Addicted to Sugar? The Alarming Research They Don’t Want You to See

Jessie Inchauspé:

Food companies are trying everything they can to make you buy their products. And so, of course, we’re trying our best but we get tricked. Let me teach you what’s actually in food, so when you look at something you know what it’s going to do to your body. And you’re no longer a victim to these milti-billion dollar marketing campaigns.

Intro:

Marie Forleo is a leader. One of the top life coaches on the planet. An award-winning entrepreneur. She's an extraordinary woman Marie Forleo... Marie Forleo… Marie Forleo…

Marie:

Do you ever wish you had more energy? Do you ever think that you could feel better than you currently do? If so, this episode will change your life. Jessie Inchauspé, the Glucose Goddess, is a French biochemist and author whose science backed glucose hacks have helped over two and a half million people reset their moods, boost their energy, and get into the best and healthiest shapes of their lives. It all started when she broke her back jumping off a waterfall. Although her body healed after surgery, some intense and frightening mental health symptoms persisted. While working in Silicon Valley, Jessie was playing with a glucose monitor and stumbled upon a massive breakthrough that changed her life forever, and it's going to change yours, too. What is it, Jessie, that you do, and why does it matter?

Jessie:

I make the science of blood sugar fun and accessible, and I teach people simple tools so they can feel better quickly. And it matters because most of us are sick and feel like crap. And globally health is declining. There's one billion people in the world today with pre-diabetes or type two diabetes. 90% of people have something about their mental or physical health that they could improve, and a lot of it stems from food. So I'm trying at my small one person scale to have as big of an impact as possible on the health of everybody in the world. Small mission.

Marie:

Yeah, no, you're doing such a good job. And so what I want to dig into, too is because… I, first of all, I wasn't aware of you until I had done a series of tests at someplace local here in New York City, and we were going through the results. And the person I was talking to about the results said, "Hey, do you know who the Glucose Goddess is?" And I was like, "No." And he's like, "Oh, you should really go check her out because it's really fun stuff. Go check out her Instagram." And so that's how I learned about you. But I will admit when he first said, go check out the Glucose Goddess, the first thought that came into my mind was, why? Because I don't have diabetes or pre-diabetes. So for anyone listening right now or watching and they're like, hmm, why should I even care about glucose or pay attention to this because I think I'm doing pretty good or I haven't had that diagnosis yet. What would you say to them?

Jessie:

Two things. First, you should try to avoid getting that diagnosis because more and more people are getting it. So by learning about glucose now you can avoid it. And second, and probably way more important and way more motivating to most of us, is that the vast majority of us have glucose spikes on a daily basis. So rapid increases in glucose levels, in blood sugar levels, and then the drop. And these lead to many symptoms we're so, so, so familiar with like cravings, hunger, chronic fatigue, infertility, skin issues, poor sleep, and the list goes on and on. So it's not just a diabetes question, it's really managing your glucose levels helps you feel better today and helps you live the life that you want to live and be the person that you want to be. So it's not a far away diabetes issue. It is very much an everyday, how do you want to feel tomorrow when you wake up issue?

Marie:

Yeah, I think that was the thing that was so surprising to me. And what I loved when I started checking out your Instagram was how fun and beautiful and simple you made understanding this idea and this notion of—

Jessie:

That's the whole work. It's like how do you communicate it in an easy way?

Marie:

Yeah. And then once I was like, Oh my God, not only you're so glowing from the inside out, you're super fun, so you have this great vibe. But I was like, and she's a French biochemist. I'm like, Oh my God. I was like, I'm in love already. So okay, talking about some of the things that I learned in your book, you say, our bodies speak to us all the time. We just don't know how to listen. What we eat impacts cravings, pimples, mind, brain fog, mood swings, sleepiness, weight gain, all of the things. It's just that we don't know how to listen. And I think for me, there were so many areas that I'm going down where I'm like, well, why don't I feel as good as I used to? And so that's why I was really grateful to find your work. What were you going to say?

Jessie:

I was going to say, so this idea of your body speaking to you. So for a long time when I was younger, I was having all these symptoms. So I was having the brain fog, the dissociation… we can talk about that later, but the pimples, the irregular periods, the mood swings, the fatigue, the cravings. And to me I thought, okay, these are things I just need to suppress, medicate, or just feel bad about. I need to over caffeinate so I ignore this problem, and I need to put all these creams on my face so this thing goes away. I was suppressing all these symptoms until I figured out that you actually have to flip the narrative. Instead of thinking of your symptoms as something to ignore or feel ashamed, feel guilty about or overmedicate, what if, you think of your symptoms as your body trying to speak to you, because your body knows all the stuff going on with it, and it is desperately trying to communicate with you like, Hey, Jessie, maybe you don't have a Nutella Crepe every morning for breakfast because it's causing issues within.

All those symptoms, now I see them as messages. So if I feel tired, if I have cravings, I'm like, Oh, I got you body. Thanks for letting me know there's a problem going on within. And when you fix the issues, the symptoms go away because the symptoms are a consequence of stuff happening within. That's a bit deregulated.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

Does that make sense?

Marie:

It makes total sense. And so, so much of my work in the world and my work on myself to be really honest, is always about listening to our bodies, especially from a place of intuitive wisdom. And that's why I was like had my little virtual pompoms out doing cartwheels. When I read that from you, it was like, YES, our bodies are talking to us.

Jessie:

Yes. Absolutely.

Marie:

And that wisdom from within which we can use to direct every part of our lives, including the most important, the most foundational, our health. And I love that you said that because I think in our culture we've been so conditioned that if there is a symptom, we have to put something on top of it.

Jessie:

Let's take a very common example. So today there are more and more issues with hormones and fertility. And more and more females are getting diagnosed with PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. And that's a condition where you stop ovulating, you stop menstruating, you might have hair growth on the face, balding on the head. It's a big bag of symptoms that have to do with hormonal imbalances. And in general, they have to do with having too much testosterone, the male hormone, in a female body. And so often, the way that that is treated is by giving a person the birth control pill, which is full of female hormones. So that pill, when you take it, it brings back the balance between female hormones and testosterone in the body, but it doesn't actually fix the underlying issue of where the f*** is that extra testosterone coming from and how can we fix it?

So PCOS is something that I see being really overmedicated right now, when actually it's often just a symptom and a message from your body saying, Hey girl, too much testosterone in here. Have a look at your glucose. Maybe it's related. And we see this in so many conditions, mental or physical, but I think there's a shift happening, and I want to teach people that these issues can be solved if you look at some basic stuff like, how are you eating? And is the way that you're eating causing a bunch of glucose spikes and all of the consequences that come with that?

Marie:

Yeah. And so let's keep going on the glucose spike thing, because I think this is such a key tenet of what you teach. So understanding glucose levels, but really what I got excited about was just this visual of, Oh, if I eat in a particular way, I'm going to have these spikes. And so let's talk about what are some of both the short-term, and I know you said some already, but again, we all need to hear these things multiple times even within a short span of time. Short-term consequences of having unregulated huge glucose spikes and then some long-term consequences of not getting that under control.

Jessie:

The most common short-term consequences are cravings. So it's 11:00 AM, it's 4:00 PM, it's midnight. You want some chocolate cake or some ice cream or some cookies. Super common symptom of being on a glucose rollercoaster. Second is constant hunger. So you eat something and two hours later you're famished again. You feel like, Oh my God, I just have to keep eating, and keep eating, and your hunger never goes away. Third, very common symptom, fatigue. So instead of having steady eagle energy, what I call it, throughout the day, you feel exhausted, mid-morning, mid-afternoon, you wake up, you're not rested. There's something going on with the energy production in your body that is just not functioning, right. And you might think this is normal, but it's not. So those are the most common short-term symptoms.

And then depending on your body, your medical history, who you are, you might see a bunch of other stuff. You might see fertility issues. You might see difficult menopause symptoms. You might see mental health disturbances. You might see brain fog, you might see acne, psoriasis, eczema. You might see sleep issues. The list goes on and on forever. And then long-term, the most common consequence of glucose spikes is, of course, pre-diabetes and type two diabetes. But now we also know that glucose plays a role in Alzheimer's, in cancer and in heart disease. So essentially managing your glucose levels and avoiding these spikes is really the foundation of feeling great when you wake up tomorrow morning and also of long-term prevention of disease. You cannot thrive if you're on a glucose rollercoaster, if you have constant spikes and dips, you're just not going to feel good. It really is the baseline, the foundation on which you can then build more healthy habits and more health. It's the first layer.

Marie:

You know what's so cool about what you do too, and I've learned this because I've practiced your hacks, I've read both of your books, and I am a devotee. I do them every single day—

Jessie:

Yes. Good.

Marie:

... and I've gotten people on board. And I'll tell you, I have been a person in my life. I haven't had challenges with my weight per se. However, after reading your book, there's a few pounds. I was like, they just went away. And I was seeing a friend, they're like, "What the hell have you been doing?" I'm like, "Glucose Goddess B****." She was like, "What?" But it's true.

Jessie:

Absolutely.

Marie:

My body feels stronger, everything feels better. I've gotten my friends in on it.

Jessie:

Amazing.

Marie:

There's a question that you ask in the beginning of your first book, Glucose Revolution, that I think it's brilliant. This is a brilliant question. So if someone's still in, they're like, I don't know if this is for me. Do you think you could feel better than you currently do? If so, in your book you say, keep reading. I almost say y'all keep watching because what you're going to keep learning in the rest of this episode could change your life. The other thing that I love that you very clearly say is that if you're suffering from any of those symptoms or if you find yourself with these insatiable cravings or constant hunger, no matter what, that if this is happening, it's not your fault. Say more about that.

Jessie:

Well, when it comes to food and cravings and hunger and fatigue, the easiest, the most common place people go is feeling ashamed, feeling guilty, like, Oh, I'm having these cravings again. I have no willpower. I'm so weak. I'm such a disappointment. I can never get it right. And that is something that society has been telling us as women for a very long time. So we've integrated that hate. And unfortunately, it's completely misguided because that's not getting you anywhere. And also it's wrong because if you have, for example, constant cravings, it's not because you lack willpower, it's because the cravings are a consequence of the glucose rollercoaster. So let me give you a visual example. So every time you have a glucose spike, so if you eat a meal that's really high in starches and sugars, which is what turns to glucose, when we digest it, your glucose levels go up, okay, they spike, and then your glucose levels crash after the spike.

This crash activates the cravings center in your brain that tells you, Jessie, eat a cookie now. You cannot fight this biological response no matter how much willpower you have, that craving is going to be very, very real. So you can feel guilty about it, feel ashamed about it, but it's not actually solving the issue. If you balance your glucose levels, those responses from the most prehistoric parts of your brain are going to go away. You're not going to have that strong craving anymore because you won't have the thing that is triggering it. And this is the case for so many symptoms that we see today. Not only are there messages from your body, but also they're not your fault. They're just your body trying to say something to you. They're your biology's reaction to what's going on within. So we got to flip the narrative completely on its head and realize, okay, let's fix what's going on. Let's fix your glucose levels first and then see how many of these symptoms naturally go away.

And I want to say something on the weight loss angle. So to be very clear, the glucose hacks in this approach, it's not a diet. The focus is not weight loss. But what happens is that when you balance your glucose levels, your cravings dissipates, hunger reduces, and your body burns more fat. As a result, people generally naturally lose some weight, but it's not the focus. It's just the consequence of a body coming back into balance, and that's the way it should be.

Marie:

Correct.

Jessie:

That is when weight loss is totally fine and healthy and great and will be sustained for a very long time.

Marie:

Yes, it was certainly not the aim of when I was picking up your book, it just was this interesting byproduct that I did not expect, was not aiming for, and again, felt more energy, more strength in my body. It was just, I was like, whoa, what's going on here?

Jessie:

That's amazing. I'm so happy to hear that because we all deserve to feel that way.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

But we're so confused by all these marketing messages around us with all the crazy food products and the food companies trying to make so much money. There's so many's opinions—

Marie:

Let's talk about that for a minute, because that was the other piece in terms of it's not your fault. We can't be blind to the fact that we're all existing in an environment that is inundated with multi-billion dollar campaigns from big food and all of this labeling, and I'm a lover of marketing. I love business. I think it's just like any other tool in the world when it is used as a force for good—

Jessie:

But when it's at the expense of people's health, it's just not okay. Yeah, it keeps happening.

Marie:

Yes. And so the other reason it's not your fault is we have all, many of us have been conditioned. I know my folks, my family, they're from an older generation. They're born in the late forties, and so they grew up thinking and believing, Oh, it's okay to have pizza and burgers and this and that. And we're not making any food group bad, but the amount of processed food and the labels that are on the food, the no sugar added. That's one of the things that I love when I'm on your Instagram, of you just being really direct, very clear about helping people understand and navigate through the marketing system and the labeling.

Jessie:

It is such a nightmare. Food companies are trying everything they can to make you buy their products. And so they'll put stuff on labels like no sugar added, vegan, keto, gluten-free, organic, a 100& natural, all this stuff. And you as a consumer, you want to feel good. You want to make healthy choices. So when you see this on a packaging, you're like, Oh, this must mean that it's good for me. And so, of course, we're trying our best, but we get tricked by these messages that are actually not a good indication of whether something is healthy or not. Let me give you an example. So if you see no sugar added on, let's say a cereal bar, it does not mean that cereal bar has no sugar in it. It simply means that the sugar in that bar didn't come from somebody taking a spoon of table sugar during processing and putting it in the mix.

The sugar could come from so many other sources like honey, like dates, like dried fruit, like X, Y, and Z. Those sugar molecules are the exact same sugar molecules as in table sugar. There's no difference. Again, it's a marketing tactic. And many of us are so confused, especially people who are buying foods for kids, for example. The messages are just, whew. It's very overwhelming. So what I try to teach is let's go back to the molecules. Let me teach you what's actually in food so when you look at something, you know what it's going to do to your body, and you're no longer a victim to these multi-billion dollar marketing campaigns, because it is a jungle out there. It is super tough. So that's something I'm really trying to help with.

Marie:

Yeah. And you're doing a great job. So we're going to talk about all the hacks, including, I love this one, the secret ingredient that allows you to eat dessert and still go into fat burning mode. And the one small change you can make to your breakfast that unlocks energy and curbs cravings.

Jessie:

But first, before.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

I was going to say, before we go into the hacks, I want to give people a little crash course in glucose.

Marie:

Please.

Jessie:

Glucose 101.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

Okay, so what is glucose, because we've been talking about it for a few minutes now. Glucose is your body's favorite source of energy. So every single cell in your body uses glucose for energy. Right now, both of our brain cells are using glucose, so we can think and have this conversation. If you're listening to this podcast, while your brain cells are also using glucose, so you can understand us, your heart cells use glucose, your finger cells use glucose. All parts of your body use glucose for energy, and that's a good thing. Glucose is great. The main way that we give glucose to our body is by eating foods, by eating starchy foods. So bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, tortillas, et cetera, starchy foods, and by eating sweet foods, anything that tastes sweet, from a banana to my favorite ice cream to get when I'm in New York, the chocolate fudge brownie from Van Leeuwen’s. Okay.

So anything starchy or sweet gives glucose to your body. And you might think, okay, well, if glucose is my body's energy and I want to have as much energy as possible, I should just eat as much ice cream and pasta as possible. Well, this is where the logic breaks down. It's a little bit like if you have a plant at home and you know that your plant needs some water to survive, but if you give your plant too much water, what happens?

Marie:

It dies.

Jessie:

It dies. The human body is the same. Some glucose amazing. Too much glucose and problems start happening. So if you give too much glucose to your body during a meal, you're going to experience what's called the glucose spike as we've been talking about. And this is a rapid increase in the amount of glucose in your body and then a rapid drop. Those spikes are the reason we're having all these symptoms. Those spikes lead to inflammation, aging, insulin release, all these consequences, and over time they add up to the short-term symptoms that we spoke about from brain fog to cravings, to fatigue, and also the long-term issues. So there you go. That was glucose 101.

Marie:

Let's talk about also though, before we get to hacks and all the how-tos, this is very personal for you. This is really personal for you. Can you tell us how balancing glucose really became your mission? Because your story I found very inspiring and I want people to know it's like you didn't just stumble upon this, this was something you experienced.

Jessie:

Absolutely. So it all started when I was 19. I had an accident. I broke my back jumping off a waterfall. So one of my vertebraes exploded. I had super intense surgery. I have a bunch of metal in my spine now. And physically I was fine quite quickly, because I was young, but mentally I started developing a lot of issues, depression, anxiety. When I looked in the mirror, I had a panic attack. I was like, who is that person? When I went to bed at night, I always thought I was going to die during the night. My body was totally shot. I was just so broken. And at that young age, feeling that kind of suffering, I realized if I don't have my health, I don't have anything. I got to figure out how to get back to a place where I can wake up in the morning and feel good. That was the mission.

So I studied biochemistry, then I worked in genetics in Silicon Valley, and nothing really helped me understand how to feel good tomorrow morning, I was still feeling broken. I was functioning, but I was not okay. Until one day, the Universe very kindly knocked at my door. And I enrolled in a pilot study when I was living in San Francisco super randomly just because I thought it could be cool of wearing a continuous glucose monitor as a non-diabetic, as a person without diabetes. So a continuous glucose monitor is a small coin sized device that was invented for people with diabetes, that you wear on the back of your arm, that measures in real-time your blood sugar levels with a little electrode underneath your skin, and it sends that data to your phone. So you can see in real-time what your glucose is doing. Is it steady or is it spiking and dropping.

As a person without diabetes, I did not think this would change my life, but it did. So this is what I found out. I found that the days where my glucose was spiking and dropping a lot, my mental health was worse. And the days when my glucose levels were steady, my mental health was better. Imagine eight years of really terrible mental health, of suffering, of feeling completely lost. Nobody was able to help me. I was completely confused about why I felt this way. And finally I had a clue. I could see what was going on inside my body and understand that there may be a link between how I felt and my glucose. So that was the beginning of the passion.

Marie:

Let me ask you this question, because over those eight years, and I feel like so many people listening right now have had a similar experience where there is something wrong with them. Did you go to a bunch of doctors and talk through these symptoms or try different medications or different approaches or different therapies? Do you know what I mean?

Jessie:

Yeah.

Marie:

And then when you finally saw the continuous glucose monitor readings and you started to make this connection, I'm curious what was happening in your brain? I know for me, whenever I've had a challenge in my life, I do believe, and I know in my heart that everything is figureoutable and I'm a human, where if I keep hitting brick walls, even if something appears like it might work, I'm like, Oh, I don't know. Is this going to be another disappointment? So I'm just curious to hear more about... Because eight years is a very long time.

Jessie:

It's a very long time. Well, I saw a therapist after my accident, but I was telling them things like, I feel like I'm in a movie. Nothing makes sense. When I look at another person they don't look like a human to me. I was really not okay. And they were just like, okay, that's weird. Let's talk about your accident. I didn't find... I just wasn't being helped. And also I think because I was such a people pleaser, I didn't really say, listen, mom or dad, I'm really not okay, send me to a proper medical doctor, not just a therapist, like a psychiatrist. But I just never did. I just didn't really know what to do. I felt super helpless. So I was never offered medication when I'm sure it could have helped.

I was lost. I was trying to cope. I was distracting myself a lot with work and doing stuff, but I could never be alone. So somehow there was no real exit path for me, and I was okay. I was functioning. I just had to make sure I never looked at myself in the mirror, which is a weird thing to try and avoid. So no, I was broken and it was very, very lonely. But I knew in my heart, and this is the thing that kept me going, I knew in my heart that it was going to get better one day. And I had the chance of meeting a young man about a year after my accident who said, I used to feel how you feel right now. I've been there. I know what you're experiencing. Trust me, it'll go away. And that really kept me going, just knowing that somebody else had been through this weird mental health state and had come out of it. That was my lifeline. That was my lifeline.

Marie:

I'm so happy that you shared that because I think for all of us humans being seen and being understood by someone who's gone through something similar that either we're going through right now, I've seen that in my own family too. My mom has been having a really tough time, and I shared with her that a friend's mom also is going through something that she's going through, and she's like, "Really?" And I found, I saw the glimmer of hope in her eyes, and I just want to thank you for sharing that because if anyone listening or watching us right now, if you notice someone in pain and you've been there just saying, I've been there, and there is a possibility for a whole other life beyond this, it can be lifesaving.

Jessie:

It really can. And then I was sitting in the subway in London, I was living in London at the time, and I looked around and I was like, wow, how many of these people are suffering but not showing it? It gave me so much compassion for other humans. We're all going through something difficult, and if you are going through something difficult, just remember it is going to get better.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

It's not forever.

Marie:

It's not forever.

Jessie:

And these are phases, and these are very difficult chapters, but it does get better.

Marie:

I think what I also, I felt that compassion in your work, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. I don't know if you recognize fully, or maybe you do because you had such tremendous success, and I'm so excited to watch you continuing to have even more and more success on this mission, is you bring so much understanding and so much heartfelt compassion to this topic. It is such a joy to witness and it's really fun and we'll talk about that.

Jessie:

Thank you.

Marie:

So let's talk more deeply about women and hormones. I happen to be blessed with an amazing community. We have all kinds of people, all around the world. However you identify, you're welcome here. And we happen to have a lot of women, and women and hormones are a big deal. What do you wish every woman knew about blood sugar and hormones?

Jessie:

That if your blood sugar is out of whack, your hormonal system is not going to function properly. So your blood sugar and your hormonal system are like two peas in a pod. They're very, very, very tightly connected. So if you suffer from any hormonal issues, maybe it's PCOS, maybe it's really difficult menopause symptoms, maybe it's fibroids, maybe it's endometriosis, maybe it's really tough PMS.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

All of these things have to do with your hormonal system. Now, I'm not saying that a 100% studying your glucose levels is going to solve everything, but the first place to look is to your glucose and to make sure that it's nice and steady, to use the hacks, to give your hormonal system as much of a solid foundation of health as you possibly can. And most of us have glucose spikes on a daily basis without knowing it. So most of us tremendously benefit from applying this science to our lives. And naturally, a lot of those difficult hormonal issues tend to go away. So again, it's not your fault, it's not something you have to just contend with. It could be a message from within.

Marie:

Yes. Let's get into one of the simplest things we can do to start to flatten these curves, eating foods in the right order. When I read this, I'm going to read a study that you have in your book from Cornell. If you eat the foods in the right order, a meal in a specific order, you can reduce your overall glucose spike by 73% and your insulin spike by 48%. So tell us what is the right order.

Jessie:

Listen, this is mind-blowing. So the right order, "to eat your food in", is veggies first, proteins and fats second, and starches and sugars last. So let's take an example. Let's say your meal contains broccoli, salmon, pasta, avocado and chocolate. Okay. The right order for your glucose levels is going to be broccoli first. Then the salmon and the avocado, then the pasta, and then the chocolate. Okay. So the scientific theory shows us that if we do this, we can still eat the meal that we love eating. We can still eat the foods we love eating, but we reduce the impact on our body and on our glucose levels. And I want to make it very clear, this is the scientific theory. This is what the studies have shown us. In practice you don't have to separate out your sandwich into different bits and make it overly complicated. But what we can take from the science is that when we're faced with a meal, and if it's easy to eat our veggies first, absolutely 100% do it because it's going to help your body so much.

And try to keep the carbs for the end of the meal. So instead of rushing to the bread before anything else, keep the bread for after your main meal and maybe have the salad first or the broccoli first or the other veggies first. Yeah, this is super key. And the reason it works is because veggies contain a very powerful substance called fiber. We love fiber. She is the best. When we eat our veggies first, at the beginning of the meal, the fiber in the veggies has time to coat our upper intestine and make a protective transformers super shield. And that super cool fiber shield is then going to slow down how quickly glucose molecules from the rest of the meal can make their way to your bloodstream. So you're still eating the same meal, but with the veggies first, you're protecting your body against those glucose spikes.

Marie:

I love it. In the book, I think we'll be able to maybe show this illustration. It so stuck in my mind, you showed a sink as the stomach, and I was like, when I ate my broccoli first and my veggies first, it's like, Oh, all this beautiful fiber lining. It was such a beautiful—

Jessie:

Exactly.

Marie:

... fun illustration. By the way, both of us, I am obsessed with broccoli.

Jessie:

Yeah?

Marie:

It's my favorite. I think it's one of your favorite veggies.

Jessie:

I love broccoli.

Marie:

Yeah. Broccoli's first.

Jessie:

Broccoli, cauliflower. Big, big, big, big fan. I have a lot of good broccoli recipes in my book. I just really dig the broccoli vibes.

Marie:

Me too. And I feel like that's another message. Do you have those? I have cravings sometimes for certain veggies—

Jessie:

That's great. That means you're connected to what your body wants.

Marie:

Exactly.

Jessie:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Marie:

Okay, so in the Glucose Goddess Method, which again y'all, I think you should get both of her books. The Glucose Goddess Method, if you're like, give me the exact four-week prescription, I think you should get both because they're both brilliant. But you chosen what you have seen from a science perspective to have the biggest impact. So in Glucose Revolution, we have 10 hacks. And in the Glucose Goddess Method, which is a four-week program, we have four.

Jessie:

Yes. And the reason I wrote the second book, The Method, is because after the first book, which contains all the science and all these hacks, people were like, Jessie, I get it, but I need a bit more help—

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

... to get started. So I thought, and because my passion is helping people actually make change, I thought, okay, how can I make a four week plan that is just you follow it, you don't have to think about anything, and you feel so, so much better after just a few days.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

And that's how the method was born. So I took the four most important hacks, the foremost powerful hacks, and I put them in this four week method.

Marie:

Yes.

Okay. And I also want to say this, the recipes are ridiculous. This is why I took you with me, and this is why I was reading you in bed and getting so excited about what I was going to make the next day. And I was poking Josh. I'm like, "Do you like this? Do you like this one?" He was like, "I'll try them all."

Jessie:

I wanted to make such simple recipes, six ingredients or less. I wanted to make recipes that when you do them once, you don't have to look at the instructions ever again.

Marie:

Yeah.

Jessie:

Because it's just—

Marie:

I do it because they're pretty.

Jessie:

Yeah, they're beautiful. If, in a pinch, people are busy—

Marie:

Yeah. You can do it.

Jessie:

... it's not a complicated Sunday roast vibes.

Marie:

No.

Jessie:

This is the simplest recipes you've ever seen in your life and they will help you so, so, so much.

Marie:

I felt like such a top chef because I was whipping out these recipes and bringing them to Josh, and I had little micro greens and fresh herbs, you know what I mean?

Jessie:

Yeah.

Marie:

On the side. And he is like, "Who are you?" I'm like, "I just got trained by the glucose goddess." That's who I am right now.

Jessie:

Amazing.

Marie:

So week number one, this is the simplest change that anyone can make to your breakfast that will give you amazing energy. So tell us what this change is and why this—

Jessie:

It's simple, but it's not necessarily easy. Okay. You've heard breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I want to change that sentence. I want to change it to breakfast is the most powerful meal of the day. If for breakfast, you have a big glucose spike. So if you have lots of starches and sugars, for example, a fruit juice and some granola or some bread and some jam or some cereal or a fruit smoothie, that's going to create a massive glucose spike. And then that breakfast glucose spike is going to kick off a rollercoaster for the rest of the day, a rollercoaster of cravings and fatigue, and it's midnight and you had 25 cookies and you're like, how did this happen? Look at your breakfast. So in week one of the method, what we do is we switch from a sweet breakfast to a savory breakfast built around protein.

This is the most life-changing thing you will ever do. No, seriously, it will completely transform your glucose levels, completely transform your days. So savory breakfast has a good amount of protein in it, a little bit of fat, a little bit of starches if you want, for taste you can add some bread or potato is not an issue. But importantly, a savory breakfast contains nothing sweet except if you want some whole fruit for taste again. So we're talking having omelets for breakfast, we're talking having leftovers from dinner for breakfast. That's a super easy thing to do. We're talking having a smoked salmon toast. We're talking about you can make some granola if it's nut centric and doesn't have too much sugar in it. You have to rethink your breakfast and this will radically change your day.

Marie:

I did that. I wasn't usually... Sweet tooth is not typically my thing. Usually only during hormonal times. So I'm like, Oh, I'm PMS-ing, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the amount of savory easy breakfast. And by the way, did you know I'm a member of your recipe club too?

Jessie:

Oh yes, girl!

Marie:

Oh, come on. I was like, give it all. Give me those recipes.

Jessie:

Yes.

Marie:

You have so many options that are so easy and so helpful. And like you said, there's not 17,000 ingredients, six or less, five minutes done and done, and it's so good.

Jessie:

You can make, also one of my favorite right now is the egg cups.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

So you can make these in advance and make six egg cups. You can cook them on a Sunday. It doesn't take very long, like 25 minutes. And then you have your whole week of savory breakfasts planned and accounted for. So I'm trying to make this as easy as possible for people because I know it's complicated to face changes, but this is seriously so simple. And during the method, by the way, you just do the four hacks and the rest of the time you eat whatever you want. There's no restrictions, nothing is off limits. I promise you, as you add these hacks, your body will naturally stop craving all of the junk food that you felt addicted to. And so naturally you're going to be like, I don't need that chocolate bar. I don't need to eat that burger. I'm actually fine.

Marie:

Yes. Week number two. So this one is the secret ingredient that allows you to eat dessert and still go into fat burning mode. What is it?

Jessie:

It is vinegar. And so vinegar, when I first saw the scientific studies, I was a bit shocked. I was like, wow, this is crazy that nobody's talking about this. So one tablespoon of vinegar in a tall glass of water, make sure you dilute it before a meal, can cut the glucose spike of your meal by up to 30%.

Marie:

It's incredible.

Jessie:

Without you needing to change anything about what you're eating, you just add the vinegar before the meal of your day that's going to be the highest in carbs, for example. And you still enjoy your meal, but with less impact on your body thanks to the vinegar. So in the method in week two, we add one vinegar drink a day, and it can be super simple. It can just be the vinegar tablespoon in water, but if you're a bit squeamish, I have lots of delicious teas and mocktails. You can also make a salad dressing that also works and any type of vinegar works except avoid the very syrupy aged Italian Balsamic.

Marie:

Sadly, but yes.

Jessie:

Because that one has a bit more sugar in it, super simple, tremendous impact, especially if you're somebody who suffers from post-meal cravings.

Marie:

Yeah.

Jessie:

This is going to nip them in the bud.

Marie:

Can I tell you how many bottles of apple cider vinegar I've purchased since I got your book? I'm like apple cider vinegar on lock.

Jessie:

Oh my gosh.

Marie:

And the way that I do it, I just do it first thing in the morning and then you're going to laugh at me. So we were upstate up and about, and you remember there's one time where I knew we were going to cruise past, which we'll talk about. I was like, I know tonight after my dinner, after I have all my fiber, all my veggies, all my fat, all my protein, I'm going to have dessert, because there's one particular place. And I was looking around, I was like, you know what I'm going to need? Mama's going to need a flask. Do you know what I mean?

Jessie:

Yes.

Marie:

Because it's just like, it was such a beautiful thing to discover the science. And I like the taste of apple cider. I don't find it diluted in water. It doesn't affect me. I actually enjoy it. I look forward to it now. But I was like, I'm going to be carrying around a flask and be like, is this Marie Forleo just drinking her face off and be like, dude, it's apple cider vinegar, because I'm going to have a cupcake or that brownie and I'm just going to take care of my body.

Jessie:

I love it. I like that sentence, taking care of your body. It's like you—

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

... have to have a conversation. You're like, Hey, body. Yeah, I know. I'm talking a lot about chocolate, because I love chocolate. Yeah, I know this double chocolate fudge cupcake is not going to be good for you, but don't worry, I'm going to help you a little bit by having this vinegar drink before. And so it's a partnership.

Marie:

It is a partnership, and I'm going to have some broccoli before. That was the other thing that I want to make note of here that I thought was so instructive and that has changed my life. The notion, I love going on vacation or adventures with Josh. I work a lot and I love my work, but I also love traveling, being out in the world. And sometimes we find ourselves in beautiful places like earlier this year we were in Portugal.

Jessie:

Oh, nice.

Marie:

And they have this beautiful egg custard and you're walking around and it's been hours. And in the past I would've been like, Oh, it's two or three o’clock. I can have one of those. It's early enough in the day. I'm going to keep walking and burn it off, blah, blah, blah. And now I'm like, Oh, well, I can go have a salad and some broccoli and then have that great little treat.

Jessie:

Yes.

Marie:

So the notion that you teach in your work of if you're going to have a sweet, have it as dessert.

Jessie:

Yes, because that way you get all the pleasure, all the dopamine in your brain, which is what some people might confuse for energy, but it's actually just pleasure from the sugar with less impact on your health.

Marie:

That's right.

Jessie:

And so the key thing is avoid having sugar on an empty stomach. That means avoid sugar first thing in the morning, avoid sugar as a snack. If you want to eat that delicious dessert or that delicious sweet thing, have it as dessert after a meal—

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

... instead of breakfast or snack. This is so important because otherwise you're going to kick off that rollercoaster and two hours later you're going to be like, Ooh, I want something else that's sweet and something else and something else. And you become a victim to this rollercoaster.

Marie:

Totally. But that was big for me and I really loved it. Okay, week three. This was another fun one, and again, in every week you have all of these gorgeous recipes. So tell us what we're doing in week three.

Jessie:

So week three, we're applying the science we just talked about a little bit earlier about having the veggies first. So week three, we add one veggie starter to one meal a day. Now ideally, your veggie starter composes about, makes up about 30% of your meal, but don't worry if you can't get to that because it's maybe a lot of adaptation, even just two cherry tomatoes, one baby carrot is a step in the right direction of getting that fiber at the beginning of a meal. So it's gradual, build up to it. I have lots of easy recipes. Think about your favorite vegetable, try to mix them in advance, and then have that as a veggie starter before a meal. And what you can do is also mix the vinegar hack with the veggie starter hack. So you do veggie starter with a vinegar dressing and you are protected for that meal. Your glucose is going to stay nice and steady and you can still eat what you love while also helping your body helping alleviate those symptoms.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

So again, it's positive and you're actually going to end up eating more than usual, which is surprising because you might think that's a bad thing. Oh, more food, more calories, I'm going to put on weight. Actually, you won't because those calories and that food you're adding, they're good foods to be adding. They're going to keep your cravings at bay, reduce hunger, increase fat burning mode. So you're not going to be hungry on this method. You're going to be super full and satiated and very happy.

Marie:

I found that too. I found that as I was going through the four weeks and now it just is also automatic, because it is so simple, that I found myself just naturally even noticing my satiation levels, like, Oh, I'm satisfied. I'm fully satisfied rather than plowing through or some of old habits in the past it was—

Jessie:

That's so beautiful because you feel reconnected with your body.

Marie:

Really, reconnected.

Jessie:

And that's really the goal, to try to come back to this partnership and feeling like you're friends with your body instead of feeling like it's a black box you don't understand. And having all these emotions of blame and guilt and shame. It's not very hard to get back to a place where you feel grateful and you feel connected and you feel love.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

That's what this four week method helps you get to, and it makes me so happy to hear you say that as well.

Marie:

Oh, yeah. And also I want to underscore this notion of being friends with our body, because I think for so many of us, we felt like to a certain degree, it's our enemy, to a certain degree we're battling with it. Why can't my body behave this way?

Jessie:

Why is it doing this to me?

Marie:

Why are these chemicals happening? I can't control it? And just to me, I have this image of this horrible wrestling match that quite honestly in my mind, it's like the energy is violent, the energy is angry, the energy is really fierce. The energy is destructive

Jessie:

When actually your body's just trying to keep you alive.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

Truly your body is not against you. Your body's purpose is to keep you alive. There's no ulterior motive here.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

Your body is not an enemy, not a villain. But because of the disconnection we have, it can feel like that. It can feel like a relationship of nemesis.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

Because you're so out of touch, you're so disconnected. So getting back to the connection is so beautiful.

Marie:

And also what is brilliant about this is this isn't based on just theory. All of this is rooted in science, and so it's like not only does this work and you can feel it and experience it for yourself, but in all of your work, you quote all the studies.

Jessie:

For sure. Well, at the core, I'm a biochemist, and when I got interested in the world of glucose, when I saw those days where my glucose was steadier, I felt better. I dove into all the research. I read as many scientific papers as I could on the topic, and I thought, wow, the information here is so powerful. It needs to be communicated. So I'm not inventing any of this. My work has been truly to just take the discoveries made by all these incredible scientists across the world and turn it into something applicable. So you'll find in my work hundreds of scientific references if you want to learn more, and I'm always keeping up to date with the latest studies coming out. And I love doing that because this science deserves to be in the spotlight. It deserves to be recognized. It deserves to be used and applied.

Marie:

It's the power of having the right messenger. Actually, it is the reason, I was thinking about this because I have some new things that we're creating and working on, and I was thinking back to when I started over 22 years ago. And even though it's a different field, I remember just learning about these ideas and these practices and these concepts that were around personal development or even around business. And I remember just going, why don't more people know about this? Why was I not taught this in grammar school or whatever? And that same notion was really the driving force to why I even wanted to create this business, because I felt like maybe because I love communication and I love making things beautiful, and I love making things simple and actionable that I could play a part in helping great ideas get out to a wider audience of people that they weren't reaching for whatever reason. Okay.

Jessie:

A 100%. And you're doing a great job at it.

Marie:

Thank you.

Jessie:

And we need more people doing this work.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

Of taking the science and the theory and turning it into something you can apply.

Marie:

Yep. Week four, this was, Oh my gosh, I've had so much fun with this one. So much fun with this one. Tell us what we're doing.

Jessie:

Okay. So by the time you hit week four, you're doing savory breakfast, vinegar and veggie starter. So you're feeling pretty good. And now we add the final hack that's going to really change the game. So we recruit powerful allies, our muscles, let me explain. So your muscles, when they contract, they need energy, and the first place they look for energy is in your bloodstream. They look for glucose molecules to use and burn so they can contract. In week four, what we do is after one meal a day, we use our muscles for 10 minutes. This allows your body to use some of the glucose from the meal you just had to contract, to move and then reduce the glucose spike very easily.

So 10 minutes can mean going for a 10 minute walk after lunch, it can mean cleaning your home, which I need to do more of. It can mean doing the laundry. It can mean dancing in your living room. It can mean, of course, going for a run, going to the gym, doing whatever you want. It can mean doing some calf pushups, calf raises at your desk at work. It can mean whatever you want, but this is very, very important to get your body moving and using some of that glucose to reduce the spike.

Marie:

Once I learned this, it has been, I think it's been one or two times that I've missed.

Jessie:

Oh, wow.

Marie:

And what we did, we had friends over our place upstate, and we have an area where there's a bunch of weights and yoga mats and all kinds stuff. I was like, "Guys, we're going over to the bungalow," and I have my Apple Watch. I'm like, "10 minutes."

Jessie:

Yes.

Marie:

And so I used to be a Nike elite dance athlete, and I taught a lot of fitness, so I'm leading them through.

Jessie:

I love it.

Marie:

It was so hilarious. All of us. And here in the city, we're taking walks, taking the dog out, and I know it's only and which is great in this, and we'll start to talk into how you do what you do, because I want to get into the business of being the glucose goddess, which is so exciting to me. So you only have to do it one meal. I'm going for all the meals, because it's so fun, and then it becomes like, Oh, that's an extra 30 minute workout. I'm dancing around the house, I'm doing leg lifts, I'm doing butt lifts, I'm doing all the things.

Jessie:

I love it.

Marie:

And it's so great. It's so, so great.

Jessie:

I'm loving this. You're such a good Glucose Goddess. Good job girl.

Marie:

Bowing to you. So before we go to the business of being the Glucose Goddess, I need to say this, because this is a big one and I want to reemphasize this, and I had to have a talk with my bro and my dad who is managing type two diabetes. It's a whole other story. You say that we can have any kind of sugar we want that they're all the same. Orange juice sugar is the same thing as soda sugar. And I went to my dad's house just this weekend. I was like, 'We got to get rid of this shit. What are we doing here people?" They're like, "But he's only having a little." I'm like, "No, we got to get it out of here. Can you say more about just so people really hear it's like it don't matter where the sugar's coming from. And then I want to ask you about specific sweeteners.

Jessie:

Okay, sugar from orange juice, sugar from soda, honey, agave syrup, maple syrup, coconut sugar, regular sugar, brown sugar, organic sugar, Fairtrade sugar, whatever sugar. They're all the same molecules. So your body does not differentiate whether sugar came and was extracted from an orange and put into orange juice or if the sugar was extracted from beet root and put into Coca-Cola, because remember the sugar in Coca-Cola also comes from plants. Your body does not make a difference. It's still glucose and fructose molecules, and these still have a very significant impact on your health when you have so much of them in these drinks in particular. So remember that anytime we eat sugar, whether it's a freshly squeezed orange juice or a honey or whatever, it is for pleasure, it is dessert. It is not for health. Your body does not need that amount of sugar.

And specifically on the fruit juice thing, we have to remember a couple notes. So first of all, the fruit that we eat today, that we find today at the supermarket, is not natural. The fruit we eat today has been bred for millennia by humans to make them extra sweet, extra juicy, extra easy to eat. So for example, oranges, they're not actually a real fruit. They were invented by crossing two other species of plants. Bananas today are much bigger and juicier and sweeter than ancestral bananas. All of the fruit we eat today is manmade. A bit like all of the dogs we see today have been manmade because they all come from the gray wolf and they've all been bred in different ways to make different dog breeds. The fruit we eat today is the same. It is a manmade, super sweet, extra sugar packed invention. That being said, a piece of fruit is still fine to eat, a piece of whole fruits, because whole fruit contains fiber.

So even though they're packed with sugar, there's that protective fiber in them. Now, when we juice a piece of fruit, what are we doing? We are discarding the fiber. That's the solid part that gets thrown away. We're extracting the sugar in the water. That sugar water, that orange juice is the same for your body as a glass of water in which somebody put 20 spoons of table sugar. It's the same for your body. And the antioxidants and the vitamins in that orange juice are not a good reason to get such a massive glucose spike. If you want antioxidants and vitamins have some vegetables. They don't come with the side effect of these very damaging high levels of sugar. So yeah, orange juice, it's for pleasure, it's dessert, it's not for health. Cut it out. Stop buying it. Your body will thank you.

Marie:

Let's go into a real life situation. Let's say I'm in a movie theater and I'm so excited to be in this movie theater and I'm sitting there—

Jessie:

Okay, but what are you watching?

Marie:

I'm absolutely going to watch either a popcorn movie that's going to be action-based, or this is probably going to be horrible to you, but I am a huge fan of scary and spooky movies. Not violent slasher. I'm talking like true spook, you know what I mean? Zombie movies are some of my favorite, so I'm into that.

Jessie:

Okay, so it's a zombie movie.

Marie:

It's a zombie movie, and I'm sitting there and they've got the pre-roll going. And it's basically, they're showing me those obsessively ridiculous images of a Coke with the sprinkles coming out and the ice. And I'm like, wow, I have a craving. And let's say I want to indulge in the craving. Is it better to have a Coke Zero or the real thing?

Jessie:

A Coke Zero.

Marie:

A Coke Zero. Tell us Why?

Jessie:

Because sweeteners, aspartame, stevia, monk fruit, maltitol, allulose, all of these sweeteners that contain zero calories, yes, they're not good for you, they have consequences. They impact your microbiome. They may make you crave more foods. They're not something good to add to your diet, but they are infinitely better for you than the 25 grams of real sugar, in a real Coke, okay. This is very important for people to hear. The diet version of a soda is infinitely better for you than the real soda with the real sugar. And I know there's been some talk about, Oh, sweeteners are really bad, they cause cancer, all this stuff. We got to relax on that. Real sugar is way, way, way more damaging than the sweeteners. And especially if you look at something like stevia, it's pretty harmless. So the aspartame in the Diet Coke, yeah, it's not the best for sure. If you're not drinking Diet Coke don't start.

Marie:

Of course.

Jessie:

But switching—

Marie:

But in a moment of weakness if you had to have, even if it was a little sip or two.

Jessie:

100%.

Marie:

That's why I wanted to ask this because we are all going to find ourselves in situations where we're like, Oh, even if I just need a sip or a this, or that, helping people make a choice that is going to be actually healthier for their body.

Jessie:

And also if you're like, well, I want the real coke because it tastes better, it's fine. You can have sugar. I just want you to know what it's doing to your body so you can make sure it's worth it. I'm a big chocolate addict, as I have made very clear, I will have the chocolate ice cream. I know it's not great for me. I'll use the hacks around it, but I'm still going to eat sugar. I probably eat sugar every single day, but I know how to eat it in a way that is not going to cause too much harm to my body.

Marie:

Yeah.

Jessie:

We're not talking about never eating sugar again. If you're able to do that, kudos, good for you because sugar is not good for the body. But realistically, we want a chocolate cake for our birthday.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

So it's about learning how and when to eat it to optimize for pleasure and minimize the downsides. And especially we need to avoid eating things that we think are good for us, that are actually not good for us.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

Specifically the fruit juice, the fruit derived cereal bars, a lot of breakfast foods, the granolas, the muesli, the fruit smoothies, all that kind of stuff.

Marie:

You know what the other thing, we didn't talk about this, but this was really fun. When you're like, if you're going to have carbs or sugar, put some clothes on it. Don't let them just run around naked. You got to put some clothes on it. What does putting clothes on it mean? It's so cute. I started laughing when I read that.

Jessie:

So carbs again, they're starches or sugars. So I'm going to repeat this. Pasta, rice, potatoes, et cetera. Those are starches, and then sugar's anything sweet. If you eat them on their own, so let's say you have a big bowl of pasta or you have five cookies as a snack, the starches and sugars are going to break down into glucose molecules as you digest them, and those glucose molecules are going to arrive super quickly into your bloodstream with nothing slowing them down. As a result, big glucose spike consequences, big glucose crash. Now what you need to think about doing is instead of letting these carbs be naked, so eating them on their own, you need to put some clothing on them, meaning not a T-shirt, meaning protein, fat or fiber. Because by adding those other molecules, you're going to slow down how quickly the glucose molecules arrive into the bloodstream.

So example, if you're having a big pasta dish, add some olive oil, add some spinach, add some chicken, put some clothing on that pasta. If you're having five cookies, also have a Greek yogurt that's protein and fat or some nuts and also a vinegar drink before if you can. So it's all about combining stuff so that you get the pleasure from those carbs without the creation of that cravings rollercoaster. That's the key. We want to enjoy what we love without having more cravings two hours later.

Marie:

I'm going to take you through a few quick questions that we hear all the time and that frankly I've heard during conversations with my friends all the time, and I want to hear your take on them. So big meals versus frequent snacking. Is there one that's better from a glucose perspective?

Jessie:

Yes. Bigger meals are better and spending more time fasting between the meals is going to be better for your body, because when you're in that fasted moment, your glucose levels are low, your insulin levels are low, your body's burning fat for fuel, which is super key. Now, if your six meals a day are just chicken and veggies, you're going to be fine. But most of us, if we have six meals a day, we're having carbs every single time and creating glucose spikes every single time. So it's better to do three meals a day than six small meals.

Marie:

Calories as it relates to someone wanting to feel great at their ideal weight. Do calories matter?

Jessie:

Two people can be eating the exact same number of calories and one can be super sick, super inflamed, have cravings all the time, have hormonal issues beyond the way to type two diabetes, and the other person can be eating the exact same number of calories and feel freaking amazing and have no health issues. So calories are helpful because they give us a sense of quantity. So you can compare a thousand calories of pasta versus 2000 calories of pasta, but calories don't tell you anything about what is actually inside the food. So we need to learn the molecules in the food. Is it starch, is it sugar? Is it protein, fat or fiber? And then you get a much better understanding of how that food is going to impact your health.

And I have a whole chapter in glucose revolution where I go into how calories were invented, how they were first measured, and it's mind-blowing. And what I find really great is that a lot of my readers, they've been counting calories for a very long time, and once they just focus on the glucose hacks and what they're actually eating and they just completely stop counting calories, their health improves, and if they were trying to lose weight, they naturally lose weight without this complicated, restrictive calorie counting mindset.

Marie:

Yeah, that's what I love so much about this too, is because there's so much joy in your work and there's so much freedom and liberation in what you do and how you communicate it. It's like, look, no foods are off limits, but we just need to be educated, responsible and understand the impact, the nutritional biochemistry of what we're doing.

Jessie:

I want to teach people what's actually going on.

Marie:

Yeah.

Jessie:

I think people want to know.

Marie:

They do, and we're all so frigging confused because over the years there's so many restrictive diets and you have to do this. And as a person, freedom is my number one value in life. So anything that feels restrictive for me—

Jessie:

Oh God, I feel the same.

Marie:

... I want to rail against it.

Jessie:

Yeah. Same. 

Marie:

That's why I was like, Jessie is a woman after my own heart. This is about freedom—

Jessie:

Freedom.

Marie:

... and fun. Almond milk, oat milk, whole milk?

Jessie:

Unsweetened almond milk or whole milk are both fine. Oat milk, I know a lot of people love it, but I want people to know what's actually inside. So oat milk comes from oats. Oats are grain and grains are starch. So when you're eating oat milk, you're eating starch juice, you're eating juice with a lot of glucose in it, so it leads to a big glucose spike. Okay. If you have milk that comes from a cow, that's mostly protein and fat. If you have milk that comes from a nut that's also very, very low in starch. So those are better options in terms of glucose balancing properties.

So if you're having oat milk because you think it's healthier, just switch, go back to whole milk or have some unsweetened nut milk. If you're an oat milk fan, like I know many people are. Then try to think about maybe having your oat milk not on an empty stomach, but rather after breakfast for example. Or maybe go for a little walk after having your oat milk latte, et cetera. Use some of the hacks so that you can still eat it with less impact on your health.

Marie:

What's your feeling? This is something that I've been exploring and just testing out different things for myself, and I'm curious if you've tried this for yourself or seen anything in the research. In terms of breakfast, there's a lot of talk and there's a lot of science behind the efficacy and the benefits of intermittent fasting or some type of fasting to just give your body those certain hours to do all of their magic and clear everything out and cellular waste. And then I've also interviewed and just spoke with different people who believe from their perspective, breakfast's the most important powerful meal of the day. And so I'm just curious if you've found yourself playing with intermittent fasting yourself or where you are in breakfast just in general.

Jessie:

I think if you want to fast and it feels good to you, that's fine, but it's not necessary to be healthy. And three meals a day is totally fine for most people. And if you do fast, what's very important also is how you're going to break that fast. Because after you're fasted, your body is real empty. Your digestive tract is like there's nothing in there. So if the first thing you eat is something high in starches or sugars, that's going to create a big glucose spike because the glucose is going to go really quickly into your bloodstream. So always make sure you're breaking your fast with something savory or with vegetables if you can.

Again, fasting, if it works for you, that's fine. Remember, it is a stressor on the body to fast for a very long time. So if you have a stressful job, stressful family life, you take cold showers, you go to the sauna, you do intense workout, you drink a lot of coffee, you blah, blah, blah. That's a lot of stress. Okay. If on top of that, you add 18 hour fasts, especially in a female body, that can be a lot, and it can actually backfire. So be cautious, do it if it feels good. Never fast if it feels really difficult. Okay, that's probably a sign that it's too much stress on the body. It's much better to have a savory breakfast and three meals a day than to overstress your body with very long fasts and then eats carbs first thing after the fast.

Marie:

Love it. When I first saw your Instagram, how fun it was and how beautifully you were communicating these somewhat complex ideas, I was like, she's so good at what she does. Then when I got into your books, and again, I hope you all... You need to get both of them in my opinion, but Glucose Goddess Method, if you want to just get in and have that four week program. One, I'm curious, was there any feeling that you had about shifting from being a biochemist to being an entrepreneur? Was that intimidating? Were you just excited about it? Did you dive in and did you have intentionality? I know I'm asking a bunch of questions, so you take whichever one you want, about making sure that your work was beautiful because it is. The spirit, the attention to design detail, one of the greatest things, the recipes are insanely delicious and they're wonderfully healthy, and I love the photography. So as a woman who—

Jessie:

Thanks.

Marie:

... just aesthetics, it makes learning so much more fun.

Jessie:

Yes.

Marie:

So I'm just curious to hear about your journey.

Jessie:

I'll answer your visual question first and then the journey. The visuals of my work is the number one most important thing for me. I do all my posting, I do all my designs. This book, I have moved every single box on every single page until it was perfectly positioned. I'm a visual freak. And this is what I love the most. And I think it's because the beauty of something is really important. Yes, I'm teaching science, but why not make it really beautiful so you feel happy and when you open the pages, they just scream at you with joy and beauty. So the visual element has always been number one priority. How did I switch? 

So I was working in a company in San Francisco when I discovered the science of glucose, and I started healing myself, and then I was like, well, this is so important, people need to know. I had some savings from my job in my bank account. And I said, okay, I have basically nine months runway here. Before I quit my job, I actually started working on the Instagram for six months.

So I told myself I can quit and go for nine months, but before I quit, let me try to do this project on the weekends, on the evenings for six months and commit one hour a day for six months, rain or shine, one hour a day and see where I get, because I didn't want to just quit and then start and not know it was going to happen. I needed some data that this was actually something. So I started the Instagram, started posting every day. I had five followers and I had 20 followers, and I had a 100 followers, and every single follower was painstakingly one. And I was listening to a lot of feedback from the people who were following me and they were telling me, Oh, we like this. Oh, this doesn't make sense. Talk more about this. I realized, Oh, the graphs is what people like the most. And after the six months of work, I had, I don't know, 5,000 followers maybe. And so that to me was enough information to quit and feel relatively safe that there was really something here. Okay.

And so at the end of those, I kept working on it nine months of runway, and after those nine months, maybe I had 25,000 followers, because I was working every single day on this stuff, on growing, on making sure my content was shareable so people could find my accounts. There's a whole method to the madness. And then I actually thought I was going to quit because I thought, how am I going to monetize this?

Marie:

That's right.

Jessie:

I'm not an influencer. I don't do sponsored posts, so how am I going to make money? I was like, well, I'm not sure this is going to work. And then that's when I met my book agent, she saw my Instagram and she said, "Hey, this is amazing. You should write a book." And so that gave me another two years of runway to be able to write this book, have the money from the advance, and then it just kept growing from there. But I had no business strategy when I first started. My only strategy was make something people like and get people excited about this science. I had no business plan, I had no investors. I was just like, let's just do the thing I love and see where it goes. But it's a bit risky because if I hadn't met my agent, I probably would've stopped.

Marie:

I was so happy that you gave me an opportunity to give you more money by having a recipe club. And so for so many people out there, and I've even battled this in the past, I'm like, Oh, well, I've done enough. And there's, Oh, I don't want to make too many things or sell too many things or whatever. So I just want to say it's like thank you for giving those of us who love what you do, an opportunity to continue to support you.

Jessie:

Thanks.

Marie:

And then I know before we started putting on all the cameras and stuff like that, you were saying you had just done an event in Mexico. How cool was that? So can you tell us a little bit about how has the business evolved over these past couple of years and how are you thinking through it in terms of what you want to provide and your interaction with your audience?

Jessie:

Well, now I have a small team, mostly women, just badass, kickass women. We're five. And I'm trying to build a business that sustains that teams, who can keep doing what we love. So I can keep doing free content for the people who need it the most, because that's really the objective here is to help people who can't afford my book. That's the objective. So how do I build products and systems that allow me to still do that? So right now, business-wise, so I have the books, but when you have a book, you have a publishing deal and you actually get a small cut of the actual money of the book. So what I did in my second book is I have a bunch of QR codes in there where you can scan, get a grocery list, get a weekly planner, et cetera, and get into my ecosystem, in my universe. So I get you to my website and then you can sign up to my newsletter. So it's a way to get my readers into my system, and that's really key because otherwise, I don't know who bought my book.

Marie:

Yeah.

Jessie:

It's hard to then find them.

Marie:

No. It was really well done.

Jessie:

Thank you.

Marie:

I was so happy for you. And as a business woman, I was like, yes.

Jessie:

Yes. So I have the recipe club, which is doing great, and that's a subscription. So every month you get 10 recipes. It's 4.99, and they're as beautiful as in the book. Super simple, super easy, straight to your inbox, digital. And then I'm going to launch some more products, because I'm going to launch a Glucose Goddess certification for professionals who want to learn really the ins and outs of how to communicate the science effectively to their clients, their patients, their network, their family, really you get everything that's launching very soon, and I'm going to launch a product soon. That's a secret, but we'll know more.

Marie:

Yeah. Excited for you.

Jessie:

So yeah, so I'm trying to answer particular questions people are asking me in a thoughtful way, sustain my business, sustain my team. I also do, I do speaking events, but that's quite tiring, it's time-consuming. So I'm not really on the conference circuit. I'll do it once in a while, but really what I'm most interested in is having my own physical and digital products that are really serving my community and my audience in a really cool way, and also sustaining my team, because I want to do this for the rest of my life. And so I can't write a book every year. That's just too much work and it's exhausting.

Marie:

Yeah. It's not sustainable too, especially with the model there is, and I love talking about this. I have so many publishers who are friends of mine, authors who are friends of mine. It's a highly changing world. And for me, I'm so excited to hear that you are doing, once we turn off the cameras off, because I have my entire business is the digital business, and it's so fun because you can do it at scale and there's so much creativity as you know, that we can pour into this and make these beautiful experiences that are artistic.

Jessie:

And the freedom.

Marie:

The freedom.

Jessie:

Because I love doing everything. So when I launch something, I'm thinking through the entire process. I'm making the deck that gets sent out to journalists talking about my new book. I'm in there with the photographer placing the egg on this recipe photo. I'm designing the cover with the team, I'm doing all this stuff. I'm thinking about the emails, I'm thinking about the videos we're going to make with the production company to market the book. I am across the whole thing.

Marie:

Yes. You can feel it.

Jessie:

Yeah, absolutely. And I love doing that. And so when you're building your own products, it's really cool because you have full creative control over everything and it's so fun and you can really think through the entire experience that somebody is going to have. And so that's what I love. I just love thinking about how is somebody going to get to this product? What's the email they got? What's the landing page? How do they feel? How do I introduce it so it feels really like it's serving them? Then how did this get delivered? I just love that stuff. I love it.

Marie:

It's Art, in and of itself.

Jessie:

It is. Totally.

Marie:

The other thing I want to commend you on too, and I know we have a lot of folks in our audience who are coaches and consultants, or people that would like to or aspire to create a business or extend their business in that way because they genuinely want to serve. And another thing I just want to compliment you on, food can be really tricky because it's a really... And as soon as you start getting into anything that's health related, food related, there's a lot of sensitivities, there's a lot of triggering, there's a lot of shame. We've talked about that, even you start bleeding into even talking about weight loss and these things erupt, but this is what I want to say about your work, which I loved reading that, she's so good.

You do these great Q&As in your book where if someone listening or watching and reading your book is like, but what about… I can't do? And all of us, we have those voices in our head whenever we're learning something new about why we can't execute on a particular strategy. And what I think is so geniusly done, and I'm curious if you learn this from having so many Instagram followers, the moment you let people know it's okay, you actually don't do that hack then. Do the other one and just be happy with it.

Jessie:

Yeah.

Marie:

It's okay. Don't make yourself wrong. You literally—

Jessie:

Do it when it's easy, stress-free—

Marie:

Do it when it's easy, stress-free.

Jessie:

That's always been the message.

Marie:

And I found myself just really cheering you on because you found such a beautiful way to communicate that doesn't let people off the hook, but doesn't shame them. Do you know what I mean? It's like, Oh no, you can still do this. You're not going to use that as an excuse. You don't say that. That's Jersey Marie coming out. I'd be like, I'm making a face. You're so great. Has that always been a natural skill of yours or did you—

Jessie:

No.

Marie:

Okay. So that might have, I would assume, and this was my imagining, when you engage with so many people publicly on an Instagram page, it's natural, at least it's been for me, where my more combative side may have come out, because I'm like, why can't you see it? And then over time I've learned, Oh, there's actually a way better way to communicate that super honors that person but doesn't engage in a fight.

Jessie:

Bingo. Listen, I was a biochemist discovering the science, and I was like, I want people to know about this.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

But what I did that I think is one of the reasons that this became so big is that I actually listened to the people who were looking at my posts. I read all the comments and I read all the DMs and they were like, I don't like it when you say this. Don't say this. People offer so much feedback and it's such a gift. And so instead of being like, Ugh, they don't get it and, I don't know, blocking them or something, I was like, okay, tell me more. How is this triggering you or how could I do a better job? And I approached it like you would a product, because I came from Silicon Valley building tech products. So I thought when you have a tech product, you do user research and you do interviews and you show the person the product and you're like, how do you feel? And they're like, I think this sucks. And then you dig into it and you improve the product.

So I thought of my Instagram posts like somebody would think of an app or another website they're making. I took every single piece of feedback and improved. And I got really tough feedback sometimes, but it helped the message evolve and improve in such a powerful and deep way that I would do it all over again.

Marie:

Yes.

Jessie:

And on so many elements. For example, for the type one diabetes community who have to wear glucose monitors and it's a life or death situation, I used to post all these selfies of me with my glucose monitors on, and some of them were happy about it because they said it made it feel less like a medical device to hide. But others were like, this is pretty insensitive. We can't even find one because our insurance won't get it to us. And seeing you wear it when you don't need it's triggering. So I was like, okay, I get it. And so I stopped doing that. And then there was people who have a history of eating disorders who were like, well, these rules are feeling a little bit like something that could create an ED. And I engaged with them and I realized actually people need some information about how to eat. And I think I do it in a soft enough way that it's not trying to be a fad diet or trying to be these crazy rules-–

Marie:

Oh, a 100%.

Jessie:

Yeah.

Marie:

Yeah.

Jessie:

But just to let you know, I've thought through these things. Every time an issue that has come up, I've really engaged with it to see should I change something or am I actually okay with the message? And I keep doing that. And that's so important and that's why it's become something that works for everybody everywhere that is not divisive. It's trying to reunite a lot of the nutrition world. So yes, constant engagement with the community, with thought leaders, even with journalists who sometimes write terrible articles. I'm like, huh, what are they trying to get at? And then I learn and I speak to them and I improve, or I say, you know what? I think I'm right. You have your opinion. So it's a process, it's tough and you have to check yourself and not have too big of an ego and always question what you're doing, but then be able to come back to the place of, no, I think my mission is actually really good, my message is on point.

Marie:

Has that process for you, and this has happened for me, where let's say you get a piece of feedback that is tough and it's difficult. Do you usually give yourself time to talk with either trusted colleagues or sleep on it? I always find.. if I find myself heated and emotional, I'm always step away from—

Jessie:

100%.

Marie:

... and just a little bit of time gets me back to my own inner equilibrium where to your point, I actually really do stand behind this thing and I honor and respect you for having a completely different perspective and I'm staying on my track.

Jessie:

Completely. And at the beginning when I remember my first negative comment, and this was in 2019, I think it took me four days to get over it. I was destroyed. I was like, Oh my God. It really was difficult. And now when there's that, I know something written, I look at it for a couple minutes, I'm like, is this adding new information that I could use? No. And I just get over it. So it's a muscle that punch in the gut thing, you get used to it and you get stronger. There's this beautiful Buddhist saying, soft heart, strong back. It's like, take it in. Is it relevant? Is it helping me? No, you just push it out. But yes, I never answer when I'm heated. I always wait until I'm emotionally sober. So if you're emotionally drunk with anger, sadness, shame, whatever, don't take any action. Also, don't text the guy, don't answer to the comment. Just wait until you're sober and then make the decision.

Marie:

So if you were to summarize the message that you want to share in a way that is actionable and easy for someone to embrace when it comes to their eating habits, what would that be?

Jessie:

It would be that there are very easy steps you can take that are going to transform your physical and mental health. Savory breakfast, vinegar, veggie starter, movement. These are like gentle giants, like fairy godmothers. If you put them and you place them into your days, a lot of things are going to fall into place. So highly recommend trying these out. They're based on the biochemistry of your body. They're based on how your cells function, how your hormones work. They're very important to help you navigate this crazy food landscape and health landscape that we live in. They're easy, non-restrictive. You'll feel the effects immediately and your body will thank you.

Marie:

Thank you so much for making time.

Jessie:

Thanks Marie for having me.

Marie:

Wasn't that an awesome conversation? Now, before we wrap, I have one small favor to ask. 75% of the people who watch our channel aren't yet subscribed. If you've enjoyed this conversation or gotten benefit from any of our videos, please hit that subscribe button right now. It helps us reach more people just like you, attract better guests, and that means I can keep helping you live a richer, better life. Until next time, stay on your game and keep going for your big dreams, because the world really does need that very special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I'll catch you next time.