Ep. 125 Become Metabolically Flexible

This transcript was auto-generated, please forgive any weirdness.

 Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I'm Paula Parker, a personal coach specializing in helping you reach your desired weight. This episode is going to be something a little different. I usually focus on more of the mindset piece of weight loss, but the strategy, really the science behind releasing excess fat off your body is necessary, of course.

It seems like the info is always changing constantly when it comes to fat loss and weight loss, but thankfully it seems like We're finally getting some information about how our body actually releases weight rather than the kind of previous, you know, grapefruit diets or low fat diets of the past. I can easily remember reading in magazines how Twizzlers were a healthy treat because they had such little fat, which is, of course, we know now so crazy. 

And many of the women that I work with, which probably is including you in this camp, you already know a lot about nutrition. Okay, so you've either done macros in the past or you just know the calorie count of everything. And in general, you know how to eat healthy. You know what to do when you're at a restaurant, you know, which is the healthy option.

Okay. But you're probably frustrated because even though you have all the info, you know what to do on paper, you're just not doing it. Or maybe you were able to do something for a little while, but then something happens, you get stressed, or whatever life happens, and then you get off track. And then sometimes we go into what I call screw it mode, which you can probably identify with, for a little while or a long while, but Nonetheless, we can't make any progress and actually see our desired weight.

The reason this happens is that there is an over desire for food, meaning you want more food than your body needs.  That might be you want really highly palatable foods that usually contain sugar or flour or both, or you want more food than your body actually needs. And it's a volume issue, a quantity issue.

Maybe you're eating more at your meals than your body needs, or maybe you're eating more often than you actually need. So I call this an over desire for food, and there's two parts to an over desire for food. The first is psychological. I don't know if it's the first, but one of them is psychological, meaning you're emotionally attached to it.

You're emotionally, you have some emotional attachment to eating, okay? So we know this is true. If maybe you have a hard day, you're tired and you turn to food to soothe or to feel better in any way, or you decide not to eat something, but then you feel a ton of intense negative emotion. When in the moment you tell yourself, no, like you feel deprived, you might feel a little bit sad or go into self pity or anything like that.

You're basically having a kind of an inner temper tantrum that you're not eating the blueberry muffin. Nobody could tell from the outside, right? But on the inside, it's like you really want that blueberry muffin with your coffee, okay? So that's an emotional attachment. The other part of overdesire is physiological.

Your body has an excess physiological desire for food. Based on a hormonal imbalance. So we need to address both the psychological desire and the physiological desire. One without the other will feel harder than it needs to be when it comes to losing weight and it won't be sustainable over the longterm.

Okay. So we need to address both today. I'm going to do a deep dive on how to address the physiological. Over desire. So your body wanting more food. And you can think of this as a little snippet of something fresh that I'm putting together right now for my program, like my current clients. So if you are a current client, think of this as just a little intro, a little highlights reel.

Okay. And if you're not yet a client, you can think of this as an inside peak or, you know, like a little behind the curtain into my program. Okay. So. This is going to be a lot of detailed information here. So if you're listening while driving, you may want to have just a light listen right now and then come back to this one and you can always find the transcript on my website at mindful shape.

com or you can click the links in the show notes to find the transcript or if you're, you know, Making dinner at home or you're just tidying up or whatever while you're listening to this You might want to just right now grab a notepad grab a pen keep that handy just so you can jot down some notes  That's more of a longer intro than I normally have.

So let's dive in we want to reduce Physiological overdesire. That's the goal is to reduce it. Okay again, what is physiological overdesire? It's basically your body has an excess desire for food based on a hormonal imbalance. Your body wants foods and in quantities that it doesn't need. Okay. Does it especially doesn't need to release excess fat.

And the key component to doing that is getting your body metabolically flexible. This means hunger doesn't feel as intense. You don't get hungry as often. You don't have chocolate cravings and you don't want a second or third helping of dinner to feel like you've had enough food to feel satiated. or satisfied.

So not only does metabolic flexibility lower your physiological desire for food, your body's wanting of all that food, but it's also the most effective way for your body to burn excess fat. Okay. So I'm going to tell you all about it  because really the goal isn't to eat less calories, which lowers your metabolic functioning.

It's to change your body to become Metabolically flexible so that you can eat enough calories to feel satiated and satisfied while releasing weight and you can keep the weight off that you release. When you do decide to have that blueberry muffin or indulge for a few days on your vacation, your metabolism revs up and you don't gain fat.

So are you sold? Are you sold on this? I'm going to explain what metabolic flexibility is, really specific strategies to how to achieve it, and how long it will take to get there. Because I know you're curious. You're like, okay, well, how long is it gonna take for me to get all these benefits? Okay, so we're gonna talk about that given your age and some other key factors that's gonna determine how long it will take.

But I'll give you some timelines so you have an idea.  So Metabolic flexibility. It refers to the body's ability to efficiently switch between different fuel sources for your body. So from carbohydrates, like glucose, from the food you eat, and fats, including your stored body fat. You are likely metabolically inflexible if you really struggle with your weight.

If you have, you know, big energy dips or you are insulin resistant. And if you don't know about insulin resistance, let's talk about it right now.  A simple way to explain insulin resistance is that your body's key in quotation marks isn't working very well anymore. So you can think of insulin as a key that unlocks your cells so that you can take in sugar or glucose for energy.

I remember there was a while when my parents were visiting and I gave them an extra key. And it was like a newly minted key and my mom just kept complaining that the key didn't work. The key didn't work. And I'm saying like, I just made a copy. Like, I don't know what to tell you. It should work. Okay. So you can think of that.

Anytime you've struggled with a key, think of insulin as a key that unlocks your cells. Okay. So the door is yourselves when you're insulin sensitive. The key works perfectly. All right. The key, the key is minted perfectly. There's no complaints from your mother. Okay. It works perfectly. Your cells open up, the door opens up and you use glucose efficiently.

But when you're insulin resistant, the law gets rusty. The key doesn't work as well. Your body. Response by making more insulin.  Imagine me saying, okay, that key doesn't work. I'm going to go make 10 more copies of the key. It's trying to force the cells to open. And over time, this leads to higher insulin levels.

You can imagine the lock doesn't work as well because you've been tampering with it and you have to make more and more keys to get it working. So that means higher insulin levels, more fat storage, and also more difficulty burning fat. And eventually, as we've probably heard, this can increase the Risks of prediabetes and diabetes.

How do you know if you're insulin resistant? Here are some signs. One is you have constant cravings, especially for carbs. So my people who crave chocolate, okay, pay attention. Another one is energy crashes after meals.  If you want to take a nap after you're eating, this could be you. If you have stubborn belly fat, okay, if you gain weight around your middle.

If you have difficulty losing weight despite what you think is how you should be eating. So you think, I'm eating really healthy, why is nothing changing? Or you have a lot of brain fog or like 3 p. m. you're just in a slump. You have zero energy, okay? This, these are some signs of insulin resistance. So, Metabolic flexibility is your body's ability to switch between burning carbs and fat for energy.

Insulin resistance. Blocks this ability, forcing your body to rely mostly on carbohydrates for fuel. So fixing insulin resistance restores metabolic flexibility. So that's what we need to do first, right? We want to be metabolically flexible. We need to get that insulin resistance under control. We need you to become more insulin sensitive.

We need to make a great key for you and have a great lock. Okay. So how do we fix insulin resistance? Basically an overview in a nutshell. As we need to lower insulin levels with some sort of fasting protocol. Whether that's intermittent fasting, that's some sort of longer fast that you might do, or simply no snacking.

For a lot of my clients, they see a huge improvement just by removing the snacking and sticking to three meals a day. So don't be intimidated by any kind of, you know, intermittent fasting or fasting protocols. Just removing the snacking is going to go a long way. The second one is reducing processed carbs and sugar.

Because why? Those are gonna really spike your insulin. So you just want to reduce those. I think of those as exceptions, right? I call them exceptions, sugar and flour. There are items that you don't want to maybe remove completely, forever, but you definitely want to reduce them if you're trying to avoid those insulin spikes. 

And another one is increased protein and healthy fats. So for many of us, we are aware that we need more protein and many of us are not eating as much protein as we think, okay? So If you think you're not eating enough, more than likely you are not getting enough protein, okay? So just make sure that there's protein at every meal.

That's a good start. Also, healthy fats. If you have ever been taught that fat makes you fat, then you could have some resistance to eating dark meat, eating full fat cheese, eating full fat cottage cheese or avocados, but I want you to remember to feel energized and to feel satiated and to keep your insulin spike low.

You want to be incorporating healthy fat at every meal. Okay. And then lastly, of course, strength training and movement. That's going to help improve your insulin sensitivity. Not going to go into the science on how movement supports it because there's a lot to get through. But as we all know, the more muscle that you build, the more you move your body, that's going to help this whole process.

Okay. Of course, that what you eat is going to make the biggest difference, but I'd be remiss to say that that doesn't also help. Okay.  Here's the payoff when you have. metabolic flexibility. Your body can burn carbohydrates efficiently when needed. So this could be during exercise. Okay. So during intense exercise, you need those stores of fuel to do those hard exercises, but you need your Body's capability to be able to access those energy reserves. 

Maybe you've heard of, I think it's called bonking or something. That's when your body as is not able to access that carbohydrate energy for fuel. It will also switch to fat burning during lower intensity activities or fasting states. So how can people fast and not feel. Starving the whole time. It's because their body's able to switch to fat burning.

So the more metabolically flexible you are, the easier fasting becomes. And if you're not interested in fasting, the easier it becomes to not eat in between meals.  It also allows you to avoid energy crashes and insulin resistance by using the fuel that you have, whether that's your food. Or your stored body fat very effectively, okay, your, your blood sugar and your energy is just going to be more balanced.

You're not going to have these huge spikes, these huge highs and lows.  So this flexibility is essentially, you know, required for maintaining stable energy levels. Optimizing fat loss and just improving your overall metabolic health. So you are probably wondering, okay, well, how specifically do I become more metabolically flexible?

And I am currently creating a more detailed, structured approach to this in my program. But even without this, you can be extremely successful with these general guidelines,  eat less frequently. But ensure that those meals include protein, fiber, ideally from vegetables, and fat so that you feel satiated.

If you are someone who's used to three meals a day and snacking, just remove the snacking. If you were eating three meals, you may want to incorporate a few 13 hour fasts or a couple of days where you only eat two meals. And you'll know it's working. You'll know that you're becoming more metabolically flexible when you notice you have more stable energy.

You, your cravings have gone down. You feel like you still have enough energy to perform in your workouts. You can go longer in between your meals without getting hungry. You likely won't wake up feeling hungry, and you likely won't feel hungry when you go to bed either. Even if it's been three to four hours since dinner, you may feel that physical sensation of emptiness in your stomach, but you won't have any desire for food because why your body is not producing any ghrelin.

It doesn't need any food. It doesn't need the glucose. It's using your fat stores efficiently. Okay. So now let's talk about how long this is going to take.  Most of the women I work with are between ages 35 and 65. So, I'll speak to this group. It depends on several factors including current metabolic health, your diet history, your current activity level, your insulin sensitivity, where you are now, and stress levels. 

Okay. But I'm going to give you a general timeline based on some different starting points of where you might be. Okay. So if you are, you know, you're insulin resistant, or even based on what I've described in this episode, you're thinking that you, you likely are you're overweight, you're pre diabetic, or you simply eat a lot of carbohydrates.

Like that's a mainstay in your diet, or you tend to carry weight in your midsection versus your hips and thighs. You are looking at about. So anywhere from three months to a year, why could this be high levels of insulin resistance means the body really struggles to switch between burning carbs and fat.

So it's going to require some consistency in terms of fasting. to switch that over and potentially longer fasting so that your body can get into ketosis. Think maybe 20, 20 hour fast,  low carb cycling, where there's some days or weeks where you're doing higher carb and some days where you're doing really low carb.

Okay. And, or days, and then strength training to improve. your metabolic flexibility. Okay. So that's maybe lifting weights, doing Pilates, doing more like you think of power yoga or vinyasa, something like that, where you're using your body weight and building muscle. Here's what you can start doing today.

If this is you, first thing is just reduce processed carbs and sugars right away. Increase. Protein and healthy fats introduce some sort of fasting protocol with it. That's okay. I just don't snack in between meals, or you can start with a 12 to 14 hours and then build your way up to 16 to 18 hours as you're starting to build that metabolic flexibility.

And then of course, you can start. Strength training and walking to improve insulin sensitivity do not underestimate walking walking is amazing It's so good for your body. You always feel great when you come back from a walk It's not as hard on your joints and on on your body and your hormones as running when you run your cortisol goes up Okay, number two.

This is group two if you are Potentially moderately metabolically flexible, meaning you already eat really well most of the time, but maybe on weekends or the evenings, you are pretty regularly eating flour, sugar, or drinking alcohol.  For you, this is going to be a shorter time frame. This is going to be Four to eight weeks, okay?

So it could be in a couple of months. That's all it takes. And I see this with my clients all the time because you likely already have some level of fat adaptation, but you just need to improve the efficiency.  Bigger adjustments will be more fasting consistency and refining carb cycling. I've coined this term protocol alignment.

Protocol is essentially just how you want to be eating and we won't get into the details of that right now. But protocol alignment is. where you really align your protocol to your body rhythms. So meaning if you're menstruating, you have a clear schedule on when you should be eating more carbs and when you should be eating less.

Okay. When you should be fasting, when you should be not fasting, if you're not menstruating anymore, you can use other. Body rhythms. This might be the lunar calendar or you could simply divide up the month so that there's times when you're eating more ketogenic and Fasting longer and times when you're eating more complex carbohydrates, and there's little to zero fasting But you're really building muscle and that's where you're gaining strength.

If this is you You think, you know what? I'm probably moderately metabolically flexible.  Here's what you can start doing today.  Dial in your fasting windows. So maybe you stick to a 16 8. That's where you are eating within an 8 hour window and then no food. You know, not drinking anything other than like black coffee or lemon water.

Those other 16 hours. Or maybe you do the odd longer fast. Maybe try that once a month, like a 20, 24, or even 36 hour fast, you could also incorporate some strategic carb cycling. So that's higher carbs on workout days and lower on rest days, more resistance training to build and maintain lean muscle.

We're not talking about workouts that exhaust us. We're not talking about super intense cardio. Okay. We're talking about resistance training. And then of course, stress management because cortisol plays a huge role in. Our metabolism, especially in midlife.  What relaxes you other than food? For many of us, We turn to food to relax, right?

Food is a big component of our decompressing of our unwinding of our relaxation. So what is going to relax you other than food? You really want to start to think of relaxation as a strategic move in releasing weight, that massage. if it's relaxing. I was just talking to a client and she's like, my, my massages are not relaxing.

They're deep tissue. It's like we're doing some physio there, which I totally get. Cause I actually prefer massages like that. It's like, I'm thinking like, when I just go and have one of those massages where they're just kind of rubbing my back with oil, it just seems weird to me. I'm like, I'm married.

I don't need to pay somebody to like rub my back like that. If that's your speed, amazing. But I kind of want that deep tissue. I want to like, I feel like it's actually really doing something, at least in my mind. Or maybe it's more of a gentle yoga class that you love doing, a meditation, reading your Louise Penny book, for those of you who are, you know, Louise Penny fans, or any kind of fiction book that you love, anything that's relaxing for you.

Maybe it's nonfiction. Maybe nonfiction really relaxes you.  Okay. So think of it as a strategic move, not just a self indulgence. Okay. Or something that you, and I know, I know we often feel guilty about relaxing and it's think of it as a strategy. All right. And then the last group is you are already fat adapted and you're very, very health conscious.

Okay.  If this is you, it's only going to take about two to four weeks. Why? Because you are already used to using Your fat and burning fat efficiently, but you might need a little fine tuning to optimize your performance, like what you're doing in your workouts or on your Peloton, the recovery and hormonal balance.

So for you, here's what you can start doing experiment with different fasting durations. Okay. The timing, optimize protein, be really, really diligent about your protein. Okay. So there's no messing around for you. You want to be even tracking for just a short amount of time, just to get a sense that you're getting in enough grams.

Again, you can do the research on how much protein you need specifically for your body, but on average, it's about 100 grams per pound of your desired body weight. All right. You want to be maintaining your muscle. So you also want to be doing resistance training. You want to be doing targeted carb timing for hormonal balance, especially post workout or in the evening.

Okay. So it doesn't mean we're eating a lot of carbs. It just means we are timing it. We're just a little bit more conscientious about when we're having our Carbs. Okay. In alignment with our cycle and our bodily rhythms. And then again, adjusting your workouts to match your energy demands. So are you forcing workouts when you just don't have it in the tank, right?

That might be time when you really need to relax a little.  And do something more gentle, do something a little bit more restorative. And then there are other times when you have the fire, you should just go for it. Okay. So you just want to be paying closer attention to your body in terms of what workout you're going to be doing rather than, well, it says it on my calendar, so I have to do it.

Okay. So again, you're just fine tuning. You're getting a little bit more in tune with your own body. Okay. And then lastly, I just wanted to share with you in terms of your age, what you can expect. So if you're 35 to 45 in general, adaptation happens faster. Okay. So stress and insulin sensitivity though, they play a big role.

If you are 45 to 55, you are likely in perimenopause or menopause transition, so if this is you, it could be that more effort is required due to declining estrogen and increased cortisol, which can slow metabolic flexibility. So we just need to pay more attention to our protocol, protocol alignment, and resistance training. 

And then lastly, if you're 55 to 65, this is post menopausal women, fat adaptation takes a little bit longer. Due to the lower estrogen and muscle loss,  higher protein intake is going to be your friend strength training and any kind of physiotherapy that you're doing. That's going to be critical for maintaining muscle and your metabolic flexibility, but don't let that discourage you.

Okay. I have plenty of clients in this age group who see dramatic results. Okay. So you can totally do it,  but regardless of where you're starting, whether that's your age or level of metabolic flexibility right now, eating only when you're hungry and incorporating some system of fasting, whether that's just not snacking or whether that's longer fasting. 

eating foods that serve you and eating to enough and not one bite more, right? Not past it. Plus any kind of movement that serves your body is the fastest way to metabolic flexibility. All right. I hope that was helpful. I will talk to you again soon.