Why Carbs Aren't the Enemy (And What Actually Matters for Blood Sugar) with Ben Tzeel, RD

Struggling to find real, practical guidance for managing diabetes, even after meeting with healthcare providers? Most people walk away with generic meal plans, rigid carb rules, and very little clarity on how to actually live their life with stable blood sugars. That confusion often leads to overwhelm, restriction, and feeling like your entire world now revolves around food and numbers.

In this episode, I sit down with Ben Tzeel RD, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator who has lived with Type 1 diabetes for more than 26 years. Ben shares the real-world strategies no one talks about, the kind that genuinely help you understand your body, steady your blood sugars, enjoy your favorite foods (yes, even cake), and break free from overthinking every bite.

You’ll learn how to pair meals in a way that supports your goals, use movement intentionally, improve insulin sensitivity, choose smarter snacks, and simplify your routine so diabetes fits into your life, not the other way around.

References

Connect with Ben:

Website

Instagram: @manoftzeell

TikTok: @manoftzeel

Products Mentioned:

Legendary Foods pop tarts & sweet rolls // Crisp Power pretzels // Skinny Dips dark chocolate peanut butter cups // Rise Bars // RxSugar (allulose sweetener) // Quest protein bars // Devotion Nutrition protein powder

Other Resources:

Sweetphi blog

Audio Stamps

01:20 - Ben Tzeel RD shares his personal journey with Type 1 diabetes and how it led him to become a registered dietician and diabetes educator.

03:55 - The first challenge most people face: making peace with carbs and avoiding restrictive thinking around food.

05:17 - How to manage overwhelm after diagnosis: start simple with food journaling to build awareness.

06:45 - Quick tips for high blood sugar and long-term nutritional strategies for stable glucose levels.

12:10 - Common myths about blood sugar and carbs, plus understanding morning insulin resistance.

19:20 - Ben's favorite balanced snacks that work for blood sugar management.

27:20 - The truth about artificial sweeteners: which ones help, which ones to avoid.

32:43 - Go-to

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

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Transcript

0:28

welcome back to another episode of the podcast Today. I'm super excited. We have Ben Zeal. He is a registered dietician, or we were talking before diabetes maestro, and I was like, yes, I love this term. So the reason that I brought Ben on,'cause everybody listening, you know that I really don't bring a lot of people to interview on everyone that I bring on. I know in some capacity there was a reason so. Ben came into my world and I was looking at, the information that he puts out in the world and something that is really important to me. It's not just that people have credentials, but it's that they have gone through some type of lived experience, or they really, I'm getting chills as I say this. It's like that they really believe in the work that they're doing, that they're passionate about it, that there's a reason behind it, that they can deliver it in a way that's not, dry, where we can actually take action on it. And so. Ben, I'm gonna let him tell a story, but has Type one diabetes is super passionate about this, and I just really believe in the message and what he's doing in the world. Ben, can we start out, if people don't know who you are, can you introduce yourself a little bit and how you help people? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so grateful to be here and that was probably the nicest intro anyone's ever done, so thank you so much. But I'm Ben Zeal. I'm a registered dietician, certified diabetes educator, strength coach, and I've had type one diabetes myself for. Holy cow. 26 years, a little bit over that, which is wild. So I was seven and it's been quite the journey to get to this point. But the biggest thing is diagnose that young. It was always a constant, no, you can't have the cupcake at your birthday. No, you can't go play sports with your friends. No, you can't do this and just fill in the blank. No. And it got really, really old after a while. And so eventually I said. You know what? I'm gonna be that defiant, little preteen or teenager. I'm gonna figure all this stuff out on my own. And so eventually it became, okay, I'm gonna go to this dietician and they're gonna tell me what I need to eat for playing sports and for doing stuff. And ultimately they couldn't gimme answers. No one could gimme any answers. I'm like, Hey, I wanna become a baseball player. Here's an offensive lineman meal plan. Well, that's probably not gonna work for me. So. I started as taking it upon myself to start experimenting, learning, fell in love with, sports, fell in love with working out, and then I started to realize I got into college nutrition's the X factor for blood sugars and for performance. So why not dedicate my life in there and eventually, why not just become the person and that person's able to fill the void of all the questions? I was never able to get answered as a kid, and so became a dietician. Thought I wanted to get a PhD. Did all that, but my dissertation, it was all diabetes focused and then left, became a dietician, and then said, let's become a diabetes educator and let's start to build a team that we can ultimately serve as many people as possible with diabetes to have the answers to those questions that they should be getting, but they never do. Okay. I love that you bring this up. I love that you, not that you had the experience, but where you went to the dietician and you totally got no help because that was my experience. So in the past when I was pregnant, I had gestational diabetes and I thought, okay, I'm a physician, but, I don't know everything. Right? Let me go to the dietician. And I'm a vegetarian. On top of that, she hands me a meat heavy, carb heavy plan. And I'm like, okay, hold on. We're talking about gestational diabetes. There's nothing in here that's adapted in any capacity, and I'm pretty sure we put it on the intake. So I was just really let down and I had to do what you did, which I had to go buy books and go do my own research. I ended up finding. A girl on YouTube that had made a few videos that was most helpful and I was thinking, this is a real shame, so I love that you see the gaps, that athletes need different nutrition for this and everything like that. What do you tend to say to someone when people are coming to you, they're wanting to improve their blood sugar, Like overall health, stuff like that. What do you see as the first initial challenge that they face? The most common thing? I would say when people are diagnosed and whether it's type one or type two, the first thing anybody ever tells them is carbs. Carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs, pay attention. They'll spike your blood sugar. They're the worst thing or they're the best thing. And you do. You have to watch them. But I think that the toughest thing is they get a really. Bad reputation and for some people it's great to have minimal carbs, but I think getting the carb stick outta the way first and realizing if you want to have them, they're okay to have, there's ways to do it if you don't want them, that's okay. There's ways to not have them and still thrive and live your life, but just not having this dreadful relationship with them. And then that kind of spills into just all of food in general. And I feel like. Having that just out of the way, out of the beginning saying, Hey, I'm cool with food. Food is energy. If I want this, I can have it. If I don't want it, I don't have to. Making peace with it early on is gonna be so helpful. I love what you're saying. Yeah.'cause once you get, like this is off the table and I can't do this, I can't do that, it's massive restriction, then you've never wanted it more. It's that, binge restrict cycle in action. So I love, I love that you bring that up right out of the gate and,. I find that when people are starting on this though, that they're really overwhelmed they don't know where to start. Let's just play a scenario someone's coming into you, they maybe are freshly diagnosed, or maybe they even have pre-diabetes, so this can apply to anyone. Insulin resistance, there's lots of versions of the same flavor, what we're talking about. Just if someone's listening and they're not diabetic yet, where do you tend to start with them so that they're not overwhelmed? So to your point, I joke that getting diagnosed with diabetes, and again, doesn't matter what type, it's like drinking out of a fire hose. There's just so much information. You don't know what's going on your whole life that you've lived up to this point, which again, I was seven, but someone could be 37, right? You could be 57. Your whole life's completely overturned, so you have to figure out what you're doing. I always tell'em, Hey, let's slow down. You're gonna get to where you need to go. It's gonna take a little bit of time. But the biggest thing to bring awareness to outta the gate, I would say, is just, what are you eating? Because a lot of times people, they don't think about what they're eating. They don't think about, oh, am I making a meal a certain way? What am I doing? So we'll just say, Hey, there's apps you can do. You could write in a journal, but just write down your food for a few days. Get an idea of what you're doing. And now that you're paying attention to carbs, if you use one of the apps, it'll start to tell you, here's how many carbs were in this meal that you just had. You just start to get a general idea of what you're doing, what protein's there. And then it makes it really easy for us as dieticians to say, Hey. This is where you might be missing the protein or you might be missing the veggie or whatever it might be, and help them fill the gaps and help to understand here's why your blood sugar does what it does. Yeah, that's so helpful. I love that you bring that up. It's this whole nutrition audits that people gain some awareness, It's actually interesting how much we're on autopilot and we don't realize it. It's very human of us. So let's say that, you're working with someone and they're, tracking nutrition, stuff like that, and I assume they're also maybe writing down the blood sugars, what the correlations are with these things. If people have blood sugars that are running on the higher side, what are some of the first few tips that could help someone to bring it down? Which I think is a great question.'cause to your point, one of the first things that I'm grateful these days is that continuous glucose monitors are as prevalent as they are because I didn't have one for 14 years and I had to prick my finger every two hours and it was a blast. But beyond that,, hopefully that's one of the first things they're given. Type one or type two. So because of that, ideally they have an idea, okay, my number's doing this, and you can start to see almost an instant response. I ate this, here's what my number did. And then looking with us or with, whoever the dietician might be. Ideally if they're good saying, Hey, the food did this, here's what you had at that time, let's talk about what might be happening. But for high blood sugars. there's obviously many options, but one of them would be simply a little bit of lighter physical activity, don't go out and run sprints. This might make your number higher, but walk a little bit is always a great option out of the gate. If you're on a medication, if you're on insulin, of course you can correct. If you're not on insulin, then walking might be a better move. Sometimes there's other nuances with respect to food that can be done, but a lot of times hydration's, another thing people forget about. High blood sugars will just stay high if you're not hydrated at all. So those would be, I'd say, a couple of the big ones. Medication's, always a way to do it. But again, it depends, if you're a type two, it's gonna be a little different than if you're type one. Type one, Hey, I'm dialing up a unit, or however much your ratio is. Boom, you're good. Oh God, I love that you bring this up. So just simple things, hydration, walking. You know, when you bring this up, I think, people get really busy in life, at least this is something I find with my patients and it's not rocket science what we're telling them, but it's really hard to practically implement these things so when you bring this up, I'm hoping that people hear. You're not necessarily gonna have to alter your whole life to. To have these things go in a better direction. Long term, what do you work on nutritionally? You were talking about the carbs, but then do you have any, pair your foods in this way, or food ordering, do you have any kind of like your greatest hits for what you like to tell people that helps with that? Oh, I love that question. And I also will say like when people say, oh, eat this in this specific order, we try to not make it so restrictive where again, you can have this, but you must eat it this way. It's gonna drive people nuts and make the most cd. Ultimately we look at a plate and we say, okay, is there a solid protein source? Is there ideally at least, 25, 30 grams? That would be big because that's gonna help with blood sugar stability, it's gonna help with, muscle recovery, assuming there's workouts, which hopefully there are, that would be absolutely massive. Is there some sort of fiber source on this plate? Is it coming in the form of a veggie? Is it coming in the form of, a whole grain or a quinoa or something? That would be ideal? Again, to help the blood sugars not spike as high and to get things absorbed a little slower and the fullness of factors nice. And then separately, is there a veggie or a fruit on the plate, which you can't count the fiber. As the veggie, you'd have to have two servings of veggies and one can be the fiber and one's the veggie. You can't cheat the system like that. So Andrew, that's funny that you bring that up because I think I've not gotten into that nuance. So that's actually interesting that you bring that up. I have always told people if you have at least five grams of fiber in that meal, you're doing pretty darn good. Is that true or not? Is that BS what I've been saying, I don't think it's BS at all., Can we try to get people at least like 20 to 30 grams a day would be ideal. Yeah. You wanna get more good. Don't go nuts. There was once a person, I promise you, this was just wild to me. This person showed up, they were eating over a hundred grams a day and we had to tote it down a little bit for your, were they just like exploding with abdominal pain? I just can't even fathom what was bio then when we started lowering it, and this is obviously an aside, but as we started lowering the fiber intake. We got down to 70. They're like, I feel so different. I'm like, hopefully in a good way. But they were stopped up because they were eating less than, I'm like, your body got used to a hundred grams. It's so wild. So wild. I know you appreciate this as No, I do appreciate this. This is the nerding out moment because most patients when they come into my clinic, I have'em to a nutrition log, just like a few days. I don't do calorie counting, but I'm trying to figure out what? Protein, fiber, things like that, most of them are anywhere from 10 to 15 grams a day. So most people we have to up, but what you are talking about, I think the highest I've ever seen someone have is like 50 grams. So for you to say, say a hundred, I'm just, oh my God. I really feel for them, that was a one time thing. Like most people, to your point, if they're over 20, I'm like, yay, this is great. But to get back to the original question,, if you've got over five grams, you're doing solid. For our purposes, and while we're on the topic, a lot of people say, oh, do you count net carbs? Do you subtract it? Yes. Do you subtract to a certain wound? To me it just, it feels natural to talk about it here. My least favorite thing is when people say, well, if it's five grams or more, you should subtract it. But if not, don't, I'm like, well, so if you have four, it doesn't count. That's stupid. So to me, I'm like,, sorry for being very crass, but either subtract it or don't just be consistent. That's my thing. I don't care what you do. I prefer subtraction. But if someone doesn't want to, by all means, the only exception is when you get some of those Keto friendly manufactured types of foods. Some of those fibers are super sketchy and can actually raise your blood sugar. Interesting. So we don't have to call out brands, but is there a name for what we should be looking for what maybe would fit in that category? Biggest perpetrator is Iso Malto. Oligosaccharide, which is a mouthful, but IMOs. I don't even remember what the brand was, but this was years ago. I remember I got a protein bar and I used to love them it wasn't Quest. So shout out Quest. I do love you, but it was one of the other ones and they had'em in there and I used to use them to treat Lowe's because I would go to 60, but it would spike me so fast. That's so funny. Yeah.'cause I think the marketing is intense out there. Because they can say whatever they want on these products it's very unregulated, when they're using the words like natural and to your point, whenever it says keto on it, I'm like, okay, who cares?? What's the ratio of this? Is it actually high protein? It's like when the Atkins craze was big, and I remember one time I saw. One of their protein bars, I'm saying in quote Marks had three grams of protein. And I was like, I don't know that we're gonna call that a high protein bar. Like I just, that's not doing it for me. So I love that you bring this up. What are like myths that you're just sick and tired of hearing about with respect to like blood sugar and carbs and stuff? One easy one off of this would be that low carb is the way,'cause I've seen a lot of people, and as a nutrition nerd,, let's be real. I've gone all the way to 30 carbs a day. I've gone up to four 50 a day. I need, yeah. I need to know. And I had to do it. Yeah. Yes, totally Right. So with low carb, I will say some people amazing blood sugars. Some people, because there's so much fat and there's so few carbs, the protein will all break down and still raise their blood sugar. But then the fat will keep'em stuck. So yes, that was me, by the way. Cause I had a history with pre-diabetes. I like first diet, reverse and then medication, da da, da. But. I tried to go zero carbs and I did worse actually. Yeah. So that's when I was like, oh, this is not true. It's what you were saying. Yeah. Very common. And because the insulin resistance, again, fat is amazing. It has its role, but because the insulin resistance can get so high. Then you just sit there. You might sit at one 60, but we don't want you sitting at one 60. We want you sitting at one 10., That would be a massive one. I'd say from a myth perspective, jokingly on the flip side, I would say, the carbs are not a bad thing. You can have your cake and eat it too. You can do amazing with these things because you just have to know what to do with it. You have to know, okay, how am I prepping in advance whether you're type one or type two. I mean, insulin I would almost argue is easier in some situations, but,, you wanna have your big old piece of birthday cake. What are you gonna do before? How are you gonna raise your insulin sensitivity to make sure you can have it and not have it spike your number to the moon? How much of it are you gonna have? How are you gonna assess it? You have a game plan. You can eat literally anything if you're smart. Okay? I kind of love this. So let's say that someone is going to a birthday party and they know, I'm gonna just use the term insulin resistance because I feel like it's like universally applicable to everyone that's listening to me. So let's say that they know, they would not historically feel good with that, but like for cultural reasons and taste and things like that, they're gonna wanna have it. What are some things that you would recommend? What would a game plan be that someone, again, nothing's advice here. It's all informational, but what could be some things that they could think about? I'll give a prime example.'cause my birthday was two days ago, so my birthday, thank you. And I'm not saying that as a shout out to me, but it's a very big, a real example. Real. Yeah. So I know, okay, I want cake, I want something fun, and I want to keep my number happy. So I am definitely going to make sure, and I did this right. Everything I'm about to tell you is what I did. I made sure I did a workout I like resistance training. I like weightlifting, but I try to make sure that I'm doing a workout that's gonna actually challenge me a little bit because I know with lifting, and especially if you were to train legs, for example, bigger muscle group, ideally bigger insulin sensitivity boost, and that will last for longer. So I know, okay, pair it with, one of my best workouts, most intensive ones of the week. Maybe you're a runner. Maybe you're gonna go for a long time on a run, like you're long run or whatever. But I know I'm gonna go a little more intense than normal, so that's already gonna boost the insulin sensitivity. I'm also gonna make sure that I still hit my other nutrition targets for the day. I'm still gonna have my, protein throughout the day. I might front load it a little bit more to have more fun in the afternoon, but I'm also someone, I personally,, track calories and all that because I want to make sure I still stay on track. So I say, okay, I have an idea of what cake I'm gonna have, I have a little bunt cake thing they give you little circley ones that they're great, but regardless. I knew how much that was gonna be from a carb perspective. So I said, okay, when am I gonna have this? I'm not gonna have it at 10:00 PM because that might spike me into the evening, but I'm also, not gonna have it at,, 7:00 AM when I'm most insulin resistant, obviously. So when am I gonna have it? Ideally, sometime late afternoon, early evening. And then what am I gonna eat beforehand? Am I gonna have some protein Absolutely. To make sure I steady things out? Am I gonna have that fiber like we talked about? Absolutely. So I still can hit all my nutrition goals. I still make sure everything works. I'm still boosting insulin sensitivity. I've hit my step goal. I've made sure I've done all of the things that I know I need to do to keep my number happy. Okay. You said a little comment, and I talk about this a lot, the being more insulin resistant in the morning, it was like a throwaway. You're like, of course I'm not gonna have it right in the morning. Can you talk more about that with the times when we're more insulin sensitive? Yes. Morning is like I never understood as a kid because I'd be like, why is my number always so high and I don't have to do anything? And my carb ratio's brutal. And it was just because we have more cortisol in the simplest way. Yeah. The cortisol is way higher in the morning, so because of that, our bodies are like, cool, you want carbs, great. But you're gonna have to, in my case, take a lot more insulin in order to have the same thing, which. You wait four or five hours, it's gonna be a lot less insulin and a lot less difficult to keep your number in range. Totally. I'm glad you talked about that.'cause this dawn effect, people don't understand,, it's physiologic. We have to get up, we have to start the day, the night is different than the morning and waking But people don't realize that. And so I'm glad that you brought that up. I need to talk about this more we're gonna get your insulin sensitivity going more and then we're going to do other things. It's nice the way you're phrasing it. I don't know. It's different than the way that I've. Talked about it before, it's a really good,, I could see that landing for people. Me, I just, I like the wiggle room aspect,, I like to tell myself, okay, if I'm gonna have this crazy meal, we're gonna go out to a massive dinner, which would be nice, right? I'm gonna go out to a massive dinner. I want to give myself the best chance of success possible. So I know if I can have the insulin sensitivity up, and I know I have that wiggle room. So if it was really 90 grams of carb, but I accidentally only put in 78, I might not have the biggest spike in the world. Versus, oh my God, I didn't nail it. Exactly. Now I'm going to 2 75. A hundred percent. And I mean you're probably someone, well, I'm assuming, I don't know, maybe you've never struggled with your weight, but I have, and I know a lot of my listeners have, and, when you have cake on its own, you can go wild if you have like the genetics for it. But if you've already had some protein and fiber and you've been moving and stuff like that, and you're well hydrated. It's like your chance at not going insane with that item really goes through the roof and then not having tons more urges and cravings later. So I feel like, it's a win on so many fronts. We can't underestimate how, just a little bit of planning, how much more successful you can be long-term with that. Oh 100%. And I feel like just having that extra little bit of, Hey, I'm gonna spend the three minutes now or the three minutes the night before to make sure I'm set up for success. People don't realize how that effect is just cumulative. Yeah. It's much easier. And then you're like, Hey, I enjoyed everything I got to do all the things I wanted to do, and I don't feel deprived or neglect. Cool. I spent three minutes versus people like, oh, well I wish I could have done that, but did you do the planning? No. Okay. Well sorry, but I don't know what to tell you. You could have done it. I like that you said three minutes.'cause I think people over index it. There's gonna take an hour and this morning, I'll give you an example. I did my walk in the morning. I always go to, I'm obsessed with this walking track. I come. There was the grocery delivery in front of the door. Literally two minutes to put the stuff away. I put the veggies in the oven, take the shower, I'm done. Literally, it was like, it didn't even happen, right? But you had the fresh veggies for the day. I cut a few fruits for later. It takes two seconds, but it's like the strategy just needs to be there, that the groceries come there, that you put it in as you're taking a shower. These things are not hard, but I think that people don't realize how quickly they can get into new routines well, and I think again, it is making it into a bigger thing than it actually is. Yeah. Like it doesn't have to be a big deal unless you make it a big deal and it's how you choose to perceive it. And only you get to decide that. I don't get to decide it for you. I'm like, oh, it takes three minutes. Oh, that's so hard. Well maybe try it and see before you poo poo it, per se. Totally. Totally. I love that. So, the other area I wanna go to, I kind of do a hot seat here, right? Because I feel like it's so fun to get ideas from people. One question I have is if someone needs like a quick balanced snack, so I'm just gonna infer, has protein and fiber or might be implied to be healthy. What are some of your go-to recommendations? It can be anything, whether it's like actually meal based or on the go stuff. Oh, this is such a good question.'Cause there's so many things where I'm like, do I just pick out X, Y, and Z brand? Or do I actually say this is something that I would like to do as a i it all, because we love to learn about different brands and stuff too.'cause I'm always shouting out my favorites and, I'm not paid by any of them. There are certain ones I'm just like obsessed with and I love so much. Let's talk about it. Tell me. All right, so I'll just say snack things that are like grab and go, easy to nab. Things that are relatively, I would say blood sugar friendly, that check a lot of the boxes. Yeah. One of'em, and this is for the sweet fix. The legendary foods pop tarts. Yes. The sweet rolls. They're a cinnamon sweet roll one. I love that one. If you heat up in the microwave, like 10 seconds, it's perfection, right? Yeah. Literal perfection. That is one of my all time favorites. I love it so much. It makes me so happy. Crisp Power pretzels are a big, big fan of mine and I'm a big fan of theirs because they have lots of protein. I think they're six carbs per serving. It's something super low and pretzels are like historically the worst thing for your blood sugar. Totally. Question. Which flavor is your most favorite? Because I saw your video I don't know if you were in GNC or where you were and you were like talking in the vitamin Shop one. Yeah, that, yeah. Yeah. So what flavor do you like better? One is amazing. Everything Flavor is my favorite though. Oh, okay. Okay. And they used to have massive bags of Costco and it made me very happy and they might bring'em back. But you know, Costco, they come and they go, and I know, I hate that. You start to love something and then they're gone. Okay. So that's amazing though.'cause I know people want these snacky foods, but I always say with pretzels, they're like a slider food You have no idea you're eating it. You don't feel like you've had nothing. But the fact that those have like protein and stuff in them, I think that's awesome. Those. I love for that reason because I never really liked pretzels as a kid. You have'em a few times. You're like, cool. I went from one 20 to 3 55. I don't want to have this anymore. Yay. Skinny dips, the peanut butter cups. Oh, dark chocolate peanut butter cups. My god. Yeah. They're. I love those so much. Okay. They're like, I think four or five carbs per, I've never tried them, but a patient of mine told me how good they are and she literally with each dinner at the end has one and it's worked out phenomenal for her.'cause she just feels like she's having the sweet, but it's not getting in the way of her having results. When I hear multiple people talk about it, I'm like, okay, now I will go buy it. Well, she's having one, I'm eating like three every day. It's kind of exhausting, but they're so good. Oh my. And the other thing is I don't even like normal Reese's anymore because I'm just so used to those. And I also just think the dark chocolate to me is just, that's one of my other fas I'm just trying to think of like legit, snacky types of things that get the craving done. Protein bars, you can find them. There's a ton of them out there. What aren't your favorites? Because I feel like I go in and outta things. One of my favorites is Rise Bar and I really like them because specifically it's made with, some of'em have three ingredients, some of'em have five. But the reason I like that is again, when we were talking before about, some of the sketchy fibers and stuff, I know there's none of that in there. I believe off the top of my head, it's almonds, honey, and the protein. And that might be it for one of them. So I'm like, okay, I know there's nothing shady in here. I know what it's gonna do to my blood sugar. And these ones tend to have actual substance, like some of the protein bars, you eat them, you're like, cool, I feel full. For five minutes and I'm back to hungry. These ones actually have some oomph behind them, which I do appreciate. You're bringing up so many brands that I don't know I've ever heard of. Rise Bar I'm gonna have to look that up.'cause we always link to everything in the show notes. So if anyone's listening and you're like, Ooh, I wanna check all this stuff out. Renta clinic.com. R-E-N-T-E-A clinic.com. Click on podcast and we're gonna have all of this written out underneath so I'm gonna have to look that up.'cause I agree with you with, the protein bars tend to have no hydration. For me. I always have to pair it with an apple or pair it with something. Otherwise I feel like it's air, it's kinda white rice for me. It's like it didn't happen. White rice. I feel like, it's so unfilling. People are like, oh, you wanna get sushi? I'm like, no, because I'm gonna be hungry in five minutes. Uhhuh. It doesn't do anything. And so in this case, I like it'cause there's oomph behind it.'cause I've had other bars where I eat it. And I'm like, all right, that was cute. And then you move on. But yeah, those would be some of my faves. Something else I like. And this is just a concept more than anything. I really like when you get, one of the lower carb tortillas, which I still think, spiked me the same as a regular, but I digress. You get one of the tortillas with more fiber and then you say, okay, a whole wheat tortilla, whatever you can throw on whatever your source of protein is that you like. Sometimes I'll do tunas, they have these little chicken pre-made things at Costco that I like. Chicken from your crockpot, whatever. You throw some,, cheese in there. You're basically making a little wrap. It takes literally 45 seconds, but you've got 35 grams of protein in two seconds. Yes. I gotta tell you, those low carb tortillas, now you're saying it spice your sugar the same. I just look at the fiber. I'm like, I'm doing good with these. But they're so versatile. It's like you can do peanut butter, the cheese, the meat, there's just anything can go in it. Any meal can be stuck in that, as far as I'm concerned, whether it's like. Sweet or salty. It like transforms, the delivery of it. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes if you have like a taco bowl versus like it's in a lettuce leaf, it's just tastes different even though it's the same food how you're doing it. Like peanut butter and jelly in those, I'm not gonna lie, are banging. You get the lower carb jelly, you get the natural peanut butter, you put it in there. I'm like, this is so good. It's not supposed to be, but it is. I know. Oh, that's amazing. My hypothesis with those, and again, it goes back to the five. Yeah, tell me before, I don't know what it was, but there was a time I like, oh, okay. It says, it's five grams of net carbs. I'll dose for five. And I started realizing, why do I always rise after these So I started just saying, okay, let me start taking for the full amount and then I was fine. Again, I don't know if that's just me. I might be an anomaly, but it's just an observation that I made. So I was like, maybe the world might want to know. No, this is interesting. I wonder if, the type of fiber, isn't having the impact that,'cause I think people think all fiber's the same. And I have not experienced that with patients.'Cause you're telling me this about some kind of crappy fibers in some products, but, have you found for some people, when they're eating veggies, it's better like that chia seeds is better than if it's in a fiber wrap.'cause I find people sometimes really do bad with the fiber wrap fiber, like what they're putting in there. And I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with it.'cause you look at the ingredient list and it's fine. Yeah. I think the bigger thing when I tell people for subtracting purposes, like we were talking about earlier, if it's from a natural source, if it's from a fruit, a veggie, chia seed, quinoa, whatever, subtract it for sure. The other stuff is where you have to debate. Am I going to or am I not? Because there's a chance that it may still impact from a blood sugar standpoint. Well, okay, now that we're on this front, just because with talking about sketchy fibers, what are your thoughts on,, I'm literally looking at this as we're talking on Ali Pop., I love the grape flavor, and I'm like, oh, it has nine grams of fiber. You know, again, like delusion in my mind. But what are your thoughts on those type of probiotic drinks that throw a fiber in there to try to make it sound like gut friendly? Do your people have it? Do you recommend it? So the thing with ops, I've obviously heard of it. I've never actually drank it because I've always been kinda like, eh, I don't really know'cause I'm pulling it up right now just to take a look. So I wanna know what the source of the fiber is. Cassava. I know, from a blood sugar standpoint, sometimes it sends people to the moon. Sometimes it works Great. I think conceptually it's fine. What they have in here, the inulin, right?, The chi, toy root, I think it's all fine conceptually. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I look at something like this and I say, okay, allegedly it'll say, 17 carbs, nine fiber, five added sugar., Okay, how much of that fiber is actually getting subtracted? How much of it's actually getting absorbed? One could argue if it's technically 3.4 calories per gram for carbs, and you're still at 50 calories. If it was truly subtracted, it wouldn't be 50 calories. So totally that'ss my sleuth ness. I like hearing your reasoning on it.'cause I find that these type of drinks are. Frankly, in addition to a meal that's fun. Like this is a fun category. And again, not anyone that thinks, oh, my health does better with it. Amazing for you. But I don't know that that's like a path I would set you on if I was trying to work on your health. Right? That's more of, you want a fun drink flavor. Maybe you're not getting some fake things that don't feel as good in your body, or you're not going a hundred percent into the juice category, but. We're in a gray zone. If you told me it was somebody drinks a regular Dr. Pepper or someone drinks that. Yeah. 10 times out of 10 I'll have you slide over a hundred percent percent. I'm not trying to, on the flip side, be like, oh, let's have this as your fiber source. And we would prefer to have people look at it and say, Hey,. Let's have you actually hit the meal first and then have this as the accessory instead of this as the main event. And then you have to deal with other stuff. Totally, totally. I know this is off topic, but I've got you here. I'm just always curious people's thoughts on this. What about. The non-nutritive sweeteners. Do you, have any thoughts about, raising blood sugar or not, or what do you typically see in your clients with that? Such a good question. I only love this question'cause I did a deep dive into all of the big ones, I don't remember everything, but I can tell you what the top three ones that were beneficial. And then everything else from there. Yeah. So allulose far and away the. Number one, not even particularly. Okay. I was gonna ask you about it'cause I was talking about it with my 30 30 group and I had done a deep dive and I had gotten it. I was like, this one's actually good for you. Oh, all we agree. Allulose is far and away, I know we're gonna go brands and name favorites like RX Sugar, by far my favorite. Okay. Awesome, awesome. My absolute babe. But with Allulose in general, there's been research showing that for people with type two, it can help their blood sugar. I've done experiments where I literally drank syrup that was made from Allulose. It was pancake syrup, so it had the pancakey flavor and then it was just allulose, nothing else. I put it in a measuring cup, drank it, sat there and my blood sugar had been trending down and just kept going. It didn't stop. It didn't change. Oh, I love that. I love this experiment. Okay. Awesome. I love that I do that all sorts of food because I'm like, I think a lot of this stuff's bs. I just test it on myself and I do it, just like that. I still wanna hear two and three, but real quick, how would you describe the flavor of Allulose? Because I feel like when I was trying to describe it to people, I'm like, it's not like Stevia, and it's not like, oh my God, monk fruit is like, I don't like monk fruits. If you're gonna say it's good, whatever, but I just don't enjoy it. How would you describe it? I would say take regular sugar and just take it down a notch. Okay. I love that.'cause I actually agree with you on that. It's, my point is I think it's very palatable. Like it's, does not have a weird a note or something like wacky happening. Okay. What's number two and three?'cause this is so interesting. Ironically it was monk fruit was two and Stevia it was three, which I don't particularly care for the taste of either one, but if they're in something, I'd rather have that be the sweetener source than fill in the blank of any of the other ones. You know what I find with these, I don't know if you experienced this, but it's about the ratio. I really love the podcast, how this was built. And they had the,, founder of Lily's Chocolate, brand. And she on her own with the partner had tried for years to make the chocolate. It tasted horrible and she ended up buying a formulation off of someone where. They had the ratios correct. On their own, I will not do Monk fruit or Stevia. Stevie actually gives me headaches and stuff, but if it's in the right combo, it works. But I find most products can't get it. Right. And so that's why I'm very picky with which ones I choose with that. Stevia on its own, to me, tastes absolutely horrifying., I want nothing to do with it, but when it's in something and it's like, oh, this is,, the 12th ingredient out of 14, yeah, I can tolerate it then a hundred percent. This is totally off base. But I love the brand devotion, they're a protein powder. And they had initially, back in the day, tried it with Stevia because it was all, you know, let's not use anything fake and da, da, da. And then of course it did not taste as good as when they used something different. So it's just interesting that you ultimately have to like what it is and stick with it. Do you remember any ones that were not good for blood sugar? That they claim it's good, but. Well, and I wouldn't necessarily argue for the other ones that, they're not necessarily good. Some will be like, oh, it doesn't do anything. I will say any of the sugar alcohols from personal experience too will raise your blood sugar. It might not be a ton, but it will go up. And they also, if you enjoyed sitting on the porcelain goddess, feel free to consume them. But yeah, not a fan on that front. Can you give us an example of a few names of sugar alcohols?'cause some people might be listening and they might not know when they're looking at a package that that's what it is. Sorbitol maltitol are usually the top two. Technically xylitol, but that's usually in gum and gum's not gonna have enough to really do anything to you. That one would be the least offensive of them all, but I'd say sorbitol and maltitol are always the two. Like you get a sugar free syrup at the grocery store and you're looking, it's like immediately both of those. Yeah, almost everything. Anything that ends in all OL. Is the fun sugar alcohols, but yeah. I jokingly would say saccharin exists., Do people even use it anymore? Probably not, or not as often, naming all of them in my head,, these are like the asso, saltine potassium. No one even knows what that is. Yeah. Aspartame, eh. All the soda stuff it, it's not bad necessarily. People are like, oh, it can change your gut bacteria, which could theoretically impact your blood sugar. Yeah, so those are a lot of the downstream, like if you were to drink seven diet Cokes first, you'll be wired as hell most likely. But second, you're also not necessarily gonna see an immediate impact in your blood sugar. If you do that for long enough, it can change. Effectively your gut health, your brain chemistry, and then you might see differences in your blood sugar, but also you might see differences in eating behavior as a result of all the hedonic stuff, which is all the nerdy nutrition stuff that I wasn't doing in grad school and then stopped. So I love that you brought that up though. I always say the dose makes the poison do you follow Tim Specter's stuff at all from the uk? His, gut microbiome and all that kind of stuff? But basically some people with these sweeteners do get a reaction with,, insulin and blood sugar and others don't. And so whenever people ask me, it's like, how do you feel on it? How does your gut feel afterward? What's your blood sugar doing? It's kind of complex,? So people want this answer of yes or no. And I guess if I ask you that, I would assume your answer is let's not go all in on it. But if it's in something's, okay. I mean, is that what you would say? Yeah. For whatever reason, I'm blanking on what the Splenda one is, it's driving me nuts sucralose, duh. It was as sulfate, potassium, and sucralose. Yeah, sucralose. Okay. Sucralose is, it's fine. That's probably the next one on. It's probably number four. It's fine. Don't eat packets of Splenda and enjoy your life. Don't be like, yeah. Splenda time, but if it's in something, it's not gonna be the end of the world. The key is, like you said, the dose makes the poison. All the studies that were like, oh, this one's terrible, were done. Like if you ate 10 pounds of it, like you're not gonna eat 10 pounds of it in one sitting. That would just be ridiculous. Totally. Don't eat 10 pounds of anything in one sitting. Totally, totally. I love that. So switching gears here,'cause I wanna make sure that I ask you all these things because, I'm loving hearing the answers. What are your, like you've made these things forever as far as like breakfast, lunch, dinners that, do work with blood sugar could work for someone with insulin resistance., What are your favorite. Oh man., First there's so many, but second I'm like, what are the go-to goat options? I would say, and this is just me, and I know everyone would be like, oh, of course, but I just love eggs. You tell me any sort of omelet, any type of scramble, you throw veggies in there. You can throw more protein in there. You can throw sausage in there, right? Turkey sausage, whatever, cheese, whatever your heart desires. To me, that's usually a great go-to. For on the go people, Hey, you want Greek yogurt? You want some peanut butter? You want some berries? You just checked all three boxes that we talked about before with the protein, the fiber, and the fruit. Yes. So those are a couple that are tried and true. On the breakfast side, lunches, the wrap we talked about before is always a great option. Of course, you could do a salad, you could do a bowl, and all these things could also technically apply for dinner. I like bowls because A, I'm lazy at cooking and B,, I know it's gonna hit all the boxes because I get to see all the different things. Lemme make my own Chipotle at home and I know what's in it and I don't have to worry about the portion size. Yeah. So there's plenty of ways to do that. Those would be, to me, my all time favorites., There's a trillion recipes online if you go look for them. I'm also probably the world's laziest cook, even though I'm a dietician. So no, I'm the same way. I don't think big chefs are listening to my product shop because it has to be sort of modular when you make it. You know? There can't be too much chopping. When people are like, it's so easy you just chop this onion and then do these other 50 things. I'm like, no, no, you left the land of easy a long time ago. Like easy is, open it up, stick it in the pan. That is easy. Right? So I like that you brought up things. That aren't too heavy of a lift, oh, like, like the Instapot is, my favorite thing. And the air fryer is my other favorite thing because I know I can throw something in there and I can come back in 30 minutes and it's good. But I didn't have to do anything. We had to learn all the cooking stuff and dietician school and I did it and I was fine. I can do it, but just'cause I can doesn't mean I want to. I'll never forget in medical school when everyone's always like, oh, we only get an hour or two. No, we got much more than that. But I still had to do a lot more training with nutrition, but they had a, test kitchen in one of these clinics, which I thought that's pretty revolutionary. But they were making stuff that was so complicated. I was thinking, why are you not just showing how to boil an egg, how to do basic stuff? Why are you taking it to this land I find sometimes, people don't know the level that the people are that they're working with, and I find that they're not checking in, what do you like to do? So that I can match that and not just give you like random recipes that might be way too hard for you and it makes me a appreciate when you go to a restaurant and the level of complexity that is there because you're like, wow, this is awesome. But second to your point, I'm always like, how can we meet people where they're at? Nobody's asking me for, Hey, do you have a 90 minute prep recipe that I can make from family on a random Thursday? Like, no, no one's asking for that. People are asking, well, how can I feed my kids in 15 minutes or less? So yeah, we're gonna go load up on that stuff and maybe you spend one day a week and do ling ornate and you make 10 servings of it and now you've got it for the next week. Totally. I love it so much. I remember back in the day, so I was in medical school and my sister had this, blog, sweet fee.com if anyone wants to check it out. And I was like, Felia, I can't do these recipes. I was like, can you do a five ingredient Friday? And so then she started a whole series. She made a whole cookbook based on it. And I was like, I was behind that because, if it has more than five ingredients, I'm not making it. I love, the simple things of the world and you bring up eating out, and one thing I'm wondering, a lot of us are eating out, whether it's like fast casual, sit down, things like that. What is a simple way or two that someone could make a better choice without having to overthink it or be the weird one at the table? The weird one at the table. If you're gonna be the weird one, just own it. First of all. Oh no, I'm about being weird, but, some people are a little self-conscious about doing things differently, you know? I think the first thing to your point though, and to that same level. If I need something specific, I don't care. There have been times when my cousin will gimme hell and he is a, hospitalist up in Boston area and he drives me nuts.'cause every time he is like, are you gonna order a side of chicken with everything? Because I'm like, if there's not enough protein and I need protein, I'm gonna order a side of chicken. And so, he'll call me up. He's like, so where'd you go for breakfast? I'll tell him. He's like, did you order a side of chicken? I'm like, of course I did. Again, I don't care. But own it if you're gonna do it. And that makes it more fun. But either way. Things would be in my mind for, be the three boxes we talked about before. If you can look at a meal or look at a thing on a menu and say, I can identify where that protein source is, where that fiber source is, and if I'm getting a veggie or fruit at a minimum, at that point, I'm not gonna say I don't care what else you eat, but at least I know you have checked the boxes that you need to check. And then if you want to go have, bacon, mac, and cheese, pay attention to the portion size, figure out the carbs, figure out what you need to know and the fat and the protein hit you hours after. But. At the same time, don't just deprive yourself.'cause it's probably a special occasion if it's, Hey, I'm going out to eat every day. Different conversation. But Totally. I love that you bring that up. Yeah.'cause, I found eating out got easier with that. The other day I had what it was, a veggie quesadilla, but the protein wasn't high enough. Right. So then I got something else, to your point. Is there something that you do personally every day that keeps your blood sugar really stable? That's a good question. I like to get a lot of, I like everything I got. Over the last like five-ish years,, I started actually paying attention to the step count because I never thought like, you know, you the hero get 10,000 steps. I'm like, yeah, whatever. It's fine. I'll get steps. I didn't pay attention till when it was suddenly COVID and like we weren't going anywhere and I was like, wow, I'm getting like 3000 steps and I just feel disgusting. And so I got to a point where I realized I'm like. I should probably be more intentional about being active and I'm sure it'll help my number. And so then I start effectively for myself setting a,, minimum bar of steps, which for me is 7,500. Everybody's different. So I know if I get at least this many steps, my blood sugar will be in a better spot from an insulin sensitivity standpoint.'cause my body is just accustomed to getting that. So it's been to a point where. I don't do this as an experiment, just kind of happened. I've had a few days where it's 6:00 PM I've had 1800 steps, I'm not even close, and my blood sugar is just stubbornly high and I start getting steps in and it just drifts right back to where it should be. And I realized, the steps really do matter. So that would be something I think that people some pay attention to. Some are, lunatics like me and I have a streak now and I can't break my streak. So it's all that, but you know. At the same time, it's something where if you pay attention to a little stuff like that, I think that makes a world of a difference.'cause even if you don't work out that day and it's just your chill day, you know your body's getting something, your insulin sensitivity stays happy and that's diabetes or not. But I think diabetes is even more important. I like that you bring this up,, it's kinda like where do you get the most bang for your buck?'Cause people think it's doing all these things. And if you really think about it, if I were to think about my day. Getting the walk in the morning hydrating throughout the day and getting a protein heavy morning, my whole day is gonna be good. I don't even need to worry about it. Right. But if I were to think like every single thing all the time, it just makes you think it's exhaust, like you're not gonna win. and I like the step count too. I'm not about the streaks, just because, if I get sick or this or that, but now do you use Apple Watch? Is that what you're. Oh no, I don't have it'cause everyone's like, oh, you could put your Dexcom on your Apple watch. And I'm like, cool. Another thing to ping and annoy the crap outta me. So I literally, this is so bad. I have this thing on my phone, it's literally called pedometer and it just tells, I love that. It's so awkward. That's the app that I have for my Apple thing so that it shows up on the face. That's even better then. So I have the app, the correct app on the wrong device. So I don't know,'cause I'm like. I don't wanna wear more stuff. I already got my pump, I already got my cj. I don't want more stuff in my body. I'm good. I love it. But yeah, that's what I do. I think it helps just because I know okay, at baseline that helps. The other thing, I know you mentioned hydration. That's another huge thing for me, especially on the electrolyte side. But sleep, I always tell people sleep is the X factor no one pays attention to, but it can impact your blood sugar so much. Totally. Yeah, I think people just get so distracted by life, we're just in a, digital tech. Age and people like to relax with it, and then the next thing you know, sleep is suffering. I'm glad that you brought that one up. If you could tell someone one thing maybe to stop stressing about when it comes to food or blood sugar, what would that be? Like one thing that they could just let go of? Well, I think one easy thing would be don't expect to be in range a hundred percent of the time because you're not gonna be, and quite frankly, I'd rather you be 85% or 80% time in range and have a life and enjoy your life than have that person be. Hey guys, I was 99% in range today no one cares. Your life becomes your diabetes. You can't have your life become your diabetes, your life has to be your life, and diabetes is just this thing that's there that you deal with on the back burner, and you deal with it, you move on.. I find with any chronic illness, it's such a heavy mental load, and if you can't find a way to just normalize it, make things easy, move on, make other things of more importance, because I think it's actually sad when we become someone that. I'll just talk about from a weight standpoint, when people are like all about fat loss, what the scale's doing, that's all they ever care about. That's actually very boring. That should not be your whole personality. We need to build out your life to be honest, if that's what's happening. And so, to your point, we have to move past it. It like defines us.'cause I think there are a lot more interesting things about all of us, so this has been a super fun conversation., How can people find you? Where do you hang out? Tell us a little bit about, where are you on social, your website, and then also about your practice, what does it entail? Just tell us all of it. That people know what you offer. So for all of the things, so social media, it would just be TikTok Instagram at Man of Zeal. I may switch it to your Diabetes Insider soon just to keep everything consistent and stop confusing people. But for now, it's Man of Zeal.'cause it sounds cool. But then website, be your diabetes insider.com and effectively our practice, we're all dieticians. We all live with diabetes ourselves or have 30 plus years in the field. So we all get it personally and professionally, we all have exercise backgrounds and ultimately, if you are listening to this and you want to enjoy food, you wanna have amazing blood sugars, you wanna become stronger than ever. If you may wanna lose weight, build muscle, whatever you wanna do, and just live without any restrictions with your diabetes, type one, type two, gestational pre, we are here for it and we're happy to be in your corner and help out. I don't know why I didn't think I was looking at your website and stuff. I didn't realize that you guys do gestational. We gotta screen that from the rooftops. I'm telling you there's. No one's doing it well, no one so if you're like getting patients for that now, you're like, I didn't know that would happen. So I think that's awesome. Yeah. I think the big thing is then pregnancy. Everyone's like, oh my goodness, it's so scary. We could have a whole episode just on that alone. But at the end of the day, especially if someone's on insulin, we know the principles for people who are type one that have to have great blood sugars during pregnancy, same game, just, ideally it goes away at the end. Yes. I should bring you back. We should do an episode on that because again, I don't know why. I just think it's such a gap, and I do have a lot of young women that listen to me as well. Okay, we're definitely gonna bring you back for that. So we will make sure everybody listening, we're gonna have all of this information either underneath where you're listening, where the show notes are, or again, you go to t clinic.com and we have. Long blog. I had someone say the other day that, that's really in my world. She said, oh, I had no idea on your website that everything is all written out and how much there's there. So it's like everything we talked about, there were so many gems. We'll make sure to link to it. Just thanks again for taking the time to be with us today. I'm just so grateful to be here. This was a lot of fun. I feel like I do some episodes, I'm like, yeah, that was cool. This one was fun. I enjoyed, this flute. So thank you. Yay. Awesome. All right, we'll bring you back soon and, if you guys have questions listening, make sure to email me because when we bring'em back, I'll make sure to ask them. Let's go. Awesome.