Ep. 5 The All-Important Glucose-Insulin Relationship

Understanding what's happening inside your body is the first step to taking control of your health after GDM.

In Episode 5, I explain the glucose-insulin relationship in plain language—how your body processes carbohydrates, what insulin does, and why some women are more at risk of developing type 2 diabetes after gestational diabetes.

Understanding why glucose levels can appear 'normal' is important for long-term health because what is not always obvious is the truth about high insulin levels can be doing damage without you knowing it. I discuss this to help you understand why you need to know what's happening inside your body, and more importantly, how to manage this.

I'm also sharing something exciting: the launch of the Healthy Futures Individual Insight Program—a small but very dedicated healthcare team and personalised support for women who are ready to learn more about their body.

This episode will help you understand the importance of knowing what is happening inside YOUR body.

Whether you're newly postpartum, years past your GDM diagnosis, or supporting someone who's been through this experience, this podcast is for you. Let's create healthy futures together!

Please also follow our FB page &/or Instagram. 

If you could also rate and follow the podcast on your favourite app, we can support more women on this journey.

Because knowledge + community = empowerment.

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Learn more about Healthy Futures Individual Insight Program here:

https://healthyfuturesaftergdmaustralia.systeme.io/

(option to book discovery call via the link above)

Links mentioned in this podcast:

Dr. Benjamin Bikman book - Why We Get Sick

Why We Get Sick: The Hidden Epidemic at the Root of Most Chronic Disease-and How to Fight It : Bikman, Benjamin, Fung, Jason: Amazon.com.au: Books

Disclaimer: Please note this information is to the best of my knowledge at the time of recording. Please always check with your medical team before making any changes to your own healthcare management in any way. This is not individualised advice. 

This podcast is not intended to, constitute or replace medical or health advice. Instead, all information provided is intended for education, with its application intended for discussion between yourself and your healthcare team (or workplace if you are a healthcare professional).

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Transcript

0:08

Hello and welcome to Healthy Futures after GDM. I have been doing my study and finally finished for the year. So my apologies for the delay between episodes, but very excited to have, uh, completed my studies for this year with one to go to become a nurse practitioner. The good news is you don't have to wait for me to become endorsed because we do have a nurse practitioner willing to work with us our individual insight program until I am endorsed as a nurse practitioner, when I can then offer more to help reduce risk of type 2 diabetes after having gestational diabetes. We actually opened up the books for our program on World Diabetes Day on November 14th for women inside our Facebook group. So that's exciting, and standby for a few more spots to open in the next few months, um, for more women, we just wanna make sure that we can individualise it because that's the aim of the game. So standby for that. So let's get into today's episode. We're gonna talk more about insulin and why it's so important to understand the function, and what it can mean if you have high glucose and insulin levels. So if you've had gestational diabetes, you already know your body handles glucose differently. But here's what many women don't realise, and that is understanding the relationship between glucose and insulin isn't just about avoiding a diabetes diagnosis, but it's protecting your long-term health, your energy levels, and honestly how you feel every single day. So today we're going to demystify what's actually happening inside your body when you eat. I promise I'll keep this simple, practical, and most importantly, empowering. Well, I hope to anyway. You'll be the judge of that. Because knowledge is power and so if you don't understand you can't make informed decisions and you do deserve to understand you've been through gestational diabetes, you've got more knowledge then the average person out there. So we're gonna go a little bit deeper. So let's start with the basics. Think of glucose and insulin as partners. You'll probably know this, but just a quick recap never hurts. So when you eat carbohydrate, it breaks down into glucose and the glucose enters your bloodstream, and that's when your blood glucose levels rise. You would've been taught about carbohydrates with gestational diabetes and probably a lot about portions and spacing them out. So no doubt you've done some measuring on your finger prick device, your blood glucose monitor in the past, and you would've done the one or 2 hour post meal test to see the impact of that meal or food that you ate. Now this is where insulin comes in. I've been putting up a few posts lately about how blood glucose levels and insulin are influenced by certain things we eat. If you haven't seen them, just check out our Instagram account or Facebook page. And there's a few different food options in there just showing the different glucose and insulin response, and it gives a nice visual of what happens. So when your glucose levels rise, your pancreas has to release more insulin, and that acts as a key that unlocks the cells to allow the glucose into the cell for energy. So when everything's working well and the body's desired levels, um, are working as it should, your glucose levels go up and down within a certain range and they'll come back down. Sounds simple. But here's what happened during pregnancy with gestational diabetes. Your cells became resistant to insulin. Now during pregnancy, that was because of your placental hormones. It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you can do. You may have had some pre-existing risk factors. Um, but everyone becomes more insulin resistant during pregnancy. It's just some women will become insulin resistant enough resulting in the gestational diabetes diagnosis. So imagine the insulin's trying to unlock the door, but the lock's sticky. It doesn't work so well, so your pancreas thinks, okay, I need to make more keys, which is more insulin, and it pumps out more and more insulin to get the job done. Now at first, this appears to work well on the surface, you might do your blood glucose levels. You might even go and get a blood test done at your doctors and everything looks fine and everything looks normal. This is what most people don't understand because you can't see it with type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes most importantly, in the lead up to type 2. Because your pancrea pancreas is working overtime, your system's being flooded with extra insulin. Now, the crucial part that a lot of people don't understand, is even that when your glucose levels look fine, the high insulin levels are causing damage. So let's just paint a bit of a picture using a general example from a recent social media post I mentioned. Imagine jasmine rice versus basmati rice. When you eat jasmine rice, your glucose level might shoot up to about 11 millimoles per litre compared to basmati rice, that might only cause a glucose rise up to about eight millimoles per litre. Your body has to release roughly just for a generalisation, 40 to 50% more insulin to deal with the jasmine rice. That's like your pancreas screaming for help. If you did that over and over again, months and months, years and years, that's a lot of extra work on the pancreas. So that's why we talk a lot about glycemic index, and that's why I'm posting both the glucose and insulin response to different meals and foods. Now let's talk about why high insulin levels are so damaging, because this is the part that's changed everything for me when I understood it, and I hope to help you understand it. High insulin levels aren't just about diabetes risk. Chronically elevated insulin is inflammatory to your body, so if your insulin levels are elevated, your body releases inflammatory molecules, and it's like a distress signal that puts your immune system on high alert so your blood vessels can become inflamed, it can make them stiff and damaged. Your liver can get inflamed leading to fatty liver disease, and your brain can even experience the inflammation, which is linked to brain fog, memory issues, and increased risk of dementia later in life. So the chronic inflammation is why insulin is connected to so many health conditions beyond diabetes. If you wanna read more about this, there's an excellent book by Dr. Benjamin Bikman. Um. Why we get sick, I think it's called. I'll put the link in the show notes. I have no affiliation. It's just a very good book to understand the link between high insulin levels and chronic disease. So we are talking about things like heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, certain cancers, Alzheimer's disease, and even depression. So it's not just one thing, it's a systemic damage throughout your entire body. And this is why I'm so passionate about it, particularly as I do more and more study and I learn more and more. Um, I've, I just want women to know and your families to know that you don't see this, and let's talk about what this means for weight loss, because this is where many women feel completely defeated after pregnancy or coming into menopause and after menopause. The truth about insulin and weight. So insulin is literally your body's master storage hormone. When insulin's high, your body is in fat storage mode. It's not just that you're storing more fat. You can't access your fat stores for energy when your insulin's elevated. So it's like having money in a locked safe that you can't open. Your energy is just storing as fat. So picture of this, you're eating less, you're exercising more, you're doing everything right. But if you're eating foods that spike your insulin multiple times a day, sugary cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch crackers for your snacks, your insulin level never gets a chance to drop. And there's a good post, um, that I've put up to show that. So your body stays in storage mode. You're hungry because you can't access your fat stores for energy. You eat more, which raises your insulin again, and it's a vicious cycle. Insulin makes you hungry. This is why calorie counting alone often fails for women with insulin resistance because it's not about willpower, it's about hormones. So 2 women can eat the exact same amount of calories, but if 1 has chronically high insulin levels and the other doesn't, they'll have completely different results. And here's what makes it even more frustrating. High insulin levels make you hungry, and it interferes with leptin, which is a satiety hormone or a hormone that stops you feeling hungry. So your brain never gets that message that you're full, so you feel like you have no willpower, but really your hormones are just working against you. And this is where these new drugs, which aren't so new anymore, GLP1s um, Ozempic, Mounjaro, that sort of thing are coming into play. But even without those, if you lower your insulin levels through changing your diet everything shifts. Your body can finally access fat for energy. Your hunger might normalise that stubborn weight around your middle might start to budge and then your energy improves and you can actually do some exercise to help even further with weight loss or build muscle, which is a key in insulin resistance. And here's the really sneaky part. Your glucose levels might look normal the whole time on a blood test, you might, your doctor might say everything's fine. But inside your insulin could be sky high working over time. That keeps your glucose levels in range. It's like having a credit card that looks like it's being paid off, but only because you are taking out a loan after loan to cover it, if that makes sense. So you're constantly behind, but you can't see it. So what do we do with this information? How do we break the cycle? The beautiful news is that you have more control than you think. Every food choice you make is either asking your pancreas to work harder or giving it a bit of a break. Every meal is an opportunity to lower those insulin levels. So here are the principles that change everything. Pair carbohydrate with protein, healthy fats, and or fiber. Never eat carbs alone. You might've heard of not eating naked carbs or dress your carbs. Um, that piece of toast with jam, it's glucose and glucose, which is an insulin bone, but the same toast with avocado and egg. Completely different story. So the healthy fat, slow everything down, and more gentle glucose rise, less insulin needed. Another one. Choose low glycemic foods where you can so swap jasmine rice for basmati. Choose the sourdough or the whole grain over the white bread, pick berries over tropical fruits. These aren't restrictions. They're just strategic swaps that can help you enjoy your food, but still protect your health. And this is good for the entire family. Move after your meals. The secret. This is just a secret weapon, like even 15 to 20 minute walk after eating can reduce your glucose spike by, you know, anywhere from 10 to 50% depending on how your intensity, the duration. Your muscles will pull glucose from your bloodstream without needing more insulin. Okay? So it's like having a bit of a cheat code for blood glucose management, but it's not cheating, it's just being smart. Understand your body's responses, and this is where things get exciting when we talk about the latest technology. Not because everyone responds to foods the same way, but because you have the ability to see what's going on in your body. So inside our individual insight program is the use of a continuous glucose monitor. Now, I've had access to these for about six, seven years now. We initially we had to pay for them and then they became subsidised due to being able to help us prevent, you know deadly hypoglycemia or low levels. So we are very fortunate now with type one that these are funded, um, or subsidised, I should say. My goal would be to allow women after gestational diabetes to have them subsidised, you know, maybe once a year for three months or something. And that's where I've come up with this program to help women understand what's going on inside of your body. So I've had over 30 years, or nearly 30 years, counting carbohydrates, navigating type 1, and I realised I'm actually very lucky to have the insight I do. Uh, I feel like I'm very connected to my body. I pick up inflammation very quickly. I listen to my body signals because I've had to to survive basically. I want you to start tuning into that as well. Through years of, you know, studying more and just learning from my own body, I wanna help you do the same. And I've got this beautiful dietitian Tash, who's now a diabetes educator. Um, she's doing more study and she's very passionate about helping as well. What I love about her is that she's very realistic. She won't, um, suggest a meal plan for everyone. She will talk to you about what you like eating and make some suggestions to change it if you are having carbohydrates that might spike your insulin and put you at increased risk for type 2 diabetes. Weight loss is not a primary goal of the program, but it is, and a likely side effect and a positive side effect because insulin is so related to weight, weight gain, weight loss, depending on which way you look at it. So basically, the program is going to help understand what's going on inside the body, which is why we called it Individual Insight. And we are also going to get our nurse practitioner to order tests that look at insulin levels. And that's something that GPs don't routinely do. And actually is not something that's encouraged under the guidelines because unless you work in this space and specialise, a lot of healthcare professionals dunno how to interpret that data. So we'll explain that in more detail. If you'd like to book a discovery call to learn more about what's in the program and how it works, I will put the link in the show notes. So please get in touch. It's not gonna be a sales pitch because we understand that it won't be a good time for everyone. There will be work at your end as well. But if you are ready, if you've been told you've got pre-diabetes or insulin resistance and you want to know more, we wanna make it available to you. I mentioned, um, limited spots because we are a small team and we do have to individualise the results. But we will it help you interpret the data, make practical swaps, and hopefully build sustainable habits that fit your life, but also your families. And we are also considering your children who unfortunately are at increased risk of type 2, but fortunately have a Mum who understands the body and wants to know more. Often partners will benefit as well. If you do it as a family, it's easier. So let's see what happens when you eat the apple pie and ice cream and go for a walk versus not go for a walk and things like that. You can experiment when you go through the program. So imagine understanding why you feel exhausted some afternoon, but energised others why you wake up feeling foggy some mornings, but not others. Um, we'll go into more detail, but it's exciting to be able to finally release the program. And we would love your feedback if you're going to be one of the founding members going through it. So the relationship between glucose and insulin is really the foundation of, of your metabolic health, and it's so important to understand it. When you can see it, you can respond to it, and everything changes. You've already shown such incredible strength to go through your pregnancy with gestational diabetes, so it's time to just build on that knowledge and draw on it now to reduce you and your family's risk of type 2 diabetes. Thank you so much for listening. I will put the link in the show notes if you'd like to learn more and just please reach out.