then reflect on the eating experience. Reflect on the eating experience. What was it like? One great place to do that is if you're coming off of a fast. If you're coming off of a fast, you've already gone through and you've thought about all the things that have been going on in your body. You're sensing, you're doing the body scan. You can do this when you're not eating as well, because you're feeling that. You've done the body scan, you've done the breathing, you know now how certain parts of your body respond to different signals. Now you've eaten, you've had that experience of eating, you've done the mindful eating, and then reflect, get your journal out and write down.

Dwain Woode:

Okay, this is what I felt like. This is what it felt like to have something, taste something, for the first time in 24 hours. This is what the crunchiness was like. This is what my stomach felt like. This is what my head felt like. This is what my body was telling me. This is what my brain said as I was eating it.

Dwain Woode:

If you look at the fast that I did on, let's see, wednesday, friday, when I ended my fast, y'all I was eating some beans. They were pinto beans, and when I ate those, you can watch it, you can see in my eyes and in my voice. It was so good. I had not had pinto beans like that before. They were good, y'all they were good. So reflect on all of that so that you know what was going on during that time. Love it, love it, love it. So that is our mindful eating. Mindful eating, and we're creating a mindful eating practice. Creating a mindful eating practice.

Dwain Woode:

We'll come back to this diagram in a few minutes because I have something I want to say there. Alright, let's see what else we got. So Jeff said Jennifer says Jeff, hey, we're neighbors, that's right. You guys are both in Nebraska. Jeff says my wife's name is Jennifer oh, isn't that cool. Jennifer says great name and Jennifer says I need a texture with a crunch. Until I've had a crunch, I'll still want it. I plan on something with a crunch.

Dwain Woode:

Fresh celery is a constant in the house. I love that. I love that. So, jennifer, isn't that? I love that. You know that. I love that. You know that. You know why. Why I love that? You know that? Because you don't have to keep searching for that feeling. You know, okay, until I get that crunch, this is not going away. So you've said, hey, I'm going to have celery. Celery gives me the crunch. I love that. I love that. You know that.

Dwain Woode:

For me, sometimes I'll just have carbonated. I used to drink like carbonated water to get that burn. But I've resorted to drinking like Diet Coke, diet Coke and to get that burn. And I know that about myself. I used to, and in the office, right, everybody knew, hey, with Dr Wood's stress, get him some orange juice. Because, once again, remember, orange juice is has that little, it's, it's thicker than some other things. And just that feeling, that flavor. It wasn't even the flavor, was the feeling, the coldness. Now here's another thing that I've learned Like if I put take water and I put it in the refrigerator, in the freezer and it gets just before you form those icicles. And I drink that. Sometimes I get that same sensation in the back. So it's actually not even the fizz is just that almost numb, burning feeling in the back of my throat.

Dwain Woode:

Jeff says pork rinds instead of potato chips. For me, I'm pork rinds instead of potato chips. I love it, I love it, I love it. So that is y'all. That is what we do with mindful eating.

Dwain Woode:

Now let's hop over and let's do a couple of things really quickly, so that you can see where I am. Let me do this. I'm going to show you what my that's what my dexcom says my blood sugar is. And we're going to go ahead because I want to see. I have not checked my ketones since I well, I checked it the day after I fasted, but I haven't checked it since then. I want to see what that is. But right now I'm going to check my blood sugar, and today I brought a different kind of Lancet. This is one that we use in the office, which is pretty cool. You just screw this part off. Well, actually, I think I just messed it up. Yeah, that's supposed to come out and see if it works. Yeah, it does, all right. And then you get your drop of blood. See what that shows.

Dwain Woode:

While that's working, I'm going to go ahead and open up the keto strip, and so 100 is what that says, and in a minute we'll see what my Libre says. That one in there and another drop of blood, all right, what do you think? It's going to be like 0.5 or less, 0.7, actually pretty good. So that shows I'm still in therapeutic ketosis, y'all All right. Remember, for ketones there are ranges. So 0.5, so less than 0.5 is normal. 0.5 to about 1.1.5 is therapeutic and above 1.5 is what's considered sorry. 0.5 to 1.5 is nutritional ketosis and above that is therapeutic ketosis. Let's see what my Libre says. My Libre says that 79, which is closer to what the ketomozio meter says.

Dwain Woode:

Let me hop back over here and I want to pull up my ketomozio app because I always wanted you to see what that glucose ketone index is showing. So let's pop this up, let's do that one right there and it's sinking, so it's pulling all that data in. And so there we are 100 for the blood sugar, 0.9 for the ketones and 7.9 is our GKI. And then here is where our blood sugars are. So that's the 100. And notice, as blood sugars go up, ketones go down. So that's kind of the pattern that you guys know already. So when my ketones were high over here, that was because my blood sugar was low and my body was using ketones to run itself. And as the blood sugars, as I start eating, the blood sugars rise and the insulin goes up and so my ketones go away. But y'all, y'all I'm so happy, I'm so happy that you were able to come and hang out with me tonight.

Dwain Woode:

We continue. We continue the quest to reverse our diabetes. Put our diabetes in remission, eliminate some of the medication that you're on, reverse insulin resistance, deal with our obesity, decrease our risk for coronary artery disease, improve our non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, polycystic over insulin syndrome, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. All of that improves y'all as we do what we're doing right here. So, as always, our ask, our ask, is this Number one right?

Dwain Woode:

We are ending the month of November, of February, we're ending the month of February, and the task for this month was to work your way so you could be able to fast one day a week for 24 hours, one day a week for 24 hours. If you've been able to do that, you can drop that in the comments, right? Say yes, right, drop that in the comments. If you've been able to do that 24 hours, that challenge does not go away after the month of February. Right, that is now a part of your routine, right? So 24 hours once a week is what we're planning. I'm gonna continue doing my 72 hours, so we'll start that on Wednesday of this week and we'll be doing those check-ins, right? So that's number one. 24 hours a day or 24 hour period once a week, that's your challenge.

Dwain Woode:

Number two I want you to show up here. You guys know that it is hard when you think that you're by yourself, and there are so many people that are out there right now who are struggling with their disease, with their diabetes, with medication, with complications of medications, and they think they are by themselves here. I want you to show up and, as you comment, as you let us know what you're doing, what's working for you, what's not working for you. I wanna hear that and the people that are coming on want to hear that as well. If you're watching this on the replay, you can also go ahead and drop in the comments, where you are, what you're working on, what you're struggling with All the things that we've done so far in the course of this year. That's our path. If you're watching this, if you've watched that, if you're catching us for the first time, that's the path. There's no mystery in what we're doing. Go back and watch those videos. If you are watching us right now, if you're here on the line, if you're here watching the live and you're like, well, I'm not quite sure what this other thing was, go back and watch those, because that's the playbook, y'all.

Dwain Woode:

Jeff, I wanna give a shout out to Jeff and Jeff I think it was I forgot which show we were doing. I think we were doing the fasting and I was saying the fasting improves blood sugars, decreases insulin, decreases A1C, and Jeff said hey, is it cheating if you fast right before you go see your doctor? And I said to Jeff yes, I said no, it's not cheating. That is the cheat code and y'all what we've been doing. This is the cheat code. If you're old enough to remember, we used to play video games right Up, up down, down side side, right, all that stuff, right? That's the cheat code. So I want to give you the cheat code and that's what we're working on as we move through. So come back and share, right, Community right I got on my shirt tonight right, educate, empower and encourage, and that encouragement is from the community.

Dwain Woode:

This community grows, the community gets better. This show, this channel, is better because of you, because of what you pour into it and how you interact with us. And then, finally, I want you to make sure that you invite somebody to come join us. Let them know that this is a place where they can come and they can be successful. That that's what we're working on. Send them a link, send them the playlist, send them to our website so that they will be able to get here and so they can improve their lives.

Dwain Woode:

There are 37 million people in the United States with diabetes, between 430 and 460 million people around the world that have diabetes. In the United States, there are 88 or more million people that have pre-diabetes. These are people that are overweight, metabolic syndrome, polycystic oren syndrome, hypertension, coronary artery disease. You can be someone that helps them to get better, so go ahead and do that. So that is, as you know, that's always my ask as we get to the show.

Dwain Woode:

And then tonight, I want you to go back and as you are practicing your mindful eating. This is the list. This is what I want you to do. I want you to incorporate this. You go back and watch it and I know I say I'm gonna do a PDF. The reason I have not done that is I have not found a place to just deposit all of them yet. I'll be working on that this week so that we can do this and so that you can have access to it. So this is your mindful eating practice that I want you to create, and begin using this during your fasts, during your time of eating, so that we can become aware of where we are.

Dwain Woode:

As always, you can find more information on our website. One of the things I do want to point out is our blog and the blog. We've got lots of information that we put out there y'all. What is the impact of hormones on diabetes management? So that's based on the show we did last week, but lots of different things that are out there understanding, overcoming food triggers. So the blog is always something that's related to, or amplifies or enhances the things that we do here on the show. Let's see.

Dwain Woode:

I think I heard some comments coming in. Jennifer said I'm here to learn how to eat for health. I started last March and have lost 88 pounds so far. Have more to go. Jennifer, yay, yes, yes. ["the Last March"]. Awesome. Dmitri said no sound again. Hopefully the sound is back. Thank you. Jennifer said sound is back. Yes, I'll work on that, get that done.

Dwain Woode:

Jennifer said good night, jeff, teresa, steve, dmitri, yes, yes, I fasted one time for 24 hours. Yes, thank you for you, teresa. Jennifer said Teresa, how are you? Jennifer said Teresa, how was it? Teresa said it felt great. Just have to do it more. Yes, so remember, our goal is once a week. She said I was doing intermittent fasting for some time.

Dwain Woode:

Jennifer says awesome, my first fast didn't go well, but my last two have been better. Just finished a 36-hour fast. Ah, jennifer, ["the Last March"]. And then Teresa says awesome, jennifer, I hope to get there. Oh, definitely, definitely, remember, it is a, it's progress. Y'all right, progress is what we're working on and we will get there. We get there together and, as always, everybody, thank you for being here. So we are.

Dwain Woode:

This is our final show for this month and in the month of March in the month of March it's probably going to be the second week in March we will do a special Zoom where we can all get on the Zoom and I'll put it out so you can sign up for that. Get on the Zoom so we can actually talk to each other verbally. You can ask questions, you can tell what's been going on with you verbally so that we can all together move in the same direction. So we'll be putting that link out. It's going to be mid-March and we'll get that set and let you know when that comes out. So keep an eye out for that. In the middle of March there's going to be our special Zoom for the viewers. You can come on and we can have a good time together.

Dwain Woode:

This is Dr Dwayne Wood. That's Wood with an E. The E stands for Endocrinology. Here on the channel, I educate, I empower and I encourage you to take charge of your health, take charge of your life, avoid complications and go to the next level, creating the life you always wanted. And for this year y'all New Year, new Year. You.

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