266. 5 Tips to Reduce Blood Sugar Spikes During the Holidays

In this episode, we dive into practical tips for managing blood sugar levels throughout the holiday season—a time filled with sugary treats, carbohydrate-rich meals, and tempting snacks. Learn five tips to keep your blood sugar steady while still enjoying the festivities. Whether you’re looking to avoid energy crashes, support your health goals, or simply make mindful choices, these tips will empower you to navigate holiday eating without sacrificing flavor or fun.

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Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

>> Free Low Insulin Food Guide - https://www.zivli.com/ultimatefoodguide?el=podcast

>> Join the Zivli Program Waitlist - https://www.zivli.com/join?el=podcast

>> Test Your Insulin at Home - https://www.zivli.com/testing?el=podcast

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Transcript

Morgan (00:00.118)
when you're dehydrated, your blood sugar levels will naturally be higher because your blood is more concentrated.

Morgan (00:18.126)
Hi, I'm Dr. Morgan Nolte, founder of Zivli. As a geriatric physical therapist, I saw the heartbreaking effects of insulin resistance. At Zivli, our mission is to help you prevent and reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention through a low insulin and inflammation lifestyle. Each week on this podcast, you'll learn simple, actionable tips to lose weight, keep it off, and get healthy. If you're ready to create a body and life you love,

you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Morgan (00:54.168)
Well, hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Reshape Your Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Nolte, and today I'm going to be reminding you of five tips to reduce blood sugar spikes during the holidays. Now this is one of those episodes where it might not be new information, but I would challenge you to listen anyways and ask yourself, where am I not applying this information or where am I not applying it as consistently as I could be?

I've warned you before that sometimes people listen to podcasts almost like with a radar on for like, what's the new information? What's the latest? What's something that I don't know yet? And I promise you, you probably know more than you're giving yourself credit for. And I want this episode to be a nice, timely reminder to be implementing what you know. Before we get there, I just want to wish you a happy start to the holiday season. We celebrate Thanksgiving, so that's coming up.

next week when this episode goes live. We just got some of our Christmas lights up. We're going to be doing some more around the house. Yes, we are doing that early this year because I don't like doing it when it's freezing cold outside. Another fun thing going on is I started my kids scrapbooks. So I have not scrapbooked in like 15 years. I really enjoy it. The last one I made was for my grandparents. I made one

for their Christmas present. was just this monstrous scrapbook. A lot of pictures of the grandkids and like letters from the grandkids. And I just had such a fun time making it. And I forgot how much I love doing this. I love going back through the pictures. Thank goodness for like Google, because I don't know how people did it during the day. I'm sure that a lot of people listening have scrapbooked and they remember the days where they have to sort through this huge pile of pictures and be like, my gosh, what year was that? When was that?

I can just go to my Google photos and like see all of the pictures organized by, you know, month and year and it makes it so much easier. So I'm grateful for our technology. I am so excited to see my kids reactions when they get their scrapbooks on Christmas morning. I know that they're going to love them. So without further ado, let's get to these blood sugar tips. I promise these are simple and actionable and please be implementing them over the next, you know, couple of months.

Morgan (03:17.23)
for the benefit of your health. So number one is to focus on protein first at your meals. I don't really like to use the term balanced meals because that means something completely different to everybody else. And like I feel like the American Diabetes Association uses the term balanced meal a lot to talk about their diabetes plate method. And they recommend half of your plate with like filled with non starchy vegetables.

and then a quarter of the plate with some sort of carbohydrate, whether that's a starch or a fruit, and then a quarter of the plate with protein. And then they completely leave out fat, which spikes blood sugar the least out of all of the macronutrients. So it doesn't really make sense to me why three quarters of a plate would be carbohydrates for somebody who's trying to manage their blood sugar because even though they're non-starchy veggies, they're still carbs.

And if you're only getting a quarter of your plate of protein, you're probably under dosing your protein. So tip number one, get at least 30 grams of protein at each meal. If you're cutting up your turkey, that's gonna be about the size of your hand in cut up meat. That's honestly what I go for, for like a portion size. Not like a, you know, a whole piece of turkey, but like it cut up, it should be the size of your hand.

And then after that, what I like to do is I like to fill in with fiber and healthy fats. We like to have, you know, a variety of salads, I suppose, at our holiday get together. So I'll really load up on the salads first. We typically don't have a sugary dressing for those, which is helpful. You got to watch the sugar in the salad dressings. And also the candied nuts can be a big culprit for added sugar this time of year. I know like a lot of salads will have candied pecans or walnuts and just

So you know, there are sugar-free sweeteners that you can use, specifically alulose will brown and caramelize pretty well. So if you wanted to make some candied nuts for a salad, you could order some alulose ahead of time to do it with that. So once I have my protein and my fiber, I fill in with healthy fats. So whether that's cheese or some olives, nuts, all of those things are great for helping stabilize my blood sugar.

Morgan (05:36.886)
Now that's not to say I don't eat the starches and that I don't eat the carbs. I do, but the second tip is to really be mindful of them and watch the portions. So when I have mashed potatoes, I'm having like a few bites of mashed potatoes. It's not like this bed that my meat sits on top of and then it all swims in this yummy gravy. No, that's not how I do it. I actually try to see white on my plate.

So typically actually honestly what I like to do is just go up for the veggies first, like salad, like the veggie tray, a lot of veggies on there. And I get a whole plate full of vegetables. And then I'll go back up and get my protein and whatever else I want. But it's only a small portion of carbs, small portion of potatoes, small portion of dessert, small portion if there's like a corn casserole or a butternut squash casserole.

Stuff like that that you know has carbs in it, like let's be mindful of those portion sizes. And then I also would like you to eat those at the end of your meal. So I am one of those people that likes to kind of eat things in combination. I feel like the best bite to me is like cranberry sauce and turkey and a little stuffing and mashed potatoes. Like I like how it all tastes together, but I do try to bias my carbs toward the end of the meal, especially for dessert.

So you're not gonna see me like having a piece of pie before dinner. I wanna get that protein and fiber and fat in my system to reduce the blood sugar spike. Another thing that I'm doing lately just because I'm pregnant is I'm supplementing with berberine, which helps manage blood sugars. But I'm also supplementing with extra magnesium. That just really helps a lot of processes in the body. But it's also important for like how your thyroid is like.

I guess how your cells are responding to thyroid hormone and your blood sugar regulation, your sleep, magnesium's really great for a lot of things. So aside from my prenatal, I'm also doing magnesium and berberine just during this season of pregnancy because physiological insulin resistance increases during pregnancy. Blood sugars get harder to keep in that optimal range. So I'm doing that to give myself a boost during this season.

Morgan (08:01.046)
The next thing to help control, prevent blood sugar spikes is to stay active and move, especially after your meals. So I think that this is a nice reminder that we all know, like going for a walk after you eat significantly lowers what I call the area under the curve. So if your blood sugar does spike after you eat, if you go for a walk, you're gonna see that spike drop a lot faster and a lot steeper.

versus if you just like sit around and watch football, because Lord knows there's some good football on on Thursday and Friday. And I'm gonna be watching some of it, but I do, I will be mindful to be active after I have my meal before I go and do that. What that does is it allows the blood sugar that you just ate to be utilized by your muscles to be soaked up by your muscles.

And when you do that, it actually doesn't need insulin to get into your muscles. That's like why exercise is so miraculous for blood sugar management and insulin sensitivity and reversing insulin resistance is it's almost like this back door for glucose to get into your cells without needing insulin. Honest to goodness, just walking for like 15 or 20 minutes is enough to lower the blood sugar after the meal. I think it's also just like a nice break.

I don't know about you guys, but my family kind of just like eats all day, every day around the holidays. And so sometimes just removing myself from the table, removing myself from the food is enough of a mental break to stop eating and remind myself, yeah, like you are full. Hey, after this walk, why don't you go brush your teeth and put a gum in and like have some sparkling water until dinner. So it's almost like a little mental reset after the meal to stop eating.

I think going back really quick to portions of carbs and things, one little hack that I try to do is leave white on my plate between the things. I know some people in my family almost like pride themselves on how stacked their plate is with food. And it's so funny because they'll eat it, they'll eat it and they're like, my gosh, I'm so stuffed. I don't like feeling that way. I mean, do you like feeling that way? Do you like feeling like?

Morgan (10:21.356)
my goodness, I am stuffed like this turkey. No, I want my turkey stuffed, not me. I wanna feel nice and full, but not like overstuffed. So having white between the items on my plate is kind of a nice visual reminder to watch the portion sizes. Okay, next tip is to stay hydrated with water. I personally can't, well, I'm choosing not to drink right now because I'm pregnant. Even when I'm not, think,

If you've been a regular listener, you know I don't drink much anyways, maybe a few sips of wine here and there. But alcohol is pretty prevalent during the holidays. And it's empty. It's not just empty calories, because it negatively affects your health and negatively affects your choices. It might increase your food cravings and it absolutely shuts off fat burning. So remember the alcohol, the ethanol is a toxin to your body.

and your liver will want to metabolize it over anything else, over the carbs, the protein, the fat and the meal. It's going to essentially promote fat storage because it's burning the alcohol first. So if you can avoid drinking alcohol during the holidays, I think that that would be a wonderful choice for your health. If not, I just made a video that'll come out in 2025 on like the best

choices or like non-alcoholic choices or low sugar alcoholic choices. So you don't have access to that yet, but you can do your own research and find like a non-alcoholic wine or a non-alcoholic beer or like a lower sugar wine. Just doing like honestly a sparkling water can be nice too. So stay hydrated, try to reduce or avoid the alcohol. And I really like to do electrolytes

on a daily basis. Again, I think that a lot of people have mineral deficiencies, specifically with magnesium. I don't think I'm going to have any sodium issues this time of year with like all the holiday food. feel like we salt enough. electrolytes in my water also really help me like feel energized and not get headaches and just feel very well hydrated. Because when you're dehydrated,

Morgan (12:42.678)
your blood sugar levels will naturally be higher because your blood is more concentrated. So be sure that you're drinking plenty of water. I always like to say drink it before your meal too, because if you fill your stomach up with water, there's gonna be less room for the food. Another nice challenge might be to have a full glass of water after your meal before dessert to kind of just top off the tank, baby, like top it off and then

see if we can kind of delay dessert a little bit or reduce the portion size. Okay, the last tip for managing blood sugars around the holidays is to manage your stress and get enough sleep. I, right now, am so tempted to stay up late for actually two reasons. My husband stayed up late last night watching the Ravens and Bengals football game and I just totally fell asleep. I couldn't even keep my eyes open.

but the scrapbooking, man, I could see myself putting that off and staying up late and finishing the scrapbooking and wrapping presents. And there are so many fun, I think they're fun, things to do this time of year. And if I procrastinate them, or if I don't pace myself to get everything done that I wanna get done, it's gonna stress me out. So pacing my activities, planning my activities,

like project planning essentially for the scrapbooking for any Christmas parties we're throwing. We have a ton of work related tasks to get done before Christmas break for the kids because our zivli diabetes prevention and reversal program is opening in January for enrollment again. So lots of stuff to get ready for the blood sugar bootcamp and all the fun things related to an open enrollment period for our program. So there's a lot going on and

Some things that I'm doing again to manage my stress is joyful activities. So for me, the scrapbooking, but I'm pacing myself and planning so that I don't like stay up too late and interrupt my sleep. Blue light blockers, you guys know I'm a huge fan of those orange blue light blocking glasses. That's what allows me to fall asleep while my husband just kind of stays awake and watches the game, I think, because he doesn't always wear his.

Morgan (15:05.14)
But when you're blocking the blue light from the TV at night, you're naturally reducing your cortisol, which lets your melatonin come up and make you sleepy. So if you are not already wearing orange colored blue light blockers, like blocking glasses, one to two hours before you want to be asleep, please, please, buy yourself an early Christmas present. Do it on Black Friday if you want a discount, but go to Amazon. I like the Spectra 479 brand.

And they do have a fit over version if you need like reader glasses in the evenings. So please do yourself a favor, start wearing the blue light blockers. I promise it will help increase your melatonin production naturally so that you can fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. This is not sponsored. I just really like them. So those would be the main tips. I'm gonna review them for you. Number one is to fill your plate with protein, non-starchy vegetables, healthy fats,

have smaller portions of the starches and the sugars, especially also the fats. If you're watching weight loss or if you have a weight loss goal, they are calorically dense. We can't get around the fact that calories do matter. So overeating even healthy foods during this time of year will contribute to holiday weight game. Again, that little tip to have white around all of the food items on your plate is one really simple way to watch the portions.

Ooh, another tip that I forgot to mention is apple cider vinegar. Before my sweet, my husband's aunt had apple cider vinegar out at a holiday get together recently because she knew that I care about this stuff. And that's a really great tip. So like before your meal, 30 minutes or something, have a couple tablespoons of apple cider vinegar diluted in some water. And that's going to really help reduce the blood sugar spike from your meal.

If you need another boost, you can also do one or two tablespoons in the morning and at night. If you have a sensitive stomach, you might want to do that like with a meal, not just on its own. So just a heads up. If you have a sensitive stomach, do the apple cider vinegar like with a meal instead of on an empty stomach. I wish I would have mentioned that earlier for people that hopped off the podcast sooner, but good for you for staying around and getting all the tips, all little tips.

Morgan (17:32.462)
The third one, aside from like reducing the portion sizes of the carbs and having them at the end of the meal, is to stay active. So move, go for a walk, 10 to 15 minutes. That's all it takes. If you wanna go farther, that's fantastic. Just pretend like your muscles are soaking up that glucose from the meal. And it's really rewarding to see that on a continuous glucose monitor if you're wearing one. Number four is to drink plenty of water.

Avoid the alcoholic beverages, especially the sugary alcoholic beverages. That's probably one of the worst things that you can be having this time of year is alcohol plus sugar. Not going to be great for blood sugars or weight management this time of year. Lastly, and really focus on good quality sleep and stress management. So like I said, there's lots of fun projects this time of year, but just pace yourself, plan the activities.

Ask for help. Give yourself time for joyful leisure and rest. I'm coming out of a season of burnout and I finally feel like I have a little bit more time and bandwidth to like do the things that I really like to do. Like just, you know, scrapbook randomly during the day. And I am so much happier when I do that. I think you can just genuinely hear in my voice joyful activities. Man, they make a huge difference. So I know that

The holidays also can be stressful just because of family and my goodness, conflict within family, stress with family members. You might feel very lonely this time of year if you've lost a loved one. My heart goes out to you. I think one of the best things that you can do is just practice gratitude, assuming positive intent of the other people, creating emotional boundaries and guarding your energy because

I think that's something I'm actively working on is as a natural introvert, going into these family settings can be a little bit stressful for me just because like that's how I'm built. So I'm really working on like energetic boundaries, time boundaries. I'm not really offering to help out with anything so that I don't unnecessarily add anything to my plate. Those are just some things that I'm doing. I'm sure I'll share more over the next month about how I'm managing my stress.

Morgan (19:59.832)
during the holidays. But if you found these tips helpful, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends and family. I hope that this is just such a special and magical season for you and for your loved ones. I hope that you just take the time to enjoy it and continue to practice gratitude because we all have a lot of blessings in our life. And I want you to acknowledge them. And if they're a person, be sure to tell them that they are a blessing in your life. So.

I will talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.

Morgan (20:51.15)
Thanks for listening to the Reshape Your Health podcast today. To learn more about Zivli, our online course and coaching program to reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention, check out our website at www.zivli.com. That's z-i-v-l-i dot com. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a rating and review on your listening platform and share it with a friend.

I'll talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.