Wake Up With Marci

Welcome to wake up with Marcy a deep dive into self-discovery I’m your host Marcy Hopkins and this is the space where we get real about life transformation and finding our true selves. Dr Yasmin welcome to wake up with Marcy I’m so excited to have you here and have this conversation with you thank you so much for having me I really appreciate it so this is really an important subject and I think there’s a like over 11% of the population in the United States suffer with diabetes some sort of diabetes and you yourself at one point were were diagnosed with tipe 2 diabetes can you share with us what was going on for you at that time how did that impact you and and change your life.

Well you know diabetes has always been a huge part of my life honestly um and so my dad he’s a diabetic and three out of five of his siblings are also diabetic and then his dad was diabetic and so I saw you know my grandfather died from diabetes at a very young age um and so my mom also suffered from obesity and so both of them you know were over you know 300 PBS 350 pounds respectively when they got married and so for myself and my brother they were very focused my whole life on preventing this disease because they saw firsthand the complic ations right and so um my grandfather on my um dad’s side died when I was very young his mom died in her 60s and my mom’s mom died in her 60s and so we’re very well aware that this was something genetically on both sides that might impact me.

So I was on a low carb diet the Atkins diet if you remember that was very big I feel like when I was a child and um so they would send me with you know hamburger patties no bun for school you know and just low carb and I actually felt okay about that you know because I thought I could beat this if I just eat eat a certain way if I exercised and they had me playing from the age of four um tennis for hours you know so every day after school they made sure I exercise they were not um they were all about you know reversing this you know generational cycle um of metabolic dysfunction for sure so so for me I thought I was killing it I really did I was all about low carb I drank Diet Coke from the time I could remember and um you know and I that is actually a good thing I was never obese as a child but I would maybe considered overweight but really based on the BMI skill but I if I look at pictures back then I was definitely I would say athletic and then um and it wasn’t until you know my dad he’s a physician he’s a pulmonologist and I wanted to go work with him in the practice so I went to med school and my plan was never to go into this because I thought it was just as easy as eating low carb yeah um then when I went into resy I saw my uncle die from diabetes um had a heart attack as a complication of it and so that was you know a real shocker because he was a doctor and he was doing all the right things and then he died and then I realized there’s more to this than just controlling the blood sugar you know with not eating carbs and so I got checked out at that point um I wind up developing just stational diabetes and then after that I thought okay I’ll lose the weight and it’ll go away just go back to my low carb diet I’ll be fine yeah well no it stuck and then I didn’t lose the weight and so that when I realized I’m just like them and that what I was trying to do didn’t work and I got very nervous because I thought either I’m going have to go on a bunch of medication or maybe have to do bariatric surgery to reverse this thing um and so that was definitely um a low point I F felt very helpless at that time and that’s when I decided to become an endocrinologist to become an ultimate expert in diabetes you know and so that’s kind of how that all happened for me.

So they spoke with you at a very young age about what was going on why you were eating a certain way and keeping active oh yeah my dad used to say food is energy he definitely ingrained that from a young age that this is not like something we do kind of for pleasure and then my mom would be like but it can taste good and we can have fun too but it didn’t feel it didn’t feel restrictive it just felt like these are my genetics and you know what I mean and I’m combatting them and that was the smart I thought they did me such a service for sure right so the it wasn’t like leading to an eating disorder or anything like that no that developed later for sure I think when I started to realize when I stopped playing competitive tennis and literally doing everything perfect that you know I was in residency not sleeping I bloed up instantly and then stress totally affected me you know I was very nervous about getting you know the best grades or writing this many papers and the typal things that happen with overachievers you know and um and honestly anyone and so that’s when it started to affect me because then my weight was uncontrollable my sugar it was uncontrollable you know even if I looked at it chip funny right that sugar was going to spike and I really really felt all of it and I also saw the difference in how it was treated right weight stigma is huge yes so I was having severe neuropathy which is you know pain in the nerves um because my back I had dextroscoliosis um so when I went to go get checked out right they didn’t even examined me they just thought it was my weight go to find out after like begging for an MRI that basically abnormal curvature of my spine this is neuropathy and then um you know going through that and being treated in the medical system in a different way because of my weight felt it was horrifying you know it took a while to figure out that I actually had PCOS which is a disease that causes insulin resistance and I had no clue you know and so right again just weight stigma and all the things that happened with that right and so even in medical school you know I could tell um you know people judged me right you’re going to med school about you know people who are healthy right and right I was definitely judged um and it was as if like you know I just bingi all day or something like that you know and so that was hard and then of course what happens you get bored you start emotionally eating you do different things like that and I would say my unhealthy relationship with food started after um for sure it wasn’t from when I was a kid.

So let me ask you so you’re diagnosed what how were they treating you and and and what were you noticing was it making any change for you like what did you start doing to make the change for yourself because I don’t think it was helping you which is why you dug deeper the first thing they tell you when you’re diagnosed is to diet exercise and lose weight but the thing was I was already doing those things and so then the next step is here’s my foran for almost every diabetic they want to give you medications right away and I just really didn’t want to accept that I didn’t really like that idea so you know obviously when you have gational diabetes you know with my child you know I did what they said I wasn’t going to like question anything you know it’s my son’s Health but once that was done then I said okay I’m figuring this out like no doubt about it so that’s when I started my fellowship and I started learning you know real evidence-based strategies and from that I was able to to you know formulate a way to start lowering my sugar so I got controlled with that that got me controlled but the next step was you know really changing my you know eating patterns and how I felt about food um so that you know came partially with my obesity specialization but then also Honestly by getting coached so I went to therapy and that took a good look back and looking at things but I also got coached a lot and learned how to stop things like emotional eating mindless eating habit eting all these other root causes of things that lead to insulin resistance right and then after that I saw a functional practitioner and then after that that’s when I really got to the a lot of the root causes what was really going on why I probably developed diabetes to begin with and that this doesn’t have to happen to everyone and if it does you can reverse it and so once I did that that was the moving point.

So the first step you know my training I got to figure out how to lower the sugar right which is which is a big part of right you need to lower the sugar caus well how do you do that well that’s a lot part of it is when you eat how you eat even the order in which you eat right your Foods um so there’s so much to it and that’s so does that have to do with the digestion like what hits your your stomach first when you say in what order yes we call it nutrient sequencing which is when you eat protein and fat before the carbs you do that it changes everything the same plate you could eat it in a different order and sugar would drop 50 more points by eating the protein and fat first very it’s amazing and so those are the kind of things we learned you know in endocrinology obviously besides medications but we learned about the wonder which you eat or when you move right example walking after a meal really can uptake that glucose so much quicker because our muscles uptake the glucose so little things like that that we’re able to tell me control the sugar but then after that during my obesity specialization and really digging into like you know why I was overeating and all these kind of things you know targeting that stop the yo-yo which would be like you know that restriction restriction restriction and then binge and then feel shameful about it really getting that and then the next step was really getting to the root causes of why my sugar was high in the beginning you know that functional that holistic perspective and then once I did that now I can have a carb and nothing would happen to my sugar so that’s where the needle moved completely um and so it took all of it you know making it step by step.

You know of course I mean that I’m sure there’s so much to it but I want to touch on the the mindset around food and so for me um my addiction was alcohol and so I you know I’m almost 10 years sober I had to do a lot of things to change um my thought process and um how I thought about myself right because it it at the root of it it was from my trauma and the way that I felt about myself yeah so I would you say that that is a form of addiction like eating overeating binging starving yourself like 100 100,000 gazillion percent so my my mom um you know so she was obese her whole life and ultimately wind up doing bariatric surger after failing every diet I mean she and I both had tried 150 diets I remember going to Weight Watchers with her you know as a child and sitting in her meetings right and um and things would work for a period of time and then bounce back well after her surgery she developed what about 10% of people who undergo gastric bbass surgery do which is called addiction transfer so it’s when people who are addicted to food transfer their addiction and she actually became an alcoholic thank God she’s sober yeah so um you know my mom she’s my best friend she’s my kid’s gam gam and she’s the best you know but this thing that happened no one even realizes was a medical complication of trying to fix one addiction without actually getting to the root cause of the addiction to begin with so yes it’s an absolute addiction now it doesn’t have to be yes some people have it worse than others where they’re very aware they’re addicted to food and they’re obsessed with food but for some of us right that addiction is not um very transparent right it’s not very obvious so for me I wasn’t a big cook I didn’t really think about food but I would just eat I would just eat yeah yeah buffer it could be from boredom it could be to procrastinate all the work we have to do especially as women right I would find myself you know cleaning out the kids dishes right and then picking up their plate while I’m doing it just to avoid the next task I had to do yeah you know and instead of just doing something good for myself right it just stayed at the kitchen table.

Would you say that cortisol had a part in that also because of you’re overstressed totally yeah yep definitely a lot of definitely different things growing up you know even though the eating a low carb diet didn’t stress me out growing up I had a lot of other trauma and different things that happened in my life where I felt that um that stress built up over time and I never dealt with it I just kind of put my head down and I would basically focus on the next thing and my career or whatever it was to avoid dealing with any of it and and I just want to touch on you a lot of people think of trauma kind of like maybe what I went through right there’s different levels of trauma but you having to deal with so many people passing your loved ones like the grief and not really understanding how to process that as a young person must have been really difficult it was it was and I think I didn’t have um and you know everyone’s different right um I’ll put it this way my program it’s not like our only focus but I didn’t have a good relationship I think at the time with a higher you know spiritual power at the time yeah and so when I was dealing you know with grief I didn’t deal with it at all um I think you know that that didn’t sit well with me and I definitely was whenever something was hard I would definitely want to go to the next you know um even things like avoidance right yeah I moved away yeah I moved away in high school I’d gone you know through a period of grief a lot of Trum in high school in my my freshman year um and I was actually you know local I was here and then um I moved to South Carolina at a tennis Acy just to avoid you know and so it’s one of those things that happens and I think a lot of us I think in this world in general I think a lot of people are dealing with it I think it’s more than I think it’s more than not I’ll put it that way it’s easier to do that but actually we think it’s easier but then we always pay for it later for it y yeah it always comes back so with vengeance with a vengeance is right I get that.

So can you share a little bit like we’re talking about the diabetes and um I I I don’t know that much about it so I’m so happy that we’re having this convers conversation and my aunt Melinda actually was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and she ended up dying of a heart attack um at a young age and and I don’t know that I think the stress of just everything on her heart um with uh medically what she was dealing with but the next thing that I wanted to that you talk about is insulin resistance can you share with us exactly what that is and what’s happening to us yep so basically when you’re a type two diabetic or pre-diabetic or anyone with insulin resistance the thing is that you have a pancreas that screts insulin and its job is to go to our cells and almost like a key open up the cell doors and let the glucose come into the cell and give us energy right and so you know and that glucose right that energy is supposed to go to it goes to a lot of places but predominantly it’s supposed to go to three places the muscle the liver and the fat okay but when that insulin isn’t able to open that cell door so open up the cell what ultimately winds up happening is that’s insulin resistance so the glucose can’t get in the cell it stays in the bloodstream eventually leads to elevated blood sugars yeah now the problem with that is that insulin when or when sugar is high it’s a state of inflammation all over the body and affects every single cell of the body which is why diabetes can cause a gazillion complications like stroke heart disease neuropathy you see people missing limbs people who go blind you know you name it diabetes fatty liver you name it diabetes causes it and example like your aunt right so she had her heart right her best she had plaque right we all a lot of us right we all develop plaque at some point but the difference between a diabetic who is plaque versus someone who doesn’t is that that inflammation from the diabetes has that plaque break off and that’s when it clogs the artery stops oxygen from going to the body and causes that heart attack and that’s what kills you so that’s why diabetes is the silent killer that’s killing us yes it Causes Chaos in the body every single cell wow I mean that’s it’s just crazy when you don’t understand a disease right that’s why it’s so important to get educated and so that’s why I’m glad we’re having this conversation so you can help somebody out there or at least someone that they know or love.

So let’s talk about your approach how are you helping others so basically what I found you know now that I’ve been in clinical practice you know for a bit is that and I see you know a lot of patients a day and so there’s different awareness levels or education levels right for diabetes and unfortunately the way the medical model is is that they come in you get a few minutes with them right and you know and people know the insurance model is is terrible basically if you um so a patient we may get reimbursed maybe $20 for a visit so to keep any business running right and not even business any Hospital any government anything you need to see a lot of patients and there’s not enough time to do the education that’s needed the other problem is is that unfortunately the way we’re taught in the the medical model is that everyone gets the same script right you start with metformin that doesn’t work OIC or you know an sglt2 inhibitor and it’s a same algorithm so everyone’s on the same meds but the problem is their root causes aren’t the same at all and where they’re at and their understanding and diabetes isn’t the same so my method is that basically we start at the top top of the pyramid to get bang for buck to start lowering those sugars right we need to lower the sugars first and so they learn to understand diabetes actually everyone has to go through the same first education just understanding diabetes really understanding why it happened what’s going on and so from there we focus on lowering the blood sugar you know eating in a certain way so that our cells can start to heal right because if the cells can heal right if they can start responding to the insulin better again well then you can reverse it so it’s targeting each and every root cause of that depending on what your root cause is and then from there Target all the causes of overeating because although not every diabetic about 80 to 90% of pre-diabetics and diabetics are overweight or obese it’s just the truth it’s just the stats so we do need to Target that for a good majority of us not everyone but a good majority of us and then it’s learning how to deal with the other things that have nothing to do that but also actually cause that things like sleep things like how to nurture your body build dopamine the happy hormone right that we used to get from sugar or whatever it is right everyone has their dopamine fix it could be alcohol drugs food whatever it is sex you name it so the reality is we need to find ways to build dopamine and that happy hormone another way or then after resisting for a few months we’re going to go right back to the old cycle and so it really goes from the ground up so no matter where you’re are in your journey for diabetes if you’re newly diagnosed or you think you know everything you’re going to learn something here and you’re going to get through it and the other thing is you need to have coaching and Community you know as you know from anything with any uh 12ep program kind of thing right if you don’t have support if you don’t join Community if you isolate this will never work for you not long term and I think we learned that from the pandemic people need people yeah so and we need time we need time with people things you can’t get in a doctor’s office where you’re going every three months to meet with someone for 15 minutes it’s just not enough and so that’s where um you know we’ve been doing our program online using coaching Community um and meal plans making it simple bite-sized information that doesn’t overhaul your whole day you know um and so that’s when we decided to create the app and so our app that’s launching the type two diabet transformation app um we’ll be doing everything in bite-sized micro five minutes you know lessons with the resources to complete to put them in action and the community and coaching to make it personalized to Target everyone’s individual root causes for their insulin resistance so not only they can become controlled but eventually reverse their diabetes.

So you are helping them to get educated you’re helping them to learn how to eat are you helping them on the the mindfulness side of that too oh yeah big time so we have specific even modules and pieces in the program for emotional eating over craving mindless eating habit eating um and how to control our thoughts so I call it the dream model in the app yeah but without going into too much detail it’s kind of like you know the same Theory that’s been going on forever so basically you have circumstances and some of those are derived from our previous actions but some of those circumstances God drive or whatever you believe in right right and those circumstances lead to specific thoughts in our heads okay and those thoughts lead to certain emotions and those emotions always lead to certain actions and certain results or a manifestation what you know if you will so on us as humans we’re the only species that can control our own thoughts meaning we can choose to change our thought about something can’t change the circumstance but we can change the thoughts and if we can change the thoughts we can change the emotions and if we can change the emotions the actions and results will follow so that’s a huge part of our program 100% And and it’s hard that is a hard thing to do and and I think well I know people don’t want to try or they quit too soon or they don’t understand that you have to take the action every day yes but the outcome the other side of it that’s where the the reward is it’s the best part it’s the best part and if you can overcome I think this to anything right when you overcome something that has plagued you or been a big issue for a good majority of your life yeah then you know you can overcome anything so once you tackle that I notice people go through my program once they tackle their sugar they’re on to the next the next the next it just like the whole world opens up you become Limitless in a way so it is pretty amazing yeah that thought work is is the key huge key.

So one of the things I like to talk about is being vulnerable and I think it’s very hard to be vulnerable especially if we have things that we have pushed down for so long and we put these walls up around us and we think they are protecting us but in the reality is that they’re making us sicker and keeping us sick so to bring those walls down and be vulnerable and ask for help is really hard but it is a key part to Healing so what would you say to someone who’s struggling with that emotional side to their health Journey they’re feeling stuck ashamed or hopeless yeah I would say is that I’ve been there I mean I applied to Endocrinology Fellowship morbidly obese and I was afraid I didn’t tell anyone no one knew I was diabetic I told no one so I get it better than anyone I was ashamed that said if I go to this interview and tell them I’m diabetic and I’m AE and this is what I want to you know I mean it was too much for me um so what I would say is that is um it doesn’t matter how many years it’s been you didn’t your body’s not broken right your mind and body are not broken you can reverse this we’ve had people from after they’ve had a heart attack come and reverse their diabetes we had people on 180 units of insulin you know get off their medications within even 12 weeks in revers or diabetes so the reality is it is and so what I would say is I promise your body’s not broken you can do this and I want to make this as accessible as for you as possible which is why actually I did do the app because I found it takes a lot for people to get on a phone call it gets a lot for someone to actually come and show up I can’t tell you how many people book a new console right and then they just don’t show because it is lot yeah yeah so the app do something like this just click the app and just start with the first five minutes the welcome and then from there yeah that’s it and that’s like anything right if you go to a meeting right the first time you go to the meeting everyone’s giving you their number someone’s trying to help you right same deal join something where there’s a group a community professionals to give you advice and then the step-by-step plan and as long as you just do the things if you show up you will get the results so show up for yourself show up you can fix your life 100%.

So so your your program has helped over 500 people you shared that with me yes can you share one of the the powerful transformational stories with us one that really stands out for you um I think you know I think one that stands out to me a lot is Colleen um I started seeing Colleen she had a heart attack um and so she saw me on four you know four injections a day of insulin and you know she obviously was very worried and very concerned her ay was over 14.4 sugars are over 400 um and so now you know her A’s down to six she’s completely off insulin and she’s traveled I think 13 countries this year she travels one of her best friends around the world and so she literally comes back to see me after each trip so I will say um I think her story is very powerful and then I was in between two stories another one is Denise I have to say too because I love I love my clients my clients are amazing yeah and the best is the relationships you know that form from that but Denise came to me she’s diabetic 34 years okay so not new onset um and she said she had been overweight her whole life was on 180 units of insulin and this summer she got off all insulin in 12 weeks and she said she’s at her lowest weight since before college and so I said that that one was great that was a great one and she was so focused and you know the best part about being online you know what I mean um you can interact with people from other countries you know and so yeah it’s crazy and the best thing is now with all the technology yes we’re in a very toxic environment right our world is so toxic right now but the beautiful part is our technology has just jumped through the roof so we have so many ways to heal and so many holistic Avenues to try and so it’s never been a better time to be a diabetic I will say that.

Well absolutely I mean there are so many answers out there now and I’d say that you are one of those success stories too a very incredible powerful transformational story and I know it’s hard it’s hard and there’s a lot of people out there that are suffering uh with with obesity and struggling with with overeating and and not understanding all the factors right there’s so much of it is well I’m just going to give up because I can’t Lo lose the weight and we didn’t even talk about hormones and all of that that go go along with it yes it’s so much to it right um and so I think that’s one of the things is when it comes to insulin resistance yes there’s weight yes there’s overeating sugar but there’s also your liver Health your gut health and so when we talk about hormones gut health is not just linear like oh you know you know eat Whole Foods it’s way more than that so example when we start to go through per menopause and menopause we lose estrogen and estrogen does a few things well it lowers our muscle mass so remember we said insulin has the sugar go to the muscle liver fat so if you lose muscle where’s that Sugar going to go the liver and the fat right hence belly fat um and then the other thing thaten happens is it changes our gut microbiome when we lose estrogen and so when that happens we have less of that good bacteria again we develop belly fat and have insulin resistance so it’s very well known these hormones but then there’s also cortisol right cortisol that stress hormone and so if you don’t sleep and you’re a workaholic well it will catch up believe it or not right it absolutely will raise your cortisol and raised gring that hunger hormone so sometimes we don’t even know why we’re hungry right but a lot of it to do with the sugar the weight the Sleep the cortisol everything there’s so much to it um and so there’s even you know we talk about those toxins right environmental toxins mot toxins heavy metals they affect us and people don’t know you can test for these things and you can these things and the reason people don’t test and check these things out is because maybe it’s not covered by insurance right the reason is is because it’s terrible to say but big Pharma doesn’t have a drug to attack all those things and if everyone got tested for this and this was covered by Insurance everyone would have to be responsible and that would be scary for a lot of people so I think that is um where it’s at and that awareness and once you start diving in you go through that each layer of awareness that’s where you know 93% of the country is metabolically defunct they’ve come up with that that they look at their panels 93% do not have a normal metabolic panel and so the reality is is that we need to become aware we’re getting sicker you know we live a nation we are a very developed country but we live way shorter lives in other developed countries and there’s a reason for that and so you know there’s so many things to it but it’s much more than just one of those things you need to tackle them all and you need to find a way to to have that in one place to do it and so that’s what I did is I took so people didn’t have to go through decades like me to figure it out they can just actually go step by step bite size by bite size and work all the way through that.

I am all about one step in front or the other making a change and bite-sized pieces because it can be so overwhelming when it comes to this and um you know and I get it because I went I’ve gone through recovery I’ve had to make every change in my life to now live the life that I I am living and that’s my body Spirit yeah and and it it it all works together it all works together so two things I would love for you what is one small impactful step someone could make from listening to this today and then of course how can we discover the app and get in touch with you and help these people move forward to a better life so the first thing is just start doesn’t matter what it is just start so honestly if it’s joining this application or even going on YouTube there’s so much information out there I have a whole page of free information as well for people to check out but even if it’s not that it’s just go for a walk do anything that just moves you just start start start whatever it is don’t do what you did yesterday just change one little thing and then let those little things add up until you’re ready to dive deep if you’re not ready yet that’s okay it’s okay not to be ready you know we all we all aren’t ready right if I was right even though I knew this was coming and then it did come I would have fixed it right away but I wasn’t ready right so um so I would say just do one little thing and then as far as the app goes um you go to type two diabetes remission docomo diabetes REM mission.com and join our wait list the app is launching March 1st and so those who sign up now will get a special perk for signing on the wait list right now and I can’t wait to guide you step by step and hold your hand through it I’m pumped.

I know it’s so fantastic and you know thank you for the work and congratulations to you making this transformation in your life and discovering how you can help others uh through this app and and everything that’s involved everything that we need to know I mean we are a machine and we have to think about it it’s not just one thing oh yeah everything works together absolutely exactly and I love that you say that yes exercise is important the way we eat is important but there are so many more factors to it that that we don’t even understand and what goes on up here is a big huge part of that so oh if you can fix this the rest falls into place yeah you can start there that’s even better but I do find diabetics want to start with the food first but I agree with you I think if you start here the rest would completely just happen but you know run at a different place but I agree with you completely there your mind affects everything it does it does well thank you so much Dr Yasmin for coming on wake up with Marcy and I will share all your information so it’s easy for people to find uh when I when I put the episode out there but thank you again for helping us to take a deep dive into diabetes and our health and understanding so much more and and moving towards a better life which is why I am so excited and grateful to have people like you on the show thank you and thank you for having the show it’s amazing I love all the stories I’ve been hearing and yours so inspiring so thank you so much for having me I really really appreciate it and I wish you the best of luck in everything thank you thank you you too okay bye bye.