Metabolic Health

This week we are talking about metabolic health....what does that even mean? Most know that being metabolically unhealthy can lead to chronic disease, but many don't know the different components that make up metabolic health. In this episode we dive into the optimal ranges for things like insulin, blood sugar, triglycerides, cholesterol and inflammation markers, and how to improve metabolic health.

If you have questions, or topics that you want to hear about, head over to our Instagrams https://www.instagram.com/bayleethedietitian/ or https://www.instagram.com/brianna.dietitian/ and send us a DM!

Featured Mocktails:

Jigsaw - https://www.instagram.com/jigsaw_health/

Electrolyte Powder Plus - https://www.instagram.com/powdervitamin/

Click play, sip back, and be empowered.

Transcript

Baylee: 0:23

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of Mocktail Minutes. This is Bailey.

Brianna: 0:28

And this is Brianna.

Baylee: 0:29

This week, I'm drinking Berrylicious Jigsaw Electrolytes. They're pretty good. I, sometimes I think they taste like medicine, but today, I think it's the colder the water you have, the better they taste.

Brianna: 0:42

Yeah, you're right. That's interesting. I'm doing the electrolyte powder plus strawberry kiwi. It's more of a tamer taste, but it's kind of my go to if you're needing to get in potassium.

Baylee: 0:54

Yeah,

Brianna: 0:55

Because it's, it's like the element of potassium products. It's because it's like a thousand milligrams of potassium.

Baylee: 1:01

I should probably get that. I need more potassium.

Brianna: 1:04

I know, man.

Baylee: 1:05

Let me try and,

Brianna: 1:06

Me too. I need it. And I feel like I'm doing so good. I'm like, I'm still low on it.

Baylee: 1:11

yes, this week we are talking about metabolic health. So we did an episode on your metabolism and we had an episode last week where we met with a functional med practitioner. He dove into cholesterol. We talked a little bit about metabolic health, health, but we wanted to dive more into metabolic health and the real root of heart disease. So let's jump into what actually is metabolic health. So It's basically how efficiently your body is processing and using energy. So when you're eat again, your body is breaking down this food into the fuel, mostly glucose and fatty acids. And your metabolism is then going to determine how well your body is converting that into energy instead of storing it as fat or letting it cause. However, it's been found that only about 12 percent of adults are metabolically healthy. So this means 80 percent of people have some level of insulin resistance, high blood sugar, high triglycerides or poor lipid markers, and metabolic dysfunction is a major driver of heart disease. It's way beyond just like cholesterol. And we talked all about that last episode

Brianna: 2:28

Yeah, and you know, we'll kind of, the five markers of a good, like, good metabolic health are going to include like a fasting blood sugar HbA1c, triglycerides, HDL, and then the weight, waste to weight ratio, which I don't really feel like it's talked about that much, but if you didn't listen to last week's episode, go back and listen, because he actually gives some really good, like, functional, optimal ranges for what these numbers should be. Ideally, your fasting blood sugar should be under 90, maybe under 95 HbA1c like 4. 5. 4 to 5. 5 or less, I mean, I'm totally fine with an HbA1c or less triglycerides optimally under 80 and then fasting insulin is another one of those, and that should be under 7, which You know, again, go listen to it. Cause there's a lot of tests that you're probably not getting done. Like I will have people come in and like, Oh yeah, I'm doing my blood work. Like everything was in good range. But like some of these aren't on there, fasting insulin is almost never on there or they're using just the standard lab ranges and maybe they're not optimal. So these are kind of things to like keep track of and follow trends because they're really going to be showing you the bigger picture of what your metabolic health looks like.

Baylee: 3:46

and even HDL Dylan had mentioned last week, kind of, we want it above 60. And then the last one that you had mentioned is the waist to height ratio. So we want that less than 0. 5 and basically just meaning your waist should be less than half of your height when we are measuring that. So those are your five markers of metabolic health. Now, the connection between poor metabolic health and your heart, so again, it's not the cholesterol that's the problem. It's the high blood sugar, the inflammation, the insulin resistance. So when just thinking about insulin resistance and cholesterol, when your cells stop responding to insulin, your body compensates by making more insulin. So this increases fat storage, inflammation, and high blood pressure. Insulin resistance also raises triglycerides and lowers HDL. We don't want that. And small dense LDL particles are more likely to oxidize and cause arterial damage. And guess what? Insulin resistance makes LDL smaller and denser. This is why, I mean, blood sugar balancing is going to be foundation for literally everything.

Brianna: 4:58

Oh yeah and it's like the hill I'll die on and it's funny because you know I talk about blood sugar balance pretty much with everyone even if they didn't come in with like blood sugar issues or anything like that and they always ask me like no like I think my blood sugar is good I don't know if I need to focus on that and I tell them like you know like taking care of your blood sugar is going to help make sure that all these other things stay in line so really when we're talking about you know okay let's have a healthful diet you The problem isn't carbs from like whole food sources, and it's not really from, you know, fats from whole food sources. The biggest driving factor is going to be cutting back on your processed carbs and processed sugar. Just because sugar and refined carbs, they spike insulin and they lead to fat storage. And so, you know, your quality of your meal and the quality of your food and the portions of the things you're doing really do drive how your body is. Using and storing nutrients, which is very important. It's much more important than the caloric amount of your meal, right? Like, yeah, that matters, but also so does like the quality and portions of it. And so I just, I think that's like a place I, I start with almost everyone is like, Hey, let's just improve the quality of your food because that's one of the most, I mean, there's a couple of major things you could do, but I mean, we eat three to four times a day. So three or four times a day, you have a chance to kind of make a good choice for your metabolic health.

Baylee: 6:23

Yes. And just how we mentioned again, this last episode, think about your good, better, best situations. Like if you typically go to the gas station and you buy a donut every day, maybe not the best option. So instead of grabbing a donut, grab a breakfast pizza, I'd rather you grab that than a donut. That'd be a good option. Better option. Maybe you grab like, well, he goes yogurt. Best option, you're making some eggs, having some berries on the side, and maybe a little avocado toast. I don't know. But when we're talking about like cutting out, we're cutting back on processed carbs and sugar, we really just want you to dive into, okay, how can I just revamp, how can I elevate what I am currently doing? And I mean, I see it all the time. We are so hesitant to change what we're doing because healthy food doesn't taste good or whatever your

Brianna: 7:22

Or it's hard.

Baylee: 7:23

Yeah. It's hard. It costs much. I mean, there's literally been a study done that it actually doesn't cost more. It's all about like, what are we actually, what are we actually doing here? So just start making small changes, get out of your own way, get out of your own head with that.

Brianna: 7:42

And I like the concept of the good, better, best, because you don't have to jump from not so great to best. You don't have to do that. Something is always better than nothing. Slowly making those changes where it feels sustainable is going to be the best thing that you can do. And I always tell people like, take it a meal at a time, take it you know, whatever the situation is at a time, do the best you can do there. If it's not the ultimately most fantastic thing, whatever, you made the best of it. And I think we as people are just like, if it can't be the best, then it doesn't matter. And we kind of just like, eh, screw it. Like we'll figure this out next meal or whatever. And we just go straight for that. Like we're going all in, in left field, you know, that's why people feel overwhelmed.

Baylee: 8:23

Absolutely. The next thing you can work on is strength training and just walking. So Cool. Muscle muscle is basically like a sponge for insulin. It's going to help soak up glucose and help keep your blood sugar level stable. So you want to shrink, train two to four times a week, and then you can also just walk, especially walking after meals. That's going to improve your insulin sensitivity, but just walking throughout the day, move your body all throughout the day. If you're going to the gym for one hour, great, but I still want you walking throughout the day.

Brianna: 8:56

I still want you moving other parts of the day and I really like, you know, when people are stressed out about, okay, I can't do a 30 minute walk a day or, you know, starting a movement routine is really overwhelming. I really like to do like the biggest thing for your buck and that's walking after meals because you're really going to help your body utilize. You're going to feel more energized. And we used to say, it's like, you know, you need a 15 to 20 minute walk, but like newer research says two to five minutes is still beneficial. So if you can walk five minutes after every meal, that's 15 minutes of movement a day. And I feel like it feels a little less overwhelming to people to break it up in those segments than a whole, you know, 30 minutes, 15 minutes a day. But yes. Yeah. Thanks. Move your body. We're very sedentary. I think that's another issue is our quality of food has gone down, but also we just don't move. I could do everything from sitting really, if I wanted to, you know?

Baylee: 9:53

Really good. The next thing. You could try intermittent fasting. With that being said, I'm not talking like. 18 hour fast here talking like a 12 hour fast because not only is going longer between meals, like four showers between meals, it's going to help lower your insulin levels. It's going to help give your digestive system a break as well. So about that time between meals, but also like 12 hours from the time between dinner and breakfast, the next day is a good break on your body as well, too.

Brianna: 10:28

optimal time to do it like overnight because your body is doing all kinds of things. And I feel like sometimes people listen to this, especially women, and they're like, Oh, cool. Yeah, I'm already doing it. And then it gives them an excuse to like not eat for the first time for the day until like 12 o'clock. That's not what we're saying. So if you ate breakfast at 7 p. m., you're, I mean, if you ate dinner at 7 p. m., you're having breakfast at 7 a. m., like that sort of thing. That could be really helpful to increase your insulin sensitivity. The next one, and we always, I feel like the, the last two in this one, we're talking about literally every single episode, at least in some way. But I can't, I mean, it is what it is. We can't drive it home enough, get enough sleep and manage stress. So we know poor sleep and chronic stress. They raise cortisol. This leads to inflammation, insulin resistance. It's just like a perfect storm, really. So aiming for that seven to nine hours of quality sleep, really doing things throughout the day to lower your stress, stress reduction, like meditation, like just taking little breathing breaks. Like sometimes I tell people like set an alarm on your phone to go off to just like take five to seven deep breaths, you know, because we're not like breathing. We're like shallow breathing, running around doing our things. Like we're in this chronic state of stress all day long. So really just trying to be mindful and proactive about stress.

Baylee: 11:47

And then the last thing that we actually talked about last episode as well, reducing seed oils as reducing seed oil. So this is going to be your granola, your soybean, corn oil, because they're going to promote inflammation. We want to focus more on the whole food, healthy fats, avocado oil, butter, coconut products, fat from animal products. Those are going to be your better options. So, yes, those are five things that you can work on to start improving your metabolic health. Naturally, now, again, don't go tomorrow trying to do all five of these things. Just pick one part to focus on for a month. See how you feel with it. It's just changing the small things at a time. When we talk about the seed oils or the processed foods also know that we do have these foods in our house. I mean, I'll see for myself. I don't know about bringing them,

Brianna: 12:41

Yeah, I do. I have them.

Baylee: 12:43

but it's not making up a majority of what's in our pantry and in our fridge and what we're doing every day. So it just takes slow swaps, seeing what you do most often. That's what's going to matter. I don't care about your one off Oreo.

Brianna: 12:57

Right. Exactly. And just understanding that metabolic health is the foundation to your heart health. Weight maintenance, longevity, etc. So, really starting to think about things overall in the big picture instead of just, you know, how much do I weigh or, you know, how many calories am I eating? Like, really thinking deeper. How can I help my overall metabolic health? Because if you really focus on your metabolic health, everything else follows.

Baylee: 13:25

Yes. Well, thank you everyone for listening to this week's episode. We'll be back next week with a brand new topic. We will talk to you then. Bye.

Brianna: 13:36

Okay, bye.