Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
Learn to see your body through a different lens.
There comes a point where you begin to sense that what you are experiencing cannot be fully explained by symptoms alone. Patterns repeat, progress feels incomplete, and something deeper is asking to be understood. I’m Dr. Rue, a naturopathic physician focused on chronic illness and integrative oncology, where the work is not about chasing conditions, but about observing the terrain in which they arise.
In this space, we explore how the body adapts, how systems communicate, and how environment, metabolism, and lived experience shape what you feel day to day. The body is not random, and it is not working against you. It responds in ways that reflect its internal and external worlds. As you begin to understand those responses, your relationship with your health begins to change.
These are quiet, intentional conversations designed to bring clarity without removing complexity. If you have ever felt that your experience does not fit into a simple explanation, you are not alone. This is a place to listen more closely, to reconnect, and to begin seeing what may have been there all along.
Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
What Is Metabolism? | Ep. 099
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What is metabolism? It is far more than calories, weight, or how quickly you burn energy. Metabolism is the sum of the life-sustaining activity taking place within you every moment. It is one of the most fundamental expressions of being alive.
Metabolism is woven into every cell, tissue, and organ, shaping the terrain in which health and disease unfold. It is not simply something your body has. It is part of what your body is.
Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
Decoding Disease with Dr. Rue
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When you hear the word metabolism, what's the very first thing that comes to mind? If you're like most people, it's probably weight loss. Maybe you've heard someone say, I wish I had a faster metabolism. Or my metabolism just isn't what it used to be. Or maybe you've seen advertisements promising to boost your metabolism so you can burn more calories. It's no surprise. For years, that's how metabolism has been marketed to us. But here's the question I'd like you to think about. If metabolism were only about weight, then why does every single living cell in your body have one? Your brain doesn't have metabolism because it wants to lose weight. Neither does your heart. Your immune system isn't fighting infection because it's concerned about the number on the scale. Every one of those organs depends on metabolism because metabolism is how life happens. Weight is simply one small piece of a much bigger picture. When your metabolism is functioning well, your body can produce energy efficiently, repair damaged tissue, build hormones, fight infection, adapt to stress, as well as keep millions of tiny processes running every second of every day. When metabolism begins to struggle, sometimes, yes, weight can change, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the first signs of fatigue, brain fog, or poor recovery, or simply feeling like you're just not yourself. That's why I want to encourage you to think about metabolism differently. Not as your body's calorie burning engine, but as the foundation that supports every system in your body. So now let's answer the question we've been building towards. What exactly is metabolism? If I ask 10 people to define metabolism, I'll probably get 10 different answers. Some would say it's how fast you burn calories, others it's how your body turns food into energy. They're not completely wrong, but what they're seeing is only one small piece of the puzzle. So let's simplify it. Metabolism is every chemical reaction happening inside your body that keeps you alive. Think about that for a moment. Right now, your body's breaking down some things, it's building other things up, it's repairing, it's creating energy, it's removing waste. All these processes together make up your metabolism. One of the easiest ways to think about metabolism is this. Imagine your body is like a city. Every day, new buildings are constructed, old buildings are repaired, garbage is collected, roads are maintained, electricity is generated, water is cleaned, supplies are delivered, nothing stands still. Your body works in pretty much that same way. Thousands. Actually, millions of tiny jobs are happening every second to keep everything running smoothly. That's metabolism. It's not one process and it's not one organ. It's your entire body working together. And here's something fascinating. You don't have to think about any of it. Your body just simply does it quietly, faithfully, every single day. The more I learn about the human body, the more amazed I become. Because metabolism isn't just chemistry, it's the incredible way that life is sustained. Next time, we're gonna look at where metabolism actually happens. Because if your whole body has metabolism, where does all this incredible work actually take place? See you in the next episode.