Vibing Well with Dr. Stacy (A Foundational Approach to Healing the LIFESTYLE)
Dr. Stacy, a traditional Naturopath who specializes in Functional (Foundational/Lifestlye) Medicine, is answering your questions in regards to health and healing. From hormones to gut healing and everything in between - listen in as she shares stories of her own healing journey, what she sees clinically, and what she has researched to give you the most up to date answers when it comes to healing holistically.
*This information is not meant to be taken as medical advice, or to replace the advice of your practitioner or primary care. It is also not meant to diagnose, treat, or cure diseases.
Vibing Well with Dr. Stacy (A Foundational Approach to Healing the LIFESTYLE)
#068 The Differences (and Causes) of Insatiable Hunger Versus Cravings, and Why Weight Loss is a Different Mindset and Stragedy Than Keeping Weight Off
Dr. Stacy explores the critical differences between food cravings and insatiable hunger, revealing how our biochemistry—not willpower—drives these powerful urges and impacts sustainable weight management.
• Cravings are the body's communication system telling us something is out of balance—whether blood sugar, gut health, or mineral deficiencies
• Sweet cravings typically indicate blood sugar dysregulation, metabolic inflexibility, or specific nutrient deficiencies like B vitamins, magnesium and chromium
• Salt cravings signal adrenal dysfunction, electrolyte imbalances, and cellular dehydration that plain water alone cannot fix
• Candida and fungal overgrowth hijack our glucose, directly inhibit mitochondria, and promote further sweet cravings
• Insatiable hunger often stems from leptin resistance—when high insulin blocks the "I'm full" signal from reaching the brain
• Sustainable weight loss requires becoming metabolically flexible—the ability to switch between burning sugar and fat for energy
• Building muscle mass is crucial for maintaining weight loss, as it improves glucose uptake, increases mitochondrial density, and raises metabolic rate
• The mindset for maintaining weight differs from losing it—requiring permanently raised standards and identifying with your future self
• We get the health we think we deserve—acting from self-love rather than self-hatred creates sustainable change
• Proper circadian rhythm alignment through consistent meal timing and light exposure helps regulate cortisol, blood sugar, and appetite
Sugar Podcast Episode Mentioned
Why where we store fat matters when it comes to inflammation & metabolic health Episode
Blood Sugar and Ketone Testing Masterclass Mentioned:
https://stacy-baker.mykajabi.com/offers/oFFzhFSz
Coming SOON:
Join Dr. Stacy's Master Your Metabolism class this fall to discover your personal metabolic formula and receive a one-on-one consultation to optimize your metabolism for sustainable results. (get notified FIRST!)
Hydration recommendations/Minerals/Electrolytes
For everything else, check out the links below:
HUME Health BODYpod code DRSTACY
Code: DRSTACY
More:
To work one-on-one with me, you can apply HERE!
Nutrisense CGM (my absolute go-to for all things metabolic health, now 33% off with my code DRSTACY)
Blood Sugar and Ketone Testing Masterclass Mentioned:
https://stacy-baker.mykajabi.com/offers/oFFzhFSz
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This information is just that; information only - not to be taken as medical advice. Please contact your primary care before changing anything to your routine. This information is not mean to diagnose, treat, or cure disease.
Welcome back to Vibing Well with Dr Stacey. I'm Dr Stacey, traditional naturopath and lifestyle medicine practitioner. I have such a passion for helping empower people along their journeys and help them get to their state of health and keep it, by finding the nuance of what's hiding in their day-to-day. What they repeat is what has the most impact in their overall state, and helping them dive deep into that to fix and maintain this place of balance and homeostasis. Today we're going to be talking about cravings, insatiable hunger and weight loss while losing it and keeping it off our two different strategies, mindsets, so many different things going on there. So let's dive deep into this. Hang tight, we'll be right back. Okay, so it is a stormy day here today, so I hope you don't hear too much background noise, but this is my shot to record. So, um, we're just going to roll with it, so let's dive in. Let's first talk about cravings. There is a difference between cravings and having insatiable hunger. We're going to dive deep into both of those, because I know that they are common complaints. When people first start with me, that's something that is kind of like really becoming more of a primal, like biological craving versus just you know, oh, this sounds good. I really want to dive into that. What's actually happening that's going to contribute to those intense cravings and desires for even specific foods. So let's kind of break that down. So it is very different than never feeling full, and that's why I wanted to chop this up into two different sections. What, the way I look at cravings are. What are they trying to communicate with us? Right, it is clearly a sign that something is out of balance. Right, it could be an imbalance in our diet. It could be an imbalance in blood sugar. Right, that's dropping blood sugar really low. That's causing us to crave quick energy. It could be a gut imbalance, that is, you know that our microbiome is craving certain foods, like, let's say, candida, which I'll go into a whole new episode of that but candida basically steals our glucose from us and causes us to crave even more. So there could be something that is there. Even thinking about meal timing, right, if we're inconsistent with our meal timings, that could be leading to this more primal craving the people who skip eating breakfast and lunch and then feel like they just cannot stop eating the rest of the day. There also could be an emotional component to it, right, a neurochemical state, um, and also like, can be addiction on on an extreme end, right, something that has filled a void emotionally for us or that is kind of wreaking havoc on our neurotransmitters. So we're going to kind of go into that.
Speaker 1:But what is a craving? It is an intense desire to consume a specific food or even beverage, right, because we definitely have cravings for caffeine and things like that when we're living on borrowed energy. So this really has to be. This can also be a behavior. We're not going to dive too deep into that, right, but it's not always just what we consume dietarily. It could be, um, a craving to continue a behavior because of a certain dopamine response that we get from it. Um, but it feels primal or hedonic, right, we need it, and we need it right now. When we have this craving, it's like it's, um, we're trying to like out talk, our willpower, and we don't stand a chance against it, right, the craving is always going to win, especially when it's being derived from a biochemical standpoint. So it's usually very specific and usually very urgent. So we have lots of things that are affecting, um, our overall balance and homeostasis, right, so we have our lighting, right that can lead to certain cravings. So we definitely know that that has an intense effect on things like insulin and blood sugar and even our appetite. So that is one aspect and we'll talk about that. Even women, our cycle changes or even different seasons hormonally can affect these cravings as well Our metabolism overall.
Speaker 1:Let's say, your mitochondria aren't functioning properly or not making energy properly, we're going to crave more quick energy foods, even though that makes us even less metabolic in the long run. Things like leptin, which we go into even more with, um, the insatiable hunger piece of things. So we'll dive into that. So let's start with one of the most I would say the two most common cravings that people come to me with are craving either sweets or salty foods. So let's unpack those first.
Speaker 1:So sweets, first and foremost, are usually almost always related to what's happening with blood sugar. So we live in a world where 93% of us are metabolically inflexible. That means we're stuck as sugar burners. We don't know how to become fat adapted, we don't know how to switch energy systems and, evolutionarily speaking, we would not be here if we didn't know how to do that. But we lose that. If we're constantly pulling on that sugar burner metabolism and we don't know how to switch metabolically, then we we kind of lose that until we kind of retrain it back in.
Speaker 1:So blood sugar swings, insulin resistance, things like that will definitely contribute to craving that intense sweetness, right? Because, for one, we have energy issues we can't process energy properly and, for two, if our blood sugars get taking a really high high, it's also going to have a really low, low on the back end. And, for two, if our blood sugars get taking a really high, high, it's also going to have a really low, low on the backend, and that low is going to trigger that more, um, survival, hedonic kind of craving. That's going to run our physiology at that point. So, um, a dip in blood sugar. Maybe because of the food that we consumed, right? Maybe because our meal timing is super erratic and we're skipping meals, especially when cortisol is high, which is just going to make blood sugar even higher, um, things like that. So, maybe, waiting in between meals, erratic meal timing, um, or, like I said, the food.
Speaker 1:There's other things that will drive blood sugar and insulin to be high, but those are the most common that I see. Obviously there is a component with adrenal issues, right. So, living in chronic stress. Whether that's chronic because of our biochemistry, um, you know the blood sugar swings that contribute to keeping us in that state of chronic stress. But either way, it could be lifestyle, it could be environment things that are keeping our body kind of pulling on that survival lever. Those things are also going to contribute to needing quick energy sources, right. It becomes very, like I said, very primalistic when we have those cravings and it's just our body trying to maintain some sense of order and balance. Also, maybe a low serotonin environment so low serotonin could be because maybe there could be a parasitic infection, um, a gut imbalance that's leading to malabsorption of essential amino acids, also could be not getting proper light signals. That could be keeping serotonin low. So lots of moving pieces when it comes to low serotonin.
Speaker 1:But when we crave sweets we do get a temporary boost in our feel good transmitters, right, and so that could be another thing. That's, and that's another thing that drives the mood regulation right, the comfort eating, sometimes even the emotional component when it comes to craving certain foods, because it does have this like calming effect on the back end, because it's that temporary increase in our feel good neurotransmitters also. So we talked about serotonin, but even dopamine. So we live in a very, you know, sort of quick-hit society when it comes to dopamine. We have lots of artificial things in our environment that are serving keeping us in this like very high-dopamine state, and so when we think about food that is promoting that hit. So refined foods, right, processed carbohydrates and really sugar, and then you could go deeper into MSG and food additives, things that are designed to be addictive. Those are other things that are playing with our neurotransmitters and really setting the scene for addiction, because eventually we experience what's called hedonic adaptation, where we need more of the same thing to feel the same response, and then eventually we get to a place of tolerance and then addiction right, when we no longer are served by the same amount to produce the same response.
Speaker 1:Now, sweet cravings can also be because of certain nutrient deficiencies, and this doesn't mean start taking all of these right we talked about. There could be a malabsorption piece happening. Maybe there's a dysbiotic gut, maybe there's an unbalanced immune system, something like that. But B vitamins, magnesium and chromium, those are deficiencies that are directly linked to having sweet cravings. But remember, even in a body that is having lots of blood sugar swings, things like that, just really impaired liver detoxification, those are going to be some of those cofactors that we burn through initially too.
Speaker 1:So it's not to say, oh, just fill that void and the sweet cravings will go away. It's kind of like let's work up absorption, let's support all of these things as a whole, um, so that your body is not constantly drained. We don't want to tread water by just taking a supplement to fill that void. So those are cofactors for things like blood sugar regulation and mitochondria, right. So mitochondria has always got to be in the picture, because that is what's producing the energy that we are eating, right, and that we're trying to find balance so that our mitochondria are functioning optimally. So, yes, the longer we ride out that nutrient deficiency, then that cycle will somewhat perpetuate itself, right, because we'll have more cravings. They're going to worsen over time, we're going to be even more depleted and we're going to be expecting more out of our mitochondria that aren't functioning properly, and so we're just kind of in this deficit and that cycle will just make itself worse if we're not supporting all of these things foundationally.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about the gut imbalance, part of this, because malabsorption is key. We have to always be thinking about working up absorption, not just taking supplements to fill these deficiencies right. So things like candida and yeast those are overgrowth that will cause their own sweet cravings Because, like I said, candida is hijacking our glucose so it's going to make us crave more. But candida is also inhibiting our mitochondrial directly and also affecting the liver directly and I'm, like I said, I'm going to do a whole podcast episode on this, but just know that there is a component to gut dysbiosis and having certain cravings, especially when it comes to candida and yeast fungal overgrowth.
Speaker 1:Now, remember I always say that the environment has to welcome those in. So if we're treating candida or yeast or fungus like it's just this opportunistic overgrowth, then we're going to be killing and killing and killing and killing. We have to fix the internal environment. We know that those can only persist in a environment that is acidic. Now the candida is going to make the byproducts that are going to make that environment even worse, even more acidic, right, but knowing that, sugar refined foods, right, high blood sugar, all of these things, even maybe medication like birth control or even an antibiotic, things like that, those set the scene for the candida to be there to start. And then, when we what we repeat through diet and through our environment and things like that, things that keep blood sugar high, those will only perpetuate that occurrence, that growth process.
Speaker 1:So it's not to say, oh, we're feeding the candida. In a sense we are, because the more we feed it glucose, the more it's going to hijack it from, you know, from us, and steal it from our mitochondria. So we produce less energy but we end up craving more sugar. Um, but also thinking about we're promoting that acidic environment and the Candida just contributes to that. So that's how I want to look at this. Versus like, oh, we have Candida, we have to kill it. We have to be thinking about this as a whole, including the metabolism, the mitochondria and the gut.
Speaker 1:So I have a whole podcast on added sugar. I'll link it up in my show notes for you guys. Because that is, you know, something that is only contributing to, um, more down regulation of our mitochondria, right? So excess glucose is a positive feedback loop saying, hey, we have more than we can handle, let's start slowing down, right. It ends up back backing down our ATP production. We're making less energy and, like I said, we're craving more sugar to fuel the body. So we really have to get that dysfunction. Um, we got to get the insulin down. We've got to really start focusing on the mitochondrial piece of this to make sure that we're optimizing energy across the board, because remember that an energy loss equals symptoms. So to really fix this as a whole, we've got to be thinking about metabolic flexibility, getting insulin down, which I'll talk more about when I talk about weight loss and sustainability and things like that here soon. Now let's switch topics just a little bit and go into the salty cravings, because it's usually one extreme or the other that I find people you know are kind of swinging between. Um, so salty is almost always correlated with dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.
Speaker 1:Adrenal issues, right, a mineral deficit Uh, let's talk about the adrenal component of it first. So the adrenals are what help us maintain our sodium potassium balance in the kidneys and also it helps us with that acid alkaline balance as well. So we need to be maintaining that proper balance of sodium to potassium on a cellular level right in our body and within ourselves, because that's what helps us hold our body is negative net charge. You've heard me talk about this before. We have to have a certain energy potential, a negative net charge, for all the cells in our body to be functioning properly and when we start to lose that balance of sodium to potassium, that's when we start to have adrenal dysfunction. We'll start to see heart rhythm changes, hypertension, issues with acid-base balance. Whatever that looks like for that individual, right? That could be skin issues, it could be blood sugar issues, it can be retaining water and edema. It could look like POTS and vertigo so many different things, right? So we really have to be thinking about, okay, adrenals.
Speaker 1:Instead of just targeting the adrenals, we need to be thinking about what are things that I repeat every single day that are keeping my adrenals over activated, right? So chronic stress. What is keeping your cortisol high, specifically? Right, we've talked about things like cortisol stacking I know we've talked about this on the podcast. Things like our lighting environment, our meal timing, training, overtraining right, it's too much of a good thing. Too many cold plunges, right? Like not honoring our cyclical nature with some of those things not nourishing the body enough. Maybe having a lack of balance in the diet somewhere. Maybe that's carbohydrates, you know, for someone who's restricted carbs for a really long time. Maybe it's too low in amino acids, right, like, really just kind of diving into you specifically where you're at, and then, of course, it could be a diet that is causing insulin and blood sugar to be rampant, which will not promote stability in anyone, right? You cannot get to a place of homeostasis and healing when you are constantly pulling on those survival mechanisms from blood sugar swings.
Speaker 1:And then we've also talked about how our environment is very dehydrating on a cellular level, right? The Wi-Fi, the EMF, lack of infrared and red light and I don't mean everybody needs to buy a red light panel, I mean you need to get out there and get the full spectrum of light from the sun those all affect the mitochondria's ability to make intracellular water. So we become dehydrated on a cellular level. So, no matter how much water we drink, if we're constantly exposed to those things and not trying to balance them out with any sort of nature or, um, you know, hydration with minerals, all of those things, um. And then we add to that with a high carbohydrate diet, high stress lifestyle, more things that are depleting mineral level, we are in this epidemic of unintentional dehydration, right, and that is happening on the cellular level. So we have to be not just drinking water, not just drinking electrolytes, but minimizing our exposure to all of these things that are draining us and costing us cellular energy.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes I will say people are not drinking enough water or drinking plain water without minerals and causing that flushing effect. So you're flushing the minerals and electrolytes out of your body when you drink plain water, because water, the nature of water, is that it wants to hold onto minerals, and so it will do that. It will take your minerals and take them on its way out and that will cause you to be even more dehydrated, no matter how much you drink, if you aren't adding those minerals back in. So electrolytes, minerals in your water, eliminating the things that are causing the dehydration and those environmental triggers, all have to kind of be a cumulative effect to really maintain that cellular hydration.
Speaker 1:Also thinking about eating mineral rich foods right, nutrient, dense foods, sea-based salt, right, foods that are, um, that come from the sea, like nori and seaweed, things like that, dark leafy greens. Animal proteins, right, quality salt I can't stress that enough. Um, making sure you're adding trace minerals to your water for bioavailability, minimizing the foods that cause you to be dehydrated. So the foods that cause those mineral imbalances, the highly refined carbohydrates I can't stress that enough. More single ingredient foods, more foods that are serving you and if you don't know what's serving you.
Speaker 1:It's time to bring a monitor in to see, because if you are swinging with blood sugar, you are causing more stress on the body, more stress on the adrenals, and you are also causing mineral displacement, so you are dehydrating your body If you are living in a very high blood sugar, high insulin environment. Now, insulin just a little side note here. I feel like I've talked about this before, but insulin recycles our sodium and the rows are potassium balance, and that's when it starts to look like hypertension. Um, blood pressure changes, heart rhythm changes, things like that, setting us up for more risk for cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, things like that. Because of what? For more risk for cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, things like that? Because of what it's doing to our blood vessels, to our mineral balance right, and so that's also going to throw those parasympathetic nutrients right and affects our ability to get into a parasympathetic state. So if we're doing all the nervous system work and we're missing this piece of it, our nervous system also won't be able to find balance until it has those parasympathetic cofactors.
Speaker 1:Now I want to just bring this in because there are a lot of times where people are having distinct cravings for dairy and cheese and have a hard time cutting them, even though they know they're inflammatory and they could be making their symptoms worse. Um, so let's just talk about that. So sometimes it's a calcium magnesium deficiency. Now, remember, calcium magnesium are parasympathetic cofactors and so if we live in this high stress state whether it's our environment, our lifestyle or even our internal environment, like we just talked about all those things that cost us our parasympathetic nutrients that could be one reason because, you know, we could be craving that mineral balance and that could be a distinct thing that we know our body knows, our biochemistry knows that dairy has those nutrients in it, right, so it could even be a craving for fat.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people do have very distinct cravings for fat. I didn't go super deep into that this time around, but let's just say, when someone like cannot even be near a container of peanut butter or they'll eat all the way through it, that's usually a sign to me that that person is not eating enough calorically. And so when you are really craving fats and I'm not talking about dairy in this regard, I'm talking about just fat in general If you feel like once you start eating fat you cannot stop, um, that is usually a sign that you are not eating enough calorically, like you are over restricting, and it could come in line with just insatiable hunger, where we'll talk about that later in the episode. But just to put that out there side note now, dairy and cheese are usually emotional cravings and remember that dairy is addictive because the casein and dairy, the protein and dairy, turns into opioid like compounds during digestion and those are playing on our opioid receptors in the brain and that can make it very hard to quit too. So when people are like they know it's not serving them, there are some people that can tolerate dairy. There are more people that cannot, especially processed dairy and, you know, pasteurized and all that stuff. So if this is hard for you and there could be a craving that you know is coming from an actual addiction because of what it's doing to our opioid receptors. So just kind of keep that in mind. Um, it's really hard if you know that a food is causing inflammation in your body. Um, it's really going to be hard for your body to find balance If you're continuing to consume that.
Speaker 1:Like I said, it's always like what we're repeating the most that has the most um, opportunity for change, right? So if we want to change the outcome, we got to change the inputs. All right, let's talk about cravings for caffeine and energy drinks and things like that Obviously right. That falls right in line with what we were talking about, with the adrenals always in alignment with fatigue and burnout. Remember that when we are reaching for caffeine, for energy, we are living on borrowed energy.
Speaker 1:So what is causing our body to be so depleted on a mineral level, which we just talked about? What's keeping our body in chronic stress? Is it our diet, our lifestyle? Right? Poor sleep is another thing. If our sleep cycle is dysrhythmic, of course we're already going to wake up in a deficit and be reaching for that quick hit of energy. Some people have sweet cravings in the morning, but some people just the caffeine. They'll kind of ride that out and ride the cortisol wave along with it. Also, high cortisol and high insulin and low melatonin can all contribute to that need for caffeine as well. So the more we can find balance in our circadian rhythm and honor that with our lifestyle, our sleep schedule, our digestion, our meal timing, all of those things will all promote more of an environment where we can find that place of balance. So once again, we need to think about mineralizing the body with a mineral rich diet, bringing in specific minerals to help the body. If you've been in this chronically stress state for a long time, like the Quinton minerals, I'm going to link these up in the show notes for you guys my favorite minerals, my favorite electrolytes and trace minerals to also add to your water. Um, but all the more reason to work up mineralization and connect with your circadian rhythm.
Speaker 1:Remember that the body has to know what time of day it is to run those heal and repair programs. And we have to have deep, restful sleep. That's also a requirement for healing, right? So if you're not sleeping, you're not healing. That's going to have impact on everything we just talked about, right, our hormones, our blood sugar, our metabolism, our appetite, even just going into the next day. So if sleep is horrible one night, we're going to have trouble even just stabilizing blood sugar. And so all of you that I like to you know, you know that I love to talk about blood sugar stability. But it's not always just the food, it's our environment, it's our sleep, it's everything. So if you're doing all the things with the food and we haven't corrected the rest of the lifestyle that create that environment for healing. We need to be doing all those things. So the other thing is, think about reducing your stimulants as you're working on these foundational things. I know it's a tool for now and I know a lot of people it's the only way you can stay afloat. Um, but think about a synergistic swap. Right Like, as I'm working on these foundational things, I know I'm going to sleep better.
Speaker 1:Caffeine has a really long half-life. That will definitely, especially if you're treading. A lot of people are doing that afternoon coffee or whatever it may be, because they have that afternoon crash, which is usually a blood sugar crash or a cortisol crash. If you slowly taper off of that, because that caffeine not only is borrowed energy, it's affecting your sleep going into the next night, which is affecting your energy metabolism going into the next day, and it's costing you minerals. We just talked about how most people are unintentionally dehydrated. Caffeine is also adding to that. Right Caffeine, even tea, those things cost us more minerals. So if you are consuming caffeine even, let's just say, with breakfast, and you're doing it appropriately like an hour or two after you wake and you've seen the sun come up and you know all these things, you still have a dual effort to do in remineralizing your body, because that caffeine is still costing you more minerals than someone who's not consuming it. And then, as you kind of, like I said, get back in touch with your circadian rhythm, optimize your blood sugar, your sleep, your meal timing. That gets easier and easier. And then, of course, getting even.
Speaker 1:I just put a little note of giving proper looks, so proper brightness of the sun, the sun signaling. We need to get out there, we need to get those light signals, so the body that is how the body knows what time of day it is. There are other signals that we can bring in and that's why meal timing consistency is also important. But that will help modulate cortisol and help also improve our metabolic health, our appetite, things like our thyroid and our sex hormones when we're getting proper lighting, and then even things like our serotonin and our neurotransmitters, like we talked about earlier. We have to get proper lighting and we take that signal from the retina in our eyes to our hypothalamus. So that is one of the best and easiest ways we can connect back to the circadian rhythm. And then, if we couple that with being consistent with meal timing and not stretching out, not skipping breakfast, skipping lunch and then eating until we can't eat anymore, until you know, till bedtime. Being more consistent with meal timing, especially when cortisol is high, then we're not working against ourselves, then we're creating an environment where healing can actually be a possibility.
Speaker 1:So cravings are definitely messages from the body, right, they are super specific, can be wonderful feedback into where we need to bring balance in. Is that the diet? Is that our light environment? Is our lifestyle? Is it our movement? What might it be? And that's the beauty of this journey, because there's a little bit of nuance to all of this and how it applies to you.
Speaker 1:So I want to switch topics into insatiable hunger, because this is something that also is a nudge that we need to be focused on. The metabolism right, we've got to be working this in, because I have so many people come to me who are struggling with this. And then, of course, this long-term is going to cause more hormonal effects, more insulin, maybe weight loss, resistance, weight gain, things like that. So we really got to get a handle on deciphering the cravings versus the hunger and bringing your power back into the situation to know what to control If, if you're feeling like you're a victim to either of these, right? So let's talk about insatiable hunger. So hunger is essentially feeling like you are never full, even after you just ate. Right, it can also feel very primal Um, usually not as specific as a craving, but, like I said, if you're not eating enough, a lot of times you're going to be craving very high fat foods. So that is something that can be a little telltale sign for you.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about some factors that contribute to insatiable hunger. So blood sugar swings as well, right, because every time you hit that dramatic low, your body's going to be seeking quick energy. Now, if insulin's high, you're blocking lipolysis or your ability to become fat adapted fat burning, right? So essentially, you are stuck in this sugar burner pathway, which is not very long, right, it's not a very long burning energy, because once that glucose we burn through it, we're going to need more, and so we're going to have a craving to make sure that we eat more glucose, and then that cycle will perpetuate itself. Now, if we're able to tap into our fat burning pathway, that's very much more stable. It's very much more consistent. We have better cognition. We're not really at the swings of the ups and downs where we start involving the stress hormones.
Speaker 1:So we all should be switching fuel sources, right. That's how we're designed to, and most of us are not even getting there in our fasted window overnight, and we should be. We should be able to burn fat, not just overnight, but even within our meals, and most of you are not nowhere near that, which is why, like I said, we're 93 plus percent metabolically inflexible. This is what that means. So we're stuck as a sugar burner. So we have to train the body back into metabolic flexibility, right?
Speaker 1:Um, just a little plug here, and I'll talk about this at the end of the episode. I am opening my doors to my master, your metabolism class. So if you need a little bit more support in this area, I really want you to join us. We going to start this fall, but I'll talk more about that in the end if that's not your thing right now. So what I want you to think about right now is that we're talking about insulin.
Speaker 1:Being high, insulin blocks our leptin signal, so this is our satiety hormone that gets a signal from our fat cells that says hey, we're full, we've got plenty of energy, you can stop eating now, and then our appetite regulates and our thyroid regulates and all those other things, right. This signal technically should be happening in between meals, right, when we're fat adapted, but even more so at night. That's when it talks to the hypothalamus, right. That is only if insulin and cortisol are low enough for that conversation to happen. And, like I said, I've seen thousands and thousands and thousands of CGM data from my clients, people I work with in my group members. That is not happening. This is another reason why we are having this insatiable hunger because that leptin cannot get a proper signal. So, leptin, if we don't, it's like that fuel gauge is broke, right? And so if the fuel gauge is broke, our thyroid doesn't know what to do, our appetite doesn't know what to do, our ghrelin doesn't know what to do and we just, we're just at a loss at that point. So then our appetite becomes very dysregulated and it's almost like oh, almost like oh, gosh, we've got to take in a bunch of energy because now we're in a survival state. So if you have no idea what's happening overnight with your blood sugar, remember that that conversation can only happen if cortisol and insulin are low at night. And so if you have no idea what's happening with you at night, this is your sign to bring a glucose monitor in.
Speaker 1:I'm going to link up my favorite for you. Um, it's way more affordable, I will say, than even it was a year ago. So that data is so much more accessible to so many more people. So I'm going to link that up with my code so you guys can make sure, if this is a piece of your journey, I want you to be able to optimize that. And also, if you don't know what to do with the data you're bringing in, you can either join my metabolism group or I will link up my blood sugar and ketone testing masterclass so you can help decipher and learn how to interpret your data. So I'll link those up for you.
Speaker 1:So, coming back to the leptin signal, if your blood sugar and your insulin are high at night, then that signal cannot even be received. Right, and remember that the big swings are costing us minerals. They're making cortisol high, they're keeping blood sugar really high, they are in in the lows right, are costing us to rely on emergency services. Basically, right. So then we have more appetite dysregulation we become. This makes it very hard to eat intuitively, because now we're at the mercy of our hormones and our stress hormones. That really all they want us to do is survive. So coming full circle with that is that the biggest factor I see to lead to this place of insatiable hunger is that we have lost our metabolic flexibility. So the key is to connect back to that and, like I said, I'm going to link up all the resources you need. If this is your missing link and honestly, this is everybody's who is struggling with symptoms of any kind it's a metabolic issue that has to be met first and foremost, and the more you can entrain your body into this place of metabolic flexibility and create that healing environment at night, um, and promote stability throughout the day so you're not relying on cortisol all day long. That's swinging the immune system. This has to be primary. So, however, whatever tools you need, I will be sure to link in the notes for you. But that is usually the main reason because remember that insulin blocks that, that leptin, that satiety signal. So you really have to start from that hierarchical approach into fixing the leptin signal, and the easiest way to do that is to figure out what's going on at night, and so I've I've seen insatiable hunger turn so quickly when people start bringing balance into these areas of life.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, let's dive into our last topic today weight loss. How it is so different to keep it off versus losing the weight? Initially, right, and so it's two different processes and even two different mindsets, if you think about it. So weight loss right Like we, anybody can restrict for a certain amount of time and shrink their body. Right Like, weight loss is not always the best biofeedback.
Speaker 1:Like, if we're just looking at a scale, we're just looking at our weight. We're not looking at, like, our visceral fat, which I've talked about. Um, our muscle mass, our skeletal muscle mass, our bone mass, things like that. Um, which you don't, if you don't have access to a DEXA, you can do something in home called a human body pod, which I'll link up for you. Um, weight is not always, does not always, equate to health, right, that doesn't always mean that your body became fat adapted. Right, it means you lost mass. That can be muscle bone, it can be, can be some fat, it can be water.
Speaker 1:What we really need to do is become, teach the body how to become fat adapted, and that's one reason why weight loss often fails. Right, that's what we need to do for true, sustainable fat loss, and I see so much of this, even with the occurrence of GLP-1s and people coming off of it, they feel great, they lost the weight, but they never fix this part, they never train their body how to actually burn fat. They just lost mass and the appetite comes back full force. And and if you train the body into metabolic flexibility, your hunger would be regulated. And if you were doing these things to promote GLP-1 naturally, like in a, you know, using fasting, um, fiber, other things like that, that will help. Like, even if you did use a GLP one to come off of it and maintain that weight loss, that would be more of a sustainable approach versus just shrinking your body, losing some of your metabolic mass, right, your muscle, and then just coming off of it and then, like I said, hunger is completely irregulated because you didn't fix these things. So, um, you have to make sure fat adaptation, metabolic flexibility, is always the underlying goal and when that is the goal, the weight loss will happen.
Speaker 1:So, losing weight and shrinking your body right, essentially, it's the same diet and in different packages, whether you're counting macros, you're counting calories, you're restricting, you're cutting all fat, you're cutting all carbs, whatever it may be. But it doesn't mean that you corrected that hormonal response. That's driving our actual metabolism, right? That's driving our ability to switch between our sugar burner and our fat burner, um, metabolic processes, right, and it doesn't correct. It doesn't mean that you corrected cortisol and insulin and leptin and ghrelin, right? So it makes it very hard to sustain if you have lost weight staying stuck as a sugar burner, right, um, and it's just another version of the same diet over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:Now, a question I often get asked is how do I know? How do I know if I'm fat adapted? Well, that's where you come in and you check your ketones. That is one visual that you can gauge If you have created that environment at night where your body has said hey, I know how to burn fat, I know I've burned through my glycogen and now I know how to burn fat. You're going to see your ketone increase and, like I said, I'm going to link up my ketone testing and blood sugar testing master class. So you know how to do both, um, for you. And then, if you want to join a live group, we'll talk through all of that together as well. Okay, so all right.
Speaker 1:Another thing is muscle mass. This is not how we get to a place of weight loss per se, and I you know I don't I'm not anti weight training by any means, but I will say it. It's not how we always start people, but it's always the end goal, because it's how you keep that weight off, it is how you become more metabolic, it's how you produce more mitochondria to process your energy better. I just can't start people there because a lot of people who come to me are so fatigued they can't even make it through the day, right. So I always start with helping them balance blood sugar and getting energy up and optimizing sleep. But the goal is always eventually to work up muscle mass. So it's not how we always get there when it comes to weight loss, but it is how we keep it.
Speaker 1:When you gain muscle, you're helping with glucose uptake independent of the pancreas right. It is helping get insulin down, which is our storage hormone. You're making more mitochondria, so you have more energy factories. You're burning more calories. You are becoming more thermogenic. You have more lean mass, right. So more lean mass equals more mitochondria, more energy, right. More everything. And then you have the blood sugar and glucose and insulin stabilizing effect of having that muscle. It comes full circle.
Speaker 1:And if you're not working on building your muscle mass somewhere along your weight loss journey, that is when the weight will come back on, because it's another thing that you haven't worked up the metabolic tissue on your body. That has to be part of the plan, right? It's not going to be sustainable if that isn't part of it. And remember, once we hit perimenopause age and beyond, we start losing muscle mass by 8% every 10 years. So that is pretty huge unless we are working to maintain it. So we need not just the workout, the stimulus, right, but we also need the amino acids coming in. So we need to have a full spectrum of essential amino acids, um, to properly build and maintain that muscle mass.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about mindset for just a second. So, like I said, when you're losing weight, you become very regimented, right. It's easy to drop that off whenever you start to get to a place where you feel good. You've lost the weight. You feel good, right, everything. Remember that old habits die hard. Right, old habits definitely die hard. It is what were the things that kept your insulin up right? Old habits definitely die hard. It is what were the things that kept your insulin up right In the first place and sometimes, when we start feeling good, we kind of lose focus and we lose sight of that and we might start snacking again or grazing or making like healthy, like low sugar treats, and end up eating more calories or we become a little more fluid on our meal timing or whatever it was that got us there in the first place, because we get comfortable right, and, like I said, it's easy to fall back into old habits and you have to make sure that your habits are always reflecting your overall goals right.
Speaker 1:They're, um, structured enough to keep you into that place, right. You don't have to like restrict, like you did initially, to get there and I don't even like the word restrict. It's more just like having a targeted goal and knowing your biochemistry and what works to get you there. It's not always just like cutting all carbohydrates right, like you don't even want it to come from that because it's not sustainable. You need a certain amount of carbohydrates for things like modulating cortisol and having proper thyroid function right. So it's not just to say restriction, but it's discipline right. Having that discipline. You're going to have to maintain that right, like that is going to have to happen. You're going to learn through the process of what your body needs metabolically to get insulin low, to modulate cortisol, whether that's your diet, your lifestyle, whatever it may be. But you're going to have to stick with a lot of those things that you entrained into your day-to-day with that discipline to lose the weight.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about insulin for just a second, then we'll come right back to this, but remember that we always have to be thinking about addressing insulin long-term. That is our storage hormone. So this could be the manipulation you do to your diet, the fasting that, your fasting window, like what your body needs, the timing that your body needs when it comes to your meal, timing to allow insulin to drop, to set the environment up for burning fat, for energy. Right, everybody's a little bit different on what they need for that and that can be confirmed with, like I said, the glucose monitor and a ketone monitor, or one or the other. You don't need both. It just can be verification and validation. Let's say you've lost weight and you want to know like am I actually burning fat? Am I fat adapted? Am I metabolically flexible? Um, because if you're not, it's going to be really hard to keep that weight off right, so you're going to have to eat in a way to support what your body needs to keep insulin in that and cortisol regulated right. So the foods that cause those unnatural spikes right, the grazing, the snacking, the high cortisol lifestyle those things are still going to have to require your effort and your intention and they have to be addressed long-term if you want sustainable results. You can't fall victim to old habits and still want to hold on to this new version of yourself. So I want to talk through the mindset piece just a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1:I think that it's really important to know there's a lot of times we self-sabotage, where we have this like upper limit kind of issue, where we think that we can't have it all or that we don't deserve to have it all. We in all reality. One thing that I've learned, even in in myself but my clinical practice, is that we get the health we think we deserve. So it does boil down to a lot of self-worth issues. We have to make sure that everything we're doing is out of a place of self-love and self-worth, and that can be really hard, especially if you are stuck in a place of inflammation and maybe weight gain and weight loss resistance and you feel like you don't fit in your own body. You feel like your body is not reflecting the effort that you're putting into it and it's just because you need more individualization. You know, usually that's it. It's usually just finding that one thing, um, one thing, or those couple things that you repeat the most that are kind of keeping you out of that place.
Speaker 1:So I totally understand feeling like a stranger in your own body and how it's really hard to have self-love and self-worth when you're stuck in that place. But remembering that, acting from a place of self-love and acting from a place of confidence and worth and value, to say like I deserve to have this better version of myself, I deserve to look and feel my best, and that helps you kind of raise your standards for what you choose to do when it comes to your diet, your movement, your discipline, things like that. It has to come from this place of love versus a place of hatred of where you exist right now. So sometimes there is that re-identification of this new version of ourselves instead of just going back to what's comfortable, even though what's comfortable may be the exact opposite of what we want. Right, we already know how to recreate that. But sometimes those new.
Speaker 1:Those old programs are hard to kind of break through if we aren't doing kind of working up the mindset piece at the same time and the worthiness right, the worthy factor of this do we feel like we deserve to have this and maintain this best version of ourselves? Because if we don't believe that we're not acting out of a place of love for ourself and our goals and being this best version of ourselves, because if we don't believe that and we're not acting out of a place of love for ourself and our goals and being this best version of ourself, then we are going to self-sabotage and we're going to fall victim to old things and old habits. Right, because we never raised our standards to match our new goal and this new identification and we're constantly evolving. It's totally fine to say like, this version of myself is no longer serving me. I deserve to look and feel my best, right, and you have to know that in all reality you deserve that and sometimes that's questioning lots of old programming or just, you know, just playing with that place of empathy where you make peace with your body. And it doesn't have to, you don't have to change out of a piece, out of a place of hatred, right, you can say, like, this inflamed state that I'm in right now is not serving me and I'm ready to move forward and I deserve to move forward and I deserve for all of my effort to match like how I look and feel. I want that to match the effort I'm putting into this and I'm going to set new standards to match this new version of myself I'm working to create. Right, because you will not be able to keep not only to get to that new place, but definitely not keep it if you don't raise your standards to align with that. And, like I said, that is a lot easier when you are out of um, coming from a place of love for yourself. For instead of you know, out of hatred for where you exist right now, love your body for what it's teaching you with its biofeedback, whether that is weight gain or whatever it may be your body's shedding light on something that needs support. And the more you can respect that and honor that as its language of talking to you and showing you where the problem is, then it can make that healing process that much easier.
Speaker 1:So I love the quote that says your new life is going to cost you your old one. You have to want more for this future version of yourself and you have to understand that's going to look like different choices, different thoughts, different habits, different behaviors. That's the only way to produce a new outcome. Right, and you need to believe that you're worthy of having it better than you've ever had it or can ever imagine it. To be right, change can be very uncomfortable, especially if you don't think you're worthy of it.
Speaker 1:Right and, like I said, that comes from years of programming, negative self-talk, maybe peers who also are very hard on themselves and maybe even each other, right. So it comes from a place of wanting more and making decisions that align with that future self versus what's comfortable and what's known, and there comes growing pains with that right. It really sheds light on people when we have decided to change and we've changed our standards as well. It really sheds light on the people around us who don't want to change right. It makes them very uncomfortable. It also really is a test to how much we want it right, like, are we ready to permanently change our habits and behaviors to get to this place and keep it right?
Speaker 1:It's a challenge, um, it's a new mindset and it comes from, like I said, repetition of new thoughts, habits, behaviors, all of those things need to change. If you don't like the output, you got to change the constant inputs, and that's not always just the food we're putting in our body. We already know how to create more of the same, right? So if we want something new, we have to look at what we repeat the most. That is going to reflect that change. That's our power, that's our key for change, right there. So definitely lots to think about, but it is. It is different than that little few months stint of shrinking our body by, maybe risk, you know, restricting calories or counting macros, or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:We have to identify with that new version, right, it's like the lottery winner who, like, loses all their money because they never identified with being someone with wealth. Right, it's the same thing, um, even when the biggest loser right, like you see, they lose this extreme amount of weight have done it in a very, you know, calorically restricted way, um, but they never identified with that new person. And so, especially in that rushed scenario, they never even had time. Right, they never had time. And so it's just kind of thinking about that is like your self-worth, your self-value, your deservedness to have this new version of yourself in this better life, and, um, those things are all. They all kind of come full circle and all come to the surface when you have changed something really dramatically in your life, whether it's your health, your body, whatever it may be. But just know that old programming, it's always going to be nagging at you to come back to the comfort zone, um, but if you want something different, you're going to have to do something differently, and so, um, maintaining a level of discipline by raising your standards to meet that future version of yourself has to be part of that plan. So, thank you guys, so much for tuning in today.
Speaker 1:I did want to talk just for a second about my Mastering your Metabolism. As you know, I've been running my Heal your Metabolism class for almost three years now and with that amount of working with people one-on-one working with my group people who a lot of them, turned into one-on-one clients I really have streamlined everything that works and how to find your formula and, um, teach that to you all, because I know that weight loss and keeping the weight off is one of those things that we are just up against as a society and it really hits during certain hormonal shifts and things like that, um, full force. Um. So I am opening up, uh, kind of doing a pre-registration, so I will have that linked in my in the show notes for you guys. I'm doing a pre-registration before I open the doors on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Um, I do like to keep my live group smaller so that I can maintain that kind of like group, intimate feel where I answer your personal questions, whether it comes to blood sugar, um, any kind of testing, or just helping you find your formula along the way. It's a four week course and then what I'm doing differently this time is I am giving you all a one-on-one meeting with me at the end, where, if you are struggling to find your formula, even though we have all this information you know that I am not huge on bringing in a bunch of information that you have nothing, no idea what to do with it. So, as I love to teach about it, I also want to help you integrate it. So I'm going to be offering a one-on-one visit with me at the end of these four weeks so we can really work together and find your formula and get you to this really straight and narrow kind of like plan of action so you can optimize your metabolism and keep it. That's always the goal, right. We want long-term in all of these things.
Speaker 1:So when you learn the nuance of what your body needs for optimal metabolic health whether it's weight loss, resistance or hormone imbalances or mitochondrial issues, whatever it may be, this applies to so many people. It's not just weight loss. So let me know if you guys have any questions about any of this. I'll link up everything I talked about in the show notes for you guys. Follow me on Instagram at drstaceynd for all of this and so much more, and I can't wait to talk to you guys next time. Have a beautiful rest of your day.