One Simple Choice During Meals Drops Blood Sugar by 46% - Doctor Explains Why

What if one simple choice during your meals could dramatically change the blood sugar response you experience after eating? This simple choice has specific relevance to type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, blood sugar issues, insulin resistance, and polycystic ovarian syndrome, also known as PCOS, something that affects women, can help to lower your A1c and provide better blood sugar control. And the choice is surprisingly simple. Add leafy green vegetables to every meal, and yes that includes breakfast. Research on meal sequencing has found that eating non-starchy vegetables and protein before the carbohydrate portion of a meal can substantially, that's right substantially, reduce the blood sugar spike afterwards. My real-life experience as a clinician with my patients and clients demonstrates the value of paying attention to the order in which kinds of food are eaten. It does impact blood sugar for sure. Now in research involving people with pre-diabetes, glucose levels were approximately 46 percent lower when vegetables and protein were eaten before the carbohydrates. You can eat the protein first, vegetables second, or you can eat the vegetables first, protein second. But that combo makes a big difference in how blood sugar responds, right? And having better glucose is always a good thing. Now having said that, that does not mean that every person's blood sugar will drop by exactly 46 percent simply because they put a few spinach leaves here and there beside their meal. No, that's not what I'm saying. But it does show us something very important. What you eat matters, and when and how you eat it matters too. The balance and the order of the foods in your meal make a difference. And stay with me because later in this video I'm going to show you some of the most common mistakes people make when trying to add leafy greens to their meals. One of those mistakes can leave you hungry and reaching for snacks just a short time later. Sometimes people feel like, wow, did I even eat? You know, if that's you, watch this whole video. And another mistake may significantly reduce the benefit you were hoping to get. So today I'm going to show you which of these green leafy vegetables count, how to include them at breakfast, how to make them taste good so they're yummy and something you want to keep eating, and how to combine them with my A1C lowering food order. And how to start, that's right, how to begin without feeling like you have to completely change everything you eat. I know that that can be daunting and so we're trying to make this something that's not too challenging but is crystal clear, all right? So with that in mind, always remember individual responses can vary. Now first, I want to be really clear. Leafy green vegetables in and of themselves are not magical things. They do not erase everything else that you eat. You cannot eat two or three spinach leaves or two or three leaves of cabbage or two or three stalks of broccoli to end with that an enormous plate of pasta and assume that spinach is somehow these other vegetables going to cancel out that big carbo load, right? Like, no, that's not how this works. The benefit comes from changing the overall nutritional balance and the structure of your meal. The leafy green vegetables provide important nutrients that includes fiber, magnesium, potassium. Those are two electrolytes that we know are important for your muscles, for your heart health, your brain, etc. They include folate and they include other naturally occurring plant compounds that are good for your whole body. They also provide water and volume without adding a large amount of concentrated carbohydrates. Your kidneys will love this. This is such a good thing. Your intestines will love it. Your liver, your gallbladder, like all your organs, right? Your skin, your bones. And when you add a meaningful portion of leafy greens, you're replacing some of the empty space on your plate with food that adds and provides nutrients and fiber. That fiber helps the microbiome in your gut. It helps the bacteria and other organisms that naturally occur in the gut to know that they have the food they need so that the healthful bacteria and other organisms in your gut can thrive. You want that. Fiber can help to slow the digestive process and support a more gradual blood sugar response, helping you to stay off that blood sugar roller coaster and helping to mute any tendency towards a blood sugar spike and also helpfully avoid a blood sugar crash. This is such a good thing. So instead of eating a meal that is mostly starch, you are creating a more balanced meal. And this makes a meaningful difference. Think about the difference, for example, between these two breakfasts I'm going to share with you. First breakfast is, it could be a piece of toast, bagels, something like that, right? Muffin, glass of orange juice and sweetened coffee. I want you to think about that, right? Now that meal is dominated by rapidly digested, simple carbohydrates. They hit your blood sugar and insulin response like a jackhammer, like boom, you know, not going to be a good thing. You're absolutely going to be on that blood sugar roller coaster with a spike up and then a crash down. I want you to compare that with something like chicken or turkey sausage, sautéed spinach, perhaps sautéed tofu with parsley and cilantro, avocado, maybe nuts or seeds if you don't like or have avocados. And if it works well for your body, a small portion, a modest portion of a complex carbohydrate or a slow burning carbohydrate. That could be lentils, chickpeas, black eyed peas, black beans, red beans, the white cannelloni beans, adzuki beans. There's many different kinds of beans and peas from around the world. They're all eligible for the complex slow burning carbohydrate that's full of resistant starch. Now those are two very different meals. The second meal that I outlined here contains protein, fiber, plenty of nutrients, healthy fats, and a much more balanced foundation. And the goal here is not to simply just add greens. The goal is to use those leafy greens to help improve the quality and balance of the meal. The details will matter here. Now research looking at long-term eating patterns has also found an association between greater green leafy vegetable intake and a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. So if you have free diabetes and are looking to keep it from turning into type 2 diabetes, this could be a straightforward path for you. If you already have type 2 and you're looking to improve your situation, this can also be a straightforward path for you. Now this doesn't necessarily mean that leafy greens all by themselves prevent type 2 diabetes. The overall eating pattern matters. But it does reinforce that leafy green vegetables deserve a regular place on your plate. Now here is where many people accidentally miss one of the biggest opportunities. They think about adding vegetables to lunch. Or maybe they think, hey I'll add vegetables to dinner. But you know what? Breakfast, we don't want it to stay exactly the same. If you don't typically add vegetables to your breakfast, here's a huge opportunity to make that meal a better one for you. For many people, breakfast is the meal most likely to be built around almost entirely carbohydrates. And usually simple carbohydrates that just burst into your bloodstream and cause that problem with insulin resistance to be magnified and causing the blood sugar roller coaster phenomenon to occur. That could be the cereal, the muffin, the slice of cake, or toast, you know, bagels, pancakes, sweetened oatmeal, usually the quick cooking variety instead of the slow cooking. Steel cut oats, fruit all by itself, much worse, fruit juice. Oh that's a disaster. If you've seen my other videos, I've talked to you about that. That's so bad. And sweetened coffee drinks. Many of the people who do things on the go, on the run, you see people in line at these coffee shops and they're getting these coffee drinks. They're just chock full of sugar. Oh not good. And then a short time later, after having had this all carb meal, people feel what? They feel tired. They feel brain fogged. Maybe they feel a little anxious. Maybe they feel a little depressed. Maybe they feel hangry and they're acting out. They're irritable, right? Why? Because the meal they had doesn't support their life. And they can easily become hungry again within an hour and a half or so of eating. This isn't good. They may start craving what? Yet more carbohydrates. Isn't that crazy? But that's how the body often responds. Or they may see a bigger blood sugar spike than they expected and maybe they feel a little scared about that going, oh what happened here? So yep, I do want you to consider adding leafy greens to your breakfast. And breakfast does not necessarily have to look like traditional breakfast food depending on where you live in the world. Your body does not know that cabbage or broccoli or spinach is supposed to wait until lunchtime. So you can mix it up. I would encourage you. You could have a sausage of some kind with some sauteed leafy green vegetable, an avocado, or a handful of seeds or nuts. You could try eggs with collard greens or spinach. You'd have a tofu scramble with kale. Might I suggest adding some garlic to that? We'll squeeze lemon juice. That can be so delightful. You'd have leftover salmon. It could be canned salmon, fresh salmon, whatever works for your budget with lightly sauteed greens. There's so many options here. You can even consider having a breakfast bowl, a savory one, which has your protein, your leafy greens, and nuts or seeds, and a small serving of the complex carbohydrates. And when I say small, like a half cup to a cup, right? Not three or four cups, but a half cup or a cup. Have some carbs and have the healthiest kind you have access to. The slow burning carbohydrates. You could start out with chickpeas. That would be a great time. Hummus, you know, lentils. There are so many options here. They are all really high in resistant starch and they have so much goodness off you if that works well for your body. Here's a pro tip. Sometimes people avoid eating beans of any kind because it makes them gassy and their belly blows and they fart and it's just a really miserable experience. Make sure that the beans you eat have been rinsed twice. So if you cook them yourself, you can soak them overnight. Then in the morning, pour out that water. Soak them again. Cook them after that second soaking. Similarly, if you buy them already canned, you could pour out the liquid that is around them. Believe it or not, that has its own special name. Aquafaba. A-Q-U-A-F-A-B-A. Did you know that? That can be used as a thickening in separate recipes. But the point I'm making here is you could pour out the liquid that comes with the canned beans and then rinse them again yourself. That will give them that second rinse. Then eat them. You might find that that gastric distress, that GI discomfort or the embarrassing farting, the flatulence goes away. That might be a great simple thing you can do. All right. Other options here. You can also make a balanced smoothie with protein, leafy greens, berries and added fiber. But please no fruit juices. Fruit juices are out. Don't add them to your smoothies or have them as standalone. They're not good for your blood sugar. They absolutely cause spikes. The most important point here is that leafy greens can be part of breakfast without making breakfast difficult, boring or unpleasant. And you don't have to completely change everything tomorrow morning. You can start with one addition. Add a generous handful, let's say, of spinach or kale or bok choy or whatever leafy greens work for you. You know, you can warm up leftovers you have. Maybe you made a dish of cabbage. That's fine. You can put arugula underneath your eggs or with your tofu scramble or however you might enjoy it. Keep it simple, but do it. Okay. And one note here. If for some reason your blood sugar is in the absolute base and you're having problems with hypoglycemia, too low blood sugar, you may have been recommended to have some fruit juice as a quick way to get out of that blood sugar basement. If that's you, please follow the advice of whatever health care practitioner you're working with. Okay. Do what works for you. I want to be sure people aren't being unnecessarily rigid here if they have a need to do something in an urgent way. Now, if you want more practical videos that help you to improve your blood sugar control and lower your hemoglobin A1C, use the letters A1C in the comments. And when you comment A1C, let's be sure you want more content like this. Now, let us talk about three details that can make this strategy more useful. Detail number one, choose non-starchy leafy green vegetables. Some options for you can include things we've already mentioned like the collard greens, kale, spinach, mustard greens, turnip greens, Swiss chard, romaine lettuce, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, arugula, bok choy. You have cilantro and parsley, watercress, dandelion leaves. Those are all wonderful choices. You don't have to eat all of them. Just want to give you some ideas. Find the ones that you genuinely enjoy. All right. Detail number two, eat a meaningful amount. One decorative leaf underneath the sandwich is probably not enough to significantly change the overall balance of your meal. Depending on the meal, you might include a generous handful or two of raw leafy greens. If you're cooking them, they're going to cook down. So let's say you started out with two cups of leafy greens. And if you cook them, they probably will shrink down to be one cup. Just know that you have to account for that kind of shrinkage. You could have a side of salad or approximately, you know, one to two cups of cooked greens. Just make it a regular thing. It's not a rigid prescription, but it is something you can add and think about the proportions that make sense based on your own body size, what your health goals are, and what's an amount that feels good for you. Different people definitely have different nutritional needs. There's no such thing as one size fits all. The point here is to make the greens useful and meaningful and not just a little garnish. So a sprig or two of parsley is not going to cut it. OK. And detail number three, don't use these greens as permission to overload the meal with starches and sweets. Sometimes people think, hey, you know, I have three pieces of a leafy green, literally like three pieces of lettuce. Therefore, I can just go crazy and have all the sweets and carbs I want. Nope. They don't cancel unlimited carbohydrates. These leafy greens support your meal and overall nutritional balance. They don't cancel sugary beverages and they don't cancel oversized portions. The entire meal still matters. Now, adding these leafy greens is one powerful place to begin. But many people tell me, Dr. Yates, I need more help putting all of these pieces together. I need to know what healthier choices actually look like in real life. That's why I created my free insulin resistance diet starter guide. I invite you to join my email list and download your free copy. It will help you get started with healthier choices that can support fewer blood sugar spikes, fewer blood sugar crashes, staying off the blood sugar roller coaster, lowering insulin resistance, improving insulin sensitivity, better A1C numbers and better fasting blood sugar numbers. This is about giving you a clear, simple place to begin so you can move forward with more confidence around your food choices. For your convenience, you can scan the QR code shown on screen to show where you can opt in to my email list. You can also take a screenshot of the QR code. Did you know that? And click the QR code on the screenshot and that will take you straight to where you can opt into my email list to learn more about our programs. OK, so leafy greens, yep, they're a helpful partner in your nutritional plan, but you may be able to get even more benefit when you combine that choice with the order in which you eat the meal. This is why I want you to use that A1C lowering food order. Number one, protein. Number two, fiber. Leafy greens, other non-starchy vegetables. Number three is going to be healthy fats can be third. And number four can be starches or sweets. If you are eating them, they're going to come last. This includes healthy complex carbohydrate that is slow burning and has resistant starch. And I would ask respectively that you just avoid simple carbs because they're really not going to contribute much to your health. I think you know that. Research has shown that the same foods can create different glucose and insulin responses depending on the order in which they're eaten. In food order studies, eating vegetables and protein before carbohydrates produced lower post-meal glucose responses than eating the carbohydrates first. They tested it both ways and it works. Whether the vegetables were first and then the protein or the proteins were first and then the vegetables. So let's use a simple dinner as an example. Suppose your meal contains grilled salmon or grilled tuna, collard greens, some nuts or seeds, and a sweet potato. Begin with several bites of that. In this example, the fish, right? Then eat your leafy greens. Then include the healthy fat and then eat that sweet potato with the skin on. Thank you. Last, the skin on has fiber for the sweet potato will make a difference for your blood sugar control and maybe portions make the difference. Some people are fine eating sweet potatoes. Some people are not and they experience a spike. You can experiment with portions in terms of the amount of sweet potato you eat and whether or not it had its skin on it when you ate it. So bottom line here is you don't have to turn your meal into some kind of a rigid ceremony. It's not necessary. You have to stare at the clock. You don't have to wait 30 minutes between each food. Nope, nope, nope. The goal is simply to begin with foods that support a steadier glucose response and save the complex carbohydrates, starches, or any sweets for last. And here is another important point. The research does not show that adding leafy greens causes every person's blood sugar to drop by exactly 47 percent. Nope. The research looked at meal order and the combination of non-starchy vegetables and protein before carbohydrates. The practical lesson here is that you add the leafy greens to your meals, pair them with enough protein, and whenever possible, eat your protein and greens before your concentrated starches or sweets. If this A1C lowering food order makes sense to you, comment A1C below. If you want more content like this, please do let me know. And this also lets the YouTube algorithm know that other people who care about this want to hear about it too. Your comments tell me that you are interested in practical strategies that you can use during real meals. If you would be so kind as to share this video and other things that we offer here on this channel with people that you know, people maybe who have confusion or have questions, or folks who are just like not sure where to start on their blood sugar killing journey, please share these things. It makes such a difference. And turn your notifications on so you know when new content is uploaded to this channel. Thank you so much for being a helpful partner here in this community. All right, so it's really easy to focus on the next blood sugar reading and your post-meal blood sugar absolutely matters, right? You want to know, did my blood sugar levels go up 20 to 40 points, maybe 50 points after I ate? Or did it go up a hundred or more, 150, 200 points? You know, like you need to know what's going on. Test, don't guess. You know what your blood sugar is doing. But adding these leafy green vegetables can also help improve your overall eating pattern. It can help you to increase your fiber intake. Your gut will thank you. It will make bowel movements much easier. Your nutrient intake, that's a good thing for your whole body. And in general, it might also help you get more hydration in. Because if you struggle at all with remembering to drink water, if you're having lots of vegetables throughout the day, you are getting some water. The amount of food that's on your plate without adding a large load of concentrated carbs, that's going to be a good thing. These can also help you to feel more satisfied to know when it's time to stop eating, when they're paired with adequate protein and healthy fats. One of the reasons why people sometimes struggle with portion control is that they've eaten nothing but simple sugary carbs. And when you do that, your body's like, whoa, I didn't get enough of anything. So I'm just going to ask for more. It's really easy to overeat in that situation. So any given meal you eat each day is important. And the repeated patterns that you have over time matter the most. Your A1c reflects your average blood sugar over approximately the prior two to three months. So it's about 90 days, right? Each and every day, your bone marrow puts out a brand new set of fresh red blood cells. And over the course of 90 days, those red blood cells turn over 100 percent. Therefore, testing your A1c every three months can make sense, especially if you're doing a lot to make positive changes for yourself. This means that the habits you repeat are more important than just one perfect salad. OK, remember, this healing journey is about progress, not perfection. You don't need perfect meals. You need to be consistent. You need supportive choices that you can repeat often enough to create the healthier pattern. That is what will make the difference. One breakfast all by itself isn't going to fix it, but one holiday meal will not necessarily ruin it. And an imperfect day or stressful day doesn't necessarily completely erase the progress you made. It's the consistency day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month. Please focus on the pattern. Now, leafy greens are one important choice, but better blood sugar control is not built from one food alone. For the deeper complete system, I recommend my book, The AIDS Protocol, Five Simple Steps to Fix Your Blood Sugar and Reverse Type 2 Diabetes, Make Peace with Food and Never Feel Deprived Again. My book also includes 20 delicious recipes to help you put these ideas into practice. Some of the recipes are simple and some are on the more complicated side, because I know some people who have diabetes may not be that familiar with different ways to cook and they need a simple place to start. And I know some of you are professional chefs and you are experts in making food. So I wanted to put in things to meet people where they are. The book also includes two sample meal plans, one for plant-based eaters and one for omnivores. Again, meeting people where they are. I wanted to inspire you to just change up what you eat so you don't get into food ruts and get bored with your food, but have lots of healthy choices. So no matter which of these eating approaches better fits your preferences, you have practical examples that can help you see how to turn these principles into real meals. In the book, I go into much greater detail about nutrition and meal timing, sleep, stress, exercise, and strength training, and how these pieces work together to support healthier blood sugar. The goal is not to make you afraid of food. In fact, the subtitle of the book is, Make Peace with Food and Never Feel Deprived Again. I mean that most sincerely. And it is not to give you another restrictive plan that you cannot maintain. It's also not there to make you feel bad about cultural foods, but rather to help you to understand your body, make peace with food, find ways to eat things in ways that are healthy for you, and create those choices without feeling deprived all the time. It's just not necessary to completely abandon an entire food group or never have fill-in-the-blank again, but instead understand how can you make that the healthiest possible way to enjoy that food. Sometimes it just means you need to have a smaller portion, or you might need to change what's in it. And in some of the recipes, I show you exactly what are some of the things you could swap out so that the blood sugar impact changes and it becomes a much gentler food to eat. All right, now, one of the biggest reasons people stop eating leafy greens is really simple. I'll bet you know what it is. Tell me in the comments if you do. They get bored. They're like, ha, I can't eat this again. Oh no, I am so tired of eating that. All right, listen, if that's you, I want you to listen in here close. If you eat plain spinach every day and you do not even like plain spinach, eventually you're going to stop. So let us make this realistic. The first strategy is to rotate your greens. Don't eat the same thing every day. It's not necessary, right? Have some variety. You can have romaine lettuce. You can have arugula. It has a nice bitter bite to it. You can have kale. You can have collard greens and mustard greens, beet greens, you know, dandelion greens. You got bok choy. You have Swiss chard, all kinds of Swiss chard, different colors. They certainly have their own flavor profile. You can have mixed salad greens. Sometimes you can buy them already rinsed and prepped and ready to go. That makes that pretty easy to choose, right? Now, the second strategy is to change the way you prepare them. I invite you to change it up. Your leafy greens can be raw. Remember, two cups of leafy greens sauteed or otherwise prepared are going to shrink down to one cup, okay? So the amount is going to change based on preparation. You can have them steamed, sauteed. You can add them to soup, fold them into eggs, add them to a stir fry, put them into a balanced smoothie. Remember, smoothies don't have fruit juice. No thank you. You can use them in a wrap. They're delightful there. Or place them underneath your protein or on top. They can steam and, you know, there's all kinds of ways to do it, right? The third strategy is to season your greens. Flavor them with the flavor profile you enjoy. Healthy food does not have to be tasteless, bland, boring, and flavorless. Oh my goodness, no suffering please. Instead, you can add in things like leeks, chives, garlic, onion, fresh herbs of all kinds. That could be oregano, cumin, thyme, coriander. There's so many herbs from around the world. They're delightful. You can add some lemon or some lime, maybe a little bit of grapefruit. You can add vinegar. You can add black pepper, white pepper, green pepper. There's different kinds of pepper. You can have bell peppers, sweet peppers, right? Lots of choices. Spicy peppers. You know, jalapenos, habaneros, etc. Lots and lots of spicy peppers. Whatever works for you. You can also include an appropriate amount of healthy fat. And the healthy fat can come primarily from seeds and nuts. It can come from olives, etc. There's so many sources and ways to do this. Seed butters, nut butters. Do what works for you. Now the fourth strategy here is to think about convenience. I know for some people they're super busy. They might be what I call book-ended. Maybe you're caring for ailing parents and you're caring for children. Maybe you are an elder and you are a grandparent and you are caring for your grandchildren. Perhaps your kids aren't able to do that. Whatever your role might be in life. Maybe you have a job where it's really stressful. Maybe at work other people have been fired or laid off and you're doing the work of three or four people. There's a lot of folks in that situation right now and I've seen over time where people are stressed they wind up with type 2 diabetes. Often they start out with poor sleep or noticing that they're so stressed they don't have time to really deal with it and then a time later here comes type 2 diabetes, right? So you can use convenience. You can have pre-washed salad greens, pre-washed vegetables to make your life a little easier and I found these days that the cost of those have come down tremendously making it much more affordable for many people. Frozen vegetables are fine too. Frozen kale, frozen spinach, frozen broccoli. You have a lot of options there. Washed and chopped collard greens. You can do these in batches. Maybe you'll cook them up with other family members or friends, neighbors. Way back in the day we used to get together with another couple on Friday evenings and we would do our meal prep together for the week. It was so fun to do that in a way to just decompress from our work week. I invite you to consider if some idea like that might be social and help reinforce positive healthy choices for you. And if you have leftovers, great. It could be part of breakfast the next day or you can make it part of meal planning. So much easier. Keep this in mind. Convenience is not cheating. It's being really smart and respectful around your own time, energy, and resources. Also, convenience is a strategy that can help you stay consistent. Now let's make it even more practical. Here's some examples of what this could look like throughout the day. Your breakfast could be any kind of sausage you enjoy, leafy greens we've talked about, healthy fats, right? You have lots of options here. If you wanted to do the smoothie route, remember no fruit juice and as outlined earlier it's going to contain your protein, your leafy greens, berries, and some added fiber. The added fiber sources could be things like chia seeds or perhaps ground flax seeds. All right, and then lunchtime you could have grilled chicken or grilled turkey or some tuna with a large mixed green kind of salad and some nuts or seeds or avocado. Drizzle on some olive oil if you'd like. If beans work well for your body, you might include a modest portion. For some people, that's going to be an amazing mix. Sometimes you can also get sprouted beans to add on top, and if you have sprouts of any kind or sprouted broccoli, that can be an incredibly helpful addition to your lunchtime meal. And as always, remember to start off with those proteins, then the leafy greens, and the healthy fats. And your carbohydrates are last, all right? So that gives you a sample. Lunch could be quite similar, and for dinner you could have meatballs of various sorts. You could use tofu or tempeh if you're not going to have meat, that's fine. Sauteed kale, your healthy fats, and a sweet potato last with the amendments I suggested earlier. So many options, right? You can add quinoa to any of these things. And your portion could be different from someone else's. What works for one person might not work for the other person. So you test and see what makes sense for you. If you don't have a continuous glucose monitor, or you're not doing finger sticks to get a drop of blood, put it on a test strip, insert it into the glucometer, notice how you feel. When you eat your meals, are you energized? Feeling good for like four or five hours before you notice you're hungry again? It's probably a blood sugar friendly meal. If, on the other hand, when you eat, you go into a You're so tired, right? You have no energy. Or you find you're hungry and you cannot wait to find something else to eat an hour to an hour and a half after you ate. You probably got on the blood sugar roller coaster, right? So notice how you feel. People's reactions are different to their foods. Your carbohydrate tolerance may be different from somebody else's. Therefore, your blood sugar response could be different from someone else's. That's one reason why I recommend strongly, if you can, get a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, or test with drop of blood onto the test strip, insert it into the glucometer, so you know exactly what your blood sugar is doing. These devices give you an opportunity to learn from your body to get that precious feedback about what works for you and what doesn't. You may find one meal that works beautifully for you, but causes a bigger glucose response for someone else. One size fits none. Use the principles, please, then personalize them. So, which meal feels easiest for you to add these leafy greens to? Is it dinner? Is it lunch? Or is it breakfast? Or is it all of them? Just tell me in the comments. You can add A1C if you want more videos focused on lowering hemoglobin A1C. Now earlier, I promised I would show you some of the common mistakes people make when adding leafy greens. Here they are. Mistake number one, adding a tiny amount, a meaningless amount, really, of greens, leaving the rest of the meal completely unchanged, with way too much in the way of simple carbohydrates. That's a mistake. A few lettuce leaves will not automatically balance an oversized serving of refined carbs. Okay? Mistake number two, covering the greens with sweet dressings. Read the labels, friends. You'd be shocked how many things have sugar and how much added sugar is in them. Excessive amounts of added fats or heavily processed toppings. Read those labels. Pay attention to what you're adding. Mistake number three, eating only a small salad with no meaningful source of protein. Then, an hour or two later, you're hungry. You start looking for chips, crackers, cookies, something to snack on, you know? Don't assume that always eating less is always better. Your meal should be satisfying. If you're hungry, please eat. Pair your leafy greens with enough protein, okay? And then mistake number four, trying to become perfect overnight. Oh dear. Please, that progress perfection thing. You decide that tomorrow every meal will be perfect, and then life happens. Life starts lifin'. You buy six bags of greens. You completely change everything. You eat, and three days later, you feel exhausted and overwhelmed because this was not sustainable. Please don't do that to yourself. Remember, this healing journey is about progress, not perfection. Choose one realistic change, and then move from there. Give yourself a chance to practice it. That's how you build up those good habits. So when life is lifin', it doesn't knock you completely off your game. So, lowering A1C usually requires more than one change. That's why I would like for you to watch my Lower A1C Fast playlist next. In that playlist, I walk you through more of the food choices, your daily habits, and practical strategies that can help support healthier blood sugar and better A1C numbers. You don't have to figure this out one random video at a time. It's already packaged up and organized for you. Continue with the playlist so that you can continue to build your own understanding step-by-step. It would be fabulous if you shared this with others. Click that playlist that you see on screen. So, to summarize, here's your action step. Choose one leafy green. Add it to one meal. You don't have to necessarily change breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at once. You just start with one meal. Build from there. One that feels natural for you, and you can add those greens to a second meal, and build from there. And work toward including them throughout your day. And remember, self-care is not selfish. Taking the time to prepare food that supports your health is not selfish. It's a loving thing to do for yourself. Making choices that support your energy, your blood sugar, and your future is not selfish. It's necessary. You're worth the time and attention it takes to care for your health. Remember, this healing journey is about progress, not perfection. Please take great care of yourself. Self-care is not selfish. Check out the description for this video and my channel, where you will find links to join one of our programs. You're welcome to buy my book, The Yates Protocol. Five simple steps to fix your blood sugar and reverse type 2 diabetes, make peace with food, and never feel deprived again. You can join our community through the email list and find other ways to work on your health goals. Please take great care of yourself, and I'll see you in the next video.