Part 2: How Is Your Blood Sugar Sabotaging Your Weight Loss?

Can’t lose weight? Feel foggy, shaky, and hungry throughout the day? These common symptoms that so many of us accept as “normal” may have everything to do with your blood sugar.

What does unbalanced blood sugar look like?

Skipping meals, binging on sugar, and having fairly typical modern eating habits can all cause major spikes in blood sugar. When your blood sugar is all over the map, pro-inflammatory stress hormones are released. Blood sugar spikes can also disrupt hormone signaling.

You, like so many people, may have experienced the symptoms of unbalanced blood sugar before:

• Foggy thinking
• Hormonal imbalance (causing mood swings)
• Hunger
• Irritability
• Low energy/sluggishness
• Shaking or weakness in the limbs
• Sweating
• Weight gain

Blood sugar spikes are something you want to pay attention to.

Keeping your blood sugar stable is critically important. Not only are the symptoms above difficult to deal with, with the potential to disrupt your daily life, but they can lead you down the path to metabolic syndrome and diabetes.¹ For most people, however, the most obvious sign of unstable blood sugar is stubborn weight gain — the weight gain that doesn’t seem to respond to diet or exercise.

If something feels off, your body may need a reset. Try our free 30-day Detox Challenge today.

Controlling blood sugar to lose weight: Are peas the answer?

I found an interesting study as I was examining the link between unwieldy blood sugar, weight loss, and good health. In 2016, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital researchers found that eating just one serving a day of pulses — beans, lentils, chickpeas, or peas — could contribute to modest, long-term weight loss.²

It’s pretty simple when you think about it. Pulses may increase feelings of fullness. This can cause you to eat less. We know that 90 percent of weight loss attempts fail, most often because of hunger and food cravings.

It’s no coincidence that my weight-loss-friendly Immune Power Protein Shake is made with pea protein. Pea protein can support healthy weight loss by promoting feelings of fullness. And eating a rich source of protein like this for breakfast, University of Missouri researchers say, can help to control spikes in blood sugar and prevent type 2 diabetes.³

Keeping blood sugar in check can improve weight loss and ward off disease.

Peas prevent weight gain — but are you digesting them?

So many of us have had a problem eating commercial grains, beans, peas, and seeds in the past. Any type of pea, bean, grain, or seed has phytic acid and needs to be soaked and then fermented in order to be digested.

Also known as an anti-nutrient, phytic acid is a food inhibitor that chelates micronutrients. Because we humans don’t have the enzyme phytase in our digestive tracts, we aren’t able to access the bioavailable nutrients in these foods.⁴ Without soaking and fermenting peas (and beans, grains, and seeds), you’re robbing your body of minerals you can’t absorb.

How good is your gut health, really? Take our Healthy Gut Quiz to find out.

When I created my Immune Power Protein Shake made with pea protein, I fermented it first of all to make all these precious nutrients available for the body to use. Compared to the other protein powders I drank that would just sit in my stomach for hours, drinking my Immune Power Protein Shake was a world of difference. Many people have low stomach acid and a deficiency in HCL (hydrochloric acid), particularly after age 40. Having high-quality, digestible protein affects how you age and how you digest food. My Immune Power Protein Shake is organic, fermented, and more bioavailable than regular protein — for example, you’re actually getting much more protein in this fermented shake versus eating a piece of steak or fish, particularly in your muscles.

But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to make my Immune Power Protein Shake truly medicinal, so I added eight medicinal mushrooms to it. The medicinal mushrooms I hand-picked are also excellent for stabilizing blood sugar, which, as you now know, is vital for weight loss.

What are the benefits of medicinal mushrooms?

You might remember this all-star team of medicinal mushrooms from my last email: Agaricus, Cordyceps, King Trumpet, Lion’s Mane, Maitake, Reishi, Shiitake, and Turkey Tails. Famous for being a great source of beta-glucans, these medicinal mushrooms can lower blood sugar, support a robust immune system, help fight the noxious effects of modern chemicals, and help prevent and fight cancer.^5,6,7,8 That the mushrooms reinforce your inner ecosystem, promote weight loss, and strengthen vitality is merely the icing on the cake.

The eight medicinal mushrooms in my Immune Power Protein Shake can provide countless benefits:

1. Agaricus – Help for lung cancer, stomach cancer, and prostate tumors.⁹
2. Cordyceps – Buffers oxidative stress, radiation, and platelet aggregation (thrombosis); offers relief for asthma; supports sperm quality; helps prevent kidney failure, melanoma, leukemia, and lupus; and provides anti-stress and anti-fatigue benefits.^8,9
3. King Trumpet – Contains a compound that induces programmed cell death in human leukemia cells.¹⁰
4. Lion’s Mane – Beneficial for memory, attention, focus, and cognition; offers therapeutic benefits for numerous diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system (dementia, Parkinson’s, MS, anxiety, depression, and muscle spasms); and regenerates nerves and stimulates NGF (helping produce BDNF), which is helpful for stroke recovery. Also has anti-inflammatory, immunosupportive, and anticancer properties.^9,12
5. Maitake – Enhances the thymus and supports immunity; improves insulin sensitivity; supports organ transplantation engraftments; offers antihypertensive benefits; promotes anti-diabetic activity due to alpha-glucan; and helps prevent bladder cancer, gastric cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer with antitumor effects.⁵
6. Reishi – Renowned for its ability in gene coding cytochrome P450 enzymes, which can produce secondary metabolites to help digest nutrients, degrade toxins, and increase liver efficiency; contains more than 400 active constituents; and considered a “miniature pharmaceutical factory” by producing hundreds of medicinal compounds.^6,7
7. Shiitake – A pro-immunity mushroom extract with extensive antimicrobial activity against 85 percent of organisms tested on, including 50 percent of the yeast/mold species. Also shown to modulate the transcription profile of some genes in cholesterol metabolism.^13,14
8. Turkey Tail – Has proven immunostimulatory and antitumor effects.^9,11

Are medicinal mushrooms safe?

There’s no doubt that medicinal mushrooms are powerful and can provide unrivaled health benefits: Blood sugar control, cancer prevention, immune support, and even improvements in cholesterol, hair, nail, and skin health too.

But for the average person, a safe source of medicinal mushrooms may be hard to find.

It can be risky to go out and source mushrooms yourself if you aren’t an expert who knows where to look and what for. The mushrooms in my Immune Power Protein Shake have been carefully selected for both safety and nutritional integrity. In fact, all ingredients in my shake have been thoroughly tested for heavy metals.

Healing foods should taste good. Our Body Ecology recipes are healthy, nutritious, and especially delicious.

How to get the most out of your medicinal mushrooms

I started to create my Immune Power Protein Shake as a health and weight loss tool, but with reinforcement from medicinal mushrooms, it’s become so much more. As you’re losing weight and improving your health, you’ll want to feel light and energetic. This gut-friendly protein shake won’t sit in your stomach.

And it’s convenient:

• It’s healthy, it’s tasty, and it’s easy to shake up and go!
• Fill up a shaker with cold water and keep it in the fridge.
• When you’re ready to run out the door in the morning, just add a scoop, shake it up, and drink it.

For those who can’t seem to gain traction on their weight loss journey, or just can’t lose those last 5 pounds, I know my Immune Power Protein Shake is going to help. Consuming a fermented pea protein that the body can use will balance your blood sugar to reduce hunger and cravings. Reviving your immunity and stabilizing blood sugar with the help of medicinal mushrooms will only compound on pea protein’s benefits.

The power is in the protein. To find out how much protein you’re actually digesting, read Part 1 of our protein series here. You can also read Part 3 on muscle growth here. If there’s one thing I’ve discovered in the 25 years since I created The Body Ecology Diet, it’s that when you improve your health, weight loss is sure to follow!