Friday Chat: Do You Have Metabolic Syndrome?

What are the signs that your are experiencing metabolic syndrome?  Once you start to see the signs what can you do now to prevent high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight gain, diabetes?

Transcript

(00:00):

Hi everyone. This is the Friday chat. We talk about all things related to metabolism. And I'm Julia, your host. I'm the founder of Jolie Life. We create nutrition programs for your optimal help. And today we are going to talk about is it possible to reverse metabolic syndrome? Because a lot of people listening and more and more Americans are finding themselves in a state of metabolic syndrome. So first off, what is metabolic syndrome? Metabolic syndrome is a umbrella term that is used to describe all the changes that happen that lead to metabolic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Metabolic syndrome covers changes in health as it relates to your liver function, your pancreas, your blood glucose levels, your digestive system, your cardiovascular system. So it is a big tent. And how do we know that we are on the road to metabolic syndrome and how do we know if we're there?
(01:32)
We know if we're on the road when our blood lipid profile comes out suboptimal. So our LDLs are high, our cholesterol is high, our triglycerides are super high. We know we're on the road to metabolic syndrome. If we take our glucose tolerance test and it is borderline or we fail it, we know we are on the road to metabolic syndrome. If we have an A1C that is high or is borderline, we know we're on the road to metabolic syndrome. If we find that our waist is expanding and the rest of us is kind of staying the same, we are on our way to metabolic syndrome.
(02:18)
Those are all signs of metabolic syndrome. If we find ourselves very, very fatigued, for instance, or we're experiencing big ups and downs, a roller coaster of energy, we are on our way to metabolic syndrome. If our scale is creeping up those two to three pounds a year and we're not doing anything differently, but we keep creeping up, guess what? That's another sign that you are on the road to metabolic syndrome. How do you know if you've reached the destination, which is a place I don't want you to reach. But unfortunately more and more Americans are finding ourselves there. We know that when we are obese, we know that when we develop type two diabetes or are labeled pre-diabetic, we know that when we have a cholesterol issue, we know that when we have arteriosclerosis, we know that when we have high blood pressure, we know that when we have cardiac events that we are in the land of metabolic syndrome already.
(03:31)
So can we reverse it? Can we reverse conditions like insulin resistance? Can we reverse high blood pressure? Can we resolve cholesterol issues? And these are conditions that become more and more prevalent as we get older. And some people are inclined to just say, okay, that's just part of getting old. That's just how it is. That's what happens when we get old. I'm here to tell you it's not true and the literature does not support it. Neither do the studies. That does not have to be your destiny ever. And regardless of your genes, regardless of what your parents did, regardless of where you are now, that metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, it does not need to be your future. It does not. If there's one thing that I wish for people to have, it is a sense of agency over their bodies and their health agency.
(04:41)
That means you have impact. You can choose different and get a different outcome. And you are super lucky to be born to be alive now because we know so much more and can see how much more we know versus 10, 20 years ago, you stay around here, another 10 or 20 years, it is going to be even even more. And so you are alive at such a great time for helping yourself change your own health destiny. So we're going to talk a little bit about how can you prevent or reverse metabolic syndrome. First off, you are going to look at your food. Metabolic syndrome is a clue that your food is the most important thing in moving this needle. I'm going to say it is 80% of that, and that's a conservative estimate based on the literature, 80% of what your eating or 80% of your reversal comes from what you're eating.
(05:49)
So let's just go straight out of the gate. What do we not want to eat if we are trying to reverse metabolic syndrome? First off is we're not drinking our sugar. That means no sodas. That means really no diet sodas either because it's a little bit different. But if you can't go there than no sodas, it means no energy drinks. It means no sugary juices like orange juice. It means even the vitamin waters are very high in sugar, so we're not drinking our sugar. That's first off. You change that and you change your life literally. You can just change that and you're going to see a change in a month. So we'll start there. So that's the first thing you're going to do. The second thing you're going to do is you're not going to eat all the time. We are in a culture where we literally eat all the time.
(06:43)
Sometimes I will do an intake of a new client and when we break down how many times they're eating, they're eating like six to eight to 10 times a day, we're eating too much. And when I say too much, I mean too frequently. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're eating too much. The actual, when I break down how much you're actually eating your calories, your micronutrients, your macronutrients, maybe you're on par, you're where you should be. But eating throughout the day, breaking that up into 8, 6, 8 meals is putting you in metabolic syndrome. So after we take out the sugary beverages, we take out the meals. Ideally you want to go down to three meals a day, breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner. If you're a really super high achiever, go down for two meals a day. But three, let that be your goal. And if you are in the space where you're actually eating six meals a day or eight or 10, so what would that look like?
(07:53)
That might look like. I get up and I have a piece of fruit and then I get dressed, and then I sit down and I have breakfast. And then mid morning I have a snack and maybe it's just a few nuts or something. And then I eat lunch, and then I have an afternoon snack. Maybe I get a coffee and a pastry and then I eat dinner, and then I have a little something before bed, maybe a bag of popcorn or something that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 meals. I'm missing something. Preor breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. That's seven meals. That's pretty normal in America. Pretty, pretty normal. That is leading to metabolic syndrome at record rates. So the second thing you're going to do is you're going to start carving that. You're going curbing that rather. So let's say you started out like my person, the seven meals, we're going to cut one of those out. Low hanging fruit. What's the easiest to cut out? For me? It would be that morning before breakfast meal. Okay, so now we're down to six. We do that for a couple of weeks. What else can we cut out?
(09:23)
I think for me the easiest after that would be the between breakfast and lunch. Okay, so now what I think next would be the post dinner. And probably the hardest for me personally because there's a long stretch between lunch and dinner, is that mid that between lunch and dinner. And that might cause me to move my dinner up a little bit so that that stretch is a little bit shorter. So that's what we're going to do. How do you prevent and reverse metabolic syndrome? We scale down how often we're eating. Now you ask what's the mechanism behind that? Having these periods of non eating allows your blood glucose to go in a very low normal range, which allows your body to digestively, rest, use, stored fat. The absence of your cells being bathed in glucose and insulin means that your cells are healthier. They don't age as quickly.
(10:40)
Sugar and insulin are growth promoters, growth promoters and middle age equals advanced aging. We don't want that. We're trying to slow it down here. Advanced aging means cellular damage. So that's the other reason why we want to slow it down and it will give your body a chance to have less inflammation and to address the inflammation that exists and it'll also help your brain to work better. The other effect of this is that you will develop metabolic flexibility where you don't over time need to eat as much all the time. Instead, you learn how to eat and then tap to your fat stores for your food. Eat, tap to your fat, eat, tap to your fat. That's what we want. We want metabolic flexibility.
(11:38)
Our two key factors right now and preventing and reversing metabolic syndrome. Our first is we're not going to drink our sugar. Our second is we're going to dial back the number of meals we have in a day. And our third is we are going to increase our vegetables. And I really recommend to people that you start by having a side salad before your lunch or before your dinner. At Jolie, we frequently do the Jolie Daily Greens. Why? Because we want people to have a side salad before they eat their meal. Why do we want that? Because it improves their metabolic health. It improves their gut health and it slows down digestion. It's a win-win win on all three counts. So you're going to do that. And what will that do for you? That is going to be huge because it's going to slow down the drip to glucose.
(12:41)
So when you have a glucose monitor, a CGM, A continuous glucose monitor, you're going to see rises and falls in your blood sugar. If you don't have a continuous glucose monitor, if you observe your energy and your focus levels and you see a rollercoaster effect during your day, that's telling you that you're having these ups and downs in blood glucose. When we have our salad first, we even out that curve. We flatten that curve as they say, that helps to reverse metabolic disease because it's the spikes that are the instigator of metabolic syndrome. So we keep those spikes, we flatten them out, we lower them out by having our vegetables before we eat our lunch and our dinner. If you have a plate, let's say you have a sandwich, eat your lettuce and tomato first, ask for extra lettuce and tomato and then eat your sandwich. That will do the same thing.
(13:46)
You do these three things and in three months you're going to be amazed. In three months, your doctor's going to be amazed. In three months, you're going to be amazed how you feel, how look how your body is responding. You are going to see yourself grow younger. You are going to see your body grow younger, and you are going to see metabolic disease become less and less symptomatic because you're allowing your body to heal. And that reminds me, I forgot to mention in terms of having the vegetables in the salad, not only is that helping you from a glucose point of view, it's helping you in that. It's giving you your healers in your vegetables, in your fruits. In that initial part, you're getting your anti-inflammatory agents. So those are going to be your healers that are going to further help your body to prevent and reverse metabolic syndrome.
(14:43)
Your vitamins, your minerals, your polyphenols, your antioxidants in there. That's what you want. Your really healthy gut microbiome, you're feeding it. It's very much involved in metabolic syndrome and inflammation. So you are feeding those things thus reversing and preventing your metabolic syndrome even more so. Yes, yes, and yes, it is reversible. It is preventable. There's more and more literature on that. I encourage you to look for our restore course, which restore is all about. Restoring yourself to help restoring yourself to metabolic health, restoring yourself to bone health, restoring yourself to hormonal health. Restore, restore, restore, restore yourself to health. It's completely, completely possible. And a great book, and hopefully I get the title right is called Post Diabetic, and it is written by a person I believe he's a nutritionist and he works with a doctor and they're Canadian and he is pushing for the term post diabetic because he's seeing through changes like described in this podcast. People are reversing their metabolic syndrome and that we have pre-diabetes, we have diabetic, but we have no word for what can come after that. When you reverse it, what are you then you are no longer pre-diabetic because pre implies you're getting to a destination.
(16:23)
You've moved past that destination, you're beyond that. You've changed your markers. So they're going in the opposite direction. So that post diabetic state. So I want you guys to all get there. I want you to all get there. I want that for myself, which I am, but I want everyone to be there. I want everyone to be in that post diabetic state if they were in the pre-diabetes or diabetes. And I want us all to know how not to ever get to pre-diabetes if we're not there yet. So that's it for today. Check out the restore course. Look for the Jolie weight loss body composition. Check us out@thejolielife.com. We have wonderful programs for you, absolutely wonderful programs for you. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to know what your questions are. Take a listen to our other podcast, the Jolie Life, and I look forward to all your wins. Yay, go for it.