In today’s episode we explore how to balance blood sugar, and we’re excited to welcome Erica Zellner. Erica is a Connecticut-based Clinical Nutritionist and Senior Health Coach with six years of functional nutrition experience. A health coach at Parsley Health, Erica shares her integrative approaches to diabetes management, emphasizing the importance of personalized nutrition, stress reduction, and sleep hygiene. Learn about key nutrients, supplements, and environmental factors to consider, and discover how culturally relevant meals can improve blood sugar control.

In This Episode We’ll Cover:
- Integrative approaches to diabetes management with personalized nutrition plans
- Importance of stress management in controlling blood sugar levels
- Impact of sleep hygiene on glucose metabolism and overall health
- Significance of culturally relevant foods in managing diabetes
- Tips for personalizing nutrition to individual preferences and lifestyles
- Use of supplements like omega-3, vitamin D, chromium, and magnesium to balance blood sugar
- Simple, consistent stress reduction practices for managing diabetes and learning how to balance blood sugar
- Recommendations for improving sleep hygiene and avoiding screens before bed
Transcript
0:00
Welcome back to another episode of the Diabetes Digital Podcast.
Today we are super excited to have Erica Zellner on the pod discussing how to balance blood sugar.
Erica is a Connecticut based clinical nutritionist and senior health coach with six years of functional nutrition experience.
0:17
She earned her Master’s degree in Nutrition and Integrative Health from the Maryland University of Integrative Health, and she also holds her certified Nutrition Specialist and license dietitian nutritionist credentials.
And we wanted to have Erica on the podcast because she works as a health coach for Parsley Health, which I happen to be a patient of Parsley Health, and I love it.
0:38
They do telemedicine and they spend a a lot of time with their patients and really get into the kind of nitty gritty of what’s going on, especially if you have like random symptoms or chronic health issues.
So we figured Erica would be the perfect person to talk to on today’s episode.
0:55
Welcome to the Diabetes Digital Podcast.
I’m Wendy.
And I’m Jess, and we’re best friends, registered dietitians and diabetes educators.
Through our telehealth platform, Diabetes digital.co, we offer accessible and personalized virtual nutrition counseling for people with diabetes and pre.
1:11
Diabetes Visit diabetesdigital.co that’s Co to book your first appointment.
We accept insurance and offer affordable self pay options.
Now let’s get into today’s episode.
Today we are going to talk about integrative approaches when it comes to diabetes management, how to tailor nutrition plans to reflect your individual needs versus what you’re seeing online.
1:36
So really taking into account what is going on with you, which is something that parts of health does really well.
We’re going to talk about key nutrients, supplements and environmental factors to consider if you have diabetes, and so much more.
So, Erica, welcome to the podcast.
1:53
Thank you.
I’m really, really excited to be here.
Yeah, we’re so excited to have you.
So Erica, you know that we focus on diabetes.
And so I’m wondering like what are some of your integrative approaches when it comes to people that have whether it’s type one or type 2 diabetes?
2:09
Yeah, when I’m looking at somebody with diabetes or even just like blood sugar dysregulation, ’cause that’s a very large thing that we’re seeing across the population too, we’re looking at, yes.
What are the meals that you’re making up?
You know, what is the composition on your plate?
2:25
Are we balancing out our carbohydrates with some fat and some fiber and protein?
You know, are we making those blood sugar balanced meals in a way that feels good and feels enjoyable to you?
But I also spend a lot of time working with patients on their stress levels because stress will increase your blood sugar levels, plain and simple.
2:44
There’s no way around it.
When we have high and chronic stress, we have elevated blood sugar levels cause our body is trying to survive.
Our body’s going, what do we need to run away from?
I’m ready.
I’ve got the free flowing energy.
Let’s go.
So we spend a lot of time looking at stress.
2:59
We look at sleep and sleep hygiene very, very deeply because that plays a huge impact in how your body is going to interact with the food on your plate.
We’re looking at how you’re moving your body and not just exercise with exercise is great if that’s something that brings you joy, but just how are you moving throughout your day?
3:16
Are you moving?
Do you have to sit at a desk for eight hours?
You know, these are things that are going to affect our overall approach to your care.
So it’s a very head to toe, all-encompassing approach that that I like to take with these patients.
3:32
I love that.
I’m wondering too, Let’s say somebody comes to you and they’re like, OK, you know, this is what I’m eating and their blood sugar levels are all over the place.
Like, how do you incorporate that personalized nutrition piece of things like, ’cause I think a lot of times people think of meeting with a dietitian or dietitian nutritionist and they think that we are gonna be the food police and we’re gonna tell them to cut out all carbs on their plate.
4:03
But like, how do you tailor this nutrition to somebody’s personal preferences, also keeping in mind their health goals?
Absolutely.
It’s a balance for sure.
You know, you do have to do some tailoring because I, I’ll often tell people I might be able to write the most perfect diet plan in the world for you and if you hate it, it’s not getting us anywhere.
4:24
So I spend a lot of time getting to know people, what they like about their meals, what’s working, what’s not working, what’s sustainable.
How much time do we have?
Cause a lot of people don’t have the luxury of time to be cooking three meals a day.
So are we going to have to do a level of meal prep?
Are we going to have to bring in quick things like smoothies or frozen soups or, you know, some of those convenience items?
4:46
But I tend to incorporate a lot of not only like mindfulness approaches.
So getting more in touch with the body, slowing down, eating when we can, trying not to eat at our desk, for example, which is a very common practice now since the pandemic.
And a lot of people are working from home, but chewing more thoroughly, eating more slowly because that’s going to lower the blood sugar impact as well.
5:08
And then we look at like, what are the foods that you love?
What brings you joy?
What’s culturally relevant to you?
Because we want to bring those foods in in an appropriate contextual way as well.
Because your food and your diet isn’t just nutrients and it’s not macro micronutrients.
5:26
That’s part of it, but it’s also your connection to your family and to your heritage.
It’s social gatherings, it’s parties, it’s celebrations.
You know, we’re very social with our meals and we always have been.
All cultures are.
And so it’s how do we find ways to honor that?
5:43
And then I was very lucky early on in my career while I was still gathering my internship hours, I had a mentor and we were working.
I was working with a patient who was incredibly sick at the time.
And I was really struggling to, to meet her where she was and find foods that her body could tolerate and find that balance.
6:01
And my mentor at the time said to me, well, what foods does she like to eat and what foods are relevant to her?
And it was such a simple question, but also such a light bulb moment that was like, oh, that’s a good question.
6:17
What, what are her relevant foods?
Oh my gosh, why didn’t I ask that at the beginning?
You know, you’re young, you’re learning.
And that was such a good learning for me to really step back and always ask, what are the foods that bring you joy?
6:32
How can we find a way to bring those in to get your health goals so that you have joy in your diet as well?
And I also have found that incorporating traditional and heritage and like cultural foods into the diet gives people better blood sugar control.
6:48
And a really, really cool anecdote that I always like to reference because it was, it was so fascinating to me was I was a couple years ago now, I was working with a patient of a member at Parsley and he was Japanese by Heritage and he was wearing a continuous glucose monitor.
7:04
We were really working on how to balance blood sugar for him.
And on paper he was eating in such a beautiful blood sugar balanced way.
He was doing, you know, quote UN quote, all the right things, big salads, plenty of lean protein, tons of fiber, beautiful monounsaturated fatty acid, starchy vegetables, perfect balance.
7:22
Like we were nailing it.
And his blood sugar was still not where we wanted it to be.
And so using the continuous glucose monitor, it’s like, let’s let’s see how you respond to white rice instead of sweet potatoes because that’s a culturally relevant food for somebody who’s Japanese.
7:39
And he had such a better blood sugar response in meals that had white rice than in meals that had sweet potato.
And I will never forget that, because on paper that shouldn’t have made sense, but in real life it does.
7:57
That’s amazing and such a great point and that’s why I do really like CG Ms. continuous glucose monitors because they give you that real time data and feedback.
And I always tell people I tried one on myself.
I had a huge plate of pasta with a bunch of like fats, olive oil, maybe even some like Parmesan, can’t remember.
8:17
But that kept my blood sugar super stable.
And I would have meals that were more conventionally balanced and it would spike a little bit more, which is fine for me because I don’t have diabetes.
But in somebody with diabetes?
Like that that.
Can make a huge difference having that information, so thank you so much for sharing that and also to the effort to make the meal culturally relevant and really check in with the patient to see what is important to them.
8:43
I think that always should be part of the conversation.
And, you know, I feel almost silly saying, like, we have research that shows that when your meals are culturally relevant, you adhere better because it should be second nature.
We shouldn’t need research to prove that.
But there is, you know, especially around diabetes care.
9:00
So yeah.
I love that.
Yeah, that’s great.
And also, I love that you said just leading around the patient or the client really, because as providers, I think we’re used to, you know, just kind of like handing off recommendations and not really checking in with, well, what are their preferences?
9:18
What is it that they’re actually able to do?
So that was also really great that you said that since you do practice from an integrative lens, I would love to hear your thoughts on supplements because there’s so much information out there and it’s hard to decipher what is evidence based and what is not, especially when it comes to diabetes.
9:35
So do you have any information on that or what are your thoughts?
Definitely.
And I do, and we Parsley do use supplements quite a lot.
We do take a very Food First approach, but supplementation can make a huge, huge difference for some people.
9:52
And just like you said, with the continuous glucose monitor, we’re able to see in real time how effective something is.
So I love using them as well and I’ve used them in my own life.
Like I think that they’re such a great tool.
They’re one of my favorite tools, but we know that certain supplements and specific foods can give you a better blood sugar response.
10:11
So things like supplementing with your omega-3 fatty acids or making sure you’re getting a lot of that into your diet.
It’s anti-inflammatory, which is phenomenal across the board, but there is research that shows that having enough omega-3 fatty acids can actually help improve your sensitivity to insulin.
10:29
And so that’s something that especially type 2 diabetics tend to struggle with.
So we want to make sure we’re getting our fatty fish or we’re getting our hemp seeds, or we’re supplementing with a high quality Omega.
So make sure we’re covering bases there.
Vitamin D is another one that parsley weed across the board test our patients for because vitamin D deficiency is incredibly common and deficiency has been associated with higher levels of insulin resistance and increased risk in type 2 diabetes.
10:56
So it’s a common one that will bring supplementation in, especially in the winter months.
If you’re, you know, too far north or you’re just not going to be getting it from the sun or if you spend a lot of time indoors like many people do.
You know, things like chromium, magnesium are also very important.
Things like inositol can help, but I like to also work in like how are we working in specific foods in a way that feels good, that tastes good, that makes sense, like cinnamon.
11:21
And if you make a smoothie in the morning, a sprinkle of cinnamon can help lower the blood sugar response of that smoothie or whatever it is that you’re eating.
Turmeric and ginger are like beautiful, like anti-inflammatory powerhouses, but both of these are known to improve insulin resistance, protect the pancreatic beta cells to keep them from being damaged, which can happen over time, especially in type 2 diabetes.
11:42
Garlic, like everybody’s ride or die favorites, but the Allison and garlic can improve insulin sensitivities.
So tell my patient like I’m part Italian.
So I measure garlic with my heart, and I encourage people to do the same heart measurements.
Don’t limit yourself to one or two cloves.
Like go with what your heart says.
11:59
But then I also like using a sea called fenugreek, which is not as common.
You know, most people aren’t like grabbing that off the shelf.
Most people don’t really know what to do with that.
But fenugreek seeds contain a lot of soluble fiber, which can help blunt a blood sugar rise.
They can help reduce postprandial blood sugar levels and those spikes.
12:19
And that can actually over time, research has shown, lead to the reduction like A1C, fasting blood sugar levels, insulin.
So fenugreek is a nice seed to bring into the the diet as well.
Those are like probably my like top and I wasn’t counting 5-6 top number top insert.
12:39
OK.
I have a follow up question with that because with things like cinnamon or turmeric, you know, people put like a dash because, you know, they’ve come across those claims as well.
And I’m just wondering in terms of the amount, like do you know anything about that?
Should they take it as a supplement for it to have a significant impact or is it like putting a dash of cinnamon in your smoothie or your coffee?
12:59
Is that actually going to, you know, a fact, you know what it’s saying that it’s going to affect in these studies?
Yeah, and that’s a really good question for a lot of people.
And I’m using that anecdotally, unlike people who I’ve worked with who have continuous glucose monitors.
So we can see this out in real time doing a dash.
13:17
So like doing a a teaspoon or two teaspoons into a smoothie into a chia seed pudding, like where would make sense from a culinary perspective does seem to blunt that blood sugar response.
I know you can do supplement like cinnamon capsules that will have a higher amount in them.
13:32
I don’t know those numbers off hand, but it doesn’t seem to need to be a ton.
The body’s just responding to that in the same way that it will respond to the like flavor of like the bitter foods or you know, the garlic or you know, whatever it is that you’re using.
So when we take that Food First approach and when we’re putting it in the context of something that’s blood sugar balanced, more often than not, I would say it seems to make a big difference without having to get too hyper vigilant.
13:59
And nitty gritty, which I also think is nice, is I don’t want my patients to be afraid of food or to bring stress or anxiety into their meal.
You know, I want this to ultimately feel very intuitive.
So as much as we can, we don’t want you to be weighing and measuring food.
14:18
You know, can we eyeball it?
Can we add a couple of dashes of cinnamon?
You know, can we measure garlic with our hearts?
You know, like, can we bring a level of intuitive to this?
Yeah, I love that.
Now I want to talk about one of my favorite things to do, which is sleep.
14:36
So it would be great.
Yeah.
You mentioned sleep before, so it would be great if you could talk about how sleep hygiene can impact blood sugars, especially for people that have diabetes.
Sleep is huge, Huge for blood sugar regulation.
14:52
This is a fascinating research several years ago that I remember reading that took a, a bunch of college age men, which is like, you know, 99% of our research anyway.
But they restricted sleep to I believe it was 4 hours a night for several nights in a row.
And they showed after just two or three nights of really restricted sleep, these young healthy, non diabetic, healthy glucose regulation, these young men then had the insulin response of a type 2 diabetic just from a few nights of poor sleep.
15:22
And so that I think is really telling.
That’s how important sleep is to our body’s ability to handle insulin and glucose and show up for ourselves.
So inadequate sleep is going to give us poor glucose metabolism the next day in all of our meals, even when their blood sugar is balanced.
15:40
We’re also going to see inadequate sleep gives us higher levels of just free flowing blood sugar because your body’s trying to have more energy available to compensate.
So see like a long term disruption of our circadian rhythm, which is like our body’s master biorhythm, our sleep wake cycles, but it also influences our hormones and a lot of other processes in our body.
16:02
So if we have an irregular sleep pattern and our circadian rhythm gets disrupted, we see cortisol is going to be higher, which is going to give us higher blood sugar levels.
Just at baseline.
We have lower tolerance to glucose, we are far more reactive and we just see this like lack of resilience in our metabolism.
16:21
We also see a stark increase in a process called gluconeogenesis in the body.
And so it’s basically our liver is going to take things like amino acids and other non carbohydrate sources and create even more glucose just trying to give us more energy.
16:37
And so that’s going to lead to of course higher blood sugar levels.
So we see sleep can either give us a great foundation to interact with our meals or can really impair our body’s ability to show up and interact with our meals.
And when we have poor sleep, especially chronic long term, we’re gonna see much higher blood sugar levels at base and much more reactivity even when our meals are blood sugar balanced.
17:01
Yeah, that makes sense.
I’m sure at this point you probably work with hundreds if not thousands of patients.
And I’m wondering, like from your experience, what’s the one sleep tip that you find to be the most helpful for people?
Avoid screens.
17:18
Oh my gosh, Don’t be on your phone right before bed.
Don’t be on your laptop.
The screens.
And it’s like, I know, I know.
And every single one of my patients is like, oh, like, I yeah.
I gotta do better ’cause that’s definitely something I gotta work on.
17:34
It’s so bad, yeah.
It’s the swearing call of social media.
It’s so hard, but having a screen in your face does a lot of negative things for us.
When we think we’re zoning out logically, we’re telling ourselves like I’m just gonna scroll TikTok or whatever it is for a while.
17:49
I’m zoning out, I’m relaxing, you are not.
We are so over stimulating our poor little brain.
We are creating an atmosphere for our brain to have to process all of these new learnings.
Think like every single reel you swipe and like even if you’re only watching reels for 5 minutes, it’s probably like 100 reels ’cause they’re so short.
18:09
You know, every single one of those is what neuroscientists would call a learning that then our brain has to process into a memory.
So it’s like 100 pieces of mini homework that we’re giving our brain when we’re trying to wind it down.
So that’s over stimulating it.
Also, the blue light is going to interrupt melatonin production cause blue light has a similar wavelength as like 2:00 PM sunlight.
18:31
And so you’re sending a signal to your brain.
It’s like it’s the middle of the afternoon and our body’s like no melatonin now.
Then we don’t need it.
So we’re disrupting our circadian rhythm.
It also will increase our stress because it is so stimulatory.
18:46
And that’s a big disconnect for a lot of my patients as we think, we think we’re zoning out, we think we’re relaxing, but our limbic system doesn’t listen to the logic of this as relaxation.
Our limbic system doesn’t understand logic.
Our limbic system is just going, hey, this is messing with our hormones.
19:04
I bet something’s trying to kill us.
And so that’s going to keep us from getting into really deep sleep and and long term sleep disruption is bad for our blood sugar levels.
Yeah, we have a no phones in the bedroom rule in my house.
19:21
And go for you.
That changed everything, seriously, because it’s like you just get so wired up before bed.
I feel like the best thing to help me fall asleep.
I don’t want to mention the book that I I like Knockout do every night and it’s been like a month and I still can’t finish it.
But yeah, just like reading, reading a book is so great.
19:39
Erica, can you talk about some of your most practical mindfulness practices that people can incorporate in their day-to-day without overthinking it or without, you know, becoming too stressed out about having to incorporate it?
I appreciate the fact that you said without overthinking it or be without becoming stressed about it because that’s something I tell my patients often.
20:01
Our stress reduction shouldn’t stress us out.
It’s very counterintuitive when that happens.
And so the good and bad part about stress reduction is it really can be anything.
And that freedom gives you a lot of experimentation potential, but it’s also can be really like you can get to analysis paralysis.
20:18
It can feel really limiting.
So I do encourage people like have a stress reduction practice that works for you and start small with it.
From our nervous systems perspective, small, consistent stress reduction every day is way more beneficial than one really big stress reduction practice a week.
20:37
So you find that maybe you like breath work, maybe that makes you feel good.
If you start your day with five minutes of breath work and end it with five minutes of breath work, but you do that every day, your nervous system will latch on to that habit and start to expect stress reduction.
20:53
And we’ll see over time it’s more and more impactful, even though it’s short.
Same with like a meditation, being outside, going for a hike, exercise, going to therapy, journaling, reading, taking a hot bath.
It really it should be something that feels joyful because joy is the antithesis of danger.
21:16
And our body, our nervous system is always trying to like, look around, say, like, where’s the danger?
What’s gonna get us today?
What’s gonna kill us today?
Our little limbic system is very pessimistic and we need to try to communicate like nothing’s gonna kill us today.
We’re OK, We are safe.
21:33
And so having something consistent, whatever it is, will always be more impactful than something really, really big but inconsistent.
So that’s not like a great answer to the question, but it really it it can be whatever you want it to be.
I just wanna make sure that you’re finding joy in your day and you’re finding joy with your stress reduction.
21:53
Don’t let it be another To Do List item.
Another stressor.
Yeah, that’s actually really helpful.
I like the piece about even if it’s just 5 minutes or maybe even 60 seconds, 2 minutes, just staying consistent with it ’cause I’m always like I have to meditate for 30 minutes twice a day and then it’s hard to be consistent with that.
22:12
So I love this idea that’s.
Also a really taunting.
Yeah, it’s so daunting.
I’m just like, I don’t have time for that and to walk and to, you know, it’s just too many things.
So in wrapping, can you let people know what are like for people who want to get started today with just living a more balanced life and specifically people with diabetes or even impaired glucose tolerance?
22:37
What are three go to things that you would recommend?
And it could be stuff you already talked about, but just kind of summarizing it up.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
So find joy in your day because that’ll lead to lower stress reduction.
You know, make sure you’re you’re smiling, you’re laughing every single day.
22:53
Every single.
We’re humans.
We should find joy in our day.
Don’t let yourself get caught up in the grind of the day-to-day and forget that joy is part of life.
Find the happy blood sugar balanced meals that feel good to you, that feel relevant to you, and that balance blood sugar again, like looking for that fiber, fat, protein on every plate to make sure you’re balancing out any starch.
23:13
You know, try to choose complex carbohydrates, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ever have a simple carb either.
You know, again, going back to just joy, we should have joy in our day.
Food can bring a lot of joy.
If you’re gonna choose something simple, you know, like AI don’t know why, but like, pudding’s coming to mind.
I’m like thinking of a snack pack right now.
23:30
Don’t know why, but hey, it’s bringing me joy.
It’s bringing me back to 2nd grade.
So if you’re gonna have like, I think have a handful of almonds next to it, you know, bring in some fiber, bring in some protein, bring in some fat to help blunt that blood sugar response, and then focus on sleep.
23:46
Oh my gosh, We need sleep.
We need good quality sleep.
That’s so much repair.
So many good things happen overnight that are melatonin mediated.
So make sure we’re not getting in the way of our melatonin production with screen time.
Make sure we’re honoring our circadian rhythm, honoring our body’s need for rest.
24:03
I think those would be my three Get started today things.
Yeah.
Those are all great.
Thank you, Erica, so much for your time and for your expertise.
If our listeners want to learn more about the work that you’re doing, how can they connect with you?
Definitely.
24:20
So you can find me at Parsley Health.
We are in almost all 50 states.
You know, we see people, we meet people where they are.
We see most of our patients virtually, which is a very big benefit for a lot of people who are time strapped and have you too much on their plate, too many responsibilities.
24:37
So like having the ability to see somebody over zoom and still have a good quality interaction and still work on your health, I think is a huge benefit.
We do a lot of like great in depth testing.
We, we, we take the time to get to know our patients and that’s something that I think really sets Parsley apart from other also wonderful medical practices.
24:57
So definitely parsleyhealth.com.
We can do we have a cool though, like symptom score quiz that takes you through like all of your body processes to see like what’s going on in your body.
And that’s like totally free to do, No like pressure sign up or anything.
But I always encourage people to do that and just see, just see what’s going on because there may be things that come up on that that they don’t realize aren’t normal.
25:17
So Parsley Health is a great place to find me.
Otherwise, I’m not really active on social media anymore.
I used to be, but unfortunately, fortunately and unfortunately, after I had my daughter a year and a half ago, I took a huge step back from social media and other digital presences.
25:34
But maybe someday I’ll be back.
So if you want to like, hold out, you can find me at Erica’s Owner Nutrition.
But don’t hold your breath on that.
It may be a bit.
Good for you.
Yeah, good for you.
Amazing.
Well, thank you so much, Erica.
25:51
It was great having you on the pod.
Thank you.
So that was such an amazing interview.
Check out Parsley Health.
Also, if you are looking for a personalized approach to diabetes management, check out Diabetes Digital.
Our organization is committed to transforming the way you navigate your diabetes journey and we are a team of dietitians and diabetes educators.
26:12
We have a diverse group of clinicians.
We also accept insurance and we are in 27 states.
So head on over to our website, diabetesdigital.co slash quiz to complete our intake quiz.
We’ll verify your benefits and get you booked today.
Thank you so much for listening to another episode.
26:29
Catch you next time, bye.
Thanks for joining us for today’s episode.
If you’re interested in nutrition counseling with one of our expert dietitians to help improve your pre diabetes or diabetes, visit us at diabetesdigital.co.
Also, if you found our conversation helpful, do us a favor and rate and review this podcast on iTunes, plus share with someone who might find this helpful.
26:53
You can also connect with us on Instagram at Diabetes Digital.
Dot Co and TuneIn every Wednesday for practical, inclusive, and culturally humble diabetes insights.
We’ll catch you later.
Bye.
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