Mocktail Minutes

Improving Your Biomarkers With Lifestyle Changes

• Mocktail Minutes • Episode 142

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Lifestyle changes make a major impact on your health. The cool thing is, you can track these changes with regular blood work and with monitoring at home. In this episode we talk about 4 important biomarkers that can improve with lifestyle changes and what changes to implement to make it happen. 


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! You can also follow the podcast https://www.instagram.com/mocktailminutes/


Featured Mocktails: 

Liquid IV

Gorgie 

Click play, sip back, and be empowered.

Baylee:

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

Brianna:

This is Brianna.

Baylee:

I was gonna do another spin Drift soda. The Shirley Temple one. Everyone is doing Shirley Temple flavored right now.

Brianna:

mm-hmm.

Baylee:

I was like, let's try it out. Not good. I wanted to vomit after my first drink.

Brianna:

Horrible.

Baylee:

It tastes, I don't know, something was off, didn't like it, so I grabbed a different drink and it's the gorge. I'm really, I'm becoming a big fan of this company, Gorge or Georgie, however you say it. We're gonna call it Gorge.

Brianna:

I say gorge like gorgeous gorge. I

Baylee:

That's how I try and think about it. And this one is this sparkling tropical punch, but it's like an energy drink, but it's like green tea, caffeine. It's got some B12 in it. And no added sugars, so we do love that. What is it sweetened with? Natural fruit punch flavor. There's no stevia, monk fruit or anything in it.

Brianna:

Does it taste good?

Baylee:

It is really good. I, so far, I think I've had three different ones of these, and I liked all the flavors. I mean, oh yeah. On the can, it does say no aspartame, no erythritol, no superlo. I got some Lthe in it too.

Brianna:

I like,

Baylee:

Mm-hmm.

Brianna:

I'm doing, I used to be a big fan of the liquid iv, like a half of a regular one when I would like be outside a lot sweating. Hiking, doing all the things, but I have never tried the sugar free. And I was at, where was I at CVS and they're at the checkout, so I got the white Peach Sugar free Liquid iv. It's actually really good.

Baylee:

That's what I recommend for most of my people to do the sugar free one. I'm like, unless you're using it like prior to your workout, just do sugar free for the liquid IV because this sweet Stevia, isn't it?

Brianna:

Yeah. It's like Stevia. A little bit of allulose, but it's really good and it has like. A good amount of sodium and potassium. Like I feel like it's a good balance. I the other, the only other time I did liquid IV was like a couple years ago, I went on a bachelorette trip and I was like, I need to survive. So I religiously drank Liquid IV and water.'cause we were like outside. It saved my life. Thank you. Liquid iv. But I don't recommend doing that either. But yes, so sugar-free, white peach. I really like egg.

Baylee:

This week we are talking about how some lifestyle changes will improve biomarkers. Just in case you don't know, bio biomarkers are just things you can measure from your body that tell us how well different systems are functioning. So like when you get a blood test. The things you get from your blood test, like your glucose, your A1C, sodium, potassium, all these different things. Whereas from like urine test, saliva test, it could be physical measurements. It's like blood pressure, waist circumference, or it could be like your wearable data, like if you have an AA ring or a watch or this is looking at like your heart rate or your sleep. These are all biomarkers and they can indicate like your metabolic health, your cardiovascular risk, your inflammation, your hormonal balance, your nutrient status, your stress, your recovery. And so there's a couple different things. We can look at like fasting glucose is how well your body manages sugar without anything there, you're fasted and there's no food. Insulin fasting insulin is how hard your body has to work to control your sugar. A1C is taking like an average blood sugar over three months. Your cholesterol tells us like about your fat transport and your heart risk, your heart disease risk. Blood pressure tells us the strain on your heart and your already already AR arteries. And then like CRP, that's an inflammation marker. Your HRV, we had an episode on this that tells us your like nervous system imbalance and recovery. So those are some biomarkers. And then when we talk about lifestyle changes, these are basically your daily behaviors that kind of, they can shape your internal environment and affect your. Biomarkers. So it's things that you are doing each day that you're changing that's gonna make an impact on your health. So nutrition, movement, sleep, nervous system regulation, alcohol intake your body composition. And so we're gonna connect some of these dots and kind of go over some biomarkers and what lifestyle factors can affect them.

Brianna:

And these are ones I tell people to pay attention to, and I think a lot of times we don't pay attention to them or we don't get them because we're like, oh, I'm not old enough. Or maybe your doctor didn't like tell you need blood work. But these are things that kind of like keep an eye on because you may be like a healthy weight. Or you may be like, fine with like how you're feeling, but it doesn't mean like in the background things aren't happening and it's way better to jump on something when you start to see it going wrong, rather than waiting for it to be like a disaster. So fasting insulin, this, this is one of our favorites. I feel like we, we always talk about this. This is one that's probably not gonna be on a normal panel. We've talked about like a normal CCB CBC panel and things like that, but you can ask your doctor to order it. Insurance usually covers it. If not, it's like, I think between 12 and 25 bucks out of pocket. But insulin is a hormone that regulates your blood sugar. So we need it in order to utilize glucose. Correctly. Like if you, if you can't utilize glucose, you're in a lot of trouble. Your fasting insulin should be low, right? Because in theory, you haven't been eating anything. Insulin does not need to come out and do its job. It should be low. But a lot of times we start to see insulin being high. When our cells are not listening to insulin very well. So, and this is like with all hormones, you have receptors on the cells. If you are not, if your body's not utilizing it or listening to really well, your body will make more to be like, Hey, please listen to me. So high insulin and blood tells us, your body is not using glucose well, like your body's having a hard time listening to insulin. This is eventually what leads to type two diabetes. And so. Knowing what your fasting insulin is like you could be insulin resistant for like 10, 15 years before pre-diabetes or diabetes. So it's something that you can get a early read on in order to help your fasting insulin. Us. It does say that you can make changes in like two to eight weeks. I feel like if maybe, but if you do have like insulin resistance, I think I, I see it like a little bit longer, but the things that you do can impact it pretty quickly. And one of the things is gonna be eating a like. Balanced diet, not eating a lot of carbohydrates, especially like the quick burning carbohydrates. Doing a more like plant forward, as in like actually eat your color. Eat fiber. Choose fiber rich carbohydrates. That is something that's gonna be really important. And in trials, like in research, we do see like two weeks of eating more fiber, more color, more fiber, rich carbs. You do see an impact in fasting insulin, which is substantial.

Baylee:

Exercise is the other biggest thing that's gonna move the needles. Not only strength training, but even like aerobic. Exercise and the key is that you have to do it for a period of time.

Brianna:

Mm-hmm.

Baylee:

And so there was actually a study that showed eight weeks of aerobic training can decrease your fasting insulin, but four weeks wasn't enough to show results. You know how many times that I've had people start a routine, they do it for two weeks and they're like, nothing changed.

Brianna:

Yeah.

Baylee:

I tell people, I'm like, if you're. If you want to see changes from your new workout routine, you have to give it 12 weeks. You

Brianna:

Mm-hmm.

Baylee:

to give it 12 weeks. I mean, my, when I typically fall, like a progressive overload program, it's a 12 week program broken down into three phases. You can't do something for two weeks and expect to have these major life altering changes. So doing a workout plan. Can help your insulin resistance and doing it for a longer period of time at, according to this study, at least eight weeks, that's where you're gonna start to see those results. And again, like Brianna said, like there some people can take longer than eight weeks too.

Brianna:

It like depends on where you're at, you know? Yeah.

Baylee:

yeah. And not everyone is gonna respond to insulin in the same way. Your genetics, your body composition and lifestyle history all create different baselines of where insulin is at. This is exactly why, I mean, this is with a lot of things in our body, we respond differently to things. This is why two people can eat the exact same and have different results. And so in general, we know if you eat more fiber. If you eat consistently, if you do more strength training and build muscle, if you participate in like aerobic movement as well, you will have a better insulin biomarker.

Brianna:

Yeah. Yeah. And why plants or veggies? Fiber is so important because I think we're, we're getting better at getting the protein down, but the antioxidant rich plants can kind of shift your gut bacteria, which implo improve insulin sensitivity, so you have less intestinal inflammation, you metabolize your food better. That gut bacteria is gonna play a role in how your body listens to insulin. So. Eat your fruits and vegetables.

Baylee:

this is often, I can see this elevated before glucose and A1C.

Brianna:

Yeah.

Baylee:

We don't check it a lot, which is very frustrating. So that brings us to another one. Your hemoglobin A1C. This measures your average blood sugar level over the last about three months. Based on how many of your red blood cells have a G glucose molecule attached? A high hemoglobin A1C is a sign of prediabetes or even type two diabetes.

Brianna:

Yeah.

Baylee:

So this is also something we want to. Shift to be a little bit lower, and the Mediterranean diet has, as has been seen to be effective for lowering this. But like this diet, it's rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, nuts. So if you've been here, you know that we promote protein, fat fiber with our meals.

Brianna:

Yeah.

Baylee:

like some protein. I mean, I guess I didn't really list protein there, but bad fiber, healthy fats and fiber rich foods. So prioritizing those whole foods, that fiber, those healthy fats that can be helpful for improving your A1C, but also again, your movement. Movement is going to be helpful here. Now there are studies that show HIT training helps reduce A1C Now. I think you should prioritize strength training over hi training, especially if you don't feel good, and especially if your body is going through a lot of inflammation or if you feel a lot of puffiness right now, hi training probably isn't a great option for you and you probably shouldn't also be doing it five days a week. So starting with some resistance training and then maybe moving into a combination of resistance plus. A little bit of hit training, like one day a week even can help. But your A1C, I would say 12 weeks at least to change. Usually you don't wanna check A1C more than three months because I mean, it's a three month average, so you wanna give it some time to adjust. And your A1C rises when your average blood glucose or your blood sugar rises. You can also see that happen when you eat a lot of quick digesting carbs and more sugars. So again, fibroid foods, slow digesting carbs, you're gonna have less blood sugar swings, which lowers that. A1C.

Brianna:

and I would say like a statistically significant change would be like a 0.5. So if you go from, a 6.5 to a six significant different Yeah. And you're probably not gonna see that in less than. 12 weeks. So 12 weeks. The next one is gonna be LDL or like lousy. That's like how I always remember it. L is lousy, lousy cholesterol. So in excess is low density. Lipoprotein can accumulate in your arteries and this increases your risk of cardiovascular disease. So we know, again, there's a theme. Diet's high in fiber. Healthy fats, so like, you know, nuts, legumes, seeds, plant sterols, those sort of things. Those reduce your LDL. They reduce your risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases, and this can be as soon as three weeks to a year. Again, I think you can make improvements to your cholesterol within three weeks. But really to see that significant change, test it longer, like probably six, nine months because there's a lot going on in terms of. Cholesterol

Baylee:

And this is where we want to reduce saturated fats that we're eating. Not that saturated fats are bad. We think you should get some whole food saturated fats in, but we don't want all of our fats to be coming from saturated fats. And this is like, ideally you're getting this from dairy products, animal proteins, we're gonna have some saturated fats in it, like coconut products, things like that. But we also wanna make sure we're getting enough. Polyunsaturated fats because that's actually going to enhance receptor activity and improve how cholesterol is being packaged and transported.

Brianna:

transported.

Baylee:

And then strength and endurance exercise also can boost the function of your HDL. So a lot of times people are like, L DL is high. HDL is low. How do I increase my HDL?

Brianna:

Mm-hmm.

Baylee:

fats and movement. We, we've gotten really, really bad about movement. I feel like.

Brianna:

Yeah. Yes, it's so low and I've, I've worked with a lot of people like long term on like outpatient for cholesterol and yes, like increasing fiber. Amazing, increasing like your polyunsaturated fats from like, you know, fish walnuts, like sees all that perfect called liver oil grate. But like the last thing that actually really moves, this is movement. And I sometimes have to have like a come to Jesus talk with people like, hey.

Baylee:

It's very interesting because when we think about weight loss, everyone thinks about diet and exercise, but it's like we feel like we have to sign up for burn bootcamp type of thing.

Brianna:

Mm-hmm.

Baylee:

Like just go lift some weights or just, just do it. You're not gonna be motivated. Stop waiting for that motivation.

Brianna:

Or like just move your body at all, like.

Baylee:

Move it more than needed yesterday.

Brianna:

we consistently overestimate how much we move. Like that is something I have definitely come to learn as,

Baylee:

If I,

Brianna:

with someone, people overestimate it.

Baylee:

mm-hmm. If I am not intentional about like, adding movement into my day, my workday could be like 3000 steps.

Brianna:

And that's the thing is like, we're still busy, so you feel like I've done so much today. I am, I've done, I got so much done today. Work was crazy, blah. But you haven't like moved. And I've had some people where I'm like, oh, like they have an Apple watcher or a Garin or a Fitbit or something, but like they don't really pay attention to their steps. When they start paying attention to it, they're like, oh, like. I'm getting like 2000 steps a day. Like I'm gonna need you to increase that.

Baylee:

The last one to, that's a big one to look at, is blood pressure. This one is often checked. Probably every time you go to the doctor, they're gonna check your blood pressure. When you have high blood pressure, blood pushes too hard on the walls of your arteries, it's causing a lot of stress, and this is what damages your blood vessels and organs and leads to heart attack, stroke, kidney problems. So we put a lot of focus on low sodium here,

Brianna:

A ton.

Baylee:

and what I have found, a lot of people who have high blood pressure, it's not necessarily the sodium. That's the problem. I think it's more we're just not doing whole foods. Like if you're doing more Whole Foods, great, but also like if you had 600 milligrams of sodium at each meal, you're only at 1800, most of the time you want it to be under 2000 milligrams

Brianna:

Yeah,

Baylee:

a day. And then I also see like

Brianna:

food that's doing it.

Baylee:

yes, and the lack of blood sugar balance. We're seeing how blood sugar actually affects your blood pressure too.

Brianna:

Yeah. And the thing is, is again, like you said, like go to the doctors. They're gonna be like, cut your sodium, cut your sodium. But eating potassium kind of counter axi. So sodium, potassium work, you know, with each other. So yeah. Okay. Maybe decreasing some sodium, especially if you're getting it from like a lot of fast food or like really processed foods or sodium can add up. Increasing whole foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes. Again, a lot of those fiber rich foods can drastically help that. And also diet and exercise or exercise. So movement. So I think a lot of times we think of like for blood pressure cardio, which is probably your best one for specifically blood pressure. But we do know the better your metabolic health is. The better, the more muscle you have overall, the better, like everything can be. So this can be as simple as like walking and I mean, no, you're not gonna like drastically change your blood pressure by like walking, but maybe'cause like I said, a lot of people are not moving at all. I think a common one to really think about in terms of these biomarkers is a lot of the suggestions are the same, like. Eat whole foods, increase fiber, like decrease saturated fat from things like highly processed foods, snack foods, fast food, you know, decrease sodium from fast food, and then just increase your movement.

Baylee:

Mm-hmm. And then the other thing.

Brianna:

Mm-hmm.

Baylee:

everyone gets tired of being told to lose weight to help fix things, but here, here is the reality. Being overweight or obese does impact your insulin sensitivity. Your A1C, your LDL, your blood pressure, your liver enzymes, your cortisol levels, it affects it. And not to just like blame your weight on everything. I think the idea is that we need better information on how to lose the weight because when I, it's like we go to the doctor, all the cholesterol levels are high. A1C is high, blood pressure is high, you're told to lose the weight, and that's the end of the story.

Brianna:

Yeah, it's like lose weight. This will get better. It's like, okay, well how do I do that?

Baylee:

And this is why we kind of created the podcast, was to give you defamation and, and defamation information in all different areas because weight loss isn't just diet and exercise and. While we don't wanna blame weight on every single thing, it, it does contribute to a lot of things. Obesity contributes to a lot of preventable diseases, and that's just the reality of it. Your being obese can elevate a LT, which is a liver enzyme, and it's increasing your risk of fatty liver disease and.

Brianna:

And then the more visceral fat you have, the more inflammatory fat you have, the less insulin sensitive you are. All of it plays a role. And I would say if you're above A BMI of 35 specifically,'cause technically it's A BMI over 30 is overweight or is obese, I would say for sure if you're over A BMI of 35 like. There's definitely some weight loss to be had in terms of your overall health, and it doesn't mean that as soon as you drop below that obese BMI that all these are gonna be perfect'cause I've seen them not great outside of this, but it definitely helps because you don't wanna just be pouring gasoline on the fire, which is essentially what's happening. Also why you need to lose weight correctly.

Baylee:

yes, that's another big piece, which you'll find correct information on how to do that in pretty much every episode. So yeah, I mean, the biomarkers we talked about today, insulin A1C, cholesterol, and what was the last one we talked about? Blood

Brianna:

Blood pressure. Yeah.

Baylee:

lot of things that are ineffective. Well, your main things, whole foods, your fiber intake, your movement.

Brianna:

Mm-hmm.

Baylee:

The other parts to it is decreasing alcohol and managing your stress. Those are all lifestyle pieces that you can adjust to improve these biomarkers, so that way you live a longer, healthier life and you feel better every single day.

Brianna:

Yeah, they all work together and I think that's what we're missing is consistency in this area and really knowing how to do it and then throwing in the towel too quickly because you're not seeing weight loss in the way that you think you should see it. And then it's just that like people aren't applying these lifestyle changes. So if you're struggling with that, there are two people that can help you. I think we both have links in our bios of how to work with us both like out of pocket through insurance.

Baylee:

Yep. So yes, we hope you found this helpful just to kind of give you some additional information of lifestyle pieces and some biomarkers to look at.

Brianna:

Mm.

Baylee:

If you have any other questions or anything you need us to clarify, feel free to send us a message over on Instagram at mocktail minutes and we'll be back next week, the brand new episode. Bye.

Contributor

Baylee

Host
Contributor

Brianna

Host