this one thing reduces blood sugars faster and more effectively than anything else it's super simple every diabetic can do it no matter if you have type 1 type 2 or any other form of diabetes let's talk about it the most effective tool to lower your immediate blood sugars as well as your long-term blood sugars is improving insulin sensitivity and I have eight tips for you on how exactly you can do it insulin sensitivity is basically an indicator that shows how sensitive or resistant your body is to insulin and insulin is the hormone which lowers blood
sugar so insulin sensitivity is good insulin resistance is bad unfortunately many medical professionals ignore this topic and instead of focusing on improving insulin sensitivity they focus on prescribing more medications and it bothers me now if you are a type 1 diabetic your body doesn't produce insulin and you need to inject it the more insulin resistant you are the more insulin you need to inject if you're a type 2 diabetes or a pre-diabetic your body probably still does produce some insulin but the more insulin resistant you are the more insulin you need and the harder your
body needs to work to produce that insulin or you might as well need to inject some additional insulin if your body cannot produce enough but no matter what kind of diabetes you have the more insulin sensitive you can get the less insulin your body will need to keep your blood sugars low so how can you improve your insulin sensitivity I've been a type 1 diabetic for 35 years so I think I know a thing or two about it let's start with tip number eight did you notice that whenever you are stressed your blood sugars go
up well I definitely did stress puts your body into fight or flight mode which stimulates the production of stress hormones like cortisol and glucagon this breakdown glycogen into glucose that your body can use as a quick source of energy and your blood sugar will Spike as a consequence of that ongoing stress is even worse because it keeps the levels of these hormones high and your body he just needs more insulin to bring that blood sugar down and your body becomes more insulin resistant so tip number eight is simple reduce stress levels identify those stressful situations
and try to completely avoid them or learn ways how to deal with them without getting stressed what helps me reduce stress is regular exercise enough sleep and certain breathing techniques you might want to look into those things moving on to tip number seven on how to improve insulin sensitivity did you know that exercise helps move sugar from blood to muscles and reduces your blood sugar you probably did and you probably know that exercise promotes an immediate increase in insulin sensitivity and this can last for two hours to up to two days depending on the type
of exercise the kinds of exercise I do most often is jogging hiking and some high intensity resistance training when I go for a run or a walk my blood sugar starts dropping almost immediately a 30 to 45 minute run or walk is the fastest way for me to get to my blood sugars down now when I do a high intensity or resistance training like push-ups sit-ups jumping jacks or burpees my blood sugar doesn't start dropping immediately but I noticed that it actually starts going down a few hours later and I'm way more insulin sensitive during
the night and even the day after I did that resistance training so tip number seven to improve insulin sensitivity is to get moving and exercise at least three or four times a week pick the exercise you like the most and if you have any limitations pick the one that you can actually do there are no restrictions otherwise the only thing that you need to keep in mind is that Arabic activities like hiking running swimming or cycling well in most cases lower your blood glucose very fast during and shortly after the actual activity so if you
are an insulin dependent diabetic you should always have a juice box or some glucose steps on you in case you need to treat a low blood sugar event anaerobic activities on the other hand like high intensity or resistance training might spike your blood sugar temporarily because they activate those stress hormones but they typically improve insulin sensitivity and lower those blood sugar levels for several hours after the exercise or even a couple days after that exercise moving on to tip number six and this one is good also for those who don't like exercise one thing that
can really increase that insulin resistance which is what we don't want it's lack of sleep there have been several studies that linked poor sleep to reduced insulin sensitivity one study involved healthy volunteers who are getting not more than four hours of sleep a night and compare them with a group of participants that were getting eight and a half hours of sleep they could observe that the group who slept only four hours a night had lower ability to regulate their blood sugar levels and they insulin sensitivity went down they became more insulin resistant and I can
confirm from my personal experience when I go to bed late I sometimes struggle with stubborn higher blood sugars in the morning after because I didn't get enough sleep so tip number six is get a good good night's sleep I personally sleep at least seven to eight hours a night and I go to bed early because I read studies that suggest that you can get the best quality sleep before the midnight I also like to sleep in relatively lower temperatures and avoid having caffeinated drinks in the afternoon and evening because that also helps me get good
quality sleep fortunately catching up on Lost sleep can reverse any effect of previously poor sleeping habits on insulin resistance so it's not too late to start focusing on those sleeping habits if you feel like that's something you should do moving on to tip number five on improving insulin sensitivity this one is super easy to do it doesn't require a lot of hard work but it brings real life results in terms of more stable blood sugar levels and tip number five is adding more fiber to your meals I love fiber because it slows down digestion it
slows down that blood sugar Spike after any meal even if you eat a meal full of carbs and that insulin sensitivity impact is really noticeable when you start adding fiber to your diet and you can do that even if you eat a specific diet because fiber is in many different kinds of foods in general you can find fiber in fruits vegetables legumes seeds nuts or grains the less processed these are the more fiber they will have my favorite source of fiber as you probably know if you watched my channel before are chia seeds I like
to add them to almost anything I also love to eat different kinds of bean and lentil stews and chilies loaded with lots of vegetables if you are afraid of blood sugar spikes after eating fruits try to go for those that have lower glycemic index things like berries avocado grapefruit guava apricots or kiwi these fruits are very blood sugar friendly before I talk about the next insulin sensitivity tip let's quickly talk about the weight loss and weight loss is not on my list of tips for improving insulin sensitivity although people who are obese and Insulin resistant
are often advised by medical professionals to lose weight in order to improve their insulin sensitivity but I don't like to tell people to lose weight because I simply think that if you follow all the previous tips I gave in this video you will very unlikely be obese especially in a long term so let's not talk too much about weight loss and move on to tip number four this one is a bit more difficult to do but in my opinion it is one of the most important and most effective tools to improve insulin sensitivity in the
long term I talked about this on my channel many times but I need to bring it up again here because from my perspective it makes a huge impact tip number four to improve insulin sensitivity is avoiding processed foods especially those with added sugar artificial trans fats and other artificial ingredients the easiest way to do that is to do more home cooking from Whole Foods and stop going to fast food restaurants now I still think it's okay to eat certain processed foods from time to time some olive oil Greek yogurt dark chocolate if you're a fan
these things will not do that much damage in terms of insulin sensitivity it's also okay to go for a location with pasta or bread if you really need to but the rule of thumb I would use here always go for a whole grain version of these things always check the label look for those things that have no added sugar and more fiber this will spike your blood sugar much less and a lot slower and if this kind of diet seems too challenging for you you don't have to go all in at once you can start
slowly replacing the ingredients that you use in your kitchen you can start replacing the problem attic once with the healthier ones just go step by step and you will see that your blood sugars will improve a lot really soon by the way there is one tool that I want to mention that I used a lot when I was transitioning to more home-cooked meals it's a phone app called clinium this app will help you build your own customized meal plan you just need to go through a quick two minute questionnaire and tell the app what your
goals are after that you get a complete meal plan with instructions on how to cook each meal and the shopping list that you can print out and head out to the store I partnered with clinio and they have a 79 discount code for you Tom 79. now before we talk about three more tips for improving insulin sensitivity we need to address the elephant in the room a low carb diet you probably know that whenever you eat a meal that has carbs your blood sugar will go up no matter what kind of diabetes you have or
how insulin sensitive you are and a common piece of advice shared within the diabetes Community or even by medical professionals is this if you want to avoid high blood sugars eat less carbs go low carb and your blood sugars will be just fine but will a low carb diet really help you improve insulin sensitivity not really eating low carb on its own will not improve your insulin sensitivity it can actually have the exact opposite effect you can become more insulin resistant if you eat low carb high fat that's exactly what happened to me now don't
get me wrong eating low carb is a great way to avoid these nasty blood sugar spikes and it actually makes it very easy to achieve a non-diabetic blood sugars very fast but eating low carb will not fix the insulin resistance problem especially if you eat a lot of unhealthy fats as part of your low carb diet moving on to my tip number three for improving insulin sensitivity and this one is quite interesting because it is a specific way of eating but it doesn't Focus that much on what you eat but when you eat many researchers
claim that when you practice time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting regularly it might increase your chances for a longer life some studies also suggest that intermittent fasting can help reduce insulin resistance but it doesn't have immediate impact on the blood sugar levels still I like time restricted eating a lot because it helps me improve self-control amongst other things there are many ways how you can practice the time restricted eating but the one that I like the most or I do most often is the 16 8 meaning I eat during an eight hour window and the remaining
16 hours of each day I fast in my eating window usually Falls between 11AM and 7 p.m when I do that I don't eat anything after 7 pm and I skip breakfast I only have black coffee in the morning tip number two is probably the most important thing that can help you improve insulin sensitivity on this list and if you watch my channel before you probably know what I'm going to say because this thing is a game changer and tip two is check your blood sugars regularly or better yet get a continuous glucose monitor if
you can the more you check the better you will understand how certain foods exercise stress and other things impact your blood sugar levels and your insulin sensitivity and you will be in a much better position to decide which lifestyle choices you want to make in the future and I think it's really important because we only live once and I believe 99 percent of any potential diabetes complications can be eliminated if you focus on checking your blood sugars and keeping your blood sugars under control moving on to tip number one let's talk about the magic pill
for insulin sensitivity is there any supplement herb or anything else that you can take every morning or every evening and it will help you improve your blood sugars and reduce your insulin resistance for the years to come well there are certain natural substances that can help with that especially if you have type 2 diabetes things like apple cider vinegar fenugreek amla berberine and others but I'm personally not using them I'm not saying they don't work but I have a feeling there are too many people here on YouTube and everywhere else on the internet they are
trying to sell me some magic pill that will fix my diabetes forever and that discourages me a bit from exploring the topic of different herbs and supplements a little bit further I stick to my favorite diabetes superfoods instead so my tip number one is eat more diabetes superfoods go check out my video about my top 7 diabetes super foods that I eat almost every day click it here and watch it next I will see you there ciao