Do you know the role sugar plays in your health?
On today’s show, Dr. Doni shares hidden sources of sugar, how sugar affects our health, specific tests to talk with your doctor about, and how we can break free from sugar addictions.
Dr. Doni Wilson (Dr. Doni) is an award-winning naturopathic doctor and midwife. For nearly 20 years she has helped women, men, and children overcome health challenges and achieve wellness goals with individualized strategies that address the whole body and the underlying causes of health issues.
Dr. Doni is the creator of The Hamptons Cleanse,™ and she is author of The Stress Remedy: Master Your Body’s Synergy & Optimize Your Health as well as the bestselling e-book Stress Remedies: How to Reduce Stress and Boost Your Health in Just 15 Minutes a Day.
This is an important topic because sugar plays a big role in our health on many levels, and sugar addictions are more common than you may realize.
Please enjoy the show.
To view, comment or subscribe on iTunes, click here.
Dr. Doni recently published a column in the Huffington Post helping to demystify sugar and nutrition. Click here to read it.
For more information visit Dr. Doni’s website.
Transcript of Today’s Podcast.
Start Transcription – [0:00:00]
Trevor: Hi everyone. I’m Dr. Trevor Cates. Welcome to the Spa Doctor Show, where we talk about health tips and strategies to help you be smart, sexy and strong.
On today’s show, I have as my guest, Dr. Doni Wilson. Dr. Doni is an award winning Naturopathic Doctor and Midwife. For nearly 20 years she has helped women, men and children overcome health challenges, and achieve wellness goals with individualized strategies that address the whole body and the underlying cause of health issues.
Dr. Doni is the creator of the Hampton’s cleanse. She has written a column for the Huffington Post, helping to demystify sugar and nutrition, and is the author of the “The Stress Remedy,” “Master Your Body Synergy,” and “Optimize Your Health,” as well as the best selling e-book, “Stress Remedies – How to Reduce Stress and Boost Your Health in Just 15 Minutes a Day.”
On today’s show, we talk about the role sugar plays on our health. Dr. Doni shares hidden sources of sugar, how sugar affects us, specific tests to talk with your doctor about, and how we can break free from sugar addictions. By the way, sugar addictions are more common than you think. Please enjoy this interview.
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Begin Interview – 0:01:18
Trevor: On today’s show, I have as my guest, Dr. Doni Wilson. It’s so great to have you on the show.
Doni: Thank you for having me.
Trevor: We’re going to talk today about sugar, right? We’ve got a lot of people have questions about sugar, the dreaded sugar. We hear that it’s bad for us, but let’s talk about that. Why is it bad for us?
Doni: That’s the real question, right? Because sometimes too a lot of patients will ask me that, “What is it that’s so bad about sugar?” First of all, just knowing that we’re talking about really like added sugars. Like a spoonful of white sugar is especially the part that can add up to be bad for you. Especially larger quantities. The reason it’s bad is because it, especially if we think about the long term health issues associated with a high intake of sugar. Diabetes, heart disease, even cancer has been associated with a high intake of sugar. As well as things that you might notice day to day, like weight gain, and mood changes, or sleep issues, even headaches, digestive issues. [00:02:37 no audio] could be affecting you even day to day, but then there’s the long term that is also involved.
Trevor: It also can speed up the aging process, physically, right. We’ve got a lot of internal things going on: blood sugar imbalances, weight gain, diabetes, a lot of risk there, and cancer you mentioned. But also physically things, it shows up in our skin and the aging process, right?
Doni: Exactly. Exactly. It’s really that our bodies have only a certain ability to manage sugar at any one point in time. I think sometimes that really helps clarify, because we wish we could just take in, eat a bunch of sugar and have our body spread it out over the next week or over the next month, but it doesn’t. Our bodies have to, as soon as you swallow it, your body has to do something with it. A little bit, your body can deal with, and process it and use it for energy. We need carbohydrates and sugar for energy. So it’s not that we want to do with zero, you need a little bit. It’s just that it’s so easy to overdo it. And when we have too much, more than our body can handle at that moment in time, that’s when it starts to, the body has to put it somewhere. I joke, it’s going to put it on your hips, around your waist, or it’s like you’re saying, it’s going to put it on cells in your body that can be related to the aging process: eyesight, wrinkles. All of that can be associated with just extra sugar that your body had to do something with.
Trevor: Let’s talk about sugar. What is sugar? What are the many names of sugar, what are the various ways that we can get sugar?
Doni: It’s sneaky. That’s the other bad thing about sugar, is it’s very sneaky. You can even be watching labels on packaging and still have it sneak past you, because it has many names. It can come under at least 10 different names. Everything from evaporated cane juice, and beet sugar, and malt sugar, sucrose, maltose. There’s so many names. One secret is to look for the letters OSE, because any chemical name of sugar is going to have OSE at the end, like sucrose, fructose, maltose. Those are all sugars. But it doesn’t always say that on the label, so you want to be careful to watch for it. But if you, all of those will register if you’re looking at a package, it will show under sugar on the label. Then the key is to look down in the ingredients, and go, ok, what is that sugar coming from? Because the sugar on the package label, could be from a fruit. There may be cherries or dates in that, and that might be okay, a little bit of fruit. We want to have some healthy fruit intake every day. But if you look down at the ingredients and you end up seeing some other form of something, even if you can’t pronounce it, or you don’t know what it is, it might be a sugar.
Trevor: I know that a lot of my patients, they shop at health food stores, and they say, “Oh, I just found this, it tastes really great,” and then I ask them, “Okay, have you looked at the ingredient label, have you looked closely to see how much sugar is in it.” Just because it says it’s a health food, or it’s natural, or organic, or gluten free, or whatever it is, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be necessarily healthy for you, because of the sugar content. Then there are these smoothie drinks that are full of fruit, but it starts to add up if you look at the sugar content on some of those. Some of them are more than a Coca Cola.
Doni: Exactly. That’s exactly it. If it tastes really good, you better look twice, is what I’ve, my … because I figure they must have put something sweet in there. There are ways to make things sweet that are a little better, like Stevia, for example, is an herb that’s sweet. It’s a plant that’s sweet, so it doesn’t actually trigger insulin, it doesn’t have actual sugar in it. But there is some thinking there as well, that you want to moderate your Stevia intake even, because it still gives you a sweet taste, and how much is that then sort of creating a pattern of wanting more sweets. But at the same time, if you are going to choose, and you look at the packaging, and it says Stevia, that’s better than having it be high fructose corn syrup, which we haven’t talked about that quite yet.
Trevor: Yeah. Let’s talk about high fructose corn syrup. Why is that so bad?
Doni: So here we’re talking about fructose. Again, it ends with OSE so it’s a sugar. When it’s fructose, it’s generally from a fruit or a vegetable, fructose. Like you were saying, even in fruit juices or veggie juices, sometimes the sugar content is very high, because it contains fructose. Which in that form, is still a natural sugar, but it can still get to be too much, as much as in a soda. So you have to really be careful about juices. With a high fructose corn syrup, what they’ve done is they’ve concentrated the fructose, because it makes it really nice and sweet. The problem is that, see fructose doesn’t trigger insulin. Insulin is what manages our sugar and glucose levels. Fructose doesn’t have to have the insulin response, but it still is a stress on our body, it still has to be processed by the liver, and it still can increase these health issues, the diabetes, the cancer, and the aging. So we still have to be careful of fructose as a sugar, even though it doesn’t trigger insulin. And that’s the problem with high fructose corn syrup. It’s also often added to these packaged foods. You go in thinking you’re choosing a healthy gluten free packaged food, and lo and behold, it might have a high fructose corn syrup or sweetener which ends up pushing up your sugar and carbohydrate intake even though it’s gluten free, it might be high carb.
Trevor: Absolutely. High fructose corn syrup is in sodas, most sodas, right?
Doni: Most sodas, unless it’s a diet soda, then they’re using artificial sweeteners. They’re using a chemical sweetener, which is also not a great option, because we know, it’s amazing actually, you would think that here you are, choosing an artificial sweetener like aspartame, and maybe it’s not sugar, so it should cut out this diabetes risk, but the research is actually saying that that’s not true, that even artificial sweeteners still have health risks associated with them. It really, you don’t want to be choosing these sweet beverages. No matter how we try to get around it, whether it’s real sugar or artificial sweeteners, it’s still a health risk. So you’re going to be much better off choosing water, herbal teas without sweeteners. Maybe we want to talk about what to choose instead.
Trevor: Let’s first talk about, you said that some sugar’s okay. How do people know if they’re getting too much sugar.
Doni: It’s a good question. I was looking at this again, because, and it’s, one thing is that it’s kind of like confronting the facts. Sometimes we wish we were like robots for our bodies, and we could kind of determine how much is ok, but we are in human bodies, and our bodies do have only a certain ability to deal with sugars, and other things in our environment as well. Especially as woman, our ability to manage sugar is less than men. A lot of times when you hear about how much sugar we can have, it’s based on men. Men can have they say 40 g of sugar. I still even think that’s on the high side. 40 g is about equivalent to 10 teaspoons a day of sugar. Can you imagine?
Trevor: That’s a lot.
Doni: 10 spoonfuls of sugar. But for women, it’s 25 g, which is just about 6 teaspoons. To know that we just have to kind of go, okay, I get it, I need to have no more than 6 teaspoons. Would you rather that as 6 spoonfuls of sugar, or would rather that as, that’s actually less than a soda. Because a soda has about 10 teaspoons of sugar in it. You’ve already gone over if you have one soda. Would you rather use up your sugar for the day, as part of a soda, or would you rather use it on some fruits and vegetables and natural sugars. I think if we start to think of it that way, we can start to go, okay, how do I want to spend my sugar numbers each day, so to speak. Let me make a choice about it. The more you really understand where it is, and what the potential risks are, I think it’s easier to make those choices. Then you’ll also know when you go over. The more you start to get awareness for this, usually you can kind of feel when you’ve gone over your six teaspoons a day, because if you’re regularly having less sugar, when you do have more, you’re more likely to have your energy change, either feeling anxious or then after eating sugar, a couple hours later you feel tired, or mood changes, or sleep changes, or maybe your weight changes a little bit, and your clothes are fitting different. All of a sudden you’re like, hey, what’s going on? Oh, I had a little more sugar. Or for some [0:12:39 no audio] system. I see that, I found that a lot for myself, if I have a little too much sugar, I’m much more likely to catch that next cold, or get that sore throat, or sinus congestion. It could really be a lot of little things, you can start to pick up on, that’s telling you that you’ve had too much.
Trevor: These are all really good points. Also, there have been studies showing that sugar suppresses the immune system, and even as little as a soda, or less, not even a whole soda, if you drink that, it significantly suppresses your immune system.
Doni: Which is why I think a lot of times we see people more often getting sick around the holidays. We tend to get more, even in the summer during barbecue season, or events, and holiday weekends. You consume maybe a little more sugar, and then there’s alcohol which comes with usually some sugar as well as alcohol, which is also a stress to your sugar metabolism, and you’re way more likely to get sick the next few days.
Trevor: You mentioned the number of teaspoons and it’s, when you think about measuring that out, you’re making a cake or something, six teaspoons, it kind of sounds like a lot, but it is hidden in so many foods, so it’s hard to think of it in a teaspoon, because you even get sugar from fruits and vegetables, condiments, salad dressings, juice. All kinds of ways that you can get sugar. Definitely something to be aware of, right?
Doni: It’s so true. Actually, when you mentioned the condiments, it always amazes me when I pick up a container of ketchup or mustard, and right there, one of the first ingredients is sugar. You just start to realize, wait a minute, I don’t want my sugar in my condiments, or even your salad dressing. You can find them that it doesn’t have it in there, so better to look on the shelves, pick up each container and see if it lists sugar on there, and if it does, get a different one.
Trevor: And even breads and crackers. Some people will get coconut milk or almond milk, and there’s often time sugar added to those to make them taste better. Just keep reading those ingredient labels. Sugar is an addictive substance, so let’s talk about that. I’m sure you’re aware of the study on rats, that were given a choice between cocaine and sugar. And they chose the sugar over the cocaine. So let’s talk about sugar as an addiction.
Doni: Yeah, it really is. It’s when you start trying to decrease it, that I think it will usually you really become aware of how addictive it is, because the next thing you know [0:15:31 no audio] and you’re like, oh, my energy’s down, I’m getting a little headache, where’s that sugar. It really is, you can, it is so addictive. Because at first when you eat it, it feels good. You get a little dopamine release, and your mood goes up, you energy goes up. So in order to really kick this habit of sugar, we are going to need to think through that, and plan ahead. What can you have around to choose instead, because it’s in those moments when your tired, and it’s late at night. That’s when you’re going to tend to want to go towards sugar, so you want to have other options around.
I always recommend trying to go for protein. Really try to put that message in your head, if you start to feel like your blood sugar’s dropping, instead of going for sugar, go for something with protein in it. Not that you would have only protein, we don’t want too much protein either, but it’s a good way to just start to break that habit, and change it, if you can go, okay, let me go for some nuts, or maybe it’s time for some turkey or chicken, or even a protein shake, that’s going to give you some protein instead. Because what you’ll be amazed is that when you have protein it actually will help you recover your energy and your mood, and so then you can keep going the next few hours and not be thinking constantly about the sugar.
The other thing you can try is to pick a favorite tea. If it’s green tea, green tea is great at balancing blood sugar levels, so that would be a perfect solution, because then you’re going to be much less likely to experience the ups and downs of the sugar, and less likely to crave the sugar. You can do green tea, or it could be any other kind of herbal tea that you enjoy. So as soon as you start to feel like, where’s that sweet beverage, instead you can go to this herbal tea you enjoy, and may actually have other benefits that you’re looking for, for energy or for mood, or stress relief, or digestive [0:17:42 no audio] and you end up just choosing that instead.
Trevor: Okay. So protein, eating a little protein can be helpful, and that can be at meal time or it could be snacks, right. What other tips do you have to help people breaking that sugar habit? Because it is really a challenge for people.
Doni: Yeah. You want to have those options available to you. If you’re at work or your in a car or you’re on a trip on an air plane, make sure you have something in your desk, in your bag, because you know you’re going to eat every few hours. Our bodies really, again, we need some carbohydrate and we need protein and healthy fats every few hours. I usually say try not to go more than four hours without eating, because by the time you go past four hours without eating, your body is going to need some glucose, some healthy sugar for your brain function, from somewhere. If it’s not going to be from our food, then our bodies tend to increase our cortisol levels, and burn our muscle tissue to create more sugar for our body. You don’t want that either. You don’t want to have muscle loss and high cortisol levels, because what happens then is, say you skip a meal, and you just power through, and you’re like, okay, I’m going to get to my food in another couple hours, so your body is raising its cortisol, and just trying to get through. Then when you finally do eat, and you might choose carbs or sugar at that point, your body’s more likely then to turn that sugar into weight gain and aging processes and stress on your liver, than it would have been if you didn’t skip that meal. It is important to, it’s one of those things, it’s not a black or white, don’t have any, it’s a matter of how do we do it in a way that best supports our body’s metabolism. If you can choose some healthy balance of carbohydrates, now when I say carbohydrates, instead of straight sugar we can choose something like a more whole grain, even if it’s gluten free, a brown rice, quinoa or nuts have healthy carbs in them as well. You can have your carb with your protein and healthy fat, and in a small quantity and then just make sure you have that with you, so you can repeat that when it’s been another four hours, so that it doesn’t go too long and have this stress signal go out.
Trevor: Yeah. While we’re sleeping it’s different, we don’t have to wake up every four hours while we’re sleeping, but we’re not moving around, we’re not expending energy. We do burn some calories while we’re sleeping, but not much.
Doni: Yeah. That’s the thing. Our bodies also need that break. You go to sleep, and we know we need 7 1/2 to 9 hours of sleep. And you want to be able to have that, you stay asleep that whole time, and our bodies actually need that break from eating. There’s some research that really is starting to show how we do need that time from not eating. But then, during the day, when you’re busy, and your active, or you’ve been exercising, that’s when we need to feed our bodies, to keep our blood sugar balanced. Actually, what’s interesting I think is that the more we keep our blood sugar balanced throughout the day, the better we sleep. It’s when you skip meals, and have high sugar or high carb meals that you end up being more likely to wake up in the middle of the night, because your body is just off track.
Trevor: Okay. Then you also put people on a sugar detox, right? You have a program that you do with people?
Doni: Yes, I do. Sometimes it in addition to some other factors, like helping to balance blood sugar levels over all, and helping to avoid food allergens at the same time. But helping to detox or eliminate sugar is such an important part, I think, in the beginning of, for most health issues, because as we talked about, as soon as the sugar intake decreases, and people can start to learn where’s the sugar, how can I choose and eat foods and drink beverages that are not high sugar. All of a sudden everything else starts working better. Hormones come back into balance. Even hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, those hormones come back into balance too. There all affected by sugar intake, so it’s not a separate thing, it’s so integrated into your whole health, that I really consider it a first step in the healing process. If we can get the sugar intake decreased and the blood sugar level balanced, then we’re already getting better cortisol levels, hormone levels, even thyroid function, and digestion, because that high sugar intake can really throw off the digestion. If you want to be improving your immune system, your digestion, your hormones, and your nervous system, or your mood, all in one step, then decreasing your sugar, it only makes sense. I call it multi tasking, you do one thing, and you get [0:23:10 no audio] might as well.
Trevor: Yeah. It’s so true, that sugar is a big issue. Again, I have to go back to the addiction. It’s not that easy though for people. How long does it take to, do you find that it takes to kind of get to the point where you can say, you know, I don’t really want sugar that much any more, turn away from that chocolate cake, and make healthier options? How long do you find that it takes for people?
Doni: It’s a good question [0:23:43 no audio] for some people it’s a little faster than for others. You really want to pay attention to yourself, and your body, and take it at your speed. This is not just a one size fits all process. This is, it’s important to do it, to be successful, I think we need to do it in a way that fits for you. So you might find that I would say, especially the first week is the hardest. People always tell me that the first few days, and the first week, is always the hardest, because you’re trying to find different solutions, and at the same time you’re experiencing some of the withdrawal of not having that sugar there. So you’re more likely to feel irritable, and tired that first week. But then, after that, most people start to feel the difference. Especially if they’ve really been able to reduce their sugar intake. The body will notice, your body will get the memo, so to speak, and go, oh, something’s different, there’s less sugar, we can do things differently here. But it does take the body a little time.
Some people it takes a few days for their body to notice something’s different, and they start to really see a difference quickly. Other people, it may take a few weeks or even a couple months for the body to go, wait a minute, hey, I can do these hormones differently. And it may also depend on for how long you’ve had a high sugar intake. If your sugar intake has been high for a while, it may take a little [0:25:15 no audio] to notice the change. It can [0:25:18 no audio] on your insulin function. We were talking a little bit about insulin. Again, insulin is the hormone, when we eat, really any carbohydrate breaks down to a form of sugar called glucose in our blood stream, and it’s insulin’s job to move that glucose from the blood into our cells. And it’s in the cells where you really want it. You want the glucose to get into your cells, so your body can use it for energy. This function, this insulin function we talk about is really important. If your insulin is functioning well, then any carbs or sugar, if you ate a whole lot, you can at a certain point overwhelm your insulin. But if you have good insulin function your body’s going to use that sugar for good purposes. When insulin function decreases, and at the extreme that looks like diabetes, when insulin is just not able to handle sugar any more. If the insulin is starting to be less effective it may be a little hard, you have to stick with this change a little longer before you really start to see the benefit, where you start to see your blood sugar levels decreasing, and your haemoglobin [0:26:32 no audio] is another blood test we use to help understand blood sugar levels, and [0:26:37 no audio] and you start to feel better, but that may take three to six months if you already had started to get some lower insulin function happening.
Trevor: People want to talk to their doctors about which tests to have. Talk about fasting, blood sugar, you mentioned haemoglobin A1C, and insulin. Those are the tests that you think people should talk to their doctor about, to see if they have problems with insulin or high blood sugar.
Doni: That’s one of the main reasons, when you get your blood drawn, like an annual blood work done, when you go in fasting in the morning to have your blood drawn, one of the main reasons is so that we can see what is your blood sugar, having not eaten anything. If it’s a little high, it means that the insulin function is decreased, and it’s allowing the blood sugar to stay in the blood too long. That’s what you don’t want, because sugar in the blood, that’s staying too long, means that it’s going to cause the aging process, it’s going to cause weight gain, it’s going to increase cholesterol levels. That’s what we don’t want. That’s why you have that fasting blood sugar level measured that way. The haemoglobin A1C, I think of it as your average blood sugar over three months. It’s helpful to see that, because we may not catch it on a single blood draw, but if we can what your average blood sugar is, over three months, it gives us a sense of, hey, are there some days, or certain times when your blood sugar is a little high, and this way you can kind of see the average.
There’s another test called Fructosamine, and sometimes that one is done as well. That can [0:28:22 no audio] to of do you have times when your blood sugar levels are running a little bit on the high side. But I usually find that between the fasting glucose and the haemoglobin A1C, that gives us a good sense. Insulin, now when you test insulin in the blood, we want it to be low. And if we start to see that the insulin level in the blood is high, it means that your body’s working really hard to try to move that sugar. And we don’t want that. We want your body to not have to work so hard. So we need to decrease your sugar intake, and make it easier, let your body make less insulin, so it doesn’t wear itself out.
Trevor: Those are all great points, and labs that I definitely like to run with my patients. One of the things, though, that surprises people, is they’ve been told, your blood sugar’s fine, but when I look at it, the numbers are, below 100 is considered normal, but that’s not exactly optimal is it?
Doni: Ya. You want to watch it over time. I always recommend that patients save their lab results. Even chart it out for yourself. What was your fasting glucose five years ago, and four years ago, and what is it now. You can start to see if there’s a trend, an upward trend. That already can alert you, hey, I need to pay more attention here. Or even if it’s getting anywhere near 100, above 90, you start to go, wait a minute here, I don’t want that. Or even if it’s too low. Actually sometimes if it’s, say it’s 60, that starts to tell me, hey, wait a minute, it’s not a high blood sugar, but I can tell that the metabolism is stressed, because we also don’t want low blood sugar happening. Amazingly the treatment is the same. When you’re having low blood sugar, what we do is we start to watch out for high sugar intake, and make sure that you’re having regular, consistent meals through the day, so that your body’s never dipping low in that blood sugar level.
Trevor: Great. Good points. What about other nutritional considerations for cutting, getting down your sugar intake and getting away from that sugar addiction, other nutritional considerations to look into?
Doni: Well, if you really, when you hear about a whole foot diet, that’s probably, if you just even decided to, I’m going to follow a whole food diet, you’re automatically going to be decreasing your sugar intake. Because so much of those sneaky sugars we’re talking about come in in packaged foods. They get added as an ingredient, and you didn’t realize it. You didn’t approve it, it’s just there. When we say whole foods, we mean like the actual fruit or vegetable, the actual piece of broccoli, the actual berries, the actual [0:31:22 no audio] protein sources, like whether it’s vegetarian proteins, or non vegetarian protein sources, that you actually got the whole food, not from a package that you opened. Although there are situations where, I always like to say, sometimes if you live alone and you need to have your food in the freezer, you could have the whole foods that come in the freezer, but you even have to kind of be careful of that, because sometimes, say it’s a cooked frozen chicken breast, they still can add things to it, so you still have to be careful, even though it seems like it’s just a chicken breast, you have to be careful. But you get the idea. Thinking of how can I choose something that wasn’t already prepared, and put into a package, then you’re automatically going to be decreasing your sugar intake.
Trevor: Absolutely. If there is one thing that you would recommend people do today to cut back on their sugar or to start moving away from a sugar addiction, what would that be?
Doni: Well, let’s see. I’m thinking just, starting pick up each thing you eat, pick it up, pick up the label, if it came from a package, pick up the package, and just start getting curious. Start going, hey what is in this anyway? Because sometimes we stop looking. We start to just kind of grab things, because we eat it everyday, and we kind of lose track, of what actually was in there, even if it’s a protein bar, sugar is in a lot of protein bars, in some form, it might not be actual sugar, but it might be, sometimes it’s honey, and a little bit of honey’s okay. Honey is a fructose. A little bit of honey you might be okay with, but just do a double check. Just be willing to kind of get curious and say, hey, where is this sugar coming in. If you’re a little analytical, you might want to pull out a post it note, and write down and add up for a day, hey how many grams of sugar am I getting? Am I getting 25 grams, and I getting less than that or more than that. So you can just get a sense of it, for you.
Then you can start to make a goal for yourself, you can go, okay, say may goal is 25 grams, and I just did a quick post it note addition on what I ate today, and it’s more like 40, then you can say, hey, maybe I’m going to try to decrease by five grams each day. What can I cut out tomorrow to drop me down to 35, and what can I cut out the next day to get me down to 30. It doesn’t have to be like, 100 to zero. It doesn’t have to be totally cold turkey, it can just be where you gain awareness, and you start to look at your diet, and you get curious, and you get empowered about your health, and your goal. And you go, okay, let me just see what I can do here, can I get it down it 25.
Then at the same time, if you’re motivated to, I would journal about it. How am I feeling now? What are the things you’re noticing in your body right now? Are you a little more tired, or irritable or sleep is a little bit off? Then start to make these sugar changes, and then check back in with yourself next week. Okay, now, how am I feeling? Because when you do that, you really, it becomes real. It’s not just some outside thing telling you you have to avoid sugar, it’s you taking it on for yourself, and really realizing, hey, I feel better, and that’s what’s most important, is that if you feel better about your health and your future [0:35:01 no audio] you’re going to want to keep choosing for your health, and your future because it’s important to you and you feel better for it.
Trevor: Absolutely. Well, thank you, Dr. Doni. Tell us how people can find you.
Doni: You can find me, my website is drdoni.com. That’s an easy way. But I’m also in social media. So if you want to come on Facebook or Twitter, please join me there as well. Again, as Dr. Doni Wilson.
Trevor: I follow you on Facebook and Twitter, and I repost some of your stuff sometimes. You’ve got some great content up there. Thank you for all that you do to help people, help your patients and help other people that maybe can’t even get a chance to come see you. Thank you for all that you do.
Doni: And likewise, thank you.
Trevor: Great to have you on.
Doni: Okay. See you soon.
End Interview – 0:350:57
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Trevor: I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Dr. Doni Wilson. To learn more about Dr. Doni you can go to my website, DrTrevorCates.com. Go to the podcast page with her interview and you’ll find all the links and information there.
While you’re there, you can subscribe to the Spa Doctor podcast, on iTunes or on my website, so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows. Also, if you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend that you get your customized skin profile at the SkinQuiz.com. Based upon your answers you’ll get great tips on glowing skin and vibrant health. It only takes a few moments to do that, so I highly recommend you check it out.
Also, don’t miss any of our great posts on social media, on Facebook, Pinterest, InstaGram and Twitter. Lots of great tips there as well. You can join the conversation and ask questions.
Thank you and we’ll see you next time.
End Transcription – [0:37:04]
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