Speaker 1: If you're at a point with your health where you
Speaker 1: want answers, answers to your low energy, answers to that
Speaker 1: stubborn weight that won't shift, then I've got the solution
Speaker 1: for you. I've partnered with the most amazing integrative GP
Speaker 1: to bring you Inner Vitality, a brand new online program
Speaker 1: that uses over fifty bio markers to give you an
Speaker 1: accurate picture of your unique biochemistry and any imbalances. Then,
Speaker 1: over eight weeks, we educate you on these markers and
Speaker 1: implement the small but powerful changes needed to restore your
Speaker 1: internal balance. Visit the link in the show notes to
Speaker 1: find out more. I was running an online workshop this
Speaker 1: week and I got a comment from a lovely lady
Speaker 1: called Erma. She said, generally I eat well and exercise
Speaker 1: and I strength train, but now it's like I look
Speaker 1: at food and it goes straight onto my hips and thighs,
Speaker 1: and then lots of people are commenting and agreeing with her. Now,
Speaker 1: if I had one dollar for every time I got
Speaker 1: a comment like this, I would definitely be able to
Speaker 1: retire very very soon.
Speaker 2: There is a huge.
Speaker 1: Proportion of us who are just at a loss as
Speaker 1: to why our bodies are not responding the way they
Speaker 1: used to. It causes confusion, frustration, helplessness, disempowerment even and
Speaker 1: I am on a mission to help decode and reset
Speaker 1: what on earth is going on. This is Healthy Heer
Speaker 1: with Amelia Phillips. There is nothing more frustrating than feeling
Speaker 1: your clothes getting tighter, feeling heavier, bloated, or gaining weight,
Speaker 1: and just not understanding why we're watching what we eat,
Speaker 1: we're exercising, we're doing all the things they're telling us
Speaker 1: to do, yet it doesn't seem to be working. So
Speaker 1: what is going on under the bonnet of our body?
Speaker 1: Is our metabolism just slowing down as we hear? Or
Speaker 1: could we potentially be on the slippery slope to insulin
Speaker 1: resistance and yet not really.
Speaker 2: Know about it.
Speaker 1: One lady who can help us answer this question is
Speaker 1: author Lara Brydon. Lara is a naturopathic doctor with more
Speaker 1: than twenty five years experience in women's health, running her
Speaker 1: clinic in christ Church in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: Plus she's a global speaker on women's hormone health.
Speaker 1: She has published three very popular books, The Period Repair Manual,
Speaker 1: The Hormone Repair Manual, and Hot Off the Press Just
Speaker 1: published the Metabolism Reset, which is what we need. These
Speaker 1: are practical guides to better health using nutrition, supplements, and
Speaker 1: where needed, body identical hormones. Lara sits on several advisory
Speaker 1: boards and is the lead author of a number of
Speaker 1: peer reviewed papers. Thank you so much for joining me today, Lara.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: We all have this pretty good understanding of what our
Speaker 1: metabolism is. But what is metabolic flexibility or probably for
Speaker 1: many of us, metabolic inflexibility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question. So metabolism. I think you
Speaker 3: know many of us when we think about metabolism, it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, how fast or slow is metabolism, But really,
Speaker 3: as you know, there's more to it than that. It's
Speaker 3: really about energy and how the body uses energy and
Speaker 3: how well it can access energy and is in simplest terms,
Speaker 3: metabolic flexibility means being able to switch between burning fat
Speaker 3: and burning carbs, which are always burning a mix of
Speaker 3: those two. But more specifically, for most of us in
Speaker 3: the modern world, it's about being able to access and
Speaker 3: burn fat stores for energy, and with metabolic inflexibility, we
Speaker 3: start to lose some of the ability or capability of
Speaker 3: doing that, and that can lead to many downstream effects.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, feeling a lot hungrier all the time.
Speaker 3: If you think about it, even just a normal not
Speaker 3: overweight body contains enough energy. I've heard it described there's
Speaker 3: enough energy to walk between Sydney and Melbourne on the
Speaker 3: energy that we you know, hold on our and so
Speaker 3: that's actually almost a limitless amount of energy if we
Speaker 3: could be able to dip into that. So unfortunately, with
Speaker 3: the common problem of metabolic inflexibility and is related insulin resistance,
Speaker 3: we start to lose access to all that energy store
Speaker 3: and at the same time not be able to burn fat.
Speaker 1: So basically what you're saying is, yeah, our body stops
Speaker 1: dipping into that fat store and dipping into that great
Speaker 1: energy reserve which is fat.
Speaker 2: If you think about it, I'm squeezing your.
Speaker 1: Eyes right now, my tummy and my arms, there's lots
Speaker 1: of energy there. And so when we're inflexible, our body
Speaker 1: is basically prioritizing the easy access sugars or carbs, mainly
Speaker 1: from our diet, and then it's becoming much harder to
Speaker 1: access the fat, which is already explaining one of the
Speaker 1: challenges we have, which is stubborn weight. So what are
Speaker 1: some early symptoms of insulin resistance and why does this
Speaker 1: affect our weight?
Speaker 2: And is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 1: Insulin resilt, metabolic inflexibility and insulin resistance.
Speaker 3: I tend to use them almost interchangeably, but I mean
Speaker 3: they're a little different when you look at sort of
Speaker 3: the nuances of all the biochemistry. We don't have to
Speaker 3: get into that today, but I think they're very closely related.
Speaker 3: One causes the other. It's like a vicious cycle. So
Speaker 3: insulin resistance is certain tissues in the body being less
Speaker 3: sensitive to the hormone insulin, resulting in chronically elevated insulin.
Speaker 3: That's a big part of the problem. It's so common.
Speaker 3: I mean, some estimates put it at like almost one
Speaker 3: in two adults have this, and it's reversible, and yet
Speaker 3: a lot of people sort of don't know about it.
Speaker 3: And I know it's kind of a fancy term. Maybe
Speaker 3: you're the same. I've been trying to talk about insulin
Speaker 3: resistance for like twenty something years, and it needs a
Speaker 3: better brand, I guess, or a better label, because a
Speaker 3: lot of people do just tune out when they hear
Speaker 3: that word. And so I'm encouraging your listeners keep listening.
Speaker 3: It's not as complicated as you think. It's actually very
Speaker 3: important and an answer to your question, what are the
Speaker 3: some of the signs and symptoms, Well, the first, I
Speaker 3: would say, the first sign, in the earliest sign is
Speaker 3: feeling normally hungry, like feeling hungrier than you used to
Speaker 3: or hungrier than you should. And that's because normal insulin
Speaker 3: sensitivity should promote what's called satiety or that nice, you know,
Speaker 3: feeling you have enough energy between meals. You'll still get hungry.
Speaker 3: It's not normal to get hungry when it's time for
Speaker 3: your next meal, of course, and that stomach growling hunger,
Speaker 3: and we need to be you know, fueling ourselves. But
Speaker 3: what I'm talking about is satiety or the feeling of
Speaker 3: not needing to snack between meals, and yeah, you can see.
Speaker 3: I mean the fact that that's one of the earliest
Speaker 3: symptoms of insulin resistance really speaks to how it insulin
Speaker 3: resistance causes weight gain. Now, this is one of the
Speaker 3: things in Mighty book and the metabolism Reset is there's
Speaker 3: been a debate in the scientific community, which I'm sure
Speaker 3: you're very aware of, which comes first. You know, does
Speaker 3: weight gain, does facking cause insulin resistance or the other
Speaker 3: way around. And I'm kind of in the camp that
Speaker 3: I think the insulin resistance comes very early in the process.
Speaker 1: I agree with you one hundred percent. And looking at
Speaker 1: these online programs where I'm running hundreds of people measure
Speaker 1: fifty by the markers and get to see their insulin resistance,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing how many people's insulin markers are starting
Speaker 1: to whisper and move, and their metabolic markers are moving
Speaker 1: that way, and they're just in the early stages. The
Speaker 1: weight gain hasn't necessarily kicked off yet, and they're so
Speaker 1: much easier to reverse than the ones that have a
Speaker 1: lot of stubborn weight that's already there for sure.
Speaker 3: And the weking that is downstream from insulin resistance is
Speaker 3: very specifically the weight around the middle, not.
Speaker 2: The squishy fat.
Speaker 3: Not the squishy fat, it's the hard one inside. And
Speaker 3: so people listen might have this. I've seen it on
Speaker 3: my paties. It's like a hard thread under the rib cage.
Speaker 3: Like people will say, I have this uncomfortable, like yeah,
Speaker 3: quite solid swelling under the ribcages. It's not pleasant to have,
Speaker 3: and that can start to show up as increased waste
Speaker 3: to hip ratio, so taking measurements can be helpful. I'll
Speaker 3: just give a nod to hip and bum weight, which
Speaker 3: is actually a little quite different, and we can maybe
Speaker 3: circle back to that in the end if we have time,
Speaker 3: we could meet again to talk about that. But like
Speaker 3: some women just have bigger bums, And that's a lot
Speaker 3: of that's just about genetics and estrogen and much less
Speaker 3: about what we're talking about today, And it's the insulin
Speaker 3: resistant weight. It's that in visceral fat inside the abdomen
Speaker 3: that is associated with all the negative health outcomes. And
Speaker 3: the research is really solid around that having insulin resistance
Speaker 3: untreated over decades will definitely increase the risk of cardiovascular
Speaker 3: events like heart attack and stroke, and dementia even probably
Speaker 3: us due process, so even cancer possibly. So yeah, it
Speaker 3: matters quite a lot, which is obviously why I'm so
Speaker 3: passionate about it.
Speaker 1: Well, I just want to close out the symptoms so
Speaker 1: that people listening can get a sense of whether this
Speaker 1: applies to them or maybe someone they know, or to
Speaker 1: think about it for the future. So feeling hungry, and
Speaker 1: that is such a one I see.
Speaker 2: Even in this same.
Speaker 1: Workshop for my lovely lady Irma was talking about there's
Speaker 1: so much talk of once I start in the morning,
Speaker 1: I'm just hungry all there and never feel that full.
Speaker 1: So society the weight shifting around the middle. Are there
Speaker 1: any other signs and symptoms that we're starting to get
Speaker 1: into that metabolic inflexibility and insulin resistance.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, let's just list them off for people so they
Speaker 3: can We'll list a few physical ones and then people
Speaker 3: can well list a few blood test ones they can
Speaker 3: go and get out their report and some all of
Speaker 3: these are blood markers that people will just have, you know, anyway,
Speaker 3: from their last probably from their last check up with
Speaker 3: their GPS. So the other physical signs is skin tags.
Speaker 3: You get them on the kind of the neck and
Speaker 3: they're like little tags.
Speaker 2: They are tags.
Speaker 1: They're almost like moles or beauty spots, kind of just
Speaker 1: dangling there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some people get them removed, but if you're getting
Speaker 3: a lot of them, that's usually a sign of insulin resistance.
Speaker 3: There's also some people in a more severe insulin resistance.
Speaker 3: Some people, depending on the genetics, will get kind of
Speaker 3: the darkening under the arms and around the neck. That
Speaker 3: has a fancy term called nkan those as Nigrikans. It's
Speaker 3: something people might have noticed, and women are also high
Speaker 3: androgen symptoms, so it can be downstream from insulin resistance,
Speaker 3: so more facial hair, body hair, hair thinning on top
Speaker 3: of the head. And then on the blood tests, one
Speaker 3: of the first ones to look for is high triglycerides.
Speaker 2: Which is cholesterol.
Speaker 1: So if you think about your cholesterol markers everybody, and
Speaker 1: we measure this in our programs as well, you've got
Speaker 1: total cholesterol HDL, which is kind of what we label
Speaker 1: healthy LDL lousy, and triglycerides, so elevated triglycerides, yes.
Speaker 3: Elevated triglyslides, especially in ratio to low HDL. So there's
Speaker 3: a citation in my book where some experts think that
Speaker 3: high troglysides low HDL ratio is one of the best
Speaker 3: surrogate what they call surrogate markers of insulin resistance. It's
Speaker 3: not a direct measure of insulin resistance, but it's pretty
Speaker 3: it correlates pretty strongly. So that's an easy one and
Speaker 3: it's not expensive. It's not a fancy test like you
Speaker 3: probably just have that sitting there on that basic test.
Speaker 3: Another one that I always look for for my patients,
Speaker 3: not too technical, but I think this is useful for people.
Speaker 3: It's high alt, it's in the general biochemistry part of
Speaker 3: the test, and it's one of the liver enzymes. If
Speaker 3: all the liver enzymes are elevated, that could mean alcohol
Speaker 3: or something or something quite different actually, So obviously you
Speaker 3: need to check with your GP about any abnormal readings.
Speaker 3: But if it's only the high alt and the other
Speaker 3: ones are normal, especially if alt is over nineteen sorry
Speaker 3: the units we use in Australia international units per leader.
Speaker 3: I think if it's over nineteen, that can be assigned
Speaker 3: insulin resistance. So those are some EASi ones. CRP listeners
Speaker 3: might know what that is.
Speaker 1: Yes, inflammation, Yes, yes, inflammatory marker which we measure a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of them as well, and that's a great one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that correlates with insulin resistance. And then you can
Speaker 3: measure insulin. And this is a little bit of nuance
Speaker 3: involved in it, but you know, without going into it
Speaker 3: in too much detail. It you measure the hormone insulin,
Speaker 3: which is different than just measuring glucose or just measuring
Speaker 3: HbA one C. Those are not insulin, those are sugar.
Speaker 3: Measuring the hormone insulin is a more direct way to
Speaker 3: measure insulin resistance. What we're looking for is of elevated
Speaker 3: fasting insulin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that brings me to my question, is insulin
Speaker 1: resistance and pre diabetes the same thing.
Speaker 3: Simplest way to say it, I think is pre diabetes
Speaker 3: is a more advanced stage of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance
Speaker 3: is a thing elevated levels of insulin reduced sensitivity in
Speaker 3: insulin that can show up while blood sugar is still normal.
Speaker 3: That's important. Then once blood sugar starts to go out
Speaker 3: of range, which might be a decade or fifteen years later,
Speaker 3: then that officially is now under the umbrella prediabetes, but
Speaker 3: it's still insulin resistance. And then eventually type two diabetes
Speaker 3: is still insulin resistance. So it's like a gradation of
Speaker 3: insulin resistance severity.
Speaker 2: It's all the lovely journey.
Speaker 1: We kind of start with this mild insulin resistance based
Speaker 1: on those markers you just rattled off, you know, cholesterol,
Speaker 1: triglyceride crp ALT. This is why it's so important to
Speaker 1: understand and track your markers. You're looking at them just
Speaker 1: kind of creeping up, or maybe you've got one or two,
Speaker 1: and eventually you have the full hand, and then it's
Speaker 1: this lovely journey of okay, or now we're insulin resistance.
Speaker 1: Then we start to see the HbA one C, which
Speaker 1: is you're you know, starting to see your pre diabetes
Speaker 1: coming up and so on and so forth, and we
Speaker 1: can reverse this. We've got to catch it early, and
Speaker 1: we've got to catch up before menopause kicks in, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about shortly. But let's switch into some practicalities here.
Speaker 1: So let's say one of my beautiful listeners is sitting
Speaker 1: here not in going yep. I've got a couple of
Speaker 1: those things I think I am getting, you know, on
Speaker 1: that pathway. What are the top nutrition strategies that she
Speaker 1: should start to do today to help reverse that and
Speaker 1: prevent it from progressing.
Speaker 3: As you know, there's lots of debate about this. Everyone's got,
Speaker 3: you know, a theory. I'll start with it, just the simplest,
Speaker 3: and then I'll just explain the troubleshooting approach that I
Speaker 3: took in the metabolism reset. So I think most of
Speaker 3: us can agree that a return to or a switch
Speaker 3: to whole foods is paramount you That is, it's really
Speaker 3: not possible to reverse it without eating whole unprocessed foods.
Speaker 3: And then in my book I do talk about sheltering
Speaker 3: from vegetable oil, which I'm not sure where your position
Speaker 3: on that is.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we want to hear from you whether I
Speaker 1: agree or disagree, but I do definitely agree those you
Speaker 1: know Amiga six heavy oil. Can you just explain because
Speaker 1: for most of us, well, they're all vegetable oils, olive oil,
Speaker 1: panola I.
Speaker 3: Mean, this is where some of your listeners might have
Speaker 3: heard the contrast around seed oils. This is where they're
Speaker 3: distinguishing between fruit oils, which would be avocado and olive
Speaker 3: which are fruit os which are mostly olaic acid or
Speaker 3: something called mono unsaturated, which is good. And that's like
Speaker 3: the one place where almost any whatever camp you're in,
Speaker 3: everyone agrees mono unsaturated.
Speaker 1: Get your cold pressed olive oil, folks, get it out there.
Speaker 1: But then I'm hearing people saying I can't fry in it. Well,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be frying.
Speaker 3: So we're talking about with vegetable oil is actually the
Speaker 3: whole group of like corn oil and soybean and where
Speaker 3: it's predominantly something called a Mega six and it's always
Speaker 3: a mix, like there's a little bit of a laic
Speaker 3: acid and other vegetable oil, so it's always a mix.
Speaker 3: But the weird thing actually about a Mega six and
Speaker 3: some of the research around it. It's an essential fat acid,
Speaker 3: so it's a nutrients. It's an essential nutrient. So obviously
Speaker 3: it's not bad per se, but it's just the amount
Speaker 3: of it relative to a Mega three, potentially even relative
Speaker 3: to a saturated fat cult fifteen, which we could maybe
Speaker 3: talk about a lot of bit today. High Omega six
Speaker 3: is the research seems to be growing that it interferes
Speaker 3: with insulin sensitivity via a few mechanisms.
Speaker 1: And so basically, if you're having banana bread, if you're
Speaker 1: having baked goods, if you're having pastries, fried food, fish
Speaker 1: and chips, et cetera, all of those have been cooked, baked.
Speaker 2: Fried, prepared with omega six's.
Speaker 1: And I think because a lot of us straight away
Speaker 1: go to our pantry and we think, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I only use that vegetable oil occasionally. I'm mostly using
Speaker 1: olive ol. But you forget that it's in so much
Speaker 1: else Have I covered it? Is there anything I'm missing?
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of those packaged food cereals what.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, and it never used to be right. So
Speaker 3: this is possibly possibly part of the explanation of why
Speaker 3: metabolic dysfunction or insulin resistance has been on a steep
Speaker 3: incline over the past few generations. And something's happened in
Speaker 3: the foods are high. Part of it could be just
Speaker 3: the massive change to a heavy omega six intaken all
Speaker 3: the processed food exactly you mentioned. So back to the
Speaker 3: easy tips whole fruits which straightaway avoids some of what
Speaker 3: you've been describing. Take some steps to switch to olive
Speaker 3: oil or butter or coconut oil other non omega six
Speaker 3: heavy oil. You can still have like omega six in
Speaker 3: nuts and zeas. Just to be clear, it's not something
Speaker 3: you have to avoid, it's just you don't want to
Speaker 3: be having massive amounts of it. And then the other
Speaker 3: thing to shelter from probably alcohol, I would say too,
Speaker 3: shelter from alcohol to some degree certainly, and then also
Speaker 3: shelter from high dose sugar. And it's another funny topic
Speaker 3: because everyone's like, oh, but this you know, this is
Speaker 3: about fructose, high dose fructose. This fructose and fruit, yes,
Speaker 3: and most experts degree that's not what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: That low dose frctose behaves quite differently in the body
Speaker 3: for reasons we can you know, go into or people
Speaker 3: can find in my book. But we're talking about soft drinks,
Speaker 3: a massive dose of fryctose that it's not hard to
Speaker 3: get actually, so soft drinks, some smoothies, especially you know
Speaker 3: shop ones fruit juice. The metabolism really struggles with that.
Speaker 3: That's basically sending some very strange signals to the machinery
Speaker 3: of our metabolism that it's time to store fat. Basically,
Speaker 3: our ancient ancestors used insulin resistance as a way to
Speaker 3: become hungrier and store more fat. It was an adaptive thing.
Speaker 3: And now we've got this situation of mismatch with our
Speaker 3: environment where we're getting these foods that we would have
Speaker 3: never ever had constant access to you like this, and
Speaker 3: our coure metabolism is very confused. And this is why
Speaker 3: I called chapter one of the book weaken is not
Speaker 3: your fault, Like, we are living in this very strange
Speaker 3: food environment obasigenic.
Speaker 1: I heard that word about five years ago and I
Speaker 1: just went, yes, we are living in an obaesogenic environment
Speaker 1: where everything around us conditions us to you know, eat more,
Speaker 1: move less, and it's not our fault, but we do
Speaker 1: have an element of control to be able to adjust
Speaker 1: for this. But it feels uncomfortable. I was walking through
Speaker 1: the airport the other morning, could I file it took
Speaker 1: me forty five minutes to find something healthy to eat
Speaker 1: that was you know, logolycemic index that didn't have the
Speaker 1: Amiga sixers, and Laura, I just want to wrap this.
Speaker 1: I love to be super practical in healthy her and
Speaker 1: so basically what you've said we're going through our nutrition
Speaker 1: strategies is you've said we're avoiding those ultra process foods,
Speaker 1: particularly the ones with the Amiga sixers in them. We're
Speaker 1: cutting our alcohol down, we're avoiding high dose sugar. So
Speaker 1: basically any sugary drinks, I'm going to throw in artificial
Speaker 1: sweetness in there as well. My position on artificial sweetness
Speaker 1: is if you are using them as a means to
Speaker 1: get off the sugar, transition through them. But they should
Speaker 1: not be something that, you know, the diet coke you're
Speaker 1: having every afternoon, it might be something that you're transitioning through.
Speaker 2: Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean the research, as you know, is quit mixed.
Speaker 3: I think it's not ideal to land on some of
Speaker 3: the sweetness as a long term daily plan. Now, I
Speaker 3: think that if nothing else, the microbiome seems to not
Speaker 3: like them. Some are better than others. But it's a
Speaker 3: section in my book about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, great, all right, so we've got that, we've
Speaker 1: got the sugary drinks. Would you say the same for
Speaker 1: kind of high carbohydrate meals? So is that I imagine
Speaker 1: where you are going next these high glycemic index meals,
Speaker 1: your pasta's, etc.
Speaker 3: Of course, And that's where there some individuality starts to
Speaker 3: come in. And that's why the Metabolism Reset is a
Speaker 3: troubleshooting manual because it really is sort of a first step.
Speaker 3: One assessed if you have insulin resistance, how severe is it?
Speaker 3: And then what are the other things going on with you?
Speaker 3: And so that's where some decisions will need to be
Speaker 3: made about bread and pastas and wheat and particular And
Speaker 3: there truly is not one size fits all plan for that.
Speaker 3: That just truly is not. I mean, some people do
Speaker 3: need to go lower carb. And I'll just point out
Speaker 3: that one thing about a lower carb diet, which you
Speaker 3: know I support for certain individuals, it's not just the
Speaker 3: direct glycemic effect and the direct effect on insulin is
Speaker 3: actually just through my netropathic lens. It's also the fact
Speaker 3: that a lot of carbs, especially refined carbs in the
Speaker 3: diet is not great for the gut either and can
Speaker 3: drive something called CIBO or small intestinal vecteria overgrowth, but
Speaker 3: in turn directly impairs insulin sensitivity. So I know, we
Speaker 3: tend to think that the gut as maybe separate, but
Speaker 3: it's actually very involved in all of this. It's a
Speaker 3: huge signal to metabolism, and so any diet changes that
Speaker 3: improve gut health will ultimately improve metabolic health as well.
Speaker 3: And that's partly where decisions you know, do you need
Speaker 3: to avoid wheek, how much carb can you have start
Speaker 3: to come in. And there are people out there who
Speaker 3: feel well on a high whole food carb diet, and
Speaker 3: so that's fine, but some people simply don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've just touched on such an important point
Speaker 1: where this is very personalized and nuance, and we have
Speaker 1: these kind of big blanket tips as what we're talking
Speaker 1: about now. But that's why that knowledge and that self
Speaker 1: discovery I think are two really key pieces to plug together.
Speaker 1: The self discovery in you know, tracking your biomarks and
Speaker 1: understanding what really is going on internally for you, and
Speaker 1: then the knowledge and education about all right, well, if
Speaker 1: that's what they are, then what does that actually mean
Speaker 1: for the choices that I make? I think that's super important.
Speaker 1: If you're at a point with your health where you
Speaker 1: want answers, answers to your low energy, answers to that
Speaker 1: stubborn weight that won't shift, then I've got the solution
Speaker 1: for you. I have partnered with the most amazing integrative
Speaker 1: GP to bring you inner vitality. It's a brand new
Speaker 1: online program that uses over fifty biomarkers to give you
Speaker 1: an accurate picture of your unique biochemistry and the insufficiencies, deficiencies,
Speaker 1: or out of range markers that might be holding you back.
Speaker 1: We look at all aspects of your health, from your
Speaker 1: metabolic health to hormones, vitamins, minerals, liver, kidney, thyroid function
Speaker 1: and more. Then, over the eight weeks as a group,
Speaker 1: we educate you on these markers and implement the small
Speaker 1: but powerful changes needed to restore your internal balance and
Speaker 1: bring back your vitality. Visit the link in the show
Speaker 1: notes to find out more. What about intermittent fasting for
Speaker 1: insulin resistance.
Speaker 3: Research is pretty solid that it's helpful, and again there's
Speaker 3: going to be nuance. And again it's like you know
Speaker 3: what tape. Because it's such a broad umbrella, there's all
Speaker 3: different ways to do it.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people it's the overnight
Speaker 1: fasting that seems to work best, where you might finish
Speaker 1: eating dinner, say eight pm, and then you might not
Speaker 1: eat breakfast for fourteen hours, so it might be ten
Speaker 1: am or even longer for some people. I'd love your
Speaker 1: thoughts on the extended overnight fast.
Speaker 3: Overall, I think it can be beneficial and it's our
Speaker 3: natural way of eating. Like I said my book, one
Speaker 3: can call it intermittent fasting, or just call it not
Speaker 3: eating over an eight which is one hundred percent what
Speaker 3: you're a microbiome and never expect you to do. But
Speaker 3: circle back to metabolic flexibility here, because depending on the individual,
Speaker 3: actually this is another symptom. This has be actually a
Speaker 3: primary symptom of metabolic inflexibility. If people have tried even
Speaker 3: a gentle overnight fast like you're describing and got low
Speaker 3: blood sugar and panicked and felt weak and you know, dizzy,
Speaker 3: and that's metabolic inflexibility. That's not being able to successfully
Speaker 3: access your fat stores for energy.
Speaker 2: So that's literally a blood sugar crash.
Speaker 1: Like literally, even though you might have an amazing abundance
Speaker 1: of energy in your fat stores on your body, your
Speaker 1: body just can't access that fat. Oh that's so frustrating.
Speaker 1: There's so much of it there, Why can't we access it?
Speaker 3: Some people get really scared off fasting if they tried
Speaker 3: it and they felt terrible. It's like, right, So what
Speaker 3: I say then, is that's a sign of metabolic inflexibility.
Speaker 3: Take a few steps back, put in place some of
Speaker 3: the other ways to build metabolic flexibility, including getting enough protein,
Speaker 3: especially protein in the morning, you know, getting enough sleep
Speaker 3: so Katie, and rhythm moving the body. All these things
Speaker 3: can promote metabolic flexibility. And then when you're healthier, you know,
Speaker 3: and feeling better, and if you want to incorporate that
Speaker 3: kind of overnight fast then yeah, do it, and it
Speaker 3: should feel good. It shouldn't be our problem. So that
Speaker 3: even the very process of considering intrim infesting is a
Speaker 3: good diagnostic step.
Speaker 1: I think I also noticed just because a lot of us,
Speaker 1: the problem is we are overfed. Back to your point
Speaker 1: about our environment. For the majority of us, we are
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, we are overfed, we eat too much.
Speaker 1: I find that with my members that overnight fars sixtending
Speaker 1: it out where you're having almost like a brunch late
Speaker 1: in the morning and then you're basically not needing a lunch.
Speaker 1: You just have a little simple snack, which for my
Speaker 1: busy people is music to their ears. And then you're
Speaker 1: having an early dinner, which is great for my families
Speaker 1: who don't want to feel like they're having to eat
Speaker 1: some teeny tiny link cuisine for dinner and diet, and
Speaker 1: then the whole family's eating something different. You're having to
Speaker 1: cook three meals at night. I just find it works
Speaker 1: really well for a lot of my mum's out there
Speaker 1: and not having to kind of prepare three four meals
Speaker 1: a day.
Speaker 3: I would just say one thing about that is people
Speaker 3: do need to know their chrono type as well. So
Speaker 3: there are the early birds, there are those kind of
Speaker 3: people who do need like the protein smoothie or some
Speaker 3: hit in the morning, genuinely kind of need that for
Speaker 3: their system. And then there are the more night owls
Speaker 3: who love the idea of like a ten am breakfast,
Speaker 3: you know that sort of suits their body clock a
Speaker 3: lot better. So someone could write a whole book on
Speaker 3: circadian rhythm, which of course people have done, but like
Speaker 3: circadian rhythm is such a big part of their.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I love that concept of, you know, honoring
Speaker 1: the fact that we are all different. You can have owls,
Speaker 1: you can have fowls. Let's talk about menopause perimenopause, and
Speaker 1: what happens is wh're transitioning through those to a metabolic flexibility.
Speaker 3: The transition starting in about the middle part of perimenopause,
Speaker 3: around the time when maybe periods were starting to get
Speaker 3: further apart. We do get one researcher called it as
Speaker 3: a major metabolic upheaval. It's a massive calibration phase for
Speaker 3: every part of the body, including nervous system. This is
Speaker 3: I discuss recalibration in my perimenopause book, Hormone and Permanual,
Speaker 3: But our metabolism undergoes a recalibration as well. And what
Speaker 3: we basically happens is we lose the kind of metabolic
Speaker 3: superpower of estrogen. So the way I think about it
Speaker 3: now is during our reproductive years we get this gift
Speaker 3: of estrogen. You know, I would argue we're not necessarily
Speaker 3: meant to have it forever. We can talk about that,
Speaker 3: whether we supplement it after menopause or not. But it
Speaker 3: gives us some enhanced insulin sensitivity compared to men the
Speaker 3: same age, which is actually extremely interesting. And then of
Speaker 3: course losing that or starting to lose that, we become
Speaker 3: naturally a bit more insulin resistant. Now, again for our ancestors,
Speaker 3: that wouldn't have been a problem because they had metabolic flexibility.
Speaker 3: They've just kind of shift to sort of a leaner
Speaker 3: version of, you know, more fat burning version of metabolic flexibility.
Speaker 3: But in our modern food environment that does quite dramatically
Speaker 3: increase the risk of insulin resistance with the paramenopause transition.
Speaker 3: And again there's ways to mitigate that, but it's just
Speaker 3: something we all need to be aware of. That's why
Speaker 3: we get this thickening around the waist in our forties
Speaker 3: and into our fifties, and that classic sort of hour
Speaker 3: glass shape starts to change. Along with the insulin resistance
Speaker 3: of perimenopause goes. We become relatively dominant in androgens or
Speaker 3: testosterone compared to estrogen and progesterone. That's also part of
Speaker 3: the body shape change. Would become less hourglass, more square.
Speaker 1: Usually and so when you're talking about these strategies to
Speaker 1: mitigate this, are you referring to these same strategies through
Speaker 1: perry and menopause. Is there something else we can be
Speaker 1: doing on top of some of the tips you've just
Speaker 1: mentioned through nutrition, and I want to talk about some
Speaker 1: lifestyle tips as well. Is it the same, but we've
Speaker 1: just got to be more aware that our hormones are
Speaker 1: working against us during these years.
Speaker 3: So it's the same. And then there's the option of
Speaker 3: estrogen therapy. But it's the same, and it sort of
Speaker 3: answers the question of why people are like that is
Speaker 3: just how it is now. So an example might be
Speaker 3: we talked about, you know, dialing the caribs up and down,
Speaker 3: like it might be that, yeah, you could get away
Speaker 3: with you know, muffins and bread and stuff in your thirties,
Speaker 3: but now you can't and may never be able to again.
Speaker 3: And I have a section of my book called letting
Speaker 3: go of what You're used to. So the fact that
Speaker 3: we're used to eating these baked goods, packaged commercial breads,
Speaker 3: those foods were never normal from a biological perspective. They
Speaker 3: were never healthy for us. It just meant when we
Speaker 3: were younger we could get away with them.
Speaker 1: Doctor Yasmina on our program calls it your metabolic engine changing.
Speaker 1: So you might have been unlettered petrol before and now
Speaker 1: it's switched to diesel, and if you don't switch the fuel,
Speaker 1: then you know your engine's not going to work as efficiently.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was quite a visual.
Speaker 3: That's a really good analogy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, great way to explain it. I want to
Speaker 1: touch on exercise. I think we all know that sleeping
Speaker 1: well and managing stress and all of that is and
Speaker 1: it's such a broad topic, so I'm going to park
Speaker 1: those because let's assume that we are sleeping well and
Speaker 1: managing our stress, which I'm sure my audience is laughing, going,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, right, as best as we can with exercise
Speaker 1: any Obviously, exercise is good for this, but do you
Speaker 1: have any key strategies when it comes to exercise to
Speaker 1: help prevent or reverse our insulin resistance?
Speaker 3: I mean, the research comes down, you know, it's pretty
Speaker 3: clear that strength chraining is probably one of the winners.
Speaker 3: Strength training combined with vigorous walking or swimming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that cardiovascular as well. But a lot of us
Speaker 1: are very happy with our walks and we're kind of
Speaker 1: out and we're doing that. But I do see the
Speaker 1: challenge for a lot of people is when they want
Speaker 1: to do strength training and then then like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do. The gym's very male dominated,
Speaker 1: it's very intimidating, or I am injured, or I'm scared
Speaker 1: of getting injured. It's a much more challenging shift if
Speaker 1: people haven't been doing strength training all their adult life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll just say a couple of things about it.
Speaker 3: First of all, just I think for anyone out there,
Speaker 3: depending on how active you have been or the first
Speaker 3: step is just to do anything, like just whatever movement
Speaker 3: you enjoy, Yeah, is like great, don't overthink it. One
Speaker 3: thing I worry about is like all the detailed advice
Speaker 3: about exercise, and some people that I've talked to are
Speaker 3: just kind of left going, well, I don't know what
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: So it's too hard not going to do anything. So
Speaker 1: get your shoes on, get out the door. That's step one.
Speaker 3: Yes, whatever it is. And in terms of strength training,
Speaker 3: I do confess in the book that although scientifically I'm
Speaker 3: all on strength training it seems to be incredible, I
Speaker 3: don't actually do it myself.
Speaker 1: Lara, this is your wet fish slap from me to you.
Speaker 2: It is time to practice what you preach.
Speaker 1: Young lady. And I hope everyone laughs that even us
Speaker 1: experts have our Achilles heels?
Speaker 3: Is it true? And it's because of all the things
Speaker 3: like I don't like going to the gym. I don't
Speaker 3: we don't have any rates at home. But what I've
Speaker 3: done so far to get around that, just to work
Speaker 3: in with my own practice, is I am using resistance
Speaker 3: bands and static plank and squats and stuff as part
Speaker 3: of my at home yoga practice. I've tried to make
Speaker 3: it a bit more like a strength building version of yoga.
Speaker 3: So there are ways to do it. There are ways
Speaker 3: to kind of dial up that muscle building without getting
Speaker 3: too complicated.
Speaker 1: All right, So what I'm hearing, whether she's doing it
Speaker 1: or not, guys, she wants us to strength train, and
Speaker 1: I've got lots of episodes on that.
Speaker 2: Let's just at a high level.
Speaker 1: And even if I think also starting with the pilates
Speaker 1: class is great because that's a good stepping stone, but
Speaker 1: you do need to lift everything. So all right, and
Speaker 1: what about them talking about other strategies such as supplements
Speaker 1: or you know, medications. I think, particularly for someone listening
Speaker 1: who has been diagnosed with insulin resistance or pre diabetes,
Speaker 1: Are there any medical or supplement treatments you recommend? And
Speaker 1: I'd like to exclude golp ones like a zen pic
Speaker 1: because I'm actually going to do a whole episode on
Speaker 1: this in a few weeks. But what about like met foreman, myoenosatole,
Speaker 1: specialized probiotics like acremensia.
Speaker 3: So there's lots of options. I mean, met Forman is
Speaker 3: the most popular, and it definitely does help improves insulin sensitivity.
Speaker 2: Can we take it preventatively?
Speaker 3: I think they're better things than that. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: not a lot of my patients do take that form
Speaker 3: and I'm not against it, you know, so if it's
Speaker 3: been working, it's been helping, that's fine. You do have
Speaker 3: to watch provitamin B twelve deficiency with that medication in particular,
Speaker 3: and fortunately met foreman can be combined with a lot
Speaker 3: of the other things. Some of the supplements I'll give
Speaker 3: you the top five supplements in my book. They're what
Speaker 3: I call my metabolic Supplements Combo for insulin resistance. People
Speaker 3: don't have to buy the book to learn what they
Speaker 3: are and again, you don't to take all of them,
Speaker 3: but any combination. So I think the most important and
Speaker 3: descending order of importance are magnesium. A lot of people
Speaker 3: probably know, but I call it the natural meta form in.
Speaker 3: Some experts think that deficiency of magnesium, or subclinical deficiency
Speaker 3: of magnesium in our food supply is a major driver
Speaker 3: of insulin resistance. I don't think it's that simple.
Speaker 1: But I cannot tell you of all the markers that
Speaker 1: are insufficient or out of range. So cholesterol was the
Speaker 1: highest in my members, or LDL triglycerides, Magnesium everyone so low,
Speaker 1: and it's such an innocuous It's not like some of
Speaker 1: the other nutrients where there's enough limit.
Speaker 2: You've got to be careful.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can really just keep taking this stuff
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 3: It's very safe except for people who have pre existing
Speaker 3: kidney disease. It doesn't harm kidneys in a healthy person,
Speaker 3: but like if someone else has got something else going on,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's fine to try to test it with
Speaker 3: blood test, but I'll just say for people, even if
Speaker 3: it's normal on a blood test, that doesn't mean it's normal.
Speaker 3: Insight the mitochondria, which is where it's supposed to be
Speaker 3: So my five are magnesium and aminosi called taurine, which
Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan of a lot of Australian supplements
Speaker 3: combined magnesium in turine for their metabolic powers together than innocetol,
Speaker 3: which is that you mentioned. It had quite a bit
Speaker 3: of randomized control trial evidence for improving insulin sensitivity and
Speaker 3: women with pcos and menopause. Then glycine is another amino
Speaker 3: acid I'm a huge fan of. It's antiaging, it shelters
Speaker 3: the liver from high dost feructose to some extent, it
Speaker 3: helps with sleep. It's built into some of the magnesium
Speaker 3: formulas as well. And then the fifth one is coline,
Speaker 3: which is I call it a missing metabolic nutrient because
Speaker 3: we used to eat a lot more of it when
Speaker 3: we used to eat organ meats. So coline is found
Speaker 3: in eggs, it's found in liver, and it's one of
Speaker 3: the ones where, especially if people don't eat a lot
Speaker 3: of eggs or seafood, they are probably not coming anywhere
Speaker 3: close to the recommended daily allowance for coline. The other
Speaker 3: important sign of insulin resistance is fatty liver, and that
Speaker 3: correlates with the high alt that I mentioned, So or
Speaker 3: someone might have seen fatty liver on an ultrasound. Colling
Speaker 3: is known to prevent and reverse fatty liver. So it's
Speaker 3: pretty important for a metabolic health. And we can obtain
Speaker 3: it from food or supplements.
Speaker 2: Oh, they are wonderful.
Speaker 1: And I mean you've just listed a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: practical things we can do, then supplements we can add,
Speaker 1: and really it's not about doing a whole overhaul. It's
Speaker 1: really about picking these targeted elements.
Speaker 2: Of our lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Whether it be Okay, I am going to try to
Speaker 1: introduce a little bit of strength training, I am going
Speaker 1: to pull out those sugary drinks out of my diet
Speaker 1: and wean off them. And that's how I would love you,
Speaker 1: beautiful listeners, to think about what can I just slowly
Speaker 1: pick away at in my life to help. And it
Speaker 1: really does make a big difference with this journey that
Speaker 1: we're talking about from insulin resistance ultimately to type two diabetes.
Speaker 1: And so, Laura, I guess I want to wrap up
Speaker 1: with a question to you for a woman who is
Speaker 1: struggle with stubborn weight and thinks maybe she does tick
Speaker 1: the box for insulin resistance or even pre diabetes. Out
Speaker 1: of everything we've touched on today. What is one thing
Speaker 1: she could go and do today to shift into that
Speaker 1: path of restoring her metabolic balance.
Speaker 3: Step number one is solidify and support circadian rhythm. We
Speaker 3: did talk about circadian rhythm, talking about fasting, overnight sleeping.
Speaker 3: I just shared on my social media aligning all the
Speaker 3: different body clocks inside our body can do a lot
Speaker 3: for antiaging and metabolic health. So that's a nice easy fix,
Speaker 3: you know, getting outside in the morning, sheltering from blue
Speaker 3: light at night. That's an easy one. And then a
Speaker 3: lot of the other changes that need to be made
Speaker 3: can feel easier to make.
Speaker 1: Oh that's wonderful, and that just ties it all in
Speaker 1: so nicely, that cycadian rhythm and that flow that we
Speaker 1: go through throughout the day. Now, Lara, I have not
Speaker 1: got a hard copy of your brand new book because
Speaker 1: it's literally just out, but I do hear have a
Speaker 1: copy of your amazing Hormone Repair Manual. And for any
Speaker 1: of you that watch my videos all or listen to
Speaker 1: my workshops, you will see that Lara's book, The Hormone
Speaker 1: Repair Manual, sits on my desk the whole time, and
Speaker 1: it's covered in dog ears and green highlighter, anyone going
Speaker 1: through perimenopause or menopause, the Hormone Repair Manual you must
Speaker 1: must get. And anyone who is feeling that they might
Speaker 1: be metabolically inflexible. Your new book, The Metabolism Reset is
Speaker 1: absolutely there and there you're holding that up now. For
Speaker 1: those watching this on video, Lara Brighton, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your time today, Thanks for having me, Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Healthy Hair. If you're at a point
Speaker 1: with your health where you want answers, answers to your
Speaker 1: low energy, answers to that stubborn weight that won't shift,
Speaker 1: then I've got the solution for you. I have partnered
Speaker 1: with the most amazing integrative GP to bring you Inner Vitality,
Speaker 1: a brand new online program that uses over fifty buyer
Speaker 1: markers to give you an accurate picture of your unique
Speaker 1: biochemistry and any imbalancers.
Speaker 2: Then, over eight weeks, we educate.
Speaker 1: You on these markers and implement the small but powerful
Speaker 1: changes needed to restore your internal balance.
Speaker 2: Visit the link in the show notes to find out more.