Episode 5: Sue Thomas

Caroline Balinska: 0:00

Oh my god, sue, that was amazing, so I got so much information out of that. I just want to run over it because that was just mind blowing from so many angles so you can reduce the snacking, you can reduce the cravings and you can begin to get your. So one of the questions I’ll normally ask my guests at the end is three tips. I’m not going to ask you that because those are the three tips. They are amazing tips. So welcome to the Life On Purpose Over 40 podcast, where empowerment, elegance and health takes centre stage. I’ll be your guide on this thrilling journey to outshine your past self. This is a podcast all about transformation. We’re plunging head first into exactly what health, wellness, style, relationships and career look like as a woman over 40. You’ll be hearing from all the most sought after global trailblazers and experts. This isn’t just about learning. It’s about embracing your inner, fierce, fabulous self. Let’s get started. Welcome back to the podcast. Today we had Sue Thomas, the sugar-free coach. I’m so excited to have Sue. I reached out to her a few weeks ago because when I came across her, I thought this is such a big area that women need to know about. It was an area for me that is very close to my heart. I’ve had a lot of problems with controlling sugar over the past, especially a couple of years, so I wanted to get Sue on to help us understand sugar and what it’s doing to our body. So, sue, welcome. Thank you for joining us.Sue Thomas: 1:22

Thank you for inviting me, caroline. I’m super excited to be here. I’m super excited to be here.Caroline Balinska: 1:26

Fantastic, when I reached out to you. It was probably two months ago and I thought it’s going to be so long until I speak to you, but time has gone very quickly. It really has. I’m so glad to have you here, so I wanted to start off by asking you can you give us a little bit of information about the beginning of your journey and how you actually came to where we are now?Sue Thomas: 1:45

Yeah, so I’ve been in the wellness industry for 20 years and I started off as a personal trainer, and in 2010, I had a knee infection a streptococcal knee infection that left me on antibiotics for 25 days. It was hideous. It was not very nice at all. I was personal training at the time and fast forward three years from that point, and I was exhausted all the time. I was having to take sleeps in the afternoon, I wasn’t turning up for my clients properly in the way that I should be, I wasn’t turning up for my family in the way that I should be, and I was eating rubbish to try and keep me going, and I just got to this point. It was 2013. I got to this point. I just thought I’ve got to do something about this. I can’t carry on like this. This isn’t the person that I am. I like to walk the talk. I like to kind of, you know, lead my clients by example, and so I went to see my own nutritional therapist and she said first of all, you need to get your guts sorted out and then you need to get your blood sugars balanced. So I went on this journey of healing my own intestine and starting to really get to grips with the food that I was eating. At the time I remember thinking she said to me stop eating the sandwich at lunchtime. I thought, oh my goodness, how am I going to manage training my clients in the afternoon if I’m not eating the sandwich at lunchtime? And I was blown away when I took that sandwich away and turned it into salabalose protein. I was blown away and I remember that being a real turning point for me. I was blown away by the amount of energy I had in the course of the afternoon to train my clients. So that was kind of the first step in that direction of really beginning to bring nutrition into the business that I was doing in terms of my personal training business. And then, gradually, I just thought I love this so much I need to explore it more. So I went on my own, did a qualification in nutritional therapy and started to bring it more and more into my clients and more and more. I just got to that point where it’s like all I want to do is the nutrition side of things. I want to empower women to really understand how the food they’re eating every day is impacting their lives. And so the more I drill down, the more I realize that the first place to start and actually the easiest place to start although we stand on the sidelines and look in and think, how am I ever going to manage with sugar, without sugar? But the first place to start is to really lower the amount of sugar that you’re consuming. You have to give it up forever or completely, but if you can lower the amount of sugar that you’re consuming which often we don’t even realize we’re exposed to a lot of sugar on a day to day basis if we can lower that, we can get our blood sugar solids and that has a knock on effect right across the body. And because my clients have always been females in their 40s, the sugar element of it really worked because I was helping those women to take the next step on, which was not only to do the exercise which I don’t do anymore, just do nutritional therapy. But it was not only to do that exercise element of it, but it was also to really understand how, by balancing their blood sugars, they could free themselves from restriction, from calorie counting, from all of the things that we’ve been told for years that to manage our weight we’ve got a calorie count, we’ve got to restrict, all those kind of things I can empower them to have to never count a calorie again, never have to go on a diet again, and that for me is massive. I really want to share with as many women as possible actually just how easy it is to manage our weight and to do it in a really easy way. So that’s how I got to where I am and now I call myself the sugar free coach have done for the last couple of years because really that’s what I do I advise and support and empower women to really balance their blood sugars and break that cycle of sugar consumption.Caroline Balinska: 5:30

Yeah, it’s so interesting. I actually I don’t want to get into too much about my situation, but for since I was about 13, I had a serious gut issues and I was always told for 20 something years that they it was my stress levels and there was nothing wrong with me. It took me until I was at 26 or something to find out that it was actually through a. It’s a. It’s a full on story, so I’m not going to go into it. I found that it was actually that I had. First I was told it was FODMAP intolerance. Then I was told it was SIBO. So now I’m at SIBO and small intestinal bowel overgrowth and that really is that. The bacteria is in the wrong part of my stomach and that bacteria is feeding on the sugars in my stomach. That’s pretty much the simplest way to explain it. That really is. So sugar any form of sugar for me has been detrimental to my health, but to the point where I smashed my car in through my car, drove it into a ditch. One time I just opened my eyes because I fell asleep. So these two times I fell asleep while I was driving. Second time I fell asleep and open my eyes as I was going into a pole and just put on my break and just miss the pole by centimetres. And I’ve had extreme, extreme stomach things and all this time doctors were just telling me that there was nothing wrong. I have some mint tea or there’s nothing we can do, or you’ve got to look up to your mental health. And I knew that there was something more and there was a long time period. No one even told me to look at food at all. I like, if we go back when I was 20, no one ever mentioned food to me. So I’ve had extreme sugar things and that is one thing that I can say that getting into my forties. And now I’ve actually controlled that. So my biggest problem is now I can eat the sugars because I’ve controlled that stomach issue. So now I’ve got the problem of oh my God, I’m eating the things that I should not have eaten and that I didn’t eat for so many years. But really sticking to cutting those things out, I found I never dieted. I didn’t have to because I was just not eating those things that were the sugar. So I found that for me, everything you just said really, really makes sense to me and women who are frustrated by putting on weight and I’ve just gone through that, just going into perimenopause, and because I was able to control my sugar problems, I was eating the sugars that I shouldn’t have eaten and I really see that just cutting those things out makes a just dramatic difference to my life.Sue Thomas: 7:57

Huge difference it really does. I mean I have so many clients that say to me I’m starting to see the relationship between my hot flush and the amount of sugar that I’m consuming, and so you know, they might go to their doctors and say I am, you know, I’m struggling with menopause, and they will say I’ll put you on HRT and then wonder why the HRT is not making any difference, because actually it’s the amount of sugar they’re consuming, not the fact that they need to be on HRT. And we can make a massive difference by helping someone understand how easy it is to lower their blood glucose levels.Caroline Balinska: 8:28

Yeah, I was going to say there’s three terms that I’m hearing a lot of. So I started this podcast because going starting perimenopause and realizing that there’s not enough information directly targeted as women as we get into our 40. So even for women, if they haven’t yet hit perimenopause, I actually didn’t realize I was going through it until the hard way. So we don’t actually know we’re going through it until certain symptoms come up and we can actually control that from happening well before if we make some changes in our life like diet and things like that. So that’s where this podcast comes from. Comes from is helping women as we start perimenopause. Also, women when they’re in menopause and they’re getting the hot flashes and not realizing that they don’t need to just take HRT. I’m on it, so I’m not against it, I’m not saying that don’t take it. I think you need to do your own research Exactly, but I don’t think that, like you said, it is not the answer. There’s so many more parts to it than just HRT. It also means that you don’t have to go on it if you don’t want to. There’s just so much more to it. So that’s where this podcast comes from, and also women as they go after into the post menopause, that there’s a lot of things that our bodies have changed from the time we’re in our 20s, so there’s things that we can do. I’m hearing three particular terms a lot at the moment, so I keep hearing. I’m going to read off the, so I get it right. Women over 40, high blood sugar is one term. I hear a lot. Sugar over 40 and balance blood sugar in menopause those are three terms I’m hearing a lot. Why is insulin and blood sugar balance so impactful for women’s health over 40?Sue Thomas: 10:05

Okay. So let’s just take a step back and understand where insulin comes from and how it’s released in the body, and then we can understand what happens to insulin once it’s been released into the body. So any carbohydrate you eat is going to cause a release of insulin, and insulin is the blood sugar hormone that is released to pick up the glucose once it’s metabolized into the body and take it to the cells for energy production. Now I like to talk about a spectrum of carbohydrate, a colorful spectrum, and you’ve got on one end greens and reds and oranges, and then you’ve got beige and white and alcohol, basically. And if you’re getting all your carbohydrate from the colorful end, the way the body metabolizes the glucose in those carbohydrates so we’re talking broccoli, we’re talking blueberries, we’re talking all the colorful fruits and vegetables If you’re getting your carbohydrate from that end of the spectrum, the speed with which the body can metabolize the glucose in that end of the spectrum is really is much slower, and so, as a result, when those that glucose is released into the bloodstream, the speed with which insulin is released is much slower as well. Okay, so we have a much more steady release of insulin and then a steady drop off of insulin If we’re getting our carbohydrate from the beige and the white end of the spectrum. So we’re talking pasta, bread, cakes, biscuits, cookies, all the things that have got refined sugar in, and, incidentally, which they, the food industry, have told us for years that it’s complex carbohydrate. The pasta and the bread, that’s rubbish. It’s processed carbohydrate. And when that? When we’re consuming those processed carbohydrates, because they’ve been processed, the sugar is released into the bloodstream much, much quicker and as a result, then we have a much faster release of insulin. And so that insulin releases into the system really quickly, it picks up the sugars and takes them to the cells for energy production. And if the microconjure in the cells doesn’t want the sugar for energy production, all the receptors on the external side of the cells will shut down and we then, with the insulin, then can’t take the sugar into all the glucose into the cell for energy production. So then we’ve got all this glucose in the body attached to the insulin. What’s the body going to do with it? Well then insulin removes the sugar from the bloodstream and it either takes it to the muscles and stores it as glycogen, or it takes it to the liver and stores it as glycogen. Nine times out of 10, it takes it to the liver and stores it as glycogen. Now, in an ideal world, that’s the right process to happen, because the glycogen is stored in the liver and then, when our blood sugars come down again, we release some of that glycogen from the liver for up to pick our blood sugars back up again. But because we’ve been told for years that we need to snack regularly and we need to eat consistently throughout the course of the day, there’s never a chance at which our insulin levels come down and so, consequently, our insulin is always high and all the other you know all the insulin has previously been released. They’re still taking the glycogen into the liver for storage and so the liver becomes overloaded. The liver is a really important organ in the body. It does so many different jobs and without the liver working efficiently it will struggle to do the jobs that it kind of downgrades some of the jobs, hormone balance being one of them, because the liver is crucial for helping to create the raw materials for hormone production. So if our liver is sluggish it’s known as the term is sluggish it is not working efficiently. That will have a knock on effect to our paraminopul symptoms. It will have a knock on effect to, you know, our estrogen and progesterone balance. It will have a knock on effect to our metabolism. It can really impact our thyroid function and it will have a knock on effect to our mood as well, because the liver is a really emotional organ in Chinese medicine, and so it really has a link to the brain and how we’re feeling about ourselves. So when our insulin levels are high and then dropping and high again and dropping, all of that time the insulin is taking the sugars into the liver, storing its glycogen, all of that time is putting pressure on the liver. And we need a clean liver in order to get through our menopause years efficiently. And you’re really writing what you said about the fact that you’re getting through your menopause, the foundation for that and your perimenopause years, the foundation for that is created in your 30s. What you’re doing, your 30s, is having an impact on your liver, which will manifest as you go into perimenopause perimenopause and menopause. And in 21st century life, so many women have a sluggish liver and they don’t even realize it. Our liver impacts our ability to sleep, it impacts our mood, it impacts our blood sugar balance. It has a real impact all the way across the body and so where we think that we’re going into menopause and we might be getting those hot flushes. Actually, if we remove the sugar or the imbalance of blood sugar and we get our blood sugars much more stable, we can start to release glycogen from the liver, and the liver it’s the only organ in the body that can repair itself. So it’s a crucial organ and it can do loads of things that can repair itself. But if we can get our blood sugars balanced, that will lead to the release of glycogen from the liver and it will start to clean the liver up. And then it means that you can reduce the snacking, you can reduce the cravings and you can begin to get your hormones back into balance again and manage your menopause much more efficiently. And there’s a top tip there as well when your hunger hormone kicks in, when your blood sugar has dropped and your hunger hormone kicks in and tells you you’re hungry, wait for 20 minutes, because it takes 20 minutes for the liver to get the message to start releasing the glycogen. So if you wait for 20 minutes, have a drink go off and do something else. You can come back and find yourself that you’re not actually hungry. It was just that your blood sugar has dropped and your liver wasn’t ready yet to release the glycogen. So that’s a really simple thing that take away from this podcast and go. Actually, I’m going to be really mindful when that hunger kicks in. I’m going to just have a drink of water, set a timer on my phone for 20 minutes, go away and do something else and come back and see if I actually am hungry, because that’s a really easy way to begin to break that cycle of snacking, which is part of the problem when it comes to insulin and blood sugar balance. So something that your listeners can take away straight away.Caroline Balinska: 16:37

Oh my God, Sue, that was amazing. So I got so much information out of that. I just want to run over it because that was just mind blowing from so many angles. So it’s blood sugar hormone. That’s actually a hormone that we’re.Sue Thomas: 16:49

That’s insulin. Insulin is the blood sugar hormone. Yeah, that’s it, it’s a hormone.Caroline Balinska: 16:53

So I never think of it as a hormone. I always think of it as just insulin and I think of when I think of insulin as diabetes.Sue Thomas: 17:01

Yeah, yeah, don’t ever think of it as diabetes. Yeah, because we all release insulin. Yeah, everybody releases insulin.Caroline Balinska: 17:11

Good, yeah, so insulin is not just about diabetes or stopping yourself from getting diabetes and you think of, oh, someone’s overweight, so they might get diabetes, but I’m not overweight, so I’m not going to get it. But it has nothing to do with that. It’s an insulin, is a hormone that our body produces, and what I love from that is that you’ve just explained to me about the liver and how much the liver actually works to create different hormones, not just the blood sugar hormone, so it’s also creating all our other hormones as well. So looking after our liver is really important and I love that. You say that the liver is actually able to be renewed so easily. It’s one of the only organs that can yeah, the only organ that can. So we can. It’s never too late. So I think that’s something that everyone should take away, is there’s no point like we don’t have to say, oh, we can’t fix it now, it’s too late. It’s actually always able to be fixed. However, the sooner we do, it means that we’re going to have better hormone balance. We’re going to feel better. We’re going to normally feel better, but look better because our skin looks better. We feel better mentally. We don’t have all the side effects of menopause, which suck when you get them really badly. And then I love that last thing. Is that just waiting 20 minutes? Because I have been reading a lot of people saying, oh, if you feel hungry, have a glass of water and then the water will take away the hunger, but when you’ve actually said, just takes it to that next level of me not getting the frustration of saying that water didn’t do anything.Sue Thomas: 18:42

Yeah, you need to give it 20 minutes. What?Caroline Balinska: 18:44

you’re saying is over 20 minutes. My liver needs to catch up with that information. So I think that takes it to another level, because I think that what I have done in the past is just thought okay, everyone says, have a glass of water. I have a glass of water. Five minutes later I’m like I’m still hungry. I’m in the fridge, what’s in the fridge, what can I eat? Yeah, but like you’re saying is, give it 20 minutes. So set an actual timer for 20 minutes before thinking about eating. So that’s amazing advice. And I love how you describe the different carbohydrates of the colors, from the brightest to the Exactly so.Sue Thomas: 19:20

You never have to go on a low carb diet because that’s what we think when we cut out the bread, the pasta and the you know, all the other beige carbohydrates. Actually, if you’re eating loads of fruit and vegetables, you’re still eating carbohydrates. You’re still getting your energy and that’s why I alluded to it at the beginning when my the nutritional therapist at Isle said cut out the sandwich at lunchtime. As soon as I started having protein and good colorful carbohydrate, I had tons of energy through the course of the afternoon. But the food industry leads us to believe that actually if we don’t eat that complex carbohydrate we’re not going to have any energy. But actually you’re going to have far more energy because your blood sugar is staying stable and your insulin level is staying stable. You’ll ensure that you release constant energy, whereas if you’re eating the sandwich, the spike and the trough will mean that you’re constantly hungry and that trough involves kind of brain fog and lack of productivity and all those kind of things that the afternoon slump. most people can relate to the afternoon slump, can’t they? And that’s simply related to the fact that your blood sugars have spiked and then crashed again through the course of the afternoon. That was what was happening for me. That was why I was having to take a sleep in the afternoon because my blood sugars were so unbalanced. But once, as soon as I started to get them back into alignment again which actually doesn’t take very long you can do it within about 10ing on the person, between five and 10 days, Once you get them back into balance again, loads of energy, loads of much better sleep, just kind of firing on many more cylinders.Caroline Balinska: 20:48

Yeah, I completely agree, and I’ve seen it both sides. So while you were saying all of that, it did make me think about different countries. So people will say things, and I’ve heard people say things like In Italy, they pizza and pasta. So how can you tell me that wheat’s not good? Well, for starters, people don’t really eat pizza in Italy. Italy sees pizza as like a special occasion food. Pasta is also not seen as the main meal. It’s one of the dishes In France. While they’re eating things like baguettes and croissants and things like that, french people eat much smaller meals, so they’re not eating large amounts of it. It’s not making up their main part of their meal. I can also say I lived in Spain for a few years and that afternoon siesta that they were all like we hear about. It’s so true, but that’s because the meal that people are eating in Spain at lunchtime they’re having these huge meals and then they’re getting really tired after it and everyone has to have a siesta. So that’s that slump that people are seeing, and if you’re eating the right foods, then you don’t have to worry about things like that.Sue Thomas: 21:51

And I think it’s really important there as well to pick up on eating foods in the right order too, because that’s another element that can really contribute to better blood sugar balance. So if you look at the Italians let’s go back to the Italians what they do is they have their salad dish first, so they’re fiber first, then they have their protein that might be fish, that might be chicken or what have you Then they have their pasta dish or their bit of pizza or whatever it is. So they’re eating fiber, then protein, then they’re carbohydrate. And that is the best way to get your blood sugars balanced is when you eat that fiber first. What it does essentially is and it’s a bit simplistic, but it’s to help you understand this it like coats the inside of the digestive system, so it’s. And then the protein does the same again. It kind of puts these layers in, which then mean that as you consume the carbohydrate, the metabolism and the release of that glucose from that carbohydrate is much, much slower. So what it means is that you can still have and that’s why we have dessert after we’ve eaten, because you have your fiber your starter salad first of all, then your protein, then your bit of carbohydrate, and then, if you have a dessert, the slow, the release of that sugar from the dessert is again much slower, and often you get to that point if you’ve eaten it in that order. You get to the point where you don’t actually want the dessert because you’re quite full. But if you do have the dessert, so it’s a great tip. If going out to eat in the evenings always think and you know that you’re going to have a dessert, always think let’s have a salad starter, then I’ll have a protein dish, fish, whatever, and then I’ll have my dessert. Because that will then mean that the release of those sugars is much slower, it doesn’t have the same impact on your liver and it also doesn’t have the same impact on your sleep. So there are so many ways around this to live a kind of lower sugar lifestyle without feeling like you’re being compromised or having to restrict.Caroline Balinska: 23:38

Yeah, fantastic. You actually remind me my old business partner in Australia. He was Italian, his mom was a really worked at one of the best Italian restaurants in Melbourne and he would always eat his salad first. When, if we ate together, he would always and it was like such a big deal that he had and if I picked him up on it and just be like calm down, just eat it with your food Like what’s the point? He’s like no, I have to have my salad, I will not eat anything in any other order. And I would remember at the time thinking you’re crazy. But then when I learned that that’s actually the right way, I was like no, I understand, he doesn’t even live in Italy and he had this like really strict way of eating from his parents.Sue Thomas: 24:18

Yeah, yeah, and it just that’s why the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest diets on earth. Even though they eat the pasta and the pizza and that kind of thing, it’s because they’re eating their food in the right order.Caroline Balinska: 24:30

Yeah, fantastic. And what are some key signs that we’re not actually balanced?Sue Thomas: 24:35

Well, the first it’s like the hot flushes. Yeah, they’re menopause symptoms. Well, if you get the afternoon slump, the afternoon slump is usually related to what you’ve eaten at breakfast time, although that might seem like it’s a long way away. So the first signs that you’re not balanced is that when you eat in the morning, within two and a half hours you’re starving. So whatever you’ve eaten in the morning has spiked your blood sugars and then they’ve crashed and then you’re starving. So that is when you might have the coffee and the biscuits because your brain is saying because your brain functions on glucose, your brain is saying we need to eat some sugar and we need to eat it now. So you might have the coffee and a couple of digestive biscuits or what have you, and then the your blood sugar spike again and then they crash again. So at lunchtime you’re kind of grabbing and going, you’re rushing to get something into you because you’re so hungry. So you then might eat the wrong things at lunchtime, which then spike your blood sugars and they crash again and then you’ll get in the afternoon slump. So those are the kind of first signs that your blood sugars are not balanced. Then you’ve got poor sleep. So if you’re not sleeping very well because insulin is high when you go to bed. When you go to bed, insulin needs to be low in order to be able to release a hormone called growth hormone, and growth hormones what sends us into a deep quality sleep. So if your insulin is high when you go to bed, you won’t release that growth hormone. So you won’t go into the deep quality sleep and there’s lots of research now to show that actually your insulin resets through the night. So if your sleep is compromised and you’re not sleeping well, that’s going to have another impact on your insulin. The next day You’re going to wake up and if you wake up starving, that’s a sign that your insulin didn’t reset. So you’re on a blood sugar roller coaster. So there’s loads of signs that will show that your blood sugars are not not balanced. You should be able to wake up in the morning and have at least an hour before you need to eat anything. If your blood sugars were stable, if they are unbalanced and I was talking to a client this morning who said she likes to exercise first in the morning but she has to eat something because she feels sick in the exercise. If she doesn’t eat something and that’s simply because she’s got these really unbalanced blood sugars and we can balance that out. She can then get up in the morning, do her exercise and then eat afterwards, which will help to balance the blood sugars. Now, first thing in the morning, your stomach’s full of hydrochloric acid, which is designed to break down protein. It’s not designed to break down carbohydrate. If you’re having a carbohydrate-based breakfast, like toast, like cereal, like even a banana we make a banana choice because we think it’s healthy, but actually it’s hugely high in sugar and hugely, you know, carb-based it will very quickly spike your blood sugars and then they’ll crash and that sets you up for the rest of the day. It sets you up for your mood, your energy levels, how productive you are every day, and it also sets you up for your sleep. And if your sleep’s then not very good and your blood sugars don’t really balance, it will be set through the night, then that has not gone affect to the following day. So those are all signs, really simple signs that you can look out for. If you’re feeling hungry at 10.30 and you’re getting the afternoon slump and you’re having to snack in the evenings, those are all signs that your blood sugars are out of balance. And then if you’re not sleeping very well, that’s another sign. And then obviously you’ve got menopause symptoms on top of that, which is another sign. So there’s lots of kind of layers. But first of all, just listen, which is what I say to my clients all the time. Listen to how food is making you feel. If it’s making you feel hungry within two and a half hours of eating it, it’s spiking your blood sugars and they’re crashing again. You need to switch up the food that you’re eating first thing in the morning to go from breakfast to lunch without even thinking about food. And when you get to that point, that’s when you’re starting to see much better blood sugars. And so that would mean eating a protein based breakfast, boiled eggs with spinach and tomatoes, for example, or or an omelet, or you know another. Some clients say to me I like to eat sweet breakfast or sweeter breakfast. So have Greek yogurt with, with seeds and nuts, and maybe some blueberries and a scoop of peanut butter to kind of create that really nice protein balance.Caroline Balinska: 28:42

So that’s also just a habit, though that’s also just having the sugar for breakfast is only because you’re so used to it that you need that sugar, because the food industry has told us that that’s what we should have for breakfast.Sue Thomas: 28:53

You know, the whole breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Thing came from the Kellogg’s company. Who yeah, Kellogg’s, who you decided that they needed to shift a lot of cornflakes. Well, that’s a carbohydrate breakfast. I never saw it and that’s part of the problem. You know, we’ve been given all these messages for years about this is how we should eat and this is the. You know. But it suits the food industry, it doesn’t necessarily suit our long term health.Caroline Balinska: 29:20

So I’ll ask you a question about that, because you speak about breakfast, protein breakfast. Over the last six months, or nearly a year, through my journey of all my going from terrible food problems to finally being able to eat as many baguettes and as many croissants as I want to, which was like the most enjoyable pastas it was just the most amazing thing in my life to then realizing that all of those things are actually causing me more problems. Going into perimenopause and now finding out that through my research a lot of it that I need 120 grams of protein a day and I find that really hard to sustain. And the amount of and because of some of the things that I still I can’t eat, like I can’t eat anything with soy in it, I can’t eat. So like, while I’ve cured myself from my old issues, there are things that I just cut out because of because they just not, they don’t work with my body. Yeah. So protein is really hard for me and I have time periods where egg is actually I get really sick from egg and then I have to cut it out for a few months and then bring it back in. So 120 grams of protein a day is what I’ve been told, and getting that in per day is super hard, but I do find that it’s much better for my body. I feel like I’m much more productive. I don’t have the afternoon slumps, I don’t have. I don’t feel hungry ever, but it’s just a matter of getting that in in my my diet. So I do have two proteins a shake, two protein shakes a day to make that happen, and then my other meals are very high in protein. So, yeah, do you have any information about that? Especially because and that comes from because I’m sort of just jumping in with that that comes from women needing more protein as we get older and yeah, it’s pretty much women need more protein than we actually realize.Sue Thomas: 31:13

Yeah, I agreed so at any one time you can really ever absorb about 25 grams of protein. So yeah, there’s no there’s no point in eating more than 25 grams of protein at anyone, a one in one meal. So you want to be thinking for breakfast. Like said, if you can’t do eggs, then what other sources are there? Can you do salmon, for example? Can you do smoked salmon, for example, with cream cheese? There’s a great tip as well you can slice up sweet potato really, really thinly and and just bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes and then you can store it and just toast it and it acts as a as a piece of toast. So you put salmon and cream cheese and avocado on top of that and feel like you’re having something on toast and that’s a great, a great way to kind of start a breakfast time. And then I agree with you sometimes it is about having protein shakes. But the thing with protein shakes is you really need to make sure you’re getting clean ones, because there’s a lot of not so great protein shakes out there.Caroline Balinska: 32:11

that do your way. Because of all my allergies, I can’t eat any of the ones with any fillers anyway, so I’m really happy.Sue Thomas: 32:19

Yeah, um, way you what. You just need to be a little bit careful as a menopausal woman around the sort of way side of things and the dairy side of things. I would always recommend P.Caroline Balinska: 32:27

I would always go, but I don’t know if P yeah, yeah, yeah, I did try that and that it was my go to. I thought that was actually what you’re saying actually makes more sense. Yeah, that would be my choice, but yeah, I couldn’t handle it. Yeah, yeah.Sue Thomas: 32:42

And then you’ve got to find the things that work for you. You absolutely have done, you have to. So for me, if I’m having a shake, if protein shake, I’ll always put vegetables in it, I’ll always put something in it to kind of make sure that we’re boosting that, that content, that nutritional content. And one of the things I always say to clients as well is rather than counting calories, focus on the nutrients, count the nutrients. So count the colors, count the amount of protein. If you want to count anything, stop counting calories and start focusing on nutrients. Because when you focus on nutrients, you eat really healthily anyway, because then you’re not eating the rubbish that doesn’t have any nutrition in it. So, yeah, so your shakes, if you’re getting, need to get that protein, and I don’t have a problem with that. And then you’ve got all the plant based proteins, like chickpeas and lentils and things like that that you can be adding. You can add them to soups and stuff, which is a great way of getting more protein into you. But just every meal, make sure where is my protein on this meal have I got that minimum of a palm sized piece of protein? To make sure that I’m getting and a menopausal woman really needs sort of no less than about 90, 90 grams of protein a day, and for some women that’s kind of like, oh my God, how would I ever get that in if I’m counting calories? But actually, if you move away from the counting calories and just focus on getting the protein and the colors on your plate and again I always say, a palm sized piece of protein and as many colors as you could fit on your plate is going to give your body what it needs from one meal to the next, for sure.Caroline Balinska: 34:10

Now, fantastic. And are there any foods that are actually worse for us than we realize?Sue Thomas: 34:17

Well, certainly sugar. But you know what? We go down that road of the slimming.Caroline Balinska: 34:21

Is it bananas? Yeah?Sue Thomas: 34:23

So bananas never eat banana in the morning because it’s high, like I’ve already alluded to, it’s quite high in sugar. It will release glucose into your bloodstream very, very quickly. So fruits, let’s talk about fruits. Never stop eating fruits, but listen to how fruits are making you feel, because I know, for example, I can’t eat an apple because an apple will make me feel really bloated and that’s the pectin in the skin that does that to me. I can’t eat an orange. My dad used to be able to eat three oranges after his lunch and be kind of keep going for hours. If I eat an orange after my lunch, I’ll be hungry by three o’clock. It’s always the same, even though I’ve had like a salad for my lunch. There’s enough sugar in that orange to spike my blood sugars and crash them. So everybody’s individual. Everybody has their own biotype. There is no one size fits all. You have to listen to what your body is telling you and that is the best way to do that is to listen. Within two hours Am I feeling hungry? If I’m feeling hungry, what did I eat? That didn’t work for me. So I would never say to any clients no, foods are off limits, because it depends how your body responds to that food and everybody metabolizes food in a different way. We have a study in the UK which looks at blood sugars and they are always releasing data based on the blood glucose monitors and stuff. And this one guy him and his wife, she’s French and he’s British, and they both had croissants and jam for breakfast and the data her blood sugars stayed really stable, his spikes and crashed within. So it just depends on how your body works and how your body metabolizes. And I think that’s because she’s grown up in that French environment and her body was used to having croissants for breakfast. So I always say to clients there’s no food that’s off limits, but you need to listen to what your body is telling you when you’ve eaten that food. If, within two hours, you are hungry, you are tired, you can’t focus, you’re feeling thirsty, you’re just not functioning efficiently. That food isn’t working for your body. One person might be able to eat it, the next person can’t and that just depends on your individual biotype and your metabolism. But the one thing I would say about fruit, going back to where I started with that, was that fruit is obviously it has sugar in it. It has naturally occurring sugars in it. Don’t ever be eating fruit on an empty stomach. Always make sure you’re having it as you’re dessert, rather than kind of. If you get to three o’clock in the afternoon and you’re starving and you eat an apple, that’s going to cause the problem to just get worse because it will release the sugars into your blood stream really quickly. So always be thinking if I’m going to eat fruit as a snack, have it with some protein, or I’m going to have it after I’ve eaten other meals. So if you’re eating that apple, have it with a handful of almonds, for example, because the protein will slow the release of the sugars down. So nothing is off limits. There’s no bad food, and I think it’s really important as well that we move away from that concept that there is bad food. The only thing I would say is you do want to avoid ultra-processed food, because that is bad food, but that’s not really food. It’s not nutrients.Caroline Balinska: 37:24

In quite the same way, and what do you think about these? There’s a lot of talk now about these plant-based fake meats, for example. I’m hearing a lot of things now about those that they’re actually because they are just highly processed. Do you have an opinion on that yet, or maybe it’s too early to say too much?Sue Thomas: 37:47

My opinion is always don’t ever eat anything that’s been grown in a lab, and essentially those plant-based meats are all grown in a lab you want to be going. If you can’t dig it, pick it or kill it, don’t eat it. That’s my motto, you know, always focusing on foods in their natural state, for sure.Caroline Balinska: 38:03

Fantastic. And a question how do we manage all of this when we have a husband and kids who like certain foods and we might be getting them out some hot dogs for dinner or they’re not going to eat what we want to eat? I think I’ve done very well with my kids. I’ve got four step kids and trained them into being more open to more food. I do find it easier, but I do find sometimes doing my weekly shop does get a little bit difficult. Is there any tips that you’ve got around that of how do we get to eat all the foods we need to eat and then still provide our families with what they want?Sue Thomas: 38:43

So I would always say and this is what I say to my clients you never should be creating different meals for yourself compared to what you’re creating for the family. But it’s just then about how do you adapt to me? Or, for example, let’s take spaghetti bolognese you’re making spaghetti bolognese, you have the bolognese sauce with green beans and broccoli and let the family have the spaghetti, the spaghetti bit, the pasta bit, so that you’re not sitting down eating a different meal, but you’re still having a meal together. But yours is just slightly tweaked. So it’s about kind of going how can I tweak this? So I know I’ve got three kids. My eldest is left home now, but my two girls are still at home and we will sit down and I’ll give you a really good example. So last night it was Mexican and there was wraps on the table and there was there was fajita mix that I had made and there was some vegetables as well on the side and a bit of salad and stuff. So, whereas the girls had their wraps with rice in it and then a bit of fajita mix and stuff and all sorts of bits and pieces on the side, I had the fajita mix, but I had it on a better spinach. So I just put some spinach in a bowl, I put the fajita mix on top and I had that. I didn’t have the rice, I didn’t have the wraps, I didn’t have the sour cream or anything like that. Just that was me and that way I was happy with that. That was me with my colors on my plate. There was chickpeas in there for protein. So it’s about kind of going how can I make this meal fit everybody’s needs without me having to cook over and over again? Now, that might be because I’m I am quite creative in the kitchen. I always have been but don’t ever be thinking this is going to mean me needing to cook a different meal to everybody else. Just look at the meal and go how can I make this? How can I say, let’s say, hot dogs. You bought decent sausages. Well, you have the sausages with broccoli and green beans or what have you, if they want to have the sausage in the bun? So there’s always ways around it. There’s always ways, as once you know what the kind of general guidelines are around keeping your blood sugars balanced. And don’t get me wrong, foods should be eating, you know, some good quality carbohydrate. They really should, because they’re growing and they need the glucose to help them grow. But when we get into our menopause years, we don’t need the glucose in quite the same way. So just, it’s just about looking at what does this meal involve? Is there lots of color in there? Because everyone will benefit from color. How can I just have the color and not have the beige? So let the others have the beige. So you know, just become, I think, think outside the box is what I would say. And look at a meal and go how can I make this meal fit me as well as the rest of the family?Caroline Balinska: 41:21

Fantastic. That’s actually what I do already and I sort of force them to have some of the extra vegetables. You know, put the vegetables in the bolognese and then I give them the extra vegetables on the side and you have to eat more vegetables. And I try cooking vegetables in different ways to give them different experiences as well.Sue Thomas: 41:38

And you know kids learn from us, don’t they? We are their greatest role models. So if we’re demonstrating to them that we’re eating healthily, they will follow the same pattern. You know, I take great pride in the fact that my son is at university and he will often send me photographs of pizzas that he’s made himself. He’ll make the pizza himself, he’ll make the dough, or he’ll send me a picture of his fish pie that he’s made. And you know some of the girls that he’s told me these stories. He’s gone to nightclubs and some of the girls said you cook for yourself, you know? And he’s like, yeah, cook for myself, doesn’t everybody cook for themselves? Because he’s learned from me that that’s how you eat. And I think you know, the more we can demonstrate to our kids that we’re reducing the sugar, that we’re eating healthily or we’re making those attempts to eat healthily, they’re going to follow. They’re going to follow the lead. And that’s nothing that gives me great pleasure than when a client tells me that says to me that their husband and kids have been really enjoying the food that they’ve been eating as well. You know, it has an impact on everybody.Caroline Balinska: 42:42

No, and that’s true. My stepson’s the same. He comes to me. We were talking about garlic a few weeks ago, about how to cook garlic properly. He’s a 20 year old kid in university, living out of home, and everyone’s like why are you cooking for yourself? And he’s like, yeah, because we always had a rule that you know get the kids to cook at home and learn how to cook. And we actually implemented a rule where they got to have one food that they didn’t have to eat ever because we had such a big problem with them, my stepkids just not wanting to eat anything. So we just implemented you get one food, anything you want. You change it every few months if you want to one food, but once you choose that food, you can’t change it on the day, so that’s your food. And the moment we implemented that, it changed everything. And I’ve always said look, if you all don’t like the meal, if a couple of you a couple of you don’t like it, we won’t cook it again. I want you to experience things you’ve tried and see how it is. Yeah, but yeah, really getting them on track to eat healthy as well, I think is very important.Sue Thomas: 43:36

Yeah, especially girls. Yeah, but especially girls, because they would have paid dividends for their perimenopause and menopause years. It really will when they get to that age.Caroline Balinska: 43:48

It’s very true. It’s very true. And if there’s anyone listening and they’re feeling overwhelmed and thinking that there’s, you know that they can’t manage this, is there any information that you have for them? Some tips and advice if they’re getting stuck on getting this done the right?Sue Thomas: 44:03

way, yeah, okay. So the first thing I would say is don’t overwhelm yourself with it. Take a step at a time. So the first thing I would say is let’s, let’s switch up your morning cup of tea for half a lemon squeezed into warm water, because that is going to start to clean your liver out, so that’s going to give your liver a little bit of love. So that’s the first place to start. It’s going to get your liver working a little bit more efficiently. It’s easy to do. If your dentist says don’t drink lemon water, drink it through a straw. I’ve been drinking lemon water 15 years now and my dentist is always telling me how I’m precious with my teeth. So I think there’s a kind of bit of a myth around lemon water and how it impacts the enamel, but a dentist will always tell you that. So if you, if you’re worried that a dentist is going to say that, drink it through a straw. But that’s the first thing you should be doing to get your liver working properly, to give your liver a little bit of love and to get well. It gets your digestive system moving and stuff as well. And then the second thing you need to think about is what am I eating for breakfast. Only focus on breakfast, nothing else. Just focus on what am I eating? Is it? Am I, am I having enough protein at breakfast? If I’m getting hungry at 10 30, then I’m not eating enough protein and breakfast I’m eating too much carbohydrate. So let’s switch breakfast up a little bit. Bring some more protein in, like I said. Like I said, it could be salmon, smoked salmon, it could be avocado and eggs, it could be full fat Greek yogurt and always go through full fat. Don’t go low fat Another myth that we’ve been told for years that that’s the way to manage your weight effectively and everything else. So always go full fat with lots of seeds and nuts. So get your breakfast right and get your breakfast so that it is taking you to lunchtime. And I often say to clients just try for me two boiled eggs, nothing else, just two boiled eggs for breakfast, rather than the two wheat picks or the two slices of toast. Have two boiled eggs for breakfast and see how that keeps you full through the course of the morning. Nine times at 10, they’re like oh my God, I was so full I couldn’t. You know, I got to two o’clock and I still wasn’t thinking about food kind of thing. So just think lemon water first thing in the morning and what am I eating for breakfast? How is that making me feel that’s the first place to start. Once you’ve mastered that, then the rest of the day kind of takes care of itself. And then the other thing, I would say the third thing. I always like to give three tips because it means that you’ve you’ve got some real content to take away. Once you’ve mastered the lemon water and the breakfast, then start mastering finishing eating by seven o’clock. Because if you finish eating by seven o’clock and you don’t allow yourself to snack on anything in the evening you don’t have any alcohol or anything like that. If you finish by seven o’clock, the time you go to bed your insulin levels will be coming back down, which means you’ll release the growth hormone that we talked about at the beginning, which means you’ll go into a better quality sleep, which means your insulin will reset through the night. So you’re starting on the front foot the following morning, not on the back foot with unbalanced blood sugars. So those are three simple things that don’t cost anything to do, but three things that you can just go right. I could do that. I could stop eating by seven. I could have my lemon water in the morning and I can make sure I’m having the right breakfast that’s going to keep me going to lunchtime. Once you’ve mastered those three things, the rest of the day begins to take care of itself. So it’s really if you don’t take anything away from this podcast. Just think what am I doing first thing in the morning and what am I doing at the end of the day? Those are the most important things.Caroline Balinska: 47:26

Fantastic. So one of the questions I’ll normally ask my guests at the end is three tips. I’m not going to ask you that because those are the three tips. They are amazing tips, so we don’t need any more tips from you in that way, because those are amazing. I want to ask you, though, some other tips, though. What are some tools that people can use when it comes to trying to achieve their goals?Sue Thomas: 47:48

Are we talking about food or are we talking about just things? Goals in general.Caroline Balinska: 47:54

No food. When it comes to have you got any tools that people can use or weight loss, weight maintenance?Sue Thomas: 48:02

Yeah, I would always say be planned, be organised. So get yourself a bit of a food planner and know exactly what you’re going to have through the course of the week, because one of the worst things we can do is come in and go on starving hungry. What am I going to eat? And that’s when we kind of eat a bit mindlessly. So always get your week really planned, know what’s going to come for the rest of the week and do the shopping, because again, there’s nothing worse than opening the fridge and thinking what we’re going to eat for tea tonight and not having anything there to eat. I actually and I hold my hands up and be completely honest about this we have pretty much this. It’s different meals, but it’s a seven day, maybe an eight day cycle of meals that we consume, so that I know exactly what I’m going to buy shopping, because I’m busy, I’ve got a busy business, I’ve got three kids, you know all of those things I need to make it as easy as possible for myself. So if I’ve got a kind of handful of really good meals that I know I can create quite quickly and again I nourish my family properly and then mean that when I come into the kitchen. I’m not going to be kind of prowling around the kitchen trying to find other things to eat. If I can get those meals and I know what those meals are, then I can create them rapidly. So don’t panic it, don’t think, oh, I’ve got to go through all these recipe books and find really interesting meals. Go for the meals that you know work for you and plan them out and make sure you’ve got the right foods in the fridge to be able to do that. That would be my first tool. And then my second tool and this is, I find, is a really useful tool for clients, because we should not have to eat out, for example. We should still be able to eat out. So always go for that salad first of all, but then on the menu, either look at the menu before you go and find the meal that’s going to work for you, or, when you get there, look for the gluten free and dairy free option, because if you look for those two options, you’re going to be pretty much okay with what the content of the food is that you’re consuming, because it won’t be giving you loads of pasta, they won’t be giving you loads of bread and they won’t be putting loads of cream and you know kind of other dairy products that might upset your digestive system, and that means that you then can have your salad beforehand that’s going to add the fiber and keep your blood sugars balanced, and then you can have the meal that you enjoy if it’s a dairy free group for option without feeling any kind of level of guilt, and you can have a bit of dessert if you want to as well. But always kind of just think ahead as far as your food is concerned, so that you know what you’re having, and that means then that you won’t get caught on the back foot and you won’t end up eating something that disrupts you and then we go into this rabbit hole of oh see, I can’t do it and all the negative stuff. Actually, if you plan, it helps you to stay in a much more positive place as well.Caroline Balinska: 50:41

Oh, I love those tips. Fantastic, you’re so full of great tips. Fantastic. Another tip I want to know any good sugar free alternatives for people.Sue Thomas: 50:51

Sugar is sugar is sugar. Basically, if you eat something sweet, it responds. The body responds by releasing insulin, depending on how sweet that food is. And how quickly that glucose is released into the system would depend on how much insulin you are releasing. So I would always say don’t look for alternatives. Just reduce down your, improve your sensitivity to sugar, which involves just kind of lowering the amount of sugar you consume so that you don’t need sugar. In quite the same way, if you really are looking for alternative, some of the better ones are Stevia, roar, local honey, those kind of things. They don’t tend to have the same response in the body, but always eat it with protein, always consume it with protein. So, for example, if you’re eating chocolate cake, put some full fat Greek yogurt on it, but I’ll add a little bit of protein. That will slow down the release of the sugar from the chocolate cake. But I think you’re better off just going how can I reduce my sugar down rather than trying to find an alternative. Because if you, if you sensitize your body to sugar, then you don’t need to eat so much of it and there’s not to say you can’t ever eat it again. That’s not who I am. I’m very much about kind of saying you know, I’m only 90% sugar free. I do enjoy the odd cake here and there and stuff like that, but I know how to eat it and I know how to not let it affect my mindset in particular. But also my blood sugar is the following day.Caroline Balinska: 52:16

Here’s a question about Greek yogurt. Living in now living in the Netherlands and growing up in Australia, I see Greek yogurt in Australia is Greek yogurt here in the Netherlands, so I don’t know about other countries. It’s called oh, what’s the word that they use? It’s not Greek yogurt, it’s now I’ve got to think what the word is for it, but it’s like a. It’s not made in the same way. It says Greek yogurt in big writing and then in really small writing it says something like alternative. It’s a word like that. That’s not so. It’s not processed in the same way. Do you know much about the different types of Greek yogurt? So you have to be really careful with.Sue Thomas: 53:01

Greek yogurt, because if you go for Greek style, your yogurt doesn’t have it anywhere near as much protein.Caroline Balinska: 53:05

That’s what you mean, greek style.Sue Thomas: 53:07

Yeah. So you don’t want Greek style. You want the full fat Greek authentic yogurt that is strained, because that means that if it’s strained the lactose is more easy for the body to metabolize. If you get in the Greek style, it’s not strained in the same way, it’s just got thickeners in it to make it look like with yogurt and there’s not as much protein in it as well. So you’ll always be looking for the. I don’t know if you have Fahih in the Netherlands, but we have a brand called Fahih which is F-A-G-E and that kind of 2% or 5% full fat yogurt and that will be strained and that will be traditional Greek yogurt. So don’t go for the Greek style one, because it won’t keep you as full.Caroline Balinska: 53:47

No, that’s so I noticed when I moved here. I was just buying it. I love Greek yogurt even I shouldn’t really eat it a lot, so I ate small amounts and then I realized I was buying Greek style yogurt. I’m like, hang on a second, this is not even, and I always thought it tasted a bit strange because I don’t think it has the same flavor. I think the same flavor profile is not even as nice. No, exactly. So yeah, I’m really dedicated to getting the proper yogurt. So good, there is actually a difference, so that’s good to know. Yes, because I think that’s a little thing that they don’t tell us about.Sue Thomas: 54:15

Yeah, exactly, there’s lots of things the food industry don’t tell us about. They want us to eat the way they want us to eat, rather than for our long-term health.Caroline Balinska: 54:24

Yeah, okay. So we’re onto the quick round, because I think you’ve given us the most amazing information and I am going to have to go away and re-watch this whole thing again because I know that there was just so much jam-packed information. But I want to go into the quick round and ask you about I ask all my guests this what’s one word to describe your future?Sue Thomas: 54:46

Joy. I get so much joy from seeing my clients have those transformational results, from seeing them understand that they don’t ever have to restrict their calories again, they don’t have to ever die again. And I get so much joy from watching my kids grow up really well-balanced. So there’s so much joy in my life. I’m so grateful for what I do and I’m so grateful for the life that I have.Caroline Balinska: 55:13

Fantastic. That’s really nice and that gives me a really nice warm heart. So that’s nice to hear. What is one book that has changed your life?Sue Thomas: 55:21

A book or a podcast, or yeah, there is a book by a lady called Rocksy Nafusi. It’s called Manifest and for me that is a great. It is basically kind of teaches that you can have control over your life. You don’t have to be, everything you do is within your control and you can create the life that you want to live. And I read that. I’m actually reading it again and for, I think, for the third time, but I’ve read it about four or five years ago and when I read that I was like, oh yeah, I get it now I’ve got complete control and exactly what I need to do, and that has been for me, a real game changer.Caroline Balinska: 55:58

Fantastic, and so let us know about how people can connect with you and if they wanna know more about how they can work with you, because you’re amazing, you are really. You can see that it’s straight from the heart and you definitely also, on top of having that really personalized heart felt passion towards what you do, you also know a lot, so if people wanna work with you, how can they get in touch with you?Sue Thomas: 56:21

Yeah, absolutely so. My website is thesugarfreecoachcom, so just go to thesugarfreecoachcom. There is a page that says Freebies. You can download my Tree Special about Sugar eBook I’ve got a quiz on there as well and there is also a little link to book a clarity call with me so you can book a free clarity call to discuss where you are. I have three kind of main programs. I have a seven day sugar circuit break, which is just kind of breaking that cycle of sugar consumption, just dipping our toe into the water, but in a fully supported environment with lots of other women doing exactly the same thing. I have a four week sugar free method, it’s called, which teaches you those principles. There’s five principles to learn as to how to balance your blood sugars, and that’s all done. I take five ladies at a time. I run that every month. I only take five ladies at a time on that and that’s run through a WhatsApp group. And then I also do one to one coaching as well. So, yeah, you can find me on the socials. For Instagram I’m thesutomasunderscore thesugarfreecoach and on Facebook I am suetomas thesugarfreecoach. So if you put in thesugarfreecoach, you’ll find me somewhere along the line.Caroline Balinska: 57:28

And I’ll put all your links to the show notes so people can get in touch with you as well. Perfect, thank you. It’s so amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. And, as you said, if people just take away just a couple of things, really those three tips on starting your morning right and ending your day correctly and that can make a huge difference to your life.Sue Thomas: 57:45

It really can. Yeah, it really can.Caroline Balinska: 57:48

Fantastic. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you everyone for watching and until next week. Bye.