GB04: The Nutrition Shift Every Midlife Woman Should Make

In this Glow Bite, the focus is on one simple yet powerful shift that can support hormones, energy, mood, and metabolism during perimenopause: swapping sugar-sweetened beverages for healthier options. The episode delves into the harmful effects of sugary drinks on blood sugar levels and offers practical alternatives like water, Zevia, sparkling waters, coffee, and tea. The discussion includes the importance of reading labels to avoid artificial sweeteners and suggests healthier alternatives such as stevia, monk fruit, and allulose. The hosts also touch on the benefits of electrolyte packets and flavored water drops to encourage better hydration. The episode concludes with a reflection encouraging listeners to make small changes to stabilize blood sugar and offers links to healthy dessert recipes and favorite food and drink finds.

00:00 Introduction to This Week's Glow Bite
00:15 The Importance of Blood Sugar Stability
00:47 Simple Beverage Swaps for Better Health
01:55 Healthy Beverage Options
03:31 Addressing Common Questions and Misconceptions
06:21 Reading Labels and Choosing Sweeteners Wisely
08:06 Electrolyte Drinks and Final Tips
09:03 Glow Reflection and Resources

Get the Sugar Free Desserts Guide 🎂 here 👉 https://subscribepage.io/healthy-desserts-guide

Check out some of our Blood Sugar Friendly picks in our Amazon storefront here 👉  https://www.amazon.com/shop/thedailyglowlife/list/3MYFJS8WM9J16?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_aipsflist_9WZ3GN1REKE4AVZRXCS7

Here are the articles we mentioned in this episode:
Healthy Sugar Alternatives: https://dailyglowlife.com/3-healthy-sugar-substitutes/
Healthy Drinks: https://dailyglowlife.com/top-10-healthy-drinks/

Transcript

Alicia: 0:00

Hey there. Welcome back to this week's glow bite.

Nicole Maholy: 0:02

After our deeper dive on nutrition changes in perimenopause earlier this week, today we want to leave you with one simple, powerful shift you can start making right now to support your hormones, energy, mood, and your metabolism So in our main episode this week we talked about the importance of blood sugar stability for improving how you're feeling During perimenopause, it supports better metabolism, better mood, better energy, and during perimenopause, we have more insulin resistance and that leads to easier weight gain, and things like energy crashes. So we wanted to share one simple shift that you can make during perimenopause to make this feel a little bit easier and less overwhelming. Small changes add up. One thing that can be extremely impactful and is a really simple change to make is focusing on shifting your beverages. So avoiding sugar sweetened beverages and swapping them out for healthier options. This is a really impactful change. Sugar sweetened beverages have a major impact on our blood sugar levels. Mm-hmm.

Alicia: 1:05

And you wouldn't often associate those with a, a drink. You're just like, oh, I'm, I'm hydrating.

Nicole Maholy: 1:12

Yeah. Beverages are often overlooked by people because they seem innocuous. Right. They seem like no big deal, but they're basically unopposed. Sugar. Right? If you think about it, you're just drinking your sugar. Mm-hmm. Basically. Mm-hmm. And that's gonna create a pretty sharp blood sugar spike and a crash. It's gonna leave you feeling yucky. It's going to drive up your insulin and that's gonna contribute to more weight gain. And over time, that leads to insulin resistance. We're more insulin resistant in perimenopause anyway. So that high sugar level is gonna be more likely to be converted to fat during perimenopause when you have that insulin resistance. So if we can swap out those sugar sweetened beverages for healthier options, that makes a big difference. And like I said, it's relatively simple. So the most obvious healthy beverage is of course water. We should all be aiming to get about half of our body weight in ounces of filtered water each day to stay well hydrated. So that would be a 200 pound person should aim for about a hundred ounces of water per day. Aside from water, if you're wanting to get a little bit more fancy or you, you're craving something that has a little bit more fizz, maybe you're somebody that really love soda and you don't love the idea of completely eliminating it, you can swap it out for a healthier option. Like a Zevia, for example. Zevia is a soda with a healthier sweetener. So it's sweetened with stevia instead of that refined sugar. Stevia doesn't have an impact on our blood sugar levels, so when we drink a Zevia, it's not spiking and crashing our blood sugar, So it won't send our blood sugar on a rollercoaster ride and impact our metabolism.

Alicia: 2:47

We love zia's. Yeah. Um, we have a, a drink fridge and I have it packed with zevia's sparkling waters. Mm-hmm. Bubblers. And, you know, I stick mostly to water every day, and sometimes I'll throw in a little lemon mm-hmm. Just to spice it up. But, having those healthier options that even your kids would like. Right. Yeah. Um, you know, we, we don't buy soda and. I don't miss it. Yeah. The kids don't miss it because we have those Zevia's that mm-hmm. You know, in my opinion, tastes just the same.

Nicole Maholy: 3:19

Yeah, I agree.

GB4: 3:20

For those people that are looking for something that is a little bit more exciting than just water Zevia is a great option because you're still feeling satisfied and feeling like you're getting something exciting.

Alicia: 3:31

So last night my daughter asked me a question and I actually, I didn't know how to answer it. Mm-hmm. So I know you'll know. Okay. So she said, I have a hard time getting her to drink water, but, she's trying, she understands the importance for her health and she said, mom, if I drink a sparkling water. Or a Zevia, is that considered water? Is that considered part of my daily intake of water that I need? And my initial thought was no, but I actually, I'm not sure. So yeah, what is the answer to that?

GB4: 4:04

I love that she's thinking that way. Um, yes, it actually is. I would not swap out all of your water requirements for the day with sparkling water, but you can consider a sparkling water part of your hydration for the day. That would be okay.

Alicia: 4:20

She'll be Happy to hear that.

Nicole Maholy: 4:23

But again, I wouldn't swap out more than, you know, one or two your, mm-hmm. Glasses with sparkling water. So you mentioned sparkling water. I love that as another option for a beverage. Spin drifts are another example, which are basically just sparkling water with a little bit of lemon or lime juice added to them. So you do have to look at the ingredient list and the nutrition panel, because some of them do have more juices added in juices that are gonna be higher in sugar. So pay attention to the ones that you're purchasing for that reason. But I would say the lemon, the lime, the grapefruit, those are pretty low sugar and they're sweetened with lemon, lime or grapefruit juice and it's a pretty small amount, so they're not gonna be the type of thing that's gonna spike and crash your blood sugar. So that's another option. Then obviously coffee and tea, those are other great beverage choices too. If you're looking for something a little bit more exciting, I would say. We talked about the caffeine situation in our stress episode, so pay attention to caffeine and avoid after the noon hour because of the impact of caffeine on sleep, caffeine does also impact your stress response. So, just keep that in mind and be mindful of your caffeine consumption. But coffee and tea, as long as you're not pouring a bunch of sugar into them are great options.

Alicia: 5:43

Well, and another thing I'll mention, sometimes people add like the drops of flavor to them, like it Crystal light or mm-hmm. You know, there's different flavor, different brands that make these

Nicole Maholy: 5:55

flavor

Alicia: 5:56

Flavor drops, That you add to your water. Sure. And I had someone that I worked with that was doing that. She was thinking she was being really healthy and. I'm like, well, hey, let's take a look at the ingredients on that. And you know, like you have to do that because she was really surprised to see how much sugar, and also there's dyes in those Yeah. And all sorts of nasty things that here she thought she was doing something good, but it turns out it actually was not.

Nicole Maholy: 6:21

And I'm glad you brought up that point, because label reading is so important. Mm-hmm. You have to know what you're putting in your body if you're trying to mitigate your. Sugar intake and you're trying to be mindful of your blood sugar stability and blood sugar regulation. You have to look at the nutrition panel and the ingredient list. What is actually in there? Is there aspartame in there?'cause a lot of these drinks that say they're light or diet often have artificial sweeteners that are not helpful for your health. A lot of them have negative side effects and are neurotoxins. Artificial sweeteners are also linked to worse blood sugar regulation and increased risk for diabetes and obesity. So we have to be mindful of what's in what we're consuming. In the show notes, we'll also link to an article that I wrote on what sweeteners are healthier swaps for sugar. So just so that you're aware there are healthier options. There are also unhealthy options. So I would not consider those artificial sweeteners like aspartame or acesulfame potassium, or saccharin to be good options instead of sugar, I would switch more to things like stevia, monk fruit, and allulose as better swaps.

Alicia: 7:37

And there are some flavor packets and things like that that you can put in your drinks mm-hmm. That are Good. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, I actually had gotten my daughter. Water drop just to try to get her to drink more water. Mm-hmm. Because she was like, I don't like water. Yeah. I'm like, we need to get you drink and some water, girl. Yeah. So I got her water drop and she liked that. Yeah. She was consuming more water that way. And that was healthy. Yeah. Um, I know you have one that you like. Do I? LMT

Nicole Maholy: 8:07

Oh L, yeah. LMNT is, yes. LMNT is a, actually an electrolyte packet, and it's flavored, so it adds electrolytes to your water and it tastes good. So that's a good option too. Yeah, I, I like to do that when I'm doing my workouts to replace electrolytes that I'm losing from exercising and sweating. But it is also just a good, I wouldn't do too many of them though, so you don't wanna put them in every single, you don't wanna do more than one or two packets a day and only do two packets if you are profusely sweating, because you can also make yourself dehydrated by consuming too many solutes, too many minerals. So just be mindful of how many you're doing. But you can use, you know, one or two electrolyte drinks. I would say two if you're. Sweating a lot.

Alicia: 8:55

we did also write an article on our favorite healthy drinks, healthy Drinks swaps.

Nicole Maholy: 8:59

Yeah, we did, we did. We'll link that in the show notes as well. Our glow reflection for this week is what's one tiny shift you can make this week to balance your blood sugar a little better? Small changes matter, so think about something simple. You can start with what's the low hanging fruit for you here? Is it swapping out your sugar sweetened beverages? Is it focusing on a more protein packed breakfast? What's one small, simple shift that you can make to keep your blood sugar nice and stable? If you're like us and desserts are your weakness, we've created a healthy sugar-free desserts guide with seven delicious guilt-free dessert recipes. If you're ready to start balancing your blood sugar with a few easy swaps, we rounded up some of our favorite food and drink finds over in our Amazon storefront. You can find both linked in the show notes. Thanks for sharing this glow bite with us. We'll see you back here next time.