What If Your Morning Routine is Driving Insulin Resistance?

Your CGM looks calm all night… then you wake up and your glucose climbs anyway. That’s the dawn phenomenon at work, and it can be maddening when you’re doing keto, low-carb, intermittent fasting, or anything aimed at reversing insulin resistance. We dig into the early-morning hormone surge behind it, especially cortisol, and why modern routines can accidentally turn a normal wake-up signal into an all-morning blood sugar climb.

We get practical fast. Stephen shares the exact morning protocol he’s been running for weeks while tracking his results with a continuous glucose monitor: outdoor sunlight in the eyes for 10 to 15 minutes (not through glass), water early with electrolytes, no phone like it’s made of molten rock, and gentle movement you can comfortably talk through. When stress still feels high, he adds quick box breathing to help flip from sympathetic “fight or flight” to parasympathetic “rest and digest.” Graham adds his own version with longer walks, homemade electrolytes, and a few sleep-focused experiments that reduce those weird 3 a.m. wakeups.

Along the way, we connect the dots between circadian rhythm, caffeine timing, dehydration, morning brain fog, and why glucose spikes and crashes can drive cravings and fatigue. If you’re trying to stabilise blood sugar, improve metabolic health, and feel better day to day, this conversation offers a simple routine you can test tomorrow morning with real feedback from your body.

Subscribe, share the episode with someone who’s chasing steadier mornings, and leave a review telling us what your glucose and energy looked like after you tried it.

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Transcript

Welcome And Safety Disclaimer

Introduction 0:00

Welcome to Lessons from the Ketoverse. Join Steven and Graham as they explore the keto lifestyle with tips, science, and stories to boost your health. This podcast isn't medical advice. Consult your healthcare advisor for any health-related issues. Get ready to fuel your primal power.

Graham 0:19

Welcome back to Lessons from the Keto Verse. This is Graham, and we're joined by Stephen. Steven, thank you for joining today.

Stephen 0:26

Good to see you again, Graham.

Graham 0:28

All right, thank you. Uh, good to see you as well. Uh, so today we've got a different subject. Um, we've been uh taking some time to try different protocols, and uh, we're gonna talk to Stephen about one that he's trying um tried uh in the last month or two. He'll go into details about um the details there. But we're diving into something that affects almost everyone who's trying to optimize their metabolism. Really it affects everybody. Um, but those that are really trying to hone this metabolism optimization, they're looking for new things to try, different things to try to test them out and see uh what the effects are gonna be. So we're gonna talk to Stephen about that. Um, a

Why Morning Glucose Rises

Graham 1:12

little background, and I had to do a little bit of research um on this, and I know Stephen's gonna go into some detail as well, and when we get to uh my questions for him, but if you've ever woken up and you wear a continuous glucose monitor uh and you've checked that CTM, uh you may be wondering why your blood sugar is higher than it was uh when you went to bed. Uh, even if you didn't eat anything, say three or four hours or even six hours uh before uh you actually went to bed, um, you've probably run into something called the Dawn effect, D-A-W-N effect, um, or Dawn phenomenon. Here's the quick science behind it based on a little bit of research. In the very early morning hours, uh, let's call it 3 a.m. for argument's sake, uh, or a little later, your body releases a surge of hormones, including cortisol, this is the stress hormone, um the growth hormone, some growth hormones, glucagon, and adrenaline. And uh what are these for? Well, um, back in the day when we needed to hunt for our food, or uh our family and uh and ourselves would starve, these were your get ready for the day hormones. Uh, they tell your liver to release store glucose into the bloodstream, so you have energy to wake up and start moving. Uh, it's like an internal alarm clock to get you out of bed. It's a totally natural process. The problem is uh in people with any degree of insulin resistance, this is probably not a thing when we were cavemen, um, but it is pretty common today. Um, especially, you know, for those people that are turning to a keto or low-carb diet to try and reverse that insulin resistance. Um, this is something that we're going to be well aware of that we need to keep that insulin resistance in check. And this can lead to higher fasting blood sugar readings in the morning. So the dawn effect is cortisol natural and cortisol release naturally spikes two or three times higher in the first 30 to 45 minutes after you wake up. Um, this is totally normal. It helps with alertness and energy, like we talked about. Um, but um, unlike the old days, modern habits like immediately grabbing your phone or immediately going for that coffee on an empty stomach or jumping right into emails, um, that can actually amplify that stress response and make the blood sugar impact even higher. Um and uh this can be a problem. But the good news, there are some simple low-tech ways to try and support your body's natural transition from sleep to wakefulness while engaging with something called the parasympathetic, call it rest and digest side of your nervous system. And I know Steven's gonna talk a little bit about that. So this can help uh keep that morning cortisol um spike in a more balanced fashion. It can also lead to flatter, more stable blood sugar curves, and this is exactly what we're trying to chase on the keto lifestyle. So, as we talked about, I'm joined with Steven, who's been experimenting with a really interesting and specific morning protocol uh that he's learned about designed to do exactly that, to sort of uh you know, keep that cortisol and glucose spike in check in the morning. He's been tracking everything with a continuous glucose monitor, which really helps us understand the data behind the experience. And so we'll get to understand sort of not only the experience, but uh some real-time data results on how the routine has affected his blood sugar. So let's uh let's jump into it. But before we get into the details of the protocol itself, Stephen, I'd love to hear from you. What is it that made you want to try this particular morning routine in the first place?

Phones And Coffee Trigger Stress

Stephen 5:03

Yeah, that's a good that's a great uh great question. There was really two factors, uh Graham. Uh the first was I was noticing that my sugar was rising because I was getting up and doing all the things that you just said not to do. And um my mind immediately switched because of my personality tight to okay, what do I got to get done? What's my first meeting? Am I prepped for it? I better pull the stuff up on my computer screen. So when I have the meeting, it's right there. So what I'm telegraphing to my body in prehistoric terms is there's a T-Rex after you. Um, you just woke up. So um, what's happening is the sympathetic system, which is already overstimulated with the presence of cortisol, is going, wow, it's a good job. We got up early because we're about to be eaten. So um your system, uh, your brain in that system keeps this biofeedback going back and forth, saying there's some reason why you're amped up. So while we're amped up, you know, we're strapping on the proverbial uh turbo units to that stress or spraying uh bic lighter fluid on a uh raging fire, which is the cortisol, when we are looking at the blue light of our phone, and the first thing we're doing, we're maybe sneaking peeks at our phone early in the morning. We're not quite ready to get up. Or in many, many cases, especially for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, uh with the you know, in the wintertime, you're getting up, it's dark. When you're coming home from work, it's dark. So you're not getting a lot of um vitamin D into the retina, sunlight. And so it it ultimately this represents a um malignment of the circadian rhythm because your body doesn't really understand what's going on. And I think it's fascinating that you mentioned the 3 a.m. stuff, Graham, because a lot of us guys, without getting into um uh biological detail, will find ourselves naturally wanting to wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning or 3:30 in the morning. And um, you know, for middle-aged guys that usually um will feel the uh the bladder pressure and and and go use the washroom. Well, interestingly, that's your sugar. Because as you said, your sugar is actually elevating at that point because of cortisol, and cortisol causes um um has an impact on insulin, which in turn uh will show up in your your constant glucose meter as as an increase in sugar. Now, this is where it gets interesting. So I was trying to figure out, like, you know, um in Canadian terms, I would uh see my numbers slide um all night long or flat line, like for sure if it was an ECG, I'm I'm dead. Um it would be that flat, and then there would it would start to spike uh just after I got up and uh not realizing it was the habits, um, all the the things that you named I was doing, and of course, um getting to that survival cup, which is the tea from the T-Rex to get away from it and start sipping my coffee. The problem is the caffeine that is in coffee will cause even a higher rise, but not just cause it to raise even higher, but it will synthetically stimulate the um nervous system in believing it needs to stay at that height or more and will do so, even if you're intermittently fasting and you're monitoring your sugar, it'll take hours. It could even take a full day before you self-regulate again. And that's only assuming you're not repeating the same habits. So I'll stop there and then we can talk about the protocol if you'd like.

Graham 8:21

Yeah, I I I'm actually uh excited for the audience to hear about some high-level details around what are you actually doing in the morning? What does the all this mean in practical terms?

The Sun Water Walk Protocol

Stephen 8:31

Sure. So the one of the key features of this protocol, and it's scientifically proven you can do your own uh um due diligence. So I've I found probably 25 different references. Um and of course now I'm socially engineered, so I'm getting more and more information from different authors that are essentially saying the same thing. So when you get up in the morning, you get up. You open your drapes, you allow light to hit the eyes, you do not touch your phone like it's made of molten volcanic rock, and uh you proceed immediately to going somewhere outside uh where a window is not actually uh preventing uh the UVA uh and view UVB light hitting the retina. Because what that does is it flips the brain, and you do this for 10 to 15 minutes. Don't do anything other than uh and I'll talk about the water in a sec, but water's involved in this part of the process, and I'll explain why in a second. But literally you're just sitting in the light. It doesn't have even if it's cloudy, you're still getting um that sunlight into your eyeballs. It won't work through a window, so how you have to be outside or in a screen uh porch like I use because of the bugs this time of year, and get that light in there for 10 or 15 minutes and don't do anything else. Just sit there and sip your water. Now, the water protocol is approximately half a liter to a liter, pinch of salt, lemon, and just flat water. Um, you can do uh, and this is a plug for soda stream from Graham and I, you can do the the bubbly water as we call it, but it will it will, because of the the uh carbonation, it will uh slow down the process of water absorption. And why water is so important and so critical to this protocol, not coffee, and I'll explain that again in a sec, um, because coffee is a diuretic, we'll come back to that. So uh what what you're actually doing with the water is you're basically re-lubricating uh the spinal um fluids, re-lubricating the entire endocrine system, and obviously hydrating your your body. Why? Because you've spent eight hours of sleep, ideally, dehydrating all night because um you expel a lot of moisture just from the inhale and exhale uh process, not so much from the inhale because you're breathing in, but when you exhale, you're throwing a lot of moisture out in the air and it's literally drying you out. So for the the diabetics out there or the preventative diabetics who are already wearing a CGM, the thing you'll notice, because your meter doesn't measure cortisol. Um cortisol is indicative of elevated sugar. Um, elevated sugar isn't necessarily indicative of cortisol. So we've got to keep in mind diet and other things, stress can can affect it, but stress again will be the articulation of cortisol in your system. So what's interesting is when you um have followed all the other protocols, like you said, not eating three hours before, no snacking, none of that, um, you're still getting this rise. And I was getting it, and I was like, I, you know, I I don't understand. So when I found this protocol, all I did is as I said up till this point is avoid coffee for an hour to an hour and a half after you wake up. You drink the water, get the sunlight into the eyes for 15 or 20 minutes, and you do nothing. Not look at your phone or like you don't even have to necessarily don't engage in conversations that are work-related or uh in any shape or form um controversial because your system will, because the cortisol's already elevated, it it's ready for a fight, right? Your system's like geared up. You're trying to calm it down. So one of the things that I do, if I'm still still um, because I'm quite reactive and it shows up my sugar, uh uh quite quite obviously on the CGM uh measuring process, is what I'll do is do box breathing. So I'll breathe in for four, uh hold for eight, breathe out for four, um, hold for eight, breathe in for four, hold for eight, and so on for about 20 or 30 seconds. That alone can cause the flip between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. And if you're struggling to focus on that and you're a bit agitated, just keep doing it for another minute or two. That will calm you down. So the next step uh is to go for a walk. So you can merge these if you're drinking water and walking outside. Um, I live in uh in bug season, so I don't walk outside this time of year. I just jump on my elliptical. I'm now losing the sunlight um without a window, but um I've already done my my eye exposure without the obstruction of windows uh for 10 or 15 minutes, but you can merge those. You could just get up, grab your water, go outside, start walking. And this is a walk where you can hold a conversation like you and I are holding right now. You are not walking fast because again, your your body's already elevated going to, yeah, see, I'm glad we got ready because now we're running, you know, or we're walking super fast. And so you don't want to be doing anything that is anaerobic that's gonna cause it uh the sugar decrease um even further. And here's the key, folks. You only need to do that for about uh I do it for 15 minutes, 10 minutes minimum, and then when you stop, all you have to do is chill, you know, and uh and wait. So if you got up at 7 a.m., uh, don't even think about looking at a coffee or having a coffee, even if all that's done, say you've done some stretching, which is part of my my morning routine, because you and I sit a lot at a desk, I'll stretch as well, I'll do the elliptical. That eats up a half an hour. I spend 15 minutes petting my dogs, sipping my water with sunlight coming into my eyes, and then my sugar stays stable all day. That's ultimately what happens. So no berberide, no um, no other pharmaceutical stuff is required to stabilize my sugar. That's simple. Protocol resets my system for the day as a baseline.

Why Sunlight Must Be Outdoors

Graham 14:12

Excellent, excellent summary. And one of the things Stephen mentioned was um, you know, this doesn't work behind glass. And I I did a little bit of research on this. Uh intuitively I knew this because of some um rules that I've had in the past. Um, but there are basically three kinds of uh ultraviolet uh light uh that come from the sun, UVA UVA or ultraviolet A, UV B, and UV C. And why did Steven talk about that? Well the atmosphere blocks almost all UVC rays. So that's UV C as in carat. And most UV B radiation, although some UV B gets through. Almost all UVA uh ultraviolet A radiation passes through the atmosphere. Now we get to glass. Glass blocks nearly all ultraviolet B uh rays. Um and obviously the C rays haven't gone um past the atmosphere, but if any did get through, it's gonna be blocked by the glass. You can't really get a sunburn standing behind the glass as a result. The UVA light um does get through both the atmosphere and glass. So that's the only way you're actually gonna get exposed to UVA light is if you're outside. And so this light, if you want to do some research on the benefits of UVA light, and we're not talking about standing in the sun all day until you get a burn, we're talking about early morning exposure. When um you you're getting that red light therapy, that UVA light provides critical benefits for the skin by triggering nitric oxide release to lower blood pressure, uh, and for the eyes by regulating circadian rhythms to improve mood. So this is what Steven's talking about when he says it doesn't count to drink your coffee behind glass looking at the sun. You need to be out there and exposed in order to get the benefits uh that he was talking about. So, Stephen, um great description on the protocol. Uh I know you wear a continuous glucose monitor, uh, so you're kind of my guinea pig for uh trying different things uh to see how the effects are doing. Um what did you see in the data uh uh you know before and after you went through this protocol in the morning?

CGM Data And Real Results

Stephen 16:45

Yeah, so I was just uh pointing out my Hume. I wear a Hume band as well, and I have the scale. And um, it's interesting because I've also noted using that, those tools, that my visceral fat has swelled way down. Um so my trunk is um my fat percentage. I won't quote it here because it sounds like I'm bragging, but my uh for my age, um, there's a 15-year difference between my metabolic age and my actual number of birthdays because of um my physiology by following these protocols, and that's as a diabetic with uh uh with uh recessed uh um symptoms. So um my my most recent formal clinical blood test was um put me uh uh not absent of um I wasn't even pre-diabetic. So uh and of course that'll fluctuate with stress and seasons and how much exercise you're getting and other factors, and and obviously your diet. But um stress is definitely a big one for us um as you're getting older. Um, but I do want to stress that there are other methods in which you can you can monitor that, and I find the human particularly um interesting because if you see your visceral fat um rising, that's cortisol. You're in now in a cortisol um and insulin. You know, it's a combination of cortisol which kicks off insulin. Cortisol is kind of the biggest bully in terms of hormones. I mean, we we kind of demonize it a little bit, which is probably unfair, Graham, in some ways, because you need it, right? The whole idea is um you don't want to be an easy target for a T-Rex sticking its nose in the you know in the cave to eat you while you're asleep around the fire. So um it doesn't hurt to be, you know, as dawn and things get active back in the day, um, to uh to be prepared in the event that we need it. But the reality of the modern world is we mostly don't need it. And some of it is lifestyle, like you said. We are creatures of habit. If your go-to is to get on your local transit at six in the morning when it's super dark, um, stare um in an evil manner at the other people that have to get up as early as you, and everybody's buddy's got their early morning ugly on, they don't want to talk and all the rest of it. That desocialization, all of that is keeping you in a sympathetic state. You're sipping your coffee, now you're adding fire to it. And most people realize um whether they recognize the the the root cause by by by 10 o'clock in the morning, they've already had their donut, maybe a second coffee, and they massively crash at 10:30. They're looking for somewhere to hide in the office because they it's it's like I can't wait for lunch. Maybe I'll just go in my car and nap at lunch because they're they're in a sugar crash. And that up and down, up and down is what it'll do. Um obviously, if your sugar by our standards, like normal is you know, you know, six and under. Um if your sugar's 12 all day, uh, just that's bad. Um if your sugar is going four, twelve, fifteen, nine, six, eight, that's that can be um also very bad. Um, because often those spikes, those extreme spikes and those drops are what can cause you um to uh uh to develop uh conditions um that will also be reflecting your blood pressure and um and you can actually go to a point where um you know like I've had instances before when I went to like 2.8 or 2.9, which is you know, now your um your your system is completely lacking of sugar and your organs are starting to shut down. So normalizing all of this by this simple routine that doesn't cost anything, by the way, just just some consideration of your time. And um I'm not here to put a plug on on red light, but if I mean if you're you know, like many people who uh work construction contract roles, they have to be at the job site at, you know, six o'clock or in the morning, perhaps the sun's not yet up. So you're gonna have to adapt. And certainly you can do the water. Certainly, you know, if you can park uh you know half a kilometer or half a mile from where you work, walk in the morning while the sun is coming up, so you're still hitting it, you're gonna get some benefit to it. Um, it may it may take longer than the protocol I'm using, but it's still better if you haven't had the coffee and you are hydrating. Hydrating is key because um the dehydration that happens at night, we'll naturally think about this. If you put um a two spoonsful, it's two spoonfuls of sugar into eight ounces of water and you drink it, you can taste the sugar. Now take that same eight ounces and start boiling it for an hour, and it's gonna be four ounces, and you drink it, you can out now you're really tasted. Well, that's your blood. That's what's happening overnight because you've lost all that moisture. That's what's probably getting you up at three o'clock in the morning because your your kidneys um are saying, Hey, we need to get rid of this. It's way too much. Your liver's um, you know, trying to address the uh sugars in your system, your entire system actually. So you'll end up trying to pee it out. Well, now you're even more dehydrated. So it in the morning is so important. Um, I've heard this for years. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Um, there's water in my coffee, I'm fine, but it's not the case. And and the evidence, um, I'm a great budgie for this stuff because my system is hyper reactive. I fall into that class of people with with type two. Um, I don't have these strong indicators. I have extremely low visceral fat, virtually non existent. I do not have trunk fat, you know, of the other type. Not we're talking brown fat versus regular fat. Um uh every time someone f hears that I'm a diabetic, you know, I'm in the gym four days a week, pray. They think that said it must be nonsense. Well, it's because of cortisol. It's because I'm hyperreactive. And my body, uh, whether it's aspirin or cortisol, it's like, yeah, you know, um, we'll take those tiny microns of of energy and and and go nuts. And so you have to self-regulate. So interestingly, uh, to answer the back half of that question, which was around um, you know, one was what inspired it, and two now, what's what was the result? Um, it's interesting because there's obviously multiple inputs that are coming into your body on any given day. But what I noticed the first few days I did it is my sugar, I was even showing off to you. Remember, I was sending you um text messages, hey, my sugar is 4.4, you know, and it's 10 o'clock in the morning. Um, and I I generally fast. I don't I don't eat in the mornings typically uh until usually around 11:30 or 12 o'clock, and then I'll have the classic uh keto uh start of my day um high protein. Uh there's lots of great research about eggs, folks. Um do more research because that's literally one of the best nutrient sources on the planet for us, um, brain barrier stuff, the whole nine years, what what eggs will do for you. So that's the other key is to start the day with healthy food. I'd already been doing that, and so have you for years. So I was trying to figure out why you know I was seeing this dawn phenomenon where my numbers, you know, would typically be all night long. There'd be like in somewhere in between the fours and maybe in the upper sixes, if it was a particularly stressful night, because sleep definitely is a factor because if you're you know your sleep is disturbed and stuff, your cortisol is going to go up because you're it thinks you're awake and it takes a while to settle and your parasympathetic kicks back in. So that you'll see that irregularity sometimes, um, which was frustrating me a bit because it seemed like I was trending up and I didn't know why. So when I found this protocol, it was outstanding. Now it's it's not a lab, you know, your body's going to react to different inputs throughout the day, whether you're conscious of them or not. I have seen it regulate um because I was having, this is why I got got a bit concerned. I was having a trend line that started in the morning, and instead of going back down like it normally would, like when I don't eat, like it'll drop back in the fours and um mid-fives, which is, you know, normal, very normal, like non-diabetic normal. And uh and then it what I was just trying to figure out, I was like, why is my sugar so high all day today? I haven't even eaten yet. And um, just going back to the notes and this feeble brain of mine, I remember talking to my naturopath, and she said a while back, she said, Stephen, when you first get up, don't drink coffee. And you know, I'm thinking I'm paying for this, and those are fighting words you're trying to get between me and my medicine in the morning. And um, you know, she said, just give it a try, you know, have some water. She mentioned the pinch of salt and all those things. And when I did it, you know, these first few weeks, I've been, I guess I've been doing it now, maybe what, five, six weeks, brand. And it sort of has normalized. It's just part of my routine now. I don't monitor it probably as much as I did initially, but yeah, I was definitely all over it like uh like a lab scientist watching how my body reacted. So um, and as you know, my uh my uh lifestyle was certainly calmer during that period and have as much on my plate. Now I'm back to having a lot on my plate. So I'm glad I have this protocol because I probably would have elevated sugar and I might be starting starting to push back up into pre-diabetics just from stress.

Graham 25:24

Yeah, excellent summary. And um Steven mentioned the T-Rex, and we've talked about this on Pat past podcasts. Um we we know that uh dinosaurs were around well before humans were ever around. We do that as a joke. Um, obviously, it could have been the woolly mammoth or the saber-toothed tiger. Of course. We just find that the idea of a T, you know, waking up and looking at a T-Rex must have been, you know, if that was possible, would have been the scariest thing on the planet. So, Stephen, you thought you touched on this a little bit. I just want to dig into a little more detail. Um, you know, because people's stress goes up and down. Um, you had uh uh uh let's call it lower stress. People are generally lower stressed in the you know spring summer because we're getting more vitamin D3, among other things. Um, that should be a lesson for all of us that maybe in the winter being vitamin D3 deficient is something we have control over and seasonal affective disorder, maybe that can actually um assist uh yeah in dealing with that challenge. But now the stress levels are going up a little bit, you're hyper-aware of these things and how you know the reaction to the body, aside from the data, which is critically important and obviously it's been showing real progress over even uh the monumental strides you've already made. Um, how would you describe how you're feeling subjectively? Um, you know, aside from the data since you went through this new protocol, uh, whether it's a placebo or real, it doesn't matter. Um, because at the end of the day, um how you feel has a lot to do with um how your body um sort of supports you. Um, how would you answer

Stress Fat And How It Feels

Graham 27:01

that?

Stephen 27:01

Yeah, it's a it's a great question. I don't think it's a placebo because I did enough due diligence to look at the research. Um I'm comfortable with the idea that that the you know mind is a powerful tool. I don't think I can give my mind credit for this. I think it's more of a um a biomechanical reaction to you know the presence of the body's chemistry, especially when it comes to this natural phenomena, um with cortisol getting us up in the morning and that switch from uh serotonin release to the brain to get us back into into the parasympathetic. Um so I just was fascinated mostly, Graham, that you know, 10-15 minutes of sunlight is all we need. Like the our bodies have been so well engineered over um you know eons that most of what we need is readily available and most of what we've made is making us unwell. You know, uh coffee has its benefits, but not in this specific case in this application. Uh, you know, there's lots of research, but you know, it it may help with respect to heart disease and other factors. But um that's great. You measured that quotient, but what's your what's your quotient analysis around how much cortisol is raging through your body and your body being in a in a hyperactive state? Because that's that's what leads to inflammation. Because folks, keep in mind when you have a rise in insulin uh with a high presence of um of uh cortisol, your body's going to store everything you're consuming, protein included, into fat. And it's going to store it. And that fat will most likely be visceral fat, at least the um the vast majority of it. Visceral fat is stress fat, and it's very hard to get rid of um uh unless you're doing uh the intermittent fasting that that myself and Graham have gone through and managing your stress, which is not always the easiest thing to do.

Graham 28:56

Excellent, excellent summary, Stephen. Um I think uh that's everything I wanted to ask you about. Is is there anything that I missed that you wanted to share uh before we uh uh before we end the podcast?

Stephen 29:09

Yeah, actually um you you uh took it upon yourself uh to do this protocol after I had shown you um maybe even taunted you with some of my sugar results in the forest and stuff, which I with my right hand raised did not doctor. So how are you finding it? Are you finding that it's um it's beneficial? I know you're you're enjoying it with the soda stream, and you walk every day in the morning anyway, you're already outside. Um, you're not plagued by bugs like I am. But so what are your general thoughts about your experience?

Graham’s Modified Routine And Sleep

Graham 29:37

Yeah, um the slightly modified version, um, but there's a reason for it. I I too sort of had that 3 a.m. wake up. And it wasn't that I needed to go to the bathroom. That that, you know, a year or two ago, maybe three years ago, I would have said, yeah, that's the reason why I need to get up. Doesn't mean I don't go to the bathroom when I wake up at three, but I don't really need to go. So what's going on? And and in the little bit of research that I took a look at, it was exactly what you uh talked about. This sort of your body um sort of telling you, uh, or the body telling itself, hey, we need something, uh, or something's happening that we're responding to. Um, one of the things I've been trying is aside from taking some magnesium uh, you know, before like an hour or two before bed, I've actually been trying just a tablespoon of butter, not much, but just a little bit of fat before we go to bed. For some reason, the days that I remember to do that, I seem to have a better sleep. I don't seem to have that mid sort of morning or early, early morning wake up. Um again, I got to try that further, so I'm just gonna leave that there. Uh positive results so far. Um, the second thing is getting up early, getting that morning sun, especially, you know, right now it's the middle of summer. I like walking all day, but I really don't like walking in you know 95 degree Fahrenheit or 30 degrees Celsius weather. Um I don't enjoy it. I'll do it, but I don't love it. I'd rather be walking in sleet and snow, to be honest, than minus 15 or whatever that is, my you know, 30 fair 30 Fahrenheit. Um, and so the my routine is I get up, I have my, you know, you know, my my my my club soda, whatever you want to call it, um, as clean a water as I can get for my uh my reverse osmosis. Um I put my electrolytes in, which I have started making. Um it's super easy to make. We've talked about that in past uh episodes. I'm probably spending about 15% of what I was spending before, so I'm really happy about that. I think that puts me in a good mood. Um, and then I go out for a walk and it's a minimum 35-minute walk at a fairly brisk pace. Again, like you said, I can have a conversation at that pace and often do with uh people if I'm talking to them throughout the day. Um, but it's a quick enough pace that I'm getting my heart rate up a little bit, um, but I'm not over-exerting myself. I'm getting that sun. There's nothing better than feeling that sun on my face early in the morning. And um, you know, when I get back, I'll often have a bone broth and creatine uh tea uh in uh you know warm water, not boiling hot water, warm water just to make sure everything mixes up well. Um, that seems to have uh repaired some of the uh damaged um joint issues that I've had. You know, I would get from a two out of ten on like my torn rotator cuffs, for example. Uh you know, the the change in eating lifestyle might have taken that up to a seven out of ten. This has kind of taken it up to like an eight and a half out of ten, and that's really the only thing I've changed um in the last probably three or four months. So positive results there. Uh, and then I'll probably go for another walk after that. So before I really eat anything other than that bone broth and creatine, I've probably done an hour's worth of good, healthy walking. Um, and that entire time, not once, do I think about food. It's

Heart Risk And Caffeine Timing

Graham 33:14

a great feeling.

Stephen 33:15

I was just going to mention, too, you know, we we tend to gravitate towards diabetes uh because of my own personal experiences in the CGM. But I did want to share that, you know, it's it's natural for all humans to have this DOM phenomenon in the cortisol rise. But it's interesting, even the um um American and Canadian um uh diabetes in um heart associations indicate that there's a higher likelihood for cardiac arrest, heart attack, and stroke at uh between the hours of two and three in the morning because they recognize uh this this rise. And you're you you you sustain that risk, interestingly, from 6 a.m. until noon, probably because we're of our lifestyle, because the majority of people or a very high number of people are consuming some kind of beverage with caffeine in it first thing in the morning, whether it's uh soda, bob, uh, coffee, tea that's not decaffeinated. And um it stands to reason that um what is described as chronic cortisol levels, I'm observing with my CGM. So if I if mine is elevated and then I have a coffee, it stays elevated all day. So think of the number of years you've repeated that lifestyle choice of getting up. My wife is one of them. She gets up, she feeds the dogs, and then she makes herself a coffee before she light hits her eyes or anything else. Um, that is very unhealthy because the diuretic um will pull more moisture um and pass it through your your kidneys and you will pee it out with you know with with more fluids as opposed to retaining them when you need the most. So it's not just um, you know, somebody like Graham who's healthy and wants to get healthier, Stephen who's trying to make sure that he never goes back to where he was. The reality is it's an exposure for all of us to take into consideration in terms of lifestyle.

Graham 35:07

Yeah, I I think that is actually a really good point. And I'll just um complement that by saying you're you're you're hearing an opinion from us on things that we found have made you know positive steps. When you dive down the rabbit hole of eating lifestyle and you change your habits, um once you get into a rhythm, um, it tends to be addictive, right? You you in a healthy way, you want to keep improving. You want to keep testing things out to try and make yourself um you know the the healthiest you possibly can be. Um and you know, as long as that's a healthy sort of uh uh goal for yourself uh and not a sort of uh obsessive compulsive goal. If it's a healthy goal, it's a really good thing because we know how good it feels to feel good. Uh and so we're always trying to make sure that we can maximize um the

Small Changes And Closing CTA

Graham 36:00

opportunities to feel good. So you heard a couple of um uh hints today on things you can change. Only you um can make those changes, only you can set the goals um that you feel you can achieve. Uh, you know, I talked about a 35-minute walk in the morning. Uh Steven's talked about a 15. You know what? A 10-minute walk is better than a no-minute walk. Um, and so you can decide, you know what, starting tomorrow, I'm gonna get up, you know, whatever time I need to in order to fit, let's call it a 15-minute walk in, whatever you feel you can um set as a goal. Um, you're gonna skip that coffee, you're you're not even gonna look at that phone because you know what, no one's expecting you to look at your phone at that time. Um and uh like the the people close to you, you already know whether they need uh you for any sort of emergency. And uh before you look at the apps and Doom Scroll or or you know, all the things that sort of s steal our attention away, um check out that morning sun, um get some electrolytes in you if you feel you need to, and um you know get outside and when you get back home, make a note of how you feel. Try it again the next day if you can. If you can't, that's okay. Start the day after. And then by the end of the week, take a look at the notes on uh how you feel uh in the recordings of how you feel, and take a look at whether that's something that you feel is worth it to try on a regular basis through a new habit, um, because that new habit is going to sustain that way of feeling for the long term. And that can be a pretty good feeling. I can't think of, yeah, Stephen, uh, let's uh end with you uh as a last moment.

Stephen 37:51

Yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks, Graham. I was just gonna mention, I know there's lots of people out there who have heard it. They're like, hey man, um there's absolutely no way I can get up first thing in the morning. I need that coffee to function. Well, that's that's your first indication of some form of um, you know, uh dependence um on it. Because the reality is just the opposite. Uh, and I'm sure you've experienced this as well, Graham. Uh the the brain fog is gone. Because one of the problems with caffeine that early in the morning, especially coupled with, as we said, with cortisol, is it actually is increasing your fog, not not decreasing it. It's uh uh a uh misnomer because you haven't done the proper melatonin to serotonin switch. Your body's still processing melatonin, which is making you sleepy. Um, so as soon as the caffeine wears off, that melatonin has been affected in terms of its um uh the absorption of uh seroton over the melatonin, and then the the net result is um you you you're groggy all morning and you're kind of hangry come you know 11 o'clock because you've had that bagel, which is basically a donut with with the uh sesame seeds on it, and because that's how your glucose, uh the glycogen will work in your body. And so you're in this cycle of thinking that the symptoms that you have can only be saved by coffee, but it's literally don't have the coffee, have the water, get some sun water.

Graham 39:14

Yeah, and uh, you know, one of the things as a health and wellness coach that I understand better than anything is when you tell somebody or even uh tell a story about something like, I no longer have that coffee first thing in the morning. People hear you can never have a coffee first thing in the morning ever again. That's not what we're saying. Uh what we're saying is, hey, maybe just try it for one morning. Because the next day you can have a coffee first thing in the morning if you want to, because you're in control of your life. The next day you may decide, hey, that wasn't so bad. I can try it for one more day. And then maybe the next day you're gonna have that coffee first thing in the morning. And if you give your mind, if you put it in your mind that you're in control of stopping it and you're in control of starting it, it no longer sounds like I got to give up the thing that I love the most. Uh, what a great way to end off, Stephen. Thank you very much for this overview of the uh the new protocol. It sounds like uh it's something you're gonna stick with and probably have some tweaks that we'll talk about down the road. And thanks for taking the time to share that with us.

Stephen 40:18

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate you, Graham. Thank you.

Graham 40:20

Thanks everybody for another episode of Lessons from the Keto Verse. Um, try if you can uh to uh hit the like button andor the subscribe button. And even more importantly, uh share uh with somebody uh that might that you feel might benefit from just another opinion. And that's all this is is another opinion, another idea, a different way of thinking. Uh you never know. You might just have a really positive effect on somebody who uh is looking for those different ideas. Thanks everybody.

Introduction 40:52

Thanks for tuning into Lessons from the Ketaverse. Join Stephen and Graham next time for more keto tips and stories to feel your health. Subscribe, share, and let's keep the keto vibes going.