Serenity and Fire with Krista

Sugar & Metabolism 101: How Glucose, Insulin, Snacking, and Fasting Affect Your Health

• Krista Guagenti

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Welcome back to Serenity and Fire. Today, we’re kicking off a transformational new series all about sugar—what it is, how it works in your body, and why so many of us feel confused, overwhelmed, or outright frustrated by our relationship with it.

In this episode, Krista breaks down the basics of glucose, insulin, insulin resistance, metabolic flexibility, fat storage, cravings, energy crashes, hormone shifts, and how often we should really be eating. You’ll learn why sugar itself isn’t the villain—and why the frequency of eating, snacking, and constant glucose exposure is at the heart of metabolic dysfunction.

Krista also shares her real-time experience doing a four-day water fast as part of her healing protocol for weight management, heavy metal detox, and perimenopausal metabolic challenges. This episode is equal parts science, story, and empowerment—and the groundwork for everything coming next in the Sugar Series.

If you’ve ever struggled with cravings, stubborn weight, inflammation, fatigue, or feeling “off” hormonally… this episode is for you.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Serenity and Fire, the podcast where wellness meets grit. I'm your host, Krista Guadenti, founder of Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique. Join me as we dive into the intriguing world of biohacking, clean living, cutting-edge spa trends, and the hustle, grind, and grit of entrepreneurship. From my personal battles with weight management, infertility, and the 30-year journey to create and launch my dream business, to building a sanctuary for those who have been touched by cancer. I'm here to share real talk, inspire big dreams, and spark a passion for holistic living inside each and every one of you. So let's dive in. Welcome back to Serenity and Fire. Today we're kicking off a huge new series that is going to be mostly about sugars, all the different kinds of sugars, what they are, what they do, how they work in our bodies, and how sugar impacts our metabolism and health, how they impact cancer development, and where carbohydrates, fasting, and everything in between fits into this conversation. And speaking of fasting, I'm actually three days into a four-day water fast. This was something that I have been wanting to do for quite a while now. I honestly did not think I could do it because the longest fast I've ever done was really a one or two-day fast. And I think even on those fasts, I was doing like supplement shakes with them. So I've never really truly done this, but I've struggled with weight management and I've literally tried pretty much everything under the sun to keep that under control. And I recently found out that I have heavy metal toxicity. So I'm currently going through a heavy metal detox program that is about 12 months long. And in this experience, I have been listening to a lot of podcasts and doing a lot of research on metabolic dysfunction and where fasting can help with that. And I'm hearing from a lot of experts that they're really recommending these long fasts, something that I really thought would never be good for, especially someone like me who's over 50 and going through perimenopause or menopause. I'm not really sure where I'm at right at this point, but I'm somewhere in that realm. And thinking that something like this probably was not good for my body. But the more and more research I'm doing, the more and more I am getting convinced that this is something that I definitely need to be doing for myself. So I'm experimenting with this. And as we dive further into this series, I'm gonna talk more about fasting and I'll share more with you about the experience I'm going through. I can tell you that the first couple of days were definitely the hardest. I'm now past three full days, 72 hours into the fast. Like I said, I really thought I was not gonna be able to do this, but it's been a lot easier than what I thought, except for when I came home last night and my husband had just ordered DoorDash and opened up a giant container of feta fries from our favorite Greek restaurant. And I was like, I cannot believe you just ordered that. And he's like, Well, I'm hungry, babe. And I was like, I get it, but it kind of sucks for me. And then I was sitting there thinking, like, okay, maybe I should just go to bed. So I'm not tempted. Normally on any other day, I would have just thrown in the towel and dug right into those fries. But last night my willpower was at full force and I was like, nope, I've got this. I'm gonna hang here. I'm gonna fight through this. I grabbed my soda water, grabbed my plain hot tea, and we just started watching our shows. And the next thing I knew, I wasn't even thinking about those delicious feta fries, but I'm still thinking about them today. Um, anyways, I was able to kind of fight through that. And today has been a lot easier now that I'm in the third day. And then tomorrow at 4:30, I will break my four-day fast. And I did a lot of research on, you know, should I do three days? Should I do four days? And everything out there is saying you want to really go to the fourth day if you can, because that's when your body really starts experiencing ketosis and autophagy. Um, autophagy is where your cells in your body help destroy and eat the bad cells in your body. I'm not gonna get deep into that right now, but um, that's definitely something that I want to be happening in my body. So I'm like, what's four, what's one more day? So I went ahead and I'm I'm committed to the four days. I've got one more day left, and I will share more with you about this experience as we continue through this sugar series. There's a lot of talk, as I mentioned, on social and on other podcasts by renowned physicians like Dr. Boz and Dr. Pampa and many others who, on the surface, may be saying things that seem contradictory to what I'm gonna share in the series, but I'm gonna clear all of that up with you. I promise. And by the time we complete the series, my hope is that this crazy complicated subject will no longer be as complex as you think. And you will then understand how to create a body that is insulin sensitive, metabolically balanced, energized, and healthy. This sugar topic is one that I've been wanting to talk about for a really long time because there's just so much to know. And with everything from white and brown sugar to aspartame, sugar alcohol, sucralose, stevia, honey, monk fruit, erythritol, the list literally goes on and on. There's just so much confusion around this topic. So if you're up for it, let's go deep and let's do it the serenity and fire way. Approachable, digestible, empowering, and definitely never shame-driven. Because I promise there will be some insights in this episode that you never knew about or maybe just never really understood. But we're gonna navigate them together and make sense out of this extremely misunderstood and complicated topic. So let's begin with what sugar really is. Sugar gets demonized, and in many situations, rightfully so. But before anything else, it's important to understand that sugar is the fuel for our bodies. And like we've discussed many times before, our bodies are so truly incredible, intelligent, and intuitive. And when it comes to utilizing glucose, this could not be more true. Our bodies are beautifully designed to use and process glucose effectively. Our cells run on it, and our brain absolutely loves sugar from an energy perspective. Sugar only really becomes a problem when there's too much, too often, too fast, and the body just never really gets a break from it. Think of sugar like water. The right amount equals hydration. Too much equals flooding. And if you have a constant flood, then that's going to cause a ton of damage. There are different kinds of sugars: glucose, fructose, lactose, sucrose, and your body handles each one differently. But the big picture is this: sugar isn't the villain, it's the dysregulation of sugar that is. So let's talk about how glucose and insulin actually work and how sugar consumption fits into this whole story. First, let's start with some simple definitions. Glucose, or also known as blood sugar, is the chief source of energy for all of the cells in your body. Glucose levels are regulated by hormones produced by your pancreas. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that helps control blood sugar levels by transporting glucose and fatty acids to muscle, fat, and liver cells. If cells do not respond to the insulin, then the glucose stays in the blood and blood sugar levels remain high. This is referred to as insulin resistance, which can lead to pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and many other conditions. The best way to explain all of this is with an Amazon delivery analogy. So think of glucose as the packages that your cells need for energy, and your cells as the houses the packages are going to be delivered to, and where the glucose will then be consumed and used as energy. In this scenario, insulin is the Amazon driver that moves the packages from the road and delivers them to your homes. So the glucose is moved out of the blood and into your cells, and your bloodstream is the road. In a normal scenario, a package is created, the Amazon driver picks it up and delivers it to your house. When you eat sugar, glucose packages flood the road or your bloodstream. The pancreas then sends out insulin or that Amazon delivery driver to pick up the packages and deliver them to the houses that they belong to, where they are then consumed and used as intended. This process is normal and good until it isn't. So if you're consistently sending packages, breakfast, snacks, sweet coffee, lunch, another snack, dinner, then dessert, the delivery driver, aka insulin, never gets a break. So basically, you have a situation where you have too many packages all at once, the system gets overwhelmed, delivery slows down, and chaos ensues. When there's too much sugar, too often, insulin just keeps coming, but your cells cannot keep up. So they just stop answering the door, and whatever is left over becomes stored energy in the bloodstream, making your blood sugar levels persistently high. And if there's a lot left over, then that becomes fat. It's like having delivery trucks on the road 24-7. Eventually, the people in the houses are going to stop answering the door. And that is how you really define insulin resistance, which can then lead to prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and like I said, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and many other conditions. So, what's the real issue with sugar? It's not a cupcake, it's not fruit, it's not even carbs, it's the frequency. Every time you eat, insulin rises every single time. And most people are eating six to 10 times or more a day without even realizing it. Even when you just like grab a little handful of something and pop it in your mouth, that is considered an eating time. Your metabolism just never gets a chance to shift into that fat-burning mode when you're eating like this. And this keeps you locked into glucose dependency, hungry all the time, craving all the time, and gaining fat, even though you feel like you're burning energy all day long. I know that I personally a lot of times have thought, well, if I'm hungry, my metabolism must be cranking. So I must need the food. Well, that's not actually the case. It's a little bit of a trick that your body plays on you. And one question that I've always wondered is if I'm burning glucose all day, wouldn't that lead to fat loss? This one is a little tricky because on the surface, it sounds logical, but here's the truth. You can only burn glucose efficiently when insulin is low. When insulin is chronically high, which is what happens when we graze, snack, sip on sugary drinks, or even eat high-carb meals repeatedly, our body gets trapped burning glucose only. That sounds fine, but the problem is you can burn glucose all day and still gain fat because the insulin is telling your body store, store, store, store. So you get hungry, you get cravings, you get inflammation, you get unstable energy, and eventually you get metabolic slowdown. And this is how visceral fat forms. That's the deep belly fat that wraps around your organs, such as your liver, your pancreas, your intestines. And it also changes the hormones, inflammation, immune function, and long-term disease risk. This is not the subcutaneous fat that you can pinch around your belly. That's what many of us refer to as fat rolls. But if you have a lot of subcutaneous or that pinchable fat, that's a strong indicator that you also have excess visceral fat, which is not good. But here's what's important to know: not all sugar is necessarily bad. Not all carbs are bad, and fruit in moderation definitely is not bad. Your body is just begging you for balance, space, and a break from that nonstop glucose exposure. We want glucose peaks, but we also want valleys. We want insulin to rise, but then we need it to drop. We want your metabolism to toggle between glucose and those fat burning stages. And that toggling back and forth is what creates metabolic flexibility, which is where you're gonna start to have that freedom and control over your health. So here's what's coming in this sugar series. In the next few episodes, we're gonna cover why fruit behaves differently than fruit juice, which sugars and sweeteners help or hurt your metabolic health, how inflammation, hunger hormones, and belly fat are all connected, what GLUT 4 is, and why movement lowers glucose, why ketosis is powerful but not always required, how to use carbs without disrupting metabolic flexibility, what some of the medical experts mean when they say insulin takes days to weeks to drop, and therefore they recommend that you don't eat sugar and carbs at night. We're also gonna talk about how sugar relates to cancer metabolism, brain health, and what we need to look out for when it comes to sugar in our children. And then finally, what sugar means for us ladies who are lucky enough to be experiencing that chapter of perimenopause or menopause in our lives. This is gonna be a transformational series, and I promise you, by the end, you're going to understand your metabolism better than 99% of most adults in America. So if this is resonating for you already, please stay tuned in the upcoming weeks because the information I plan to share is gonna fire up your brain and your metabolism. But before we wrap up today, please remember that everything shared on Serenity and Fire is meant for general information and inspiration purposes only. The topics we discuss are not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace personalized medical care. So please always consult with your healthcare provider before trying anything we talk about on the show. Your health is unique and your care should be too. Okay, everyone, that's it for today. As always, thank you so much for joining me for this first part of our sugar series. And remember, the best way to support the show is to follow, leave a review, and share these episodes with those you love most. And don't forget to follow us on social too at Serenity and Fire. Until next time, keep balancing Serenity with Fire. I'm Christagugeni and I'll talk with you in our next episode. At Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique, we don't just offer traditional spa treatments. We create rituals that relax your mind, restore your health, and rejuvenate your spirit. From biohacking technologies to advanced oncology trained care, everything we do is designed to help you heal on the deepest level with clean, holistic therapies, products, and amenities that are second to none. And right now you can experience two of my favorites our whole body LED light bed or hyperbaric oxygen therapies. And as a thank you for listening, you'll get 10% off your first session when you use the code Serenity10 at booking. What is your panacea? Let us help you find it because true wellness isn't a quick fix, it's a ritual.