Do You Know with Dr. Dwain Woode
Dr. Dwain Woode invites you on a journey to transform your life, health, and mindset on this dynamic podcast. As a medical doctor, he understands diseases of the body and mind. As a life and wellness coach, he knows how to help you achieve your goals. He provides the education, empowerment, and encouragement needed for you to take charge of your well-being and realize the life you have always dreamed of living. Do You Know is a groundbreaking podcast that combines an engaging style with scientifically backed strategies to add to daily life. Get insight into proven methods to improve your health and gain control over your life, allowing you to reach your true potential. Whatever stage of wellness you're currently in, this podcast has something for you! Take the steps necessary for success today by listening in, where each episode promises to break down complex topics in a straightforward way that is easy to understand and even easier to apply to everyday life. Go from simply knowing what you must do to getting it done with Dr. Dwain Woode's transformative podcast!
Do You Know with Dr. Dwain Woode
Lifestyle Reboot for the Diabetic Journey
Have you ever found yourself off the wellness wagon, especially with diabetes management? You're not alone. As the calendar flips to May, it's time to lace up those proverbial sneakers and get back on track. I'll share a slice of my life where disrupted dinner plans with my wife shed light on the importance of flexibility and resilience in diabetes care. We'll explore the common hurdles that throw us off our game and discuss why grasping the cause of our stumbles is the first step towards regaining control.
Setbacks can feel like roadblocks, but I firmly believe in transforming them into opportunities for growth. At the heart of our discussion, we unpack the power of S.M.A.R.T. goals and the art of self-compassion. It's not just about bouncing back; it's about doing so with a support system that cheers for every small but mighty win. From combating late-night cravings to embracing mindful eating, I'll share practical tools that have been game-changers in my journey with type 2 diabetes.
Let's remember that knowledge is power, especially when it comes to your health. In the spirit of continuous learning, I'll discuss strategies for decreasing insulin, suppressing appetite, and cutting sugar from your diet. But it's not just about the what and the how; it's about the why.
So, gear up for a transformational ride towards a healthier you, and let's make this year one of profound change.
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And welcome back, welcome back. You know, oh, man, man, in this episode of New Year, new you. I am delving into a topic that's all too familiar to many of us Getting back on track with the management of your diabetes. Have you been there? Yeah, I know I have been. I know I have been, and you know, the year has been going along and we've just been trucking along Right. So this is the month of May, we're starting the month of May, can you believe it?
Speaker 1:And a lot of people at the beginning of the year, at the end of last year, said there were so many things they were going to do, they were going to put in place. And we have our good days where everything seems to fall right into place, of our good days where everything seems to fall right into place. And then, inevitably, there are those challenging moments when, yeah, we may find ourselves, you know, veering off course, whether it's due to stress, challenges in the routine or just life throwing us a curveball. Setbacks happen to the best of us, but the important thing is how we respond to those setbacks and, ultimately, how we get ourselves back on track, and that's what I'm talking about tonight. So if you've ever found yourself in that struggle to stay on the top of the management of your diabetes. This episode is for you. Stick around, because we've got plenty of valuable insights and tips coming up your way. Let's dive right in. If you're new to me, I'm 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, 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 UU.
Speaker 1:So yesterday, I think, I shared with you guys that the last several Sundays, my wife and I, we've been going out to dinner, and so yesterday, y'all, we were in the car and of course, I said, hey, where do you want to go? And so we weren't sure because there were some particular things that we wanted to have. And so we're driving and my wife says, hey, let's go to this place. And I said sure, and in my head, in my head, I had created because I had not eaten all day, I had waited, because I was going to eat dinner with my wife, I was going to have some food, right, and so I had created this entire experience in my head about what it's going to be like, how the food was going to taste, I wasn't sure where we were going. But once she said where we're going, everything kind of filled in, right, all the little details filled in in my mind. So I'm in the car and we're going, everything kind of filled in, right, all the little details filled in in my mind. So I'm in the car and we're driving and I'm just anticipating I'm going to have this, I'm going to have that, I'm going to order this and so forth, right. And so we're on our way there and she says, well, what about this other place? Right, and I didn't say anything, and we kind of drove, and so she's looking at the menu and we kind of finally decided, okay, we're going to this place.
Speaker 1:And I got there, y'all, and I was in a not so great mood, right. So in my head, right, because I'm thinking, and I had asked, you know, specifically, did they have this one thing? And they said, and, and according to the menu, they had it. But we got there and it turned out, um, that I couldn't have that because of an allergy. And so my mood kind of changed, right, it took me a little bit to get over it, right, so I ate the food and it was. It was okay. It was okay, but what had happened was I had created this entire experience in my mind, and often that's where we find ourselves when it comes to diabetes, with diabetes management, and so as you got into this year, as you started doing the things that we've been talking about, you've been at the grind and you know, january was great. And February, yeah, we got this, we got this. And March, yeah, we're in there and we're okay, we're feeling it, but not so much. And then April comes along and things happen. And then, here it is, may, right, right.
Speaker 1:So we are five months into the year and you may find yourselves not really hitting it as hard, or maybe some of the things that you were doing before have kind of crept back in, or maybe you have really just put it back on the shelf, and so this tonight is what we're talking about, right? How do we deal with that and what do we do in terms of getting back on track? So the first thing is to talk about why people get off track in the first place, right? So common reasons for setbacks. Why do we, after we've made a decision that we were going to do something, how do we get to the point where we're not on track?
Speaker 1:And one of those reasons is that we have a change in routine. You have a change in routine. You know, you're used to getting up at a particular time and you've been doing that, but somehow, for some reason, right, whether a schedule change, or someone in the family is sick, or there's a new meeting at work or something happened. Life can be unpredictable. Thing happened, life can be unpredictable.
Speaker 1:And so as a result of that, a result of that change, because you had gotten into that groove, right, you got up at a particular time, you did your thing, you had your breakfast or you had whatever it was, and you were kind of hitting that. You hit your stride and that took you some time. From the time December came and January came, and it took you some time from January to get into the stride. And so you got into it maybe mid-January, end of January, beginning of February, and now you're hitting it. And then all of a sudden something happens and it changes the routine. It wasn't anything bad, it was just a part of life, it was just a routine thing that happened, and so your routine changed. And so now you're kind of off center, right, it's not flowing like it used to flow. And so your brain has gotten to the point where it says, okay, yeah, we'll figure this out. Notice what happened.
Speaker 1:It wasn't that you made a conscious decision not to do it. It was in the midst of the confusion and the change in routine that the brain said okay, we're going to leave that alone, because remember the brain, your mind, does not ever want to be wrong. It does not like confusion. The confused mind does not accept things. It's kind of like when you go to the store right, when you go to the store to buy something, when they have a sale, they don't want you to be confused. They are very clear about what the specifics are about that thing. A lot of people say they try to confuse you. No, they don't really want you to be confused, because a confused mind doesn't buy. And the same thing here when your mind is confused, when it's not quite sure how this fits into the routine, it will leave it alone.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, number one, because of changes in routine. Number two, because of stress, and stress y'all is the silent saboteur. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I can't tell you the number of people who come to the office who are doing things and they don't realize they're doing it. And we kind of try to back into the reasons. And it turned out that there was some stressful event that happened. There was a death in the family, there was a death in the family, there was a flood at the house, so now they're living in a hotel room, right. So that's another unpredictable thing. That's a change in routine. There was some issue that happened with a child or a parent or a spouse, some stressful event, someone got sick and as a result of that, things change. You once again didn't make a conscious effort or conscious decision that you weren't going to do that, but because things changed, that got put on the back burner, in fact. Oh yeah, we're going to get back to that, we're planning to get back to it, but right now we're dealing with the stress.
Speaker 1:So there could be a change in routine. There could be some life stressor that happens, and then, of course, a big one is burnout, burnout, burnout. It's only natural to feel overwhelmed. Now I'll tell you that when I talk to patients, as I hear them talk about burnout, I begin imagining those feelings. In fact, I have people who come to the office sometimes and they hear our conversation through a certain megaphone. They see it through a certain lens and that lens is the lens of being at this. They've been at the grind and they're just tired.
Speaker 1:We've talked about a lot of things here on the show. We've talked about a lot of procedures that we want you to do. We've given you a lot of education Remember, educate, empower, encourage. A lot of education and it's been a lot of material. And so once that comes in and you begin incorporating that into your life, so you are trying to minimize your insulin, you're trying to suppress the appetite remember the three pillars and you're trying to get rid of sugar. Those are our three pillars one, minimize insulin. Two, suppress appetite. Three, get rid of sugar. Those are the pillars for reversing diabetes.
Speaker 1:And you've been doing that and day in and day out, and day in and day out, and you've got to make decisions and sometimes that becomes a little. It produces some fatigue and that's certainly natural. Anything that you're doing, if you're at a job, if you're building a house, if you're raising a child, they're going to be times. If you're taking care of a parent, they're going to be times when you've got to step away for a moment and kind of regroup, and if you don't understand that, then that can cause a problem, right? So common reasons for setbacks changes in routine, stresses in life and then, of course, burnout. Okay, if you have ever, if you have ever experienced any one of those that changed your life, changed your situation, caused you to have a setback, put yes, put yes in the comments, right, put yes in the comments. Cause you to have a setback? Put yes, Put yes in the comments, put yes in the comments.
Speaker 1:Now, one of the interesting things to note as we're talking, as we're going through this process, we're here talking specifically about diabetes, but notice that the things that I just mentioned, in any area of your life, these can have an effect. So, whether you're in college, you're in graduate school, you just got to a new job, you're trying to move your way up in a company, you're trying to save money, you want to buy a house, a car, you want to raise a child, any of those situations, any life circumstances, the same things can affect you and can cause setbacks. So, as we're talking here specifically about diabetes, remember you can apply these concepts to many areas of your life, if you have high blood pressure. Yeah, and you've been kind of thinking about the food that you're going to eat. Remember, we said that the things that we do here on the channel, the concept we're teaching, doesn't just help with diabetes, but it also helps with all of those metabolic syndromes or not syndromes, but all of those diseases that fall into the metabolic phase. Oh, yeah, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, hyperlipidemia, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. All of those are places where, if you're at it and you're going at it and you're doing, and you could be doing a great job y'all. So this is not just people who are having difficulty, these are people who are having successes. Yeah, yep, all right. So so those are the common reasons for setbacks.
Speaker 1:Well, after we've kind of identified those common reasons for setbacks, what are? What else do we want to look at? How do we overcome? How do we overcome setbacks? And we overcome setbacks in several ways, and you'll see some of those there on the screen. Number one you want to remember that setbacks are a natural part of the journey, including the journey of managing diabetes. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah, let me say that. Let me say that Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, let me say that. Let me say that. Right. So setbacks are a natural part of the journey for everything. And specifically now, as we talk about diabetes, setbacks are a part of diabetes.
Speaker 1:Often we don't plan for setbacks. We think we get into the situation, we get into the management of diabetes, we get into the relationship, get into the building of the house, get into the coursework for the program, that we're in the degree and we don't anticipate that, hey, something may happen, and if you don't, then that can throw a huge wrench in the plan, because then it becomes this momentous, almost insurmountable thing that you've got to overcome. But you've got to remember that setbacks, issues, will come up. They are a natural part of the process and that's the first thing you want to do. You want to remember that. That is the case.
Speaker 1:Number two, when setbacks happen, you want to identify the root cause of the problem. What was it that caused the problem? Was it the fact that my routine changed? Was it the fact that there was a stressor in my life? Was it the fact that I got burnt out? Was it the fact that I didn't have a community around me? And we'll talk about community here in a minute.
Speaker 1:But you want to identify the root cause, because if you don't identify the root cause, you may be trying to fix one thing and it's something totally different. Right, right, as we talk about fasting here on the show, right, that's one of the things that we've been using and I'll have people say to me, well, fasting doesn't work. I said, well, okay, tell me why do you think it doesn't work? He said, well, when I tried to fast, I got a headache. And so, as we talk more about the headache, it turns out that the headache came because your body was so used to having high sugars that when your sugar became normal, then the headache came. Make sense. So the root cause of that was not fasting. The root cause of it was the elevated blood sugar. So if we can fix the elevated blood sugar, get you used to being in a normal range, then guess what? Not a problem for the headache, right? So identify the root cause. What is the root cause of the problem?
Speaker 1:And then next ask for help. Oh, yeah, yeah, ask for help, right, so reach out. Remember, you're not in this by yourself. Once again, I'm plugging that community, right? You are not in this by yourself, so ask for help. There are people around you. There are people that are surrounding you that are having similar issues. They may not have diabetes, but they are having setbacks in their own space. So ask for help or find a group, find a place, find a community that's doing what you're doing, that is heading in the direction, in terms of health, that you want to head, and ask for assistance. That's why I encourage you always to come on the show right, let us know how you're doing, join us in our community meetup and we'll talk a little bit about that here before we get off the show tonight, because when you are in that space, then you begin to understand and begin to feel that there is a place, there is hope for you.
Speaker 1:So, overcoming setbacks how do you do that? Remember that setbacks will happen. Identify the root cause of it, ask for help. Reframe number next, reframe setbacks as learning opportunities. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we need to put a pin right here and talk a little bit about this. Reframe setbacks as learning opportunities.
Speaker 1:Setbacks every setback that you have has a place or something that you can learn from it, and if you only see setbacks as problems, then they become insurmountable, they become this huge mountain. But the question to ask yourself is okay, this thing happened. How do I? Or what do I learn from it? What is a nugget that I can take away from this, in terms of fasting, for example? Maybe the nugget that you take away from it is hey, I need to make sure that I'm hydrated when I get into a fasting phase. Or if you had hypoglycemia, a low blood sugar, while you started fasting, hey, maybe I need to pay more attention to my monitor, my glucose monitor, right, so I could see when those numbers are coming. Hey, maybe I need to have a conversation with my doctor or my healthcare provider so that we can talk about how to adjust my medication, right. So what am I learning? Hey, I need to drink more water. I need to get more sleep. I need to not plan that stressful event during the fasting. Hey, I need to plan so that I can be on the show with Dr Wood at seven o'clock central on Mondays, right. So see them as learning opportunities and then figure out okay, what am I learning from this particular piece of, from this particular phase of setbacks? Right, see them, reframe them as learning opportunities and then practice self-compassion.
Speaker 1:Last week, as I was leaving to go out of town. I did one of my check-ins and I said, hey, I'm going out of town. If you're going out of town, you're going to have stressful events that happen and practice self-compassion. Make sure that you realize that this process that we're on is a process and it takes time. People come in. I talked to somebody today who came into the office who was having some low blood sugars. They had fasted and they are successfully, by the way, let me give a hand clap and a shout out. So they had fasted, been fasting for 24 hours and wasn't quite sure how to get to 36. So I said, well, why get to 36? How about 25 hours? Right, start slow. You're already at 25. Okay, now let's extend that. Practice self-compassion.
Speaker 1:If you have to interrupt a fast, that doesn't mean that you failed. If you have to go back on some medication because your blood sugars rose after you've been off of medication, that doesn't mean you're a failure. If you eat that cookie, if you drink that soda, if you didn't go to sleep like you were supposed to, if you succumb to one of those triggers right, remember heat, habits, emotions, access and taste If that happens, that doesn't mean that you're a failure. What do I learn from it and then allow yourself the grace to now step back into, step back on the road. Okay, so, overcoming setbacks. And one of the things that we've got to do is, when we're talking about setbacks, we've got to make sure that we are practicing and we're setting clear, smart goals, because if you don't set goals, if you don't set clear, smart goals, then you won't know, first of all, are you being successful? And then it's a lot more difficult to know where you're heading and where you've been. So SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. That's what SMART, the acronym SMART, stands for. Acronym SMART stands for so specific.
Speaker 1:I want to lose weight is not a specific goal. It is a goal, right, I want to lose weight, but it's not specific. I want to lose 10 pounds. That is a specific goal, measurable. You want to make sure that you're able to tell if you've achieved it. So if you say I want to lose 10 pounds and you lose 5 pounds, that means you've not achieved the goal. It's a great place to be that you've lost 5 pounds.
Speaker 1:Is it measurable? Is it measurable? Is it specific? 10 pounds Is it measurable? Well, tell me, 10 pounds is measurable. I can get on the scale and I can say yes or no. Is it achievable? Is it possible to lose 10 pounds? And the answer is yes, specific 10 pounds, measurable? Yes, I can get on the scale and I can see what my weight is. Is it achievable? Yes, it is. And is it relevant? Well, what's relevant? Right, I want to be healthy. I want to lose weight so I can be healthy. I want to lose weight so I can control my blood sugar. I want to lose weight, right? Is it relevant to what I want to do? And is losing weight relevant to reversing diabetes? Yes, it is. And then, is it time bound? Hey, y'all. So I want to lose 10 pounds. It's specific, it's measurable, it's achievable, it's relevant to the health goal that you have. But I want to lose 10 pounds in 50 years. I want to lose 10 pounds in 50 years? Yeah, that's probably not where we want, to be right? So you want to set yourself up for success by having a time. As you remember, when we talked about my journey starting last March, I set out. I said I wanted to lose 52 pounds. Well, I wanted to lose one half to one pound per week for the year. So it's specific, it was measurable, it was certainly achievable, it was relevant to what I wanted and it was time bound, because I gave a specific time.
Speaker 1:So we're going to come back and we're going to actually do a show together where we sit down and come up with a specific smart goal for you. We're going to say walk through. How do we do that here on the show? So we want to set smart goals. Smart goals Because if we don't set smart goals, then we're not setting ourselves up for success.
Speaker 1:After we talk about smart goals, how do we stay motivated and how do we overcome obstacles? How do we stay motivated and overcome obstacles? Well, number one, right, a big part of it is what we just talked about, right, the setting the smart goals. Because if you're setting the smart goals, then you know where you are and you're able to track that. So you want to track your progress. So how do we stay motivated? Track your progress, see where you are. And that's why, here, as I talk on the show, I have all these monitors and all these apps, because I'm tracking what I'm doing. So when I get up and I look at that blood sugar and I see what it is, I'm like, okay, yeah, so this is helping me stay motivated and I don't want that blood sugar to change, right, and I'm trying to. For some reason it won't pick up my phone, but yeah, so we're tracking all that information, right. So we want you to see what it is. I want to see what it is because my brain is not dependent on it, but it actually helps my brain to see the number when I see the weight, when I check my ketones, right, so I know where I am when I journal and we haven't talked much about journaling, but that's a huge one that we'll come back and talk about at another time.
Speaker 1:So track your progress and then y'all celebrate wins, celebrate wins. It is a process and if you wait until you get to the end of the journey to celebrate, that is a very hard process. It's a very hard journey, okay, so you got to pause. And when you see successes, if you've lost a pound, if your blood sugar, all of a sudden you wake up and the blood sugar is five points lower than it used to be. If you get your A1C and your doctor tells you that your A1C used to be I don't know 8, 9, 10, and all of a sudden it's 9.5. It used to be 10, now it's 9.5. That's a celebration, right? So don't wait until the A1C gets to 6.5. Celebrate where you are With the intention of moving forward, though. Okay. So don't just celebrate and stay right where you are with the intention of moving forward, though. Okay. So don't just celebrate and stay right where you are. Okay, so, celebrate those wins.
Speaker 1:Identify your triggers. Identify your triggers. Y'all I got to say boom. You got to say that you got to identify your triggers, because if you don't identify your triggers, then you don't know what's pushing you. And we've talked here quite often about the heat model, right? So heat model is a huge idea about triggers and how triggers affect us, right, so identify the things that are triggering you to get off track, to eat when you're not supposed to when you said you weren't going to eat or to do other things that are counterproductive. For example, do you know that staying up late and I have to put my hand up? Yeah, you guys know I'm up here. I'm late a lot, right? So that is a huge trigger for eating. I know it, I experience it all the time and I know it's one of my triggers and, of the things that I have, it's probably the one that I need to work on the most and that's the one that I struggle with. So identify your triggers and find healthier ways to deal with triggers. So if it's an emotion, if it's a habit, if it's access to something, if it's taste, right.
Speaker 1:So I went to Teresa, you'll get a kick out of this. I went to the store today, right, to get some stuff and I picked up a can of pistachio, of cashews, and you guys, if you heard me talk, that's one of my things, right, notice, I didn't get the almonds because I knew if I get the almonds by the time I got home it would be gone. But I did go and I get some cashews and on the way home, so, one serving of cashews, y'all. Did anybody know what one serving of cashews are or is? Yeah, it's 18 pieces, is what the can said, 18 pieces? So on the way home, right, I took some and I ate it, and I drove and I took some more and I ate it, and I drove and I took some more. So I probably ate like three or four servings on the way home. So I got home and I said, okay, this has to stay in the car, so I can't take it in the house because guess what? The can's going to be gone. So I know that's one of mine.
Speaker 1:So identify your triggers and find healthier ways to deal with the triggers. In this case it was an access issue. I probably shouldn't well, I shouldn't say I probably I should not have gotten it when I went to the grocery store, but I got it and it's access. It's here now. Well, that's not in the house, right?
Speaker 1:So what do you need to do? And then develop, y'all, develop a support network. Yo yo, yo yo yo. That is what we do here. Y'all, remember, we educate, we empower and we encourage that support, the support is so important, y'all, because the support helps you when you feel, when you're having challenges, when you're having setbacks, when you're not being successful, when you've stalled in your process. The network helps you when you come on and we see you here when you come to the community meetup right, that's a huge one, because that helps, okay. Community meetup right, that's a huge one, because that helps, okay. And then, and then, and then after that, what we want to do is we want to talk about some specific strategies to help you overcome common obstacles. So, number one meal planning and the obstacle that that overcomes is that when you get home and you have not planned, you're likely to just grab whatever is available. You're likely to grab the thing that you weren't planning to eat. One of the things that that we talked about several weeks ago is that access part of the heat model and we talked about how to make sure that our environment at home, at work and in the community remember that right planning.
Speaker 1:Meal planning. Plan your meals. Sit down at the beginning of the week and say, okay, this is what I'm going to eat, this is what I'm not going to eat, this is what we're going to prepare, Get it from the grocery store, go out shopping, get all those things together. And we did a seven-day meal plan several weeks ago in the show. If you've not done that yet, go back and watch that. So prepare, because when you prepare, it's much easier to stay in the space. And once again, we're talking about putting diabetes in reversion, or reversing diabetes. This works for lots of other diseases, but specifically here I'm talking about type 2 diabetes, adults with type 2 diabetes. How do we reverse your diabetes?
Speaker 1:Meal planning Number two mindful eating. Mindful eating so when you sit down to eat, turn off the TV, turn off the computer, turn off the iPhone or Android if you have one Right and focus on the food. Okay, enjoy the taste, enjoy the flavors, enjoy the crunch, enjoy the texture of the food. You're much more satisfied. Otherwise, what happens is you end up eating. You eat the food, you don't even know the food has gone through, you don't appreciate it, and so your brain goes to try to find something else for you to enjoy Mindful eating Physical activity, physical activity.
Speaker 1:Physical activity is a huge one, and I gave you the example last week, right, because I was planning, I was preparing to go on this trip, and on Tuesday or Wednesday I was feeling anxious. I was in the process of fasting and I felt as though my blood sugar was low. And I checked it and it was normal y'all. So I knew it couldn't be low blood sugar. You know you get that if you've had low blood sugar. You know you get that jittery kind of shaky feeling. Right, that's what I felt like and I was like, no, this can't be hypoglycemia, this is not low blood sugar. Because I got my monitors, I checked it and so I went and said, okay, this is the cortisol, this is the anxiety. This is the excitement, and so I went walking and I walked for about 20 minutes and burned through some of that cortisol that had been building up in my system and that helped me deal with this cortisol that was there. So one of the ways, right, one of the ways to overcome some of the obstacles, stresses, for example, is physical activity and then, specifically, stress management. Learn some stress management techniques, right meditation, yoga, a morning routine all those things are specific things you can do that will help you manage stress.
Speaker 1:When I get stressed, there's a place I go. There's a place I go y'all in my head St Simon's Island. If you've never been there and I have no affiliation with them, but I love this place, my wife and I went there years ago for one of our anniversaries and when I go there, when I'm stressed, I close my eyes or sometimes I'm even talking to people and I imagine driving across the bridge off the coast of Georgia, right between Georgia and Florida, there, driving across that bridge, getting to the island, and it was a nice little small island in Florida. There, driving across that bridge, getting to the island, and it was nice, a nice little small island where we got there that day it was raining a little bit, just a little overshadowed, cloudy, and we went into the little cottage place that we stayed and they had turned down the bed. They got a little mint on the bed. My wife and I went walking down the sidewalk, all right.
Speaker 1:So even as I'm describing it right now, I can feel the calm coming over me. So find your place. If it's music, that's fine. Sometimes I'll sit In summertime when there's a tree right outside on the other side of this desk, when that window is open and I count the leaves on the tree. There's a book that I read called the Power of Now the Power of Now, and the author was saying that enjoy the moment. Enjoy this moment that. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy this moment as you're sitting. If you're driving in the car, feel the vibration of the steering wheel in your hand. Enjoy the sensation when you're in the shower. Sometimes I'm in the shower and I need to calm down or something's going on, a stressful thing on my mind, and I'm there and I can imagine. I'm trying to imagine each of the water drops as they're hitting my body, or I'm trying to count them, because when I'm counting, my brain can't go to that other place, play some music in the background. So stress management, all those things are very important.
Speaker 1:And then, if you're on medication, make sure that you are being adherent. Make sure you're taking your medication. Now let me make a point here A lot of what we do, a lot of what we teach, a lot of what we are saying, has with it a component of you've got to adjust your medication, like those of you who some of you who are on right now. Right, you know that we teach and I talk to my patients. I tell them this is how I want you to adjust your medication. I teach that because you cannot be at home and be incorporating the things that we're talking about and not adjust medications. So make sure you're talking to your healthcare provider about adjusting your medication. How many times did I say that? Enough, okay, good. Having said that, make sure you're taking it.
Speaker 1:Often I have people come in and I'll say to to them we're going to titrate your medication down because as you begin incorporating fasting, mindful eating, emotional intelligence, finding out your why, dealing with your stress, sleeping, drinking water, physical activity all those things your blood sugar is going to start coming down. So we're going to have to begin titrating your medication down, and so they go home and all they heard was stop medication. That's not what I said, right? What I said is we need to begin adjusting your medication down based on what you're doing, so you can't just stop it and then say, okay, when this improves, I won't be on medication. No, the medication decreases as you make changes that cause your blood sugars to improve until the point where you don't have to take medication again.
Speaker 1:I see, actually, someone that's in our audience right now who we were so excited last week when he said, hey, I'm off the insulin. I had somebody who came to the office today, called to come in for an early visit, because he was on an insulin pump and was able to get off the pump and now is having low blood sugars, so came in so that we can adjust medication further. Adjust medication further. Can you imagine being on an insulin pump, taking the insulin, and then now saying, okay, I don't have to do that anymore, all right. And then regular monitoring. Regular monitoring that's why I do all the things that I do here on the channel in terms of looking at my monitors, looking at the graphs, so that you guys can see all that, and then the support network. Once again, there it is y'all. If you want to go somewhere, go by yourself, but if you want to go far and want to be successful, take other people with you. The support network is so, so, so important, and I love our network, I love our support here on the channel and in our community.
Speaker 1:And then what's another strategy to overcome common obstacles? Always be learning, continuous learning. That's what I teach, right? So that is the pillar of the platform, the show, the pillar of getting off of insulin or reversing diabetes. Are those things right? So, number one decrease insulin. Number two suppress appetite. Number three get rid of sugar. But the pillar of the platform that I am on, the pillar of the platform that I am here teaching and I want you to get, is education, empowerment and encouragement. Get data, get information, continuously learn, always be in the mindset of learning, because the more you know, the more you can then make decisions. 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 you, thank you.
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