 Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Sugar MD. Today we are going to talk about ways to prevent the high blood sugars in the morning. I'm an endocrinologist practicing in Florida and New York virtually, typically, and we have an office in Port St. Louis, we see patients physically as well. Now I'm a diabetes educator, I am into holistic ways, integrative medicine, and all sorts of ways in addition to the traditional medicine and what it offers. So, today I am going to tell you non-medicinal approach to bring your blood sugar down or at least avoid high blood sugars next morning. Let's get started. Now guys, a lot of times you will come to me as a patient and we'll say that my blood sugars are all over the place. You know, sometimes I wake up with a blood sugar of like 95 and some other times like I'm 160, 180. What is going on? I'm not doing anything different. My physical activity is the same, you know, my medications are the same. So why is my blood sugars are so high in some mornings? Well, I'll tell you why. A lot of us are guilty, including myself for late night snacks. And you know, a lot of people have a problem with that because that is like a reward. After you come from a long day, you have maybe you have done some intermittent fasting. You may not have eaten a lot during the day. And then now you came home, you had a long day, a difficult day, and now you want to be rewarded. Of course, I understand that. And, but we can change that. And here's how we do it. And I'm not going to give you some psychology lesson here. I'll just give you some practical tips, okay? So number one, I would definitely suggest choosing your dinner wisely. If your wife or your husband, whoever is cooking, is not asking you what to cook for the night, for the evening. Tell them that. Tell them what you want. At least give them some guidelines about the food content. Make sure they do not load you with carbs. Make sure they have a lot of healthy fat. Healthy fat in your dinner, like olive oil or some other healthy fat that you can incorporate in your dinner and minimizing your carbohydrates and filling yourself up more with healthy fat will definitely help you stay fuller longer. And if you're consuming carbs like potatoes and bread, it usually gives you the sense of fullness. But then, then your blood sugar goes down and you start feeling hungry again after a few hours. And right before the bedtime, you may reach out for snacks. Another thing that a lot of people do, once they start eating, they just cannot stop eating. And that's not your fault. That's, that's our physiology. That's how we are built. Once you start eating, you have to find a way to stop eating, to distract yourself from eating. That's called a stopper. So basically, there are different ways you can do that. So you can either do an activity. It could be a drink or it could be another food or an item that you can put to your mouth actually to prevent from, you know, continue to eat. So when I said something that you put in your mouth, I meant food. Okay, don't misunderstand this. Although different activities can still help you distract you from eating. Now, for example, after dinner, if you want to drink a hot tea, you may not be a tea guy, but I would recommend drinking different teas. Like, you know, some people are Earl Grey people, some people are, you know, just different fruit teas, etc. or relaxing teas. You will like one of the teas because tea is not like a coffee. So you either like the coffee or not, period. You're not going to say unless you're a coffee snob, you know, you're going to say, oh, I like this coffee versus I don't like this coffee. So, you know, most people don't do that except the coffee snob. But for tea, every person may actually like one kind of tea because a tea taste is still different from tea to tea. So my favorite is, for example, is an apricot tea. It's just a fruity nice. It's like an Earl Grey and apricot kind of mixed together. You can buy those things on Amazon. I'll leave you a link, actually, to the tea that I like. So you can try that and let me know if you like it or not. I'll leave that link for you at the description. But that's something that you can actually use to stop eating because tea takes a long time, really, to finish it. And then if you're having, typically after dinner, I myself have a couple cups of tea that really helps me to stay busy, at least that I'm entertaining myself. A drink with no sugar in it. If you are addicted to sugar, you can use sweetener like Stevia or something. But definitely that will keep you away from eating and still give you some good time. Now, this is stopper. Now, if you don't like any of that, you can, you can use a gum. If you're using a like a mint gum, it's going to definitely change the taste in your mouth. When the taste in your mouth changes, you don't necessarily want to continue to eat something else. So that may be a good stopper for you. So that's number two, right? So the number three is going to bed early. A lot of us are guilty for staying a long, long time after late in the evening. Of course, if you do that, you will start getting hungry, just like you have a lunch and you start getting hungry by evening time because there's been four or five hours after that. But if you're having a dinner at six o'clock, I would recommend start getting ready for bed at nine o'clock. And the reason for that is, you know, when you're getting ready for bed, you know, brushing your teeth, doing a few things, you know, so it takes a time to get into the bed. So at least like half an hour of preparation time. And, you know, basically, if you wake up early, because you went to bed early, that's going to help you finding that time for exercise. A lot of people will tell me that they don't have any time for exercise. But I bet if you were going to bed early and not watching as much TV, you can wake up early before everyone else, like I do, and get your exercise routine done and that way that's out of the way. And now there you have it, you have an exercise every day, and you didn't eat at night. So that actually doubles the benefit because you saved on the calories because you went to bed early. So you didn't have to eat late. And then you woke up early. And most people don't feel too hungry when they wake up in the morning. And then you did your exercise after your cup of coffee, whatever. Now you burn calories and you didn't eat last night. There you go, bonus, you have 500, 600 calories that you just won. So when people are trying to lose weight, really, they need to do everything right. But the thing is they try to diet but they don't exercise, but they exercise, they don't diet, or they don't go to bed early. So it's a full package. You cannot just say, I'm going to do this and I'm going to lose weight. And in real life, that really does not happen to a lot of us, especially if your age is a little bit advanced. I'm getting there. I'm almost 40. That's not advanced. But I mean, for weight loss purposes, it tends to be getting more and more difficult every year of your life, especially if you're in your 50s and 60s. Good luck with that, especially if you're a woman after menopause, it's even harder. So you have to be very careful. That going to bed early also helps with the sleep hygiene. One of the number one rule in sleep hygiene is to go to bed at the same time, regardless of the weekday or weekend, go to bed at the same time, wake up in the morning. Now, this is boring, right? So for especially young people, they're gonna be like, what are you talking about? You know, that's not life. All people do that. Oh, well, to be honest with you, even when you're younger, doing that routine and being consistent with your sleep routine will make you a healthier person. You may be a little bit more on the boring side, but I don't call it boring because when you get up early, actually, you get so many more things done. You can be done with a lot of things you will have so many more things to do, so many more fun things to do, compared to people who are waking up very late. And the next thing, guys, if you really have to eat a snack, just be wise with the snacks. Choose snacks high in fiber. So sometimes if I really have a sweet tooth and I'm craving sweets, I reach out to fruits. So for example, a pear and apple, they're so high in fiber that before I finish that one single fruit, I already feel full. So you can definitely do that instead of reaching out to a 500 calorie dessert that's gonna spark your blood sugar like super fast, you can reach out to an apple or a pear or strawberries or some other berries that can definitely still satisfy your sweet tooth, but will not cause that high block sugars. And if you are overall consistent with that pattern, your blood sugar will be more consistent. And of course, you know, on the days that you're more physically active, your blood sugar will be better in the morning, compared to the days that you're not, again, having a consistent exercise routine will help you overcome that as well. So guys, if you liked this video, make sure you share, like and comment, and we'll talk to you in the next video.