March 7, 2025 • 51 mins
Francesca and Louise are back for a new season, and to kick things off, they are joined by Christchurch-based Canadian naturopath and author of The Metabolism Reset, Lara Briden, to discuss the key role metabolism plays in maintaining our energy levels, hunger and weight, and what you need to do if things are feeling a little off.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to season four of this New Zealand
Herald series The Little Things, a podcast where we have
conversations about women's well being at all ages and stages.
I'm Francesca Rudkin.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And I'm Louise Arian.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
In this series, we aim to get common sense advice
from experts as to how we can make little changes
in our lives to keep us physically, mentally and emotionally resilient.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It is so good to have you back with us,
But if you are listening to The Little Things for
the first time, welcome. Lou and I have been friends
for about fifteen years now. When it comes to sort
of women's health, nutrition and exercise, we've been there, done that,
We've dabbled in everything, and what we've learned is it's
often the little things that can make a difference.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
We also understand the mental load of parenting, working, maintaining
relationships and dealing with what life thrown us. So in
this podcast, we like to cut through the overwhelming amount
of information out there and bring you evidence based, practical
tips to help you thrive rather than just survive.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Today, we've got a really interesting topic. So for Christmas,
I bought myself a book called The Metabolism Reset by
Lara Brydon. Shall I start this first episode of Weeks
with a whole lot of oversharing, go for it? Okay,
So some of you will know this who've been listening
to podcasts and things. So in twenty twenty two, our
family kind of fell over a little bit, and for
(01:20):
two years my main job became supporting my then thirteen
year old daughter through a mental health crisis. She's done,
she'd done a very very good job of masking her
ner adiversity and could manage no more. So for sort
of two years I lived in a state of heightened anxiety,
in vital flight mode, just supporting and looking after her.
But in twenty twenty four, my amazing daughter, who worked
(01:44):
so hard on her health, returned to school and to
the world and chess, thriving and doing really brilliant. Lisa,
to parents out there who are supporting a young person
with mental health issues, just as a side hang in there.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. But look,
I had a lot less anxiety in my life.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
A loo.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I think I'd like to think you recognized me as
being sort of a completely different person, probably, and I
thought that I would return to kind of a normal
state of being, I suppose, But instead my body has
fully embraced perimenopause, and I've kind of spent a whole
year dealing with lots of random issues like swollen knees
and block deers and exhaustion and aches and pains and
(02:20):
a lack of mobility, and none of which anyone can
has been able to discover a reason for. And then
because of some of the stuff, my nutrition and exercise
hasn't been as constant as I'd liked, and my waistline
has bloomed a little bit. So I just felt like
heading into twenty twenty five, I needed to just really
in general, reclaim my health.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think being Hoddling South was ballooned, but anyway, it's
a ballone. Sometimes life can feel like a series of
span has been thrown in the works, and you know,
all our best slide plans go off the rails. And
for many, many years I have enjoyed a pretty steady size,
shape and fitness regardless of what's happened in life, with
the exception of cancer. Nowadays, any sort of short interruption
(03:05):
to exercize, like an injury or brief illness or whatever
it seems to impact me, and I feel like I'm
starting over over and over again, even though I know
I'm not. It's disheartening and it's just I don't know.
I've watched your frustration trying to reclaim your physical wellbeing,
and I really do need my running partner back on
old cylinders because it's not good for either of us.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You're a bit sick of running and walking between lamp posts.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's easier to run.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
But you know what, it's not all about us. Everyone's
dealing with stuff. So this conversation could be really cheap
for lots of us out there. Let's just see if
we can sort out some of the mixed messaging on
metabolism and middle age.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So when we came back to work, I said to
her producer, please can you get Lara Brydon on the podcast?
And she did so. We are very excited to have
Lara with us today. Lara as an etropath and, as
I mentioned, the author of The Metabolism Reset, a science
based guide for women on balancing and losing weight if
that's the goal, and improving health. Lara has more than
twenty five years experience in women's health and currently his
(04:06):
consulting rooms in christ Church. Welcome Laura, Thank you so
much for being with.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Us, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Maybe before we get into dysfunction, maybe we should have
a little bit of a talk about what good metabolic
health means, Like, how should we feel if we've got
good metabolic health?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Great, first question, it's really about energy.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Obviously, the word metabolism is a very broad term and
technically refers to literally any biochemical reaction in the body,
of which there's hundreds of douars, and so that's obviously
not what.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Is normally meant.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Most people talk about metabolism or metabolic health, they're talking
about the body's ability to convert food into energy that
we can use. And unfortunately, with some a very common
type of metabolic dysfunction that you know that starts to
sputter or you know that starts to sort of not
firef in all cylinders, and that's yeah that I think
(05:03):
people know that because they get a sense of reduced energy,
maybe sugar cravings, drops, some blood sugar, that sort of thing.
Those are all signs that metabolism is not functioning optimally.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So if you're feeling good, if you're sleeping. Well, if
you've got good energy, you kind of go okay, tech,
I'm doing the right things here.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I think a really good test is if you can
easily go between meals without blood sugar crashes or needing
to snack. That's probably one of the most common symptoms
of metabolic dysfunction, is this yet sort of just constant
feeling hungry all the time, feeling glow blood sugar, feeling
like fleeline.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
You need to eat something, especially something sweet, just to survive.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Really, I've heard it described like that by my patients,
just to get through the day. And yeah, when metabolism
is functioning optimally, there is both increased energy and also
increase satiety, which is a word I use in the book,
which is this ongoing feeling that you have enough energy,
that you've had enough food between meals. It's different, obviously
(06:02):
from hunger before when it's time for the next meal.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
I mean, that's normal.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Hunger is obviously normal when it's the appropriate time. But
if there's this sort of gnawing, never feeling satisfied, crashing
blood sugar all day, that's assignment.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Something's not right.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So, as a young woman, I heard what I thought
or understood was a fast materabilism. People used to say,
you know, fast or slow, and they used to based
effect that you were slender. Oh, she's got a fast metabolism.
Now can you debunk or prove that for us?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Yeah, Well, that's an example of one of the many
different ways that the word metabolism is used. I mean
as because metabolism has two parts. It's the part I've
been talking about feeling like you had enough to eat
enough energy, but also how much energy the body expands
just at rest, and that there's quite a huge amount
of variability between individuals. So some people do just burn
(06:56):
a lot more energyy today and that will result in them, yes,
being less likely to gain weight. But it's just so
much more than that, I guess. Rather than debunking, I
would just say, it's not specifically about being able to
stay skinny no matter what you eat.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yes, okay, so you're saying your metabolism, the way that
your body burns energy isn't entirely related to your metabolism.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
It's part of metabolism, right, So having good metabolic health
would be able to extract the energy from both carbohydrates,
and that's kind of as needed and therefore feeling satisfied,
having energy, feeling less hungry, and naturally burning more energy,
being less likely to gain weight, especially around the middle.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
I guess we can.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Specify it that way because, of course, as you know,
three fat other guests talk about, people come in all
different sizes, right, so there's not one size, not one
type of skinny that we're supposed to be, especially women.
Some women do just have more body fat, especially on
their bottom, and that's.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Actually a very healthy kind of fat.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
And we don't we certainly don't want to give the
impression that, you know, the ideal is to have less
of that.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, I did, I did enjoy that moment in the
book the bum Fat's goodlow. Yeah, healthy, Yeah, it's healthy.
It's healthy, especially you know, if you want to get
pregnant exactly.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yeah, it's cold. Reproductive fat has as many benefits.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
It's actually anti inflammatory, actively anti inflammatory for the body.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Whereas we call it belli fabit.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
It's really this sort of accumulation potentially of fat inside
the abdomen that is that is inflammatory and that is
associated with.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
The metabolic dysfunction, which we're going to be exploring today.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, just quickly, we were just talking about our perception
of what metabolism was, and as Lu said, you were
often thought to have a good metabolism if you were skinny.
Have we sort of had a bit of is there
a bit of negativity around the world, And in the
sense that you know, people might say, oh, I've got
a fast metabolism almost is a bit of an excuse
for being skinny, and then other people feel a little
(08:59):
bit guilty. You're sort of shameful about the fact that
they might have, you know, oh, I've got a you know,
I've got a slow metabolism. That's why I look the
way I do.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of emotional baggage around
the world. I think you're right, and it has a
long history of being used in that way.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
If I were to be a.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Little more precise, I mean, I guess the way I
think about it as a clinician and through my scientist's lens,
it's actually really about more specific than even metabolism or
metabolic health. It's about what's called metabolic flexibility, which is
this ability to kind of switch back and forth between
relying on carbohydrates for energy versus relying on fat for energy,
(09:36):
which is not just it could be the fat you eat,
and also body fat as the human body is actually
our default in the resting fasting state and my fasting I.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Just mean like a few hours between after a meal.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Our default date when we're healthy and metabolically healthy is
we're supposed to be mostly in fat burning at that time.
But a common situation with metabolic inflexibility is people get
trapped in carb burning even yet, which is why this
is directly leads into this feeling hungry all the time,
bletrical crashing, needing, like you need to.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Eat something sweet to.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Keep going through the day. It's because you've lost that temporarily.
It's reversible, but people have lost that ability to sort
of tap into their own body fat stores for energy.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So, in a way, a good way to think about
it is I want to have metabolic flexibility so that
I have good general health.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Yeah, and metabolic flexibility the ability to access body fat
properly not have insulin resistance. We can explore that a
little bit. All of that feeds directly into health. People
will know this. They we will have been hearing about
the link between metabolic health and mental health. For example,
there a strong link between metabolic health and long term
risk of heart disease. That's a well known risk is
(10:46):
the link between metabolic health and women's health particularly is
something called polyxetic over syndrome or PCOS. So as I guess,
as you would have seen in chapter one of my book,
this is the whole body. It's really not just about
bodies size yet about overall howth long term.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So before we sort of spin out, yeah, yeah, you know,
I just got my heat around, you know, materabolism.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Now I have to make sure when it's fixable.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Some of this body is doing naturally for us, and
some of it we're influencing.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I assume.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Yeah, well, I think let's frame it this way.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Our you know, our birthright, our natural human physiology, which
should be doing all of this automatically without us really
having to micromanage or think about it in any way,
has been harmed by the modern environment. I mean, this
is I do I talk about this in the book.
I've I dedicated a whole chapter to it. I know,
on the one hand, it's a little depressing to think
about what the modern food supply and environmental toxins and
(11:45):
a combination of things that were outside of our control
has done to our metabolic health.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
It's it's depressing to.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Think about it in those terms, but it also I
hope helps people feel a little less shamed around it
because it is truly not people's fault. Like fifty seventy
years ago, people did not have to be micromanaging their
metabolic health. They didn't have to be I'm sure they
were active, naturally active, but you know, they didn't have
(12:11):
to be sort of making sticking to specific diets or
making particular gym programs. It was just it was all
kind of happening. So this is the scientists are very
clear on this. Something has gone terribly wrong in the
last approximately fifty to seventy years. It really started around
the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties, something started going very wrong
and not just changing the body sizes of lots of people,
(12:34):
but also increasing all these metabolic health risks. So that
would go along with you know, high triglycerides, sort of
high cholesterol, all these sort of markers that we associate
with heart disease, but there are really sort of signs
of metabolic dysfunction. And yeah, I mean I just say
if I could wave a magic wand I would like go.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Back fifty seventy years.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
It's like, you know, put us talk to the ultra
processed food companies taking over in the environment into toxins
that potentially are doing all its damage. But unfortunately, reality
is we're collectively, all of us just in this boat together.
And I'll just point out some people have just managed
to escape some of that through lucky genetics. Really, some
(13:16):
people have just been less affected by what, you know,
these changes, these negative changes that are affecting a great
number of people. When I was writing my book, I
just kept saying, over and over, I feel so so
bad for people.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
You know, so bad for people.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
This was outside of their control and people feel so
ashamed and.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
It was you know, it was not their fault.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Which is a really I really appreciated that approach throughout it,
and you also sort of have this approach throughout the
book that you know, what, if you want to just
take a moment and reset, you're not going to fail,
you know, like, just have some patience, you know, And
it comes across very positively, and I wonder it feels
like such a stark difference to and I know that
(13:58):
we're not talking about way, but a lot of people
who maybe suffering have probably been on a lot of
diets in their life. But it feels like such a
stark difference to dart culture, in which we constantly feel
like failures and we're constantly beating ourselves up about how
well we've done and how we look and things like that.
And I just really, I just I just I just
like that that you can just actually just get rid
(14:20):
of some of that blame for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And what I was in nineteen seventy one, baby, what
about you necessarily too? Baby?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah, one of my editors asked me early on, you
know what I wanted was what I wanted to accomplish
with the book, and it was just like, really to
not make people feel worse about themselves than they already do,
like to not set people up to fail, because, as
you say, that's just it. The risk is alway there,
because especially when they're a new idea or a new
(14:48):
approach to how the metabolic healsis and presenting in this book,
there's going to be this hope, you know, and then
if it doesn't all kind of work immediately people just
feel like, oh no, it's just one more thing I've failed.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
But I guess. Yes.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
We're trying to frame it as for some people, this
is going to be a long term project, a long
game they're going to have to play. Here. They're unraveling
decades of unfortunately like damage from the environment that wasn't
their fault, and that can take some.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Time to unravel. But as you said earlier, people are
not going to fail if.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
You just sort of step by step, one step forward,
even if there's occasionally a couple of steps back, you
just keep going.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I've heard the word consistently average bandit about and I'm
actually at first I was about that's a bit depressing.
Actually I quite like it now, Yeah, I mean, because
how can you expect yourself to be more than that
all the time. That's crazy, right, which means there will
be days that you'll be perfect in days that you
might not be. And the flip side of all of
that is that I agree with you completely. As we've
had other experts come and talk to us about gut
(15:47):
House and thinks it's so exact same thing. Let's just
preface this with this is a this is an environmental thing.
This is something we've been feed for the last fifty
seven years. Is that we are learning so much. We
are learning to take some responsibility for our own way
wellbeing once we know and the information is really available.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
So that's a us Sonara, what is metabolic dysfunction or inflexibility?
What impact does it have on our health? You've mentioned
a few things to do with heart and other things.
Give us a little bit of an idea about the
impact it has.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
On our health.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, So I sometimes call this, you know, the most
overlooked hormonal condition that's out there. I mean, you listeners
will know other hormonal conditions. I mean, there's the undirected thyroid,
and it's very female hormone conditions, but I would say
that the condition of insulin resistance is the hormonal condition.
(16:40):
It's mostly overlooked, even though it affects at least one
in two adults, so it's extremely common.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
And I do know from lots of.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Conversations I've had with my patients and you know, other
interviewers that there's something about the phrase insulin resistance which
is just difficult to kind of like get your head
around or remember or so I mean curious to hear
if you have other guests talk about it before it is.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
So I've tried to rebranded a little bit.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Is just metabolic dysfunction, which is maybe a little bit
easier to think about. It's also this metabolic inflexibility that
I referenced earlier in a nutshell, I guess if we're
gonna be just very as simple as possible for people,
it is its hormonal state of having chronically elevated levels
of insulin. Chronically elevated it's normal for insulin to rise
and I go up and down after a meal, So
(17:29):
it's not that insulin is bad at all, but chronically
elevated levels of insulin do this lock the body out
of it. As I said earlier, this birthright ability to
sort of just tap into body fat stores for as
much energy as it needs. It traps the body into
being more reliant on carbs, and that is not it's
a very unpleasant place to be. And because it causes
(17:51):
yet I said earlier, you know, feeling hungry all the time,
craving carbohydrates potentially, but also this just directly downstream from that,
likely elevated insulin or insulin resistance are a lot of
the inflammatory conditions that we talked about. The mental health
conditions increase long term risk of heart disease for sure,
potentially of dementia, potentially of some types of cancer, which
(18:12):
is you know, not just sort of overstate it, but
it does kind of feed into a lot of things.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
And then of course some women's health conditions as well.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
So it's people are feeling. You know, I just know
for my own patients, if I if I even observed
from their blood work, or I might see, okay, your
trichlysterides are high. You know this, fatty liver. These are
all signs high blood pressure. Potentially, these are all signs
of insulin resistance. And then nine times out of ten,
my patient just be like really crestfall and it's like,
oh my.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
Goodness, how did I You know, I feel so bad.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
I feel so ashamed that I let this happen, and
that they wouldn't say that for any other hormonal condition,
would they. Like you wouldn't say if the doctor said, oh,
you're you know, your thighrid is underactive, you wouldn't say, oh, how.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Did I let that happen?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
I'm like sort a bad person, Like it just doesn't
make any sense at all, Like because it's been this
narrative that insulin resistance is directly by weight gain, which
is not as I explained in the book, is not
how I see it at all, and I don't think
that's what the science suggests. This is a hormonal condition
caused by a combination of genetics, and as we talked about,
like Environmentaltocks has definitely gut problems are probably driving some
(19:14):
of the epidemic of insulin resistance. It's not because people
just dropped the ball and did the wrong thing. That
is just not the case. But also at the same time,
I think we need to kind of name it for
what it is and acknowledge it, and also say it's reversible,
which is good news.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I do recoil touch because I don't fully understand it.
That's why you know the words insulin resistance. But I
had insulin resistance when I was pregnant, as they call
it gestational diabetes with my last child, not with my
two previous children. And I didn't use insulin because on
such a Stavin tad and I ended.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Up in hospital with provitus. I lost weight.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It was silly, right, but nobody really had been able
to explain it.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Properly to me. So I'm I'm all on board.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
With just naming it it and not shaming at us
for it. I'm also intrigued that you're comment about being genetic.
So is it like genetic, like cholesterol can be genetic,
or is it Well, it's like.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So many things, there's a genetic predisposition, Like some people
are just genetically just not prone to it. Despite the
barrage of you know, the modern food environment and the
problems of the microbiome. I think. I think actually our
modern changes to the microbiome is probably quite a big
driver of the tendency to insulin resistance in certain people.
So almost with any condition there's going to be that
(20:33):
genetic component combined with multiple and of course, actually there's
some section a section on pregnancy and postpartum in my
metabolism book. Pregnancy is actually just a natural state of
insulin resistance, not in a bad way. So we do
with pregnancy just become more naturally insulin resistance. That's okay,
(20:53):
that's called physiological insulin resistance. But it can in combination
with other factors, including the microbiome is shoes. Yeah, it's
a problem of maybe going further down that path or
also having a problem with insular resistance after delivery.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, can you be have insulin resistance, Does it lead
to diabetes? Is there a connection there?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah, And that's a perfect question. I can tell you're
an experienced interviewer because you know exactly right.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I know I didn't know whether actually I was completely
off the MAC and that we completely.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Not at all.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
No, so yes, untreated or if it's allowed to progress.
Insular resistance definitely does become pre diabetes and then type
two diabetes, but not everyone within sular resistance will developed diabetes,
although they could actually be risked for some of those
other conditions. But one point to make here is that
(21:53):
the transition diabetes is when eventually blood sugar starts to
go above normal. The important thing to understand is for
the year are possibly decades of insulin resistance. For some people,
blood sugar will be normal, so normal and even sort
of dropping low sometimes. So it's actually more to look
for other things like as I mentioned, the hydroglycerides sometimes
(22:13):
measure insulin. I thought you don't have to, but if
you were to measure it would be baseline elevated insulin.
And this is all very technical for people, but it's
I think it's just quite important because I realized I
mentioned something about insulin resistance on my social media and
someone my followers said, oh, well, no I must not
have that because I have low blood sugar, and I
(22:33):
was like, no, no, no, no, Actually, low blood sugar
is potentially a symptom of it. So conflation with debetes
is a bit confusing.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So people walking around, you know, people are walking around
with what are they called the things.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
That they continuous blue Coast monitors is really well, that's
a very good question. I don't use one in the
section I tackle it in the book. I understand. I
guess I can conceive there's a place for it. I don't.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
I feel like it can follow a bit into the
category of micro managing for people, and it potentially be
anxiety provoking. So and I have a recent podcast episode
about that. I don't really see value. I play more
of a broad strokes pulled big levers, play the long
game rather than trying to micromanage.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Bluecost because I just feel like that can be a
bit of a My blood.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Pressure goes up just because I know I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
So I'm not I'm not a candidate for that.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
I think there are people who love tracking anything, whether
it's blood sugar or blood pressure or sleep or and
then there are people and I'm in the second category
who just really do not want to track.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
I don't. I don't because I'm like, I feel like
I would just the test. I would trailer.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
You don't track a thing, you don't track your steps,
you sleep. There's this wonderful chap on tracking, and.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I don't do any of us. That's true.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Okay, so let's have it. Let's have a little bit
of a talk, because I think there's two things when
it comes to knowing whether you have insulin resistance. There
is how we feel, and then there are the tests
that you can have. So if you were looking for
symptoms yourself, you talked about satiety. Is that the main
symptom that you just can never feel full, You just
(24:06):
want to keep eating.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
I think that's one of the number one symptoms.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Yes, it's feeling constantly hungry, potentially, you know, combined with
blood sugar crashes, where you, as I said, patients describe
it like I cannot survive the afternoon if I don't have,
you know, this sweet thing.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
It becomes very life and death feeling for them. It's real.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And I mean when you're in the grips of something
like that, a physiological hormonal state like that. I mean,
obviously the advice to just okay, please don't eat that,
you know, pupcake or whatever it is, is not going
to be very helpful in that moment. A far better
plan is to improve the hormonal condition and have saciety.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
I feel have more energy.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
But yes, and answer to your question, other common symptoms,
so yes, feeling hungry all the time is a good sign.
Waking specifically around the middle. And I'll just acknowledge again
like what a huge variation in body size there is.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
So this is more to do.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
If the kind of the more square waste that I
think most people sort of know what I mean. But
even people who are normal BMI or quite small people
can actually have that visceral fat gain that kind of
waking through the middle. So there are ways to do
sort of a waist hip ratio that can provide That's
a very low cost, easy way to assess that. And
(25:18):
then there are common markers that people would have had
done just from their GP anyway.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
High triglyph strides is fasting.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Triglyst rides is a very common marker of insulin resistance
it's one of the easiest ones to access. A combination
of sort of high tragelstrides and lower HDL, which is
the good cholesterol that would.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Point to insulin resistance.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
If the doctor's ever mentioned fatty liver, that's usually insulin resistance,
although there can be other explanations for.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
That, but that's usually what that means. Skin tags. People
might have those.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
It's okay, I have a few skin tags. People with
strong insulin resistances will have a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
You know, we started off by trying to define what
the metabolism is in made of flexibility and things like that.
And the one thing that really struck me when reading
this book it is so complicated. It is so complex,
and we're still learning so much that.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
We yeah, you remember this section. I quite embrace the complexity.
So I'll just say again, I'll just have to This
is a takeaway for everyone listening, especially I they're feeling overwhelmed.
Do not try to micromanage this. It is not the
kind of thing that can be micromanaged because it is
such a complex web. And just to give some examples, well,
(26:32):
we've talked about the gut microbiome a few times. I
mean with the gut, what the microbes and the gut
are doing, sends so many different signals that affects levels
of GLP one. That's the famous gut hormone that increases
satiety and increases energy burning. That's those are the famous
weight loss medications. I think you guys had an episode
about that, actually about the medication.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
So that's you know, that's one of one hormone.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
There's actually there was just some news a couple of
weeks ago that certain biol acids, so coming from the
gallbladder and then being acted on in the gut, those
increase metabolic rate and improve insulin sensitivity and actually help
with muscle gain. And you know, there's a lot going on.
And then the other part of it. We took about
the gut microbionb but the nervous system is hugely involved.
(27:16):
There's something called the autonomic nervous system. You may have
had guests, you may have had episodes about this before.
This is the parasympathetic, sympathetic kind of balance, and especially
in women, I would say even more so than in men,
the autonomic nervous system, that unconscious part of our nervous
system has a very strong effect on metabolic health, on hunger,
(27:38):
on to tidy, on how much energy you burn. So
the nervous system is another way in This is what
I mean by not micromanaging.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Like, this is why I talk about your.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Goal is feeling good, you know, feeling zest, feeling satidy.
And it does require some troubleshooting because for every person
it's going to be a little bit different. I mean
there are some commonalities. Certainly gut microbvibe is one. But
I mean with my approach with patients over the last
three decades, if they pick up that they had insulin resistance,
there is definitely no one size fits at all. I
(28:08):
have to think, Okay, what about the bigger picture? You know,
what is happening with your nervous system? Are you you
know a high level of stress? Is there are the
problems with the guy? Is there Hashimoto's thyroid disease. It's
a very common one for women actually, as an autoimmune,
very common autoimmune thyroid condition that affects insulin sensitivity. It
affects this whole picture. And yeah, so I know that
(28:30):
that feels overwhelming when there's because we love a one
size fits all approach.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
But that's why I say embrace it. Just realize you know.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
You know, in my first book about periods, I have
a sentence where I say, you know, fix your health
and you'll fix your period. This is the same you know,
fix your general health. Address the thing that needs to
be addressed with your general health, and that will help
to fix your metabolic health. It's not separate from the
rest of health.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You're listening to the little things in Our guest on
the podcast today is netropaeth Lara Bright and also of
The Metabolism Race, a science based guide for women on
balancing and so then losing weight and improving health. Will
be back shortly after this break.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Laura, you just touched on.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Something there about how we are all different, because how
many times does one of your mates go on a
keito diet or go on pale or go on something
words or they're fasting and they tell you it works brilliantly,
and then you try it and you hate every minute
of it and it doesn't work for you. And that's
essentially why, right, we're all different and different things will
work for us. Stop focusing on everybody else, look in
wood and work out what's going to work for you, and.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
It does require some trial and error, and that's just
how it is.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
But I encourage people when they do it, when they're
trying different changes, to stick with it for a while
because but also we also don't want to sort of
get caught in the trap of you know, I tried
to make this day it change, but then I just
felt really really you know, sort of hungry or stressed
by that you might just need a bit of extra
time to work.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Try Those should have been my words this year. I
actually love that. I'm going to embrace trial in your.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I've told you you can have as Lou likes to
have one word for the year. I think that's limiting.
I'm up to two. I just think they'll keep adding
the word.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, trial and error.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
No.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Something you said before about a parasympathetic and an autonomic
nervou system. That's really interesting because that also impacts whether
you're a person who goes to food for comfort or
who can't, Like I can't eat if I'm really stressed,
can't eat, can't do calcohol. And the worst thing is
people that I do I'm completely stressed.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
In people say, oh my god, you're looking.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
So God, actually, Luis, this goes back to the said
early about with a fast metabolism. Those would be people,
the people who are more sympathetic dominant, so kind of
high adrenaline people do actually just burn more calories in general,
which is just how people are wired. I mean, that's
just again a reality. But those same people would exactly
(30:56):
as you. That would be a good task to actually under
stress lose appetite. Is more parasympathetic dominant people I'm distressed
with potentially interesting And you know what's interesting is that
people who are sympathetic dominant, Yes, have an easier time
of it in some ways, but there's always a flip side.
There's away two sides to the coin, right, as being
sympathetic dominant and that kind of wiry, high adrenaline person
(31:18):
has trouble sleeping, or there could be a sort of
other aspects of that immune aspects that because I've actually
actually been a sort of a sympathetic dominant person myself,
and I just realized people might sort of be envious
of that, but it's not necessarily an enbial.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I've got a funny feeling and Paula's might have changed
some of that for me. Because I'm way more comfortable
these days.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
But no, I don't. I don't always sleep well, that's right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Well, no, but you've been trying to sort your sleep
out for a while. You were quite interested to talk
to Lar about that.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Well, it's only in certain seasons. Summer, I don't sleep
so well. When I'm on holiday, I don't sleep so well.
But I'm pretty sure that's because I've organized the entire
holiday and I'm actually burned out by the time I
get there. But you're saying that that sympathetic. Yeah, I
think I do wake up kind of trying to comfort
myself but unable to do you know what I mean.
(32:05):
But Michael Mosley, you also explain to us just don't panic,
just take some deep breaths and you'll go back to sleep.
But I'd really rather just sleep, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Okay, So what even if we do not have metabolic dysfunction,
we can improve our health in general, and a lot
of the things that we need to do is similar
if you do have probably metabolic dysfunction. So how can
we look after ourselves a little bit better? And let's
(32:33):
start with food, food wise, how we can work towards
better health in general.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, no, you're right. So I mean, I'll just reiterate
what you just said. A lot of the stuff in
my book. I mean, this book is aimed at people
within slim resistance and how to recover from that. But
because my general approach is fix your health, to fix
your metabolism, a lot of it is going to be
relevant for people just wanting to get healthier.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Generally food rules.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
There's the food wars out there, the diet wars, and
everyone's got a different opinion. I know it's cliche, but
you said earlier there's no one size fits all.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
That's just really true.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
That's just genetics, microbi nervous system type, body type. Like,
there's just so many different reasons ancestry that we different
people feel and thrive on different types of diet. That said,
I mean, there are some common denominators. I guess I
would start with. Step one is to be fully nourished.
I know that's sort of stating the obvious, but I
(33:30):
feel like, especially women have had so much the message
for decades of restrict restrict restrict, So getting enough certain
things is a huge first step, and so protein would
be one of them. I'm sure you had other guests
talk about the importance of protein. It promotes society, It
gives a nervous system, an immune system, everything, you know,
(33:50):
a lot what it needs. This and also some micro
nutrients that I emphasize in the book that I selected
as kind of the missing men nutrients because they are
missing in our modern food supply to a large extent.
Like our ancestors, even one or two generations ago, used
to have a lot more of some of those nutrients
coming in. Here's a quick survey for you, guys. Were
(34:13):
you said liver or kidneys when you were kids? Nice, Well,
organ meets used to be a lot more on the menu.
They're very nutritious, they're high in anothatal coaling. A couple
of the missing metabolic nutrients that I talk about in
the book. And I'm just remembering, Yeah, like back in
the seventies, we were given in liver was just on
our weekly rotation.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
We were given that once a week. That was just
sort of a normal thing.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
And I mean, all the experts are debating what is
it about our modern food supply that is so devastating
to metabolic health, And one of the things is it's
just missing some of the nutrition that people used to
have even fifty years ago.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
So that's you know, sick one is be fully nourished.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
And then step two And this is where it gets
a little trick here about the wording you would have
seen in the book I use is shelter from the
modern food supply. Like it's sheltering. It's actively sheltering. We
have to actively do it because it's just everywhere. I
mean to start with a really easy one, I talk
about sheltering from alcohol, and to a large extent, I mean,
(35:09):
I think some people can get away with a bit
more alcohol than other people, but in general, alcohol is
not friendly to metabolical or although there's been some debate
around that, but I think that debate was incorrect. It's
not friendly for perimenopause or women's health, and so you know,
sheltering from it and just making a decision. It's like
I'm going to feel better if I don't have that.
Then the same would apply to you know, sheltering from
(35:30):
ultraprocessed foods, sheltering from sugar for some people. And this
is where it gets a little bit more into gray areas,
because you know, how much is too much right of
those things?
Speaker 5 (35:41):
Of course, some people can get away with some ultra
process food.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
And there's some types of ultra process food that are
you know, arguably okay, like protein powders. So it starts
to be this very nuanced debate, and there's as soon
as you sort of make one statement, as always, you
know the other side who it's like, well, but what
about these people? And you know you can't make a
rule around that. But this is where I people to
try to check in with their reality. There's a section
later in the book called being Realistic about bread and desserts.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
And yeah, I didn't like that.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I like that one. Well, just technology. Some people can
have bread. I mean they truly can. Obviously they can.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Bread can be a healthy food for some people, but
for some people it's really not. Like for some people
it's really really not. And I'll just give an example
again that mentioning hashimotos or autoimmune thyroid disease.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Some of your listeners definitely have that.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
It affects.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
It's pretty common in women, especially over forty, and there's
just growing evidence that for those women, potentially gluten is
just not friendly to that kind of that autoimmune thyroid
part of their health and they feel and I've seen this,
but thirty years of patients, they do feel a lot
better off gluten or off bread.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And you know, I have a friend, Yeah, a friend,
and she's definitely feeling better. She didn't need too much
advice to just try it and then find out herself
how much she feels.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Pretty dramatic. Sometimes actually it's stopping. Bread can be.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Yeah, just feel amazing for some people, and then some
people it's like that's not the change that they needed.
And so that doesn't the fact that some people can
get away with eating bread doesn't mean that, you know,
everybody can.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
And you're not talking about old bred are You're talking
about the commercial breed that it's available on the shelves, right, Well.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
I'm talking about different things for different people. Yeah, So
I think broadly commercial bread is not friendly. And actually
one of the ingredients and commercial bread is emulsifiers. Some
of the scientists some of the research around excuse me,
around emmalcifiers and in foods and how they might damage
the gut lining and the microbiome. And it's some of
those things that makes me pop awake sometimes at night thinking,
(37:44):
oh my goodness, what if it were that, Like what
if it's what if the silly emmalsifiers that are in
our modern food supply have been one of the drivers
of metabolic dysfunction.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
It's possible.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
I doubt it's that simple, but it's one of those
things that it's such a billy little thing. So yees.
So most people are probably going to feel better at
least switching to a better quality like sourdough or something.
And then there are going to be people who just
really can't have gluten. That's the minority, but there's some people.
And then there are going to be people who do
for different reasons. I know, we wan't have time to
explore all the different reasons people might want to go
(38:15):
on a proper low carb diet at least for a while,
or kind of at least cycling on and off. So
my book, as you saw, it's not it's not a
low carb it's not definitely not recommending low carb for everybody.
But it's pretty hard to ignore the research around keto
and low carb for certain people for certain things, especially
mental health, especially some of the people who are more
severely it, you.
Speaker 5 (38:34):
Know, pushed into insulin resistance.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
There has to be yes some acknowledgment that for those
people at least for a while.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I mean I cycled through a kito diet at one
point with a colleague work, and it wasn't for me
long term, just with the family life, but the mental
clarity was quite surprising.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, yeah, kind of annoying.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Laura.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Can I just quickly go back and clarify you mentioned
as some supplements which are good for metabolic health.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
What would they gain?
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah, I'm happy to give them. These are my five
missing metabolic nutrients. I selected them because they're safe, they're inexpensive,
they're you know, effective I've seen with patients, and they're
just ones that I felt most people could you safely try.
So magnesium is number one, and I think I think
I say in the book, if you want to try
only one, start with magnesium, because there's a lot of
(39:24):
research around that. There's actually even a meta analysis of
you know, magnesium for potentially improving insular resistance predabetes.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
It depending what word you want to use, so it's
it's quite easy to take some magnesium.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
Then the second one is an amino acid called touring,
which I've written about in all my books.
Speaker 5 (39:42):
Actually it also helps with.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
Both magnesium and touring do different things, but they calm
the nervous system. They help with mitochondria, who we haven't
mentioned yet, but they're the little cellular powerhouses. They're big
players and all of this. And then the third nutrient
is colling, which is definitely missing. There's a lot of
research suggesting people are ants. Recent ancestors used to.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
Eat a lot more coaling that we do now.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
A lot of that came from organ me It's also
shelf like seafood eggs.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
And then there's an.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Nutrient called inocetol, which anyone who doesn't think about polycystic
over syndrome or PCUS would have heard all about inocetol.
It's also been clinically child for insulin distance. And then
glycine is another amino acids. So those and those five
and in Australia and New Zealand we can get those
kind of often mostly combined. We can get like figure
(40:30):
four of them in one supplement, and then maybe just
take the coaling.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
Right, I see what I use with a lot of
my patients.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
But serioustically, we should be able to get everything else
that our bodies need from our food.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Hopefully, Yes, I mean I think one of the problems
is our foods. Modern foods ply is lower in micronutrients,
not just those nutrients that I've listed.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
But other ones as well. That the New Zealand foods
PLI is quite.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Lower in selenium, for example, which would be another micronutrient.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
That choose a nuts is that the brazil nut.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
You can have will nuts.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
It's high in brazil nuts, and my patients that's what
they do, and that's fine. Like two or three bizil
nuts today it is enough for slenium. And so selenium
is one of those new chants where there is a
toxic level too, so you don't want to take too much.
And I think if people are already taking two or
three bizil nuts, they don't they shouldn't also supplement it.
But selenium is important for autoimmune thyroid and let's come
up a few times today.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
But I just prettyman listening.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
If their thyid has been underactive, they should ask the
doctor if thyroid antibodies was tested. And then look at
that section in my book. There was just this fascinating
new paper talking about how women with high thyroid antibodies,
this kind of autoimmune reaction against the thyroid, have symptoms
like joint pain, joint swelling, you know, anxiety fatigue, even
(41:42):
if their thid formale levels are normal on a blood test,
which is very interesting. So it's kind of more around
the immune side of things.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Okay, So essentially, if what I love about the book
is it's kind of like a trouble shooting guide, you know,
for you to kind of go on a bit of
an investigation and work out where you might be at.
But if someone just feeling a little bit sluggish, if
they are worried about that excess weight that maybe appearing
around the waist and things, actually you can do a
bit of trial and error. But if you if you
(42:11):
just start pushing back against that ultra processed food, push
back a little bit against that sugar, look after yourself
a little bit better in regards to getting you know,
move a little bit and get some sleeping things. Theoretically,
you know, a month or two down the line, you
should generally be feeling better.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Oh yeah, the trigger starts will come down what people
sort of feel later around the waist. I mean, yes,
we can also give you just sort of a bullet point,
you know, easier or less to fill up on protein
potentially tech magnesium, move the body into some form and
align cuccadian rhythm. This is we haven't talked that much
about circadian rhythm yet, but it's hugely important for all
(42:49):
of this as well. So the body needs to know
properly when it's night and day and when it's night,
and that's done partly with late it's also done with
the timing of meals, and this is where I think
some benefits from meal timing come in. So the timing
of protein protein in the morning and then not eating
overnight can help with the circadian rhym Actually, as you know,
(43:10):
in the book, I talk about all the different metabolic
obstacles people can try to identify and correct, and then
I have some easy wins, which are the you know,
super easy ones that have a high impact or high benefit.
Correcting circadian rhythm is an easy win because it doesn't
take that much to do it and the body loves it.
And it's so funny in this area because every group
(43:32):
of scientists who are whatever they're studying, you know, the
microbiome or the metochondria or the circadian rhythm, they all think, Okay,
this is the key to metabolic health, this area that
we're talking about, and certainly the circadian rhythm scientists are like,
it's all about circadian you.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
Know, just do that, everything else will fall into blaze.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
And so that's more about having a breakfast when you
wake up, lunch and dinner and then going to be
at a decent time and waking up.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Is it what you're saying saying it's about getting morning light,
actually stepping outside in the morning if you can. It's
going to depend on time of year, but I do
encourage people go for a morning walk if you can,
or at least just take your coffee outside and like
take your dog into the back garden or something.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Get that sort of light.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
And sheltering from blue light or bright light in the evening.
And also not eating overnight is really important, and so
I mean that's sometimes easier said than done. So certainly
people are creating sugar overnight, then there's maybe some other
steps that have to happen to be able to not
eat it in the evening. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I saw a funny real the other day.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
I think it was Amy Schumer, and there were you know,
there were people in the waiting room and the doctor
came out and see, I'm just going to tell you
all because there was a sleep minute just put down
your phones, just at least put down your phones, And
they went, is there not something else you can do?
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Is there a pill?
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Is there something else? I'll do anything else, but let's
have it for me, isn't it? And I was just thinking,
Francis Skirt, you did right. If you did these simple
things for a few months and then think things weren't
feeling better, that's when it's time to.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Go and and be stick. If these feather if these
blocks in the way.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
A really common obstacle, I'll just share with everyone. But
I see with my patients is gut health. And I
know we've already talked about that a few times. But
if people have if they're bloating daily, feeling uncomfortably distended
and gassy and bloating, or you know, constipation or loose spouse,
if there's something significant like going on in the gut,
even if it's just IBS, yeah, that's the label that's.
Speaker 5 (45:22):
Been given it that needs to be sorted.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Like from my experience, sometimes there's a patient the few
patients stories, it's ten patient stories in the book. I
only realized after the fact that three of them are
about fix fixing gud health. To fix metabolic health. So
in one story, I can remember this patient very well.
She had terrible sugar cravings and she was trying to
mentally like overcome them, and you know, trying all different things,
(45:46):
even like the good things like magnesium and eating protein,
and nothing was working. And I said to her, let's
just you know, let's just focus on your gut right now,
because you've got this terrible IBS and you're uncomfortable. And
we did you know, her bald treatment for that. And
then she's like a month later, she's like, oh my goodness,
my sugar cravings have just gone. And that is an
experience that I've heard from patients. You know, craving's got
(46:08):
like appetite regulating or even just spontaneous weight loss from
fixing the gut sometimes. So that's a it's one of
those ones that.
Speaker 5 (46:15):
Is just a common obstacle. It's just nothing else.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Just keep investigating. And I think that as women, we
have really good intuition and we should rely on it
a lot more. And I think if you're thinking, you know,
if you're thinking, I'm not things aren't quite right. I'm
not happy with where they're at, just keep investigating. And
I love the fact that the way in the book too, Lara,
you give advice around how to talk to maybe a
(46:41):
GP about a particular thing that you're concerned about, so
you can go in and say, hey, look this is
a concern. Should we look at this and should we
look at that? Which I think is really great information
for us and how we then kind of communicate how
we're feeling with our medical experts. Oh, Lara, it's been
so good to have you here. And look, you did
do a very very job of taking an incredibly complex
(47:02):
topic and explaining it to us. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
And I know, I know there are things that we
haven't like you say, the mitochondria and things, but that
it's in your book, I really recommend it. It's an
easy read on a complex topic. That's how I would
put it, and I really appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Thank you so much, Lara.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Thanks, Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
She was great and you no confession time, I just
the penny dropped as we we're talking. No, it's it's
not sheltering from alcohol on a holiday, That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
It's why you can't sleep.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
You know, I'm wide out in the open with alcohol.
I'm on holiday. And then I'm waking up, ping, why
can't I sleep? My brain's going.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, I just think it's so funny the way we
keep getting told that this Louise. Sometimes the penny doesn't
drop quite as fast as you think it would.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Well, it drops intermittently.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, just evaporates. I don't know anyway, Look, society loved it.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
That was so good.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
It is really interesting. So, you know, because I have
a problem with society. I don't ever really feel full.
So it's not like I have hunger pains and I'm
I'm like, you know, maybe you haven't eaten for a
long period of time and you're way past lunch time
and you're hungry. It's not bad. It's just that I
don't ever feel full. So I'm like, oh, yeah, I've
have a bit of that, and I'll have a bit
of that. And I do have an issue with sugar,
(48:29):
and you know, I can cope with quite a lot of.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
It, ie to eminems and not finish them. Though I
don't don't experiment out there, but I that that there's
something about a pack of eminem So don't beat yourself
up about that.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
It's just give me min ms.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
My birthday and the Mother's Day everything, just give a
peck and emms should be happy.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
But there are some things I can only have one off.
I could only have one donut, for example. You couldn't
have more than one doughnut.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Surely I don't eat donuts very often, right, it depends
who's making them, to be honest with you, not not
a really beautifully made one. I could probably go one
and a half.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I could push the boat out of it anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
The point is this has been a bit of a
come to Jesus moment for me, this book, Yes, and
where I'm at, And I would like to just get
better general health. I want to prevent anything sort of
cropping up that potentially could in the next few years.
And I think perimenopause is just a cruel little pitch
at times, isn't it. And if I'm going to get
on top of it, I need to behave a little
(49:29):
bit better.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
So yeah, and I think I think you and I like,
I mean, you know, we are seventies babies, but also
we are anyone in our age group is on the
cusp of this talking about perimenopause a lot more, right,
So had I known a lot more about what was
happening in my early forties. You know, outcomes, I'm not
(49:51):
sure what outcomes could be different, but things would probably
be different.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
We were really active, but we also we also make
decisions about around trying to simplify our love. So the
whole idea is just cook more of your own meals, right,
But we now rely on meal kit services that come
with a lot of sources and things. We're now relying
on people to help us manage our lives and make
our lives better. So we thought we were making decisions
a lot of the time in our own best interests
(50:16):
and our own best interest and to make our lives easier.
And then occasionally you just send to go, okay, now,
how do I just go back a few steps here?
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Yeah, but if you keep those two things in mind,
this is for us anyway, the satiety and the weight
gain around the middle, because I was always slender. So
the weight gain around the middle, it's not that I'm
embarrassed about it or shamed or any of those things.
It's that I know what that means and it's not healthy.
Speaker 5 (50:39):
Fan.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
So if that could just go back to my backside,
I'd probably be okay with that. But we know you
can't do that, and you can't spot eliminate it either.
So the only way really is to just be really
honest with you yeah, and not focus on the weights,
not focus on actually the weight. Just get it focused
on the health and hopefully there'll be some nice side
effects along the way. Thanks for joining us on our
(51:03):
new Zealand Herald podcast series, The Little Things. We hope
you share this podcast with women in your life. We
can all understand metabolic house a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
I hope it's been terrified for you.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics,
get to Zet Herald dot co dot zet and we'll
catch you next time on The Little Things.
Hello, and welcome to season four of this New Zealand
Herald series The Little Things, a podcast where we have
conversations about women's well being at all ages and stages.
I'm Francesca Rudkin.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And I'm Louise Arian.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
In this series, we aim to get common sense advice
from experts as to how we can make little changes
in our lives to keep us physically, mentally and emotionally resilient.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It is so good to have you back with us,
But if you are listening to The Little Things for
the first time, welcome. Lou and I have been friends
for about fifteen years now. When it comes to sort
of women's health, nutrition and exercise, we've been there, done that,
We've dabbled in everything, and what we've learned is it's
often the little things that can make a difference.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
We also understand the mental load of parenting, working, maintaining
relationships and dealing with what life thrown us. So in
this podcast, we like to cut through the overwhelming amount
of information out there and bring you evidence based, practical
tips to help you thrive rather than just survive.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Today, we've got a really interesting topic. So for Christmas,
I bought myself a book called The Metabolism Reset by
Lara Brydon. Shall I start this first episode of Weeks
with a whole lot of oversharing, go for it? Okay,
So some of you will know this who've been listening
to podcasts and things. So in twenty twenty two, our
family kind of fell over a little bit, and for
(01:20):
two years my main job became supporting my then thirteen
year old daughter through a mental health crisis. She's done,
she'd done a very very good job of masking her
ner adiversity and could manage no more. So for sort
of two years I lived in a state of heightened anxiety,
in vital flight mode, just supporting and looking after her.
But in twenty twenty four, my amazing daughter, who worked
(01:44):
so hard on her health, returned to school and to
the world and chess, thriving and doing really brilliant. Lisa,
to parents out there who are supporting a young person
with mental health issues, just as a side hang in there.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. But look,
I had a lot less anxiety in my life.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
A loo.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I think I'd like to think you recognized me as
being sort of a completely different person, probably, and I
thought that I would return to kind of a normal
state of being, I suppose, But instead my body has
fully embraced perimenopause, and I've kind of spent a whole
year dealing with lots of random issues like swollen knees
and block deers and exhaustion and aches and pains and
(02:20):
a lack of mobility, and none of which anyone can
has been able to discover a reason for. And then
because of some of the stuff, my nutrition and exercise
hasn't been as constant as I'd liked, and my waistline
has bloomed a little bit. So I just felt like
heading into twenty twenty five, I needed to just really
in general, reclaim my health.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think being Hoddling South was ballooned, but anyway, it's
a ballone. Sometimes life can feel like a series of
span has been thrown in the works, and you know,
all our best slide plans go off the rails. And
for many, many years I have enjoyed a pretty steady size,
shape and fitness regardless of what's happened in life, with
the exception of cancer. Nowadays, any sort of short interruption
(03:05):
to exercize, like an injury or brief illness or whatever
it seems to impact me, and I feel like I'm
starting over over and over again, even though I know
I'm not. It's disheartening and it's just I don't know.
I've watched your frustration trying to reclaim your physical wellbeing,
and I really do need my running partner back on
old cylinders because it's not good for either of us.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You're a bit sick of running and walking between lamp posts.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's easier to run.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
But you know what, it's not all about us. Everyone's
dealing with stuff. So this conversation could be really cheap
for lots of us out there. Let's just see if
we can sort out some of the mixed messaging on
metabolism and middle age.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
So when we came back to work, I said to
her producer, please can you get Lara Brydon on the podcast?
And she did so. We are very excited to have
Lara with us today. Lara as an etropath and, as
I mentioned, the author of The Metabolism Reset, a science
based guide for women on balancing and losing weight if
that's the goal, and improving health. Lara has more than
twenty five years experience in women's health and currently his
(04:06):
consulting rooms in christ Church. Welcome Laura, Thank you so
much for being with.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Us, Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Maybe before we get into dysfunction, maybe we should have
a little bit of a talk about what good metabolic
health means, Like, how should we feel if we've got
good metabolic health?
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Great, first question, it's really about energy.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Obviously, the word metabolism is a very broad term and
technically refers to literally any biochemical reaction in the body,
of which there's hundreds of douars, and so that's obviously
not what.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Is normally meant.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Most people talk about metabolism or metabolic health, they're talking
about the body's ability to convert food into energy that
we can use. And unfortunately, with some a very common
type of metabolic dysfunction that you know that starts to
sputter or you know that starts to sort of not
firef in all cylinders, and that's yeah that I think
(05:03):
people know that because they get a sense of reduced energy,
maybe sugar cravings, drops, some blood sugar, that sort of thing.
Those are all signs that metabolism is not functioning optimally.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So if you're feeling good, if you're sleeping. Well, if
you've got good energy, you kind of go okay, tech,
I'm doing the right things here.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
I think a really good test is if you can
easily go between meals without blood sugar crashes or needing
to snack. That's probably one of the most common symptoms
of metabolic dysfunction, is this yet sort of just constant
feeling hungry all the time, feeling glow blood sugar, feeling
like fleeline.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
You need to eat something, especially something sweet, just to survive.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Really, I've heard it described like that by my patients,
just to get through the day. And yeah, when metabolism
is functioning optimally, there is both increased energy and also
increase satiety, which is a word I use in the book,
which is this ongoing feeling that you have enough energy,
that you've had enough food between meals. It's different, obviously
(06:02):
from hunger before when it's time for the next meal.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
I mean, that's normal.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Hunger is obviously normal when it's the appropriate time. But
if there's this sort of gnawing, never feeling satisfied, crashing
blood sugar all day, that's assignment.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Something's not right.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So, as a young woman, I heard what I thought
or understood was a fast materabilism. People used to say,
you know, fast or slow, and they used to based
effect that you were slender. Oh, she's got a fast metabolism.
Now can you debunk or prove that for us?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Yeah, Well, that's an example of one of the many
different ways that the word metabolism is used. I mean
as because metabolism has two parts. It's the part I've
been talking about feeling like you had enough to eat
enough energy, but also how much energy the body expands
just at rest, and that there's quite a huge amount
of variability between individuals. So some people do just burn
(06:56):
a lot more energyy today and that will result in them, yes,
being less likely to gain weight. But it's just so
much more than that, I guess. Rather than debunking, I
would just say, it's not specifically about being able to
stay skinny no matter what you eat.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Yes, okay, so you're saying your metabolism, the way that
your body burns energy isn't entirely related to your metabolism.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
It's part of metabolism, right, So having good metabolic health
would be able to extract the energy from both carbohydrates,
and that's kind of as needed and therefore feeling satisfied,
having energy, feeling less hungry, and naturally burning more energy,
being less likely to gain weight, especially around the middle.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
I guess we can.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Specify it that way because, of course, as you know,
three fat other guests talk about, people come in all
different sizes, right, so there's not one size, not one
type of skinny that we're supposed to be, especially women.
Some women do just have more body fat, especially on
their bottom, and that's.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
Actually a very healthy kind of fat.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
And we don't we certainly don't want to give the
impression that, you know, the ideal is to have less
of that.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, I did, I did enjoy that moment in the
book the bum Fat's goodlow. Yeah, healthy, Yeah, it's healthy.
It's healthy, especially you know, if you want to get
pregnant exactly.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yeah, it's cold. Reproductive fat has as many benefits.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
It's actually anti inflammatory, actively anti inflammatory for the body.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
Whereas we call it belli fabit.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
It's really this sort of accumulation potentially of fat inside
the abdomen that is that is inflammatory and that is
associated with.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
The metabolic dysfunction, which we're going to be exploring today.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, just quickly, we were just talking about our perception
of what metabolism was, and as Lu said, you were
often thought to have a good metabolism if you were skinny.
Have we sort of had a bit of is there
a bit of negativity around the world, And in the
sense that you know, people might say, oh, I've got
a fast metabolism almost is a bit of an excuse
for being skinny, and then other people feel a little
(08:59):
bit guilty. You're sort of shameful about the fact that
they might have, you know, oh, I've got a you know,
I've got a slow metabolism. That's why I look the
way I do.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of emotional baggage around
the world. I think you're right, and it has a
long history of being used in that way.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
If I were to be a.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Little more precise, I mean, I guess the way I
think about it as a clinician and through my scientist's lens,
it's actually really about more specific than even metabolism or
metabolic health. It's about what's called metabolic flexibility, which is
this ability to kind of switch back and forth between
relying on carbohydrates for energy versus relying on fat for energy,
(09:36):
which is not just it could be the fat you eat,
and also body fat as the human body is actually
our default in the resting fasting state and my fasting I.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Just mean like a few hours between after a meal.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Our default date when we're healthy and metabolically healthy is
we're supposed to be mostly in fat burning at that time.
But a common situation with metabolic inflexibility is people get
trapped in carb burning even yet, which is why this
is directly leads into this feeling hungry all the time,
bletrical crashing, needing, like you need to.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Eat something sweet to.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Keep going through the day. It's because you've lost that temporarily.
It's reversible, but people have lost that ability to sort
of tap into their own body fat stores for energy.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
So, in a way, a good way to think about
it is I want to have metabolic flexibility so that
I have good general health.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Yeah, and metabolic flexibility the ability to access body fat
properly not have insulin resistance. We can explore that a
little bit. All of that feeds directly into health. People
will know this. They we will have been hearing about
the link between metabolic health and mental health. For example,
there a strong link between metabolic health and long term
risk of heart disease. That's a well known risk is
(10:46):
the link between metabolic health and women's health particularly is
something called polyxetic over syndrome or PCOS. So as I guess,
as you would have seen in chapter one of my book,
this is the whole body. It's really not just about
bodies size yet about overall howth long term.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So before we sort of spin out, yeah, yeah, you know,
I just got my heat around, you know, materabolism.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Now I have to make sure when it's fixable.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Some of this body is doing naturally for us, and
some of it we're influencing.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I assume.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Yeah, well, I think let's frame it this way.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
Our you know, our birthright, our natural human physiology, which
should be doing all of this automatically without us really
having to micromanage or think about it in any way,
has been harmed by the modern environment. I mean, this
is I do I talk about this in the book.
I've I dedicated a whole chapter to it. I know,
on the one hand, it's a little depressing to think
about what the modern food supply and environmental toxins and
(11:45):
a combination of things that were outside of our control
has done to our metabolic health.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
It's it's depressing to.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Think about it in those terms, but it also I
hope helps people feel a little less shamed around it
because it is truly not people's fault. Like fifty seventy
years ago, people did not have to be micromanaging their
metabolic health. They didn't have to be I'm sure they
were active, naturally active, but you know, they didn't have
(12:11):
to be sort of making sticking to specific diets or
making particular gym programs. It was just it was all
kind of happening. So this is the scientists are very
clear on this. Something has gone terribly wrong in the
last approximately fifty to seventy years. It really started around
the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties, something started going very wrong
and not just changing the body sizes of lots of people,
(12:34):
but also increasing all these metabolic health risks. So that
would go along with you know, high triglycerides, sort of
high cholesterol, all these sort of markers that we associate
with heart disease, but there are really sort of signs
of metabolic dysfunction. And yeah, I mean I just say
if I could wave a magic wand I would like go.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Back fifty seventy years.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
It's like, you know, put us talk to the ultra
processed food companies taking over in the environment into toxins
that potentially are doing all its damage. But unfortunately, reality
is we're collectively, all of us just in this boat together.
And I'll just point out some people have just managed
to escape some of that through lucky genetics. Really, some
(13:16):
people have just been less affected by what, you know,
these changes, these negative changes that are affecting a great
number of people. When I was writing my book, I
just kept saying, over and over, I feel so so
bad for people.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
You know, so bad for people.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
This was outside of their control and people feel so
ashamed and.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
It was you know, it was not their fault.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Which is a really I really appreciated that approach throughout it,
and you also sort of have this approach throughout the
book that you know, what, if you want to just
take a moment and reset, you're not going to fail,
you know, like, just have some patience, you know, And
it comes across very positively, and I wonder it feels
like such a stark difference to and I know that
(13:58):
we're not talking about way, but a lot of people
who maybe suffering have probably been on a lot of
diets in their life. But it feels like such a
stark difference to dart culture, in which we constantly feel
like failures and we're constantly beating ourselves up about how
well we've done and how we look and things like that.
And I just really, I just I just I just
like that that you can just actually just get rid
(14:20):
of some of that blame for a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
And what I was in nineteen seventy one, baby, what
about you necessarily too? Baby?
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Yeah, one of my editors asked me early on, you
know what I wanted was what I wanted to accomplish
with the book, and it was just like, really to
not make people feel worse about themselves than they already do,
like to not set people up to fail, because, as
you say, that's just it. The risk is alway there,
because especially when they're a new idea or a new
(14:48):
approach to how the metabolic healsis and presenting in this book,
there's going to be this hope, you know, and then
if it doesn't all kind of work immediately people just
feel like, oh no, it's just one more thing I've failed.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
But I guess. Yes.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
We're trying to frame it as for some people, this
is going to be a long term project, a long
game they're going to have to play. Here. They're unraveling
decades of unfortunately like damage from the environment that wasn't
their fault, and that can take some.
Speaker 5 (15:15):
Time to unravel. But as you said earlier, people are
not going to fail if.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
You just sort of step by step, one step forward,
even if there's occasionally a couple of steps back, you
just keep going.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
I've heard the word consistently average bandit about and I'm
actually at first I was about that's a bit depressing.
Actually I quite like it now, Yeah, I mean, because
how can you expect yourself to be more than that
all the time. That's crazy, right, which means there will
be days that you'll be perfect in days that you
might not be. And the flip side of all of
that is that I agree with you completely. As we've
had other experts come and talk to us about gut
(15:47):
House and thinks it's so exact same thing. Let's just
preface this with this is a this is an environmental thing.
This is something we've been feed for the last fifty
seven years. Is that we are learning so much. We
are learning to take some responsibility for our own way
wellbeing once we know and the information is really available.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
So that's a us Sonara, what is metabolic dysfunction or inflexibility?
What impact does it have on our health? You've mentioned
a few things to do with heart and other things.
Give us a little bit of an idea about the
impact it has.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
On our health.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, So I sometimes call this, you know, the most
overlooked hormonal condition that's out there. I mean, you listeners
will know other hormonal conditions. I mean, there's the undirected thyroid,
and it's very female hormone conditions, but I would say
that the condition of insulin resistance is the hormonal condition.
(16:40):
It's mostly overlooked, even though it affects at least one
in two adults, so it's extremely common.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
And I do know from lots of.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Conversations I've had with my patients and you know, other
interviewers that there's something about the phrase insulin resistance which
is just difficult to kind of like get your head
around or remember or so I mean curious to hear
if you have other guests talk about it before it is.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
So I've tried to rebranded a little bit.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Is just metabolic dysfunction, which is maybe a little bit
easier to think about. It's also this metabolic inflexibility that
I referenced earlier in a nutshell, I guess if we're
gonna be just very as simple as possible for people,
it is its hormonal state of having chronically elevated levels
of insulin. Chronically elevated it's normal for insulin to rise
and I go up and down after a meal, So
(17:29):
it's not that insulin is bad at all, but chronically
elevated levels of insulin do this lock the body out
of it. As I said earlier, this birthright ability to
sort of just tap into body fat stores for as
much energy as it needs. It traps the body into
being more reliant on carbs, and that is not it's
a very unpleasant place to be. And because it causes
(17:51):
yet I said earlier, you know, feeling hungry all the time,
craving carbohydrates potentially, but also this just directly downstream from that,
likely elevated insulin or insulin resistance are a lot of
the inflammatory conditions that we talked about. The mental health
conditions increase long term risk of heart disease for sure,
potentially of dementia, potentially of some types of cancer, which
(18:12):
is you know, not just sort of overstate it, but
it does kind of feed into a lot of things.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
And then of course some women's health conditions as well.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
So it's people are feeling. You know, I just know
for my own patients, if I if I even observed
from their blood work, or I might see, okay, your
trichlysterides are high. You know this, fatty liver. These are
all signs high blood pressure. Potentially, these are all signs
of insulin resistance. And then nine times out of ten,
my patient just be like really crestfall and it's like,
oh my.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
Goodness, how did I You know, I feel so bad.
Speaker 4 (18:41):
I feel so ashamed that I let this happen, and
that they wouldn't say that for any other hormonal condition,
would they. Like you wouldn't say if the doctor said, oh,
you're you know, your thighrid is underactive, you wouldn't say, oh, how.
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Did I let that happen?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
I'm like sort a bad person, Like it just doesn't
make any sense at all, Like because it's been this
narrative that insulin resistance is directly by weight gain, which
is not as I explained in the book, is not
how I see it at all, and I don't think
that's what the science suggests. This is a hormonal condition
caused by a combination of genetics, and as we talked about,
like Environmentaltocks has definitely gut problems are probably driving some
(19:14):
of the epidemic of insulin resistance. It's not because people
just dropped the ball and did the wrong thing. That
is just not the case. But also at the same time,
I think we need to kind of name it for
what it is and acknowledge it, and also say it's reversible,
which is good news.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I do recoil touch because I don't fully understand it.
That's why you know the words insulin resistance. But I
had insulin resistance when I was pregnant, as they call
it gestational diabetes with my last child, not with my
two previous children. And I didn't use insulin because on
such a Stavin tad and I ended.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Up in hospital with provitus. I lost weight.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It was silly, right, but nobody really had been able
to explain it.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Properly to me. So I'm I'm all on board.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
With just naming it it and not shaming at us
for it. I'm also intrigued that you're comment about being genetic.
So is it like genetic, like cholesterol can be genetic,
or is it Well, it's like.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So many things, there's a genetic predisposition, Like some people
are just genetically just not prone to it. Despite the
barrage of you know, the modern food environment and the
problems of the microbiome. I think. I think actually our
modern changes to the microbiome is probably quite a big
driver of the tendency to insulin resistance in certain people.
So almost with any condition there's going to be that
(20:33):
genetic component combined with multiple and of course, actually there's
some section a section on pregnancy and postpartum in my
metabolism book. Pregnancy is actually just a natural state of
insulin resistance, not in a bad way. So we do
with pregnancy just become more naturally insulin resistance. That's okay,
(20:53):
that's called physiological insulin resistance. But it can in combination
with other factors, including the microbiome is shoes. Yeah, it's
a problem of maybe going further down that path or
also having a problem with insular resistance after delivery.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, can you be have insulin resistance, Does it lead
to diabetes? Is there a connection there?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah, And that's a perfect question. I can tell you're
an experienced interviewer because you know exactly right.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I know I didn't know whether actually I was completely
off the MAC and that we completely.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Not at all.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
No, so yes, untreated or if it's allowed to progress.
Insular resistance definitely does become pre diabetes and then type
two diabetes, but not everyone within sular resistance will developed diabetes,
although they could actually be risked for some of those
other conditions. But one point to make here is that
(21:53):
the transition diabetes is when eventually blood sugar starts to
go above normal. The important thing to understand is for
the year are possibly decades of insulin resistance. For some people,
blood sugar will be normal, so normal and even sort
of dropping low sometimes. So it's actually more to look
for other things like as I mentioned, the hydroglycerides sometimes
(22:13):
measure insulin. I thought you don't have to, but if
you were to measure it would be baseline elevated insulin.
And this is all very technical for people, but it's
I think it's just quite important because I realized I
mentioned something about insulin resistance on my social media and
someone my followers said, oh, well, no I must not
have that because I have low blood sugar, and I
(22:33):
was like, no, no, no, no, Actually, low blood sugar
is potentially a symptom of it. So conflation with debetes
is a bit confusing.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So people walking around, you know, people are walking around
with what are they called the things.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
That they continuous blue Coast monitors is really well, that's
a very good question. I don't use one in the
section I tackle it in the book. I understand. I
guess I can conceive there's a place for it. I don't.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
I feel like it can follow a bit into the
category of micro managing for people, and it potentially be
anxiety provoking. So and I have a recent podcast episode
about that. I don't really see value. I play more
of a broad strokes pulled big levers, play the long
game rather than trying to micromanage.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Bluecost because I just feel like that can be a
bit of a My blood.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Pressure goes up just because I know I'm doing it.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
So I'm not I'm not a candidate for that.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
I think there are people who love tracking anything, whether
it's blood sugar or blood pressure or sleep or and
then there are people and I'm in the second category
who just really do not want to track.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
I don't. I don't because I'm like, I feel like
I would just the test. I would trailer.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
You don't track a thing, you don't track your steps,
you sleep. There's this wonderful chap on tracking, and.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I don't do any of us. That's true.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Okay, so let's have it. Let's have a little bit
of a talk, because I think there's two things when
it comes to knowing whether you have insulin resistance. There
is how we feel, and then there are the tests
that you can have. So if you were looking for
symptoms yourself, you talked about satiety. Is that the main
symptom that you just can never feel full, You just
(24:06):
want to keep eating.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
I think that's one of the number one symptoms.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Yes, it's feeling constantly hungry, potentially, you know, combined with
blood sugar crashes, where you, as I said, patients describe
it like I cannot survive the afternoon if I don't have,
you know, this sweet thing.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
It becomes very life and death feeling for them. It's real.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
And I mean when you're in the grips of something
like that, a physiological hormonal state like that. I mean,
obviously the advice to just okay, please don't eat that,
you know, pupcake or whatever it is, is not going
to be very helpful in that moment. A far better
plan is to improve the hormonal condition and have saciety.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
I feel have more energy.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
But yes, and answer to your question, other common symptoms,
so yes, feeling hungry all the time is a good sign.
Waking specifically around the middle. And I'll just acknowledge again
like what a huge variation in body size there is.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
So this is more to do.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
If the kind of the more square waste that I
think most people sort of know what I mean. But
even people who are normal BMI or quite small people
can actually have that visceral fat gain that kind of
waking through the middle. So there are ways to do
sort of a waist hip ratio that can provide That's
a very low cost, easy way to assess that. And
(25:18):
then there are common markers that people would have had
done just from their GP anyway.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
High triglyph strides is fasting.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Triglyst rides is a very common marker of insulin resistance
it's one of the easiest ones to access. A combination
of sort of high tragelstrides and lower HDL, which is
the good cholesterol that would.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Point to insulin resistance.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
If the doctor's ever mentioned fatty liver, that's usually insulin resistance,
although there can be other explanations for.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
That, but that's usually what that means. Skin tags. People
might have those.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
It's okay, I have a few skin tags. People with
strong insulin resistances will have a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
You know, we started off by trying to define what
the metabolism is in made of flexibility and things like that.
And the one thing that really struck me when reading
this book it is so complicated. It is so complex,
and we're still learning so much that.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
We yeah, you remember this section. I quite embrace the complexity.
So I'll just say again, I'll just have to This
is a takeaway for everyone listening, especially I they're feeling overwhelmed.
Do not try to micromanage this. It is not the
kind of thing that can be micromanaged because it is
such a complex web. And just to give some examples, well,
(26:32):
we've talked about the gut microbiome a few times. I
mean with the gut, what the microbes and the gut
are doing, sends so many different signals that affects levels
of GLP one. That's the famous gut hormone that increases
satiety and increases energy burning. That's those are the famous
weight loss medications. I think you guys had an episode
about that, actually about the medication.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
So that's you know, that's one of one hormone.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
There's actually there was just some news a couple of
weeks ago that certain biol acids, so coming from the
gallbladder and then being acted on in the gut, those
increase metabolic rate and improve insulin sensitivity and actually help
with muscle gain. And you know, there's a lot going on.
And then the other part of it. We took about
the gut microbionb but the nervous system is hugely involved.
(27:16):
There's something called the autonomic nervous system. You may have
had guests, you may have had episodes about this before.
This is the parasympathetic, sympathetic kind of balance, and especially
in women, I would say even more so than in men,
the autonomic nervous system, that unconscious part of our nervous
system has a very strong effect on metabolic health, on hunger,
(27:38):
on to tidy, on how much energy you burn. So
the nervous system is another way in This is what
I mean by not micromanaging.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Like, this is why I talk about your.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Goal is feeling good, you know, feeling zest, feeling satidy.
And it does require some troubleshooting because for every person
it's going to be a little bit different. I mean
there are some commonalities. Certainly gut microbvibe is one. But
I mean with my approach with patients over the last
three decades, if they pick up that they had insulin resistance,
there is definitely no one size fits at all. I
(28:08):
have to think, Okay, what about the bigger picture? You know,
what is happening with your nervous system? Are you you
know a high level of stress? Is there are the
problems with the guy? Is there Hashimoto's thyroid disease. It's
a very common one for women actually, as an autoimmune,
very common autoimmune thyroid condition that affects insulin sensitivity. It
affects this whole picture. And yeah, so I know that
(28:30):
that feels overwhelming when there's because we love a one
size fits all approach.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
But that's why I say embrace it. Just realize you know.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
You know, in my first book about periods, I have
a sentence where I say, you know, fix your health
and you'll fix your period. This is the same you know,
fix your general health. Address the thing that needs to
be addressed with your general health, and that will help
to fix your metabolic health. It's not separate from the
rest of health.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You're listening to the little things in Our guest on
the podcast today is netropaeth Lara Bright and also of
The Metabolism Race, a science based guide for women on
balancing and so then losing weight and improving health. Will
be back shortly after this break.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
Laura, you just touched on.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Something there about how we are all different, because how
many times does one of your mates go on a
keito diet or go on pale or go on something
words or they're fasting and they tell you it works brilliantly,
and then you try it and you hate every minute
of it and it doesn't work for you. And that's
essentially why, right, we're all different and different things will
work for us. Stop focusing on everybody else, look in
wood and work out what's going to work for you, and.
Speaker 5 (29:35):
It does require some trial and error, and that's just
how it is.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
But I encourage people when they do it, when they're
trying different changes, to stick with it for a while
because but also we also don't want to sort of
get caught in the trap of you know, I tried
to make this day it change, but then I just
felt really really you know, sort of hungry or stressed
by that you might just need a bit of extra
time to work.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Try Those should have been my words this year. I
actually love that. I'm going to embrace trial in your.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I've told you you can have as Lou likes to
have one word for the year. I think that's limiting.
I'm up to two. I just think they'll keep adding
the word.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, trial and error.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
No.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Something you said before about a parasympathetic and an autonomic
nervou system. That's really interesting because that also impacts whether
you're a person who goes to food for comfort or
who can't, Like I can't eat if I'm really stressed,
can't eat, can't do calcohol. And the worst thing is
people that I do I'm completely stressed.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
In people say, oh my god, you're looking.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
So God, actually, Luis, this goes back to the said
early about with a fast metabolism. Those would be people,
the people who are more sympathetic dominant, so kind of
high adrenaline people do actually just burn more calories in general,
which is just how people are wired. I mean, that's
just again a reality. But those same people would exactly
(30:56):
as you. That would be a good task to actually under
stress lose appetite. Is more parasympathetic dominant people I'm distressed
with potentially interesting And you know what's interesting is that
people who are sympathetic dominant, Yes, have an easier time
of it in some ways, but there's always a flip side.
There's away two sides to the coin, right, as being
sympathetic dominant and that kind of wiry, high adrenaline person
(31:18):
has trouble sleeping, or there could be a sort of
other aspects of that immune aspects that because I've actually
actually been a sort of a sympathetic dominant person myself,
and I just realized people might sort of be envious
of that, but it's not necessarily an enbial.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I've got a funny feeling and Paula's might have changed
some of that for me. Because I'm way more comfortable
these days.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
But no, I don't. I don't always sleep well, that's right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Well, no, but you've been trying to sort your sleep
out for a while. You were quite interested to talk
to Lar about that.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Well, it's only in certain seasons. Summer, I don't sleep
so well. When I'm on holiday, I don't sleep so well.
But I'm pretty sure that's because I've organized the entire
holiday and I'm actually burned out by the time I
get there. But you're saying that that sympathetic. Yeah, I
think I do wake up kind of trying to comfort
myself but unable to do you know what I mean.
(32:05):
But Michael Mosley, you also explain to us just don't panic,
just take some deep breaths and you'll go back to sleep.
But I'd really rather just sleep, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Okay, So what even if we do not have metabolic dysfunction,
we can improve our health in general, and a lot
of the things that we need to do is similar
if you do have probably metabolic dysfunction. So how can
we look after ourselves a little bit better? And let's
(32:33):
start with food, food wise, how we can work towards
better health in general.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, no, you're right. So I mean, I'll just reiterate
what you just said. A lot of the stuff in
my book. I mean, this book is aimed at people
within slim resistance and how to recover from that. But
because my general approach is fix your health, to fix
your metabolism, a lot of it is going to be
relevant for people just wanting to get healthier.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Generally food rules.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
There's the food wars out there, the diet wars, and
everyone's got a different opinion. I know it's cliche, but
you said earlier there's no one size fits all.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
That's just really true.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
That's just genetics, microbi nervous system type, body type. Like,
there's just so many different reasons ancestry that we different
people feel and thrive on different types of diet. That said,
I mean, there are some common denominators. I guess I
would start with. Step one is to be fully nourished.
I know that's sort of stating the obvious, but I
(33:30):
feel like, especially women have had so much the message
for decades of restrict restrict restrict, So getting enough certain
things is a huge first step, and so protein would
be one of them. I'm sure you had other guests
talk about the importance of protein. It promotes society, It
gives a nervous system, an immune system, everything, you know,
(33:50):
a lot what it needs. This and also some micro
nutrients that I emphasize in the book that I selected
as kind of the missing men nutrients because they are
missing in our modern food supply to a large extent.
Like our ancestors, even one or two generations ago, used
to have a lot more of some of those nutrients
coming in. Here's a quick survey for you, guys. Were
(34:13):
you said liver or kidneys when you were kids? Nice, Well,
organ meets used to be a lot more on the menu.
They're very nutritious, they're high in anothatal coaling. A couple
of the missing metabolic nutrients that I talk about in
the book. And I'm just remembering, Yeah, like back in
the seventies, we were given in liver was just on
our weekly rotation.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
We were given that once a week. That was just
sort of a normal thing.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
And I mean, all the experts are debating what is
it about our modern food supply that is so devastating
to metabolic health, And one of the things is it's
just missing some of the nutrition that people used to
have even fifty years ago.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
So that's you know, sick one is be fully nourished.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
And then step two And this is where it gets
a little trick here about the wording you would have
seen in the book I use is shelter from the
modern food supply. Like it's sheltering. It's actively sheltering. We
have to actively do it because it's just everywhere. I
mean to start with a really easy one, I talk
about sheltering from alcohol, and to a large extent, I mean,
(35:09):
I think some people can get away with a bit
more alcohol than other people, but in general, alcohol is
not friendly to metabolical or although there's been some debate
around that, but I think that debate was incorrect. It's
not friendly for perimenopause or women's health, and so you know,
sheltering from it and just making a decision. It's like
I'm going to feel better if I don't have that.
Then the same would apply to you know, sheltering from
(35:30):
ultraprocessed foods, sheltering from sugar for some people. And this
is where it gets a little bit more into gray areas,
because you know, how much is too much right of
those things?
Speaker 5 (35:41):
Of course, some people can get away with some ultra
process food.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
And there's some types of ultra process food that are
you know, arguably okay, like protein powders. So it starts
to be this very nuanced debate, and there's as soon
as you sort of make one statement, as always, you
know the other side who it's like, well, but what
about these people? And you know you can't make a
rule around that. But this is where I people to
try to check in with their reality. There's a section
later in the book called being Realistic about bread and desserts.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
And yeah, I didn't like that.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I like that one. Well, just technology. Some people can
have bread. I mean they truly can. Obviously they can.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
Bread can be a healthy food for some people, but
for some people it's really not. Like for some people
it's really really not. And I'll just give an example
again that mentioning hashimotos or autoimmune thyroid disease.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Some of your listeners definitely have that.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
It affects.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
It's pretty common in women, especially over forty, and there's
just growing evidence that for those women, potentially gluten is
just not friendly to that kind of that autoimmune thyroid
part of their health and they feel and I've seen this,
but thirty years of patients, they do feel a lot
better off gluten or off bread.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
And you know, I have a friend, Yeah, a friend,
and she's definitely feeling better. She didn't need too much
advice to just try it and then find out herself
how much she feels.
Speaker 5 (37:01):
Pretty dramatic. Sometimes actually it's stopping. Bread can be.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Yeah, just feel amazing for some people, and then some
people it's like that's not the change that they needed.
And so that doesn't the fact that some people can
get away with eating bread doesn't mean that, you know,
everybody can.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
And you're not talking about old bred are You're talking
about the commercial breed that it's available on the shelves, right, Well.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
I'm talking about different things for different people. Yeah, So
I think broadly commercial bread is not friendly. And actually
one of the ingredients and commercial bread is emulsifiers. Some
of the scientists some of the research around excuse me,
around emmalcifiers and in foods and how they might damage
the gut lining and the microbiome. And it's some of
those things that makes me pop awake sometimes at night thinking,
(37:44):
oh my goodness, what if it were that, Like what
if it's what if the silly emmalsifiers that are in
our modern food supply have been one of the drivers
of metabolic dysfunction.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
It's possible.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
I doubt it's that simple, but it's one of those
things that it's such a billy little thing. So yees.
So most people are probably going to feel better at
least switching to a better quality like sourdough or something.
And then there are going to be people who just
really can't have gluten. That's the minority, but there's some people.
And then there are going to be people who do
for different reasons. I know, we wan't have time to
explore all the different reasons people might want to go
(38:15):
on a proper low carb diet at least for a while,
or kind of at least cycling on and off. So
my book, as you saw, it's not it's not a
low carb it's not definitely not recommending low carb for everybody.
But it's pretty hard to ignore the research around keto
and low carb for certain people for certain things, especially
mental health, especially some of the people who are more
severely it, you.
Speaker 5 (38:34):
Know, pushed into insulin resistance.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
There has to be yes some acknowledgment that for those
people at least for a while.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I mean I cycled through a kito diet at one
point with a colleague work, and it wasn't for me
long term, just with the family life, but the mental
clarity was quite surprising.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, yeah, kind of annoying.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Laura.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Can I just quickly go back and clarify you mentioned
as some supplements which are good for metabolic health.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
What would they gain?
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah, I'm happy to give them. These are my five
missing metabolic nutrients. I selected them because they're safe, they're inexpensive,
they're you know, effective I've seen with patients, and they're
just ones that I felt most people could you safely try.
So magnesium is number one, and I think I think
I say in the book, if you want to try
only one, start with magnesium, because there's a lot of
(39:24):
research around that. There's actually even a meta analysis of
you know, magnesium for potentially improving insular resistance predabetes.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
It depending what word you want to use, so it's
it's quite easy to take some magnesium.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
Then the second one is an amino acid called touring,
which I've written about in all my books.
Speaker 5 (39:42):
Actually it also helps with.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
Both magnesium and touring do different things, but they calm
the nervous system. They help with mitochondria, who we haven't
mentioned yet, but they're the little cellular powerhouses. They're big
players and all of this. And then the third nutrient
is colling, which is definitely missing. There's a lot of
research suggesting people are ants. Recent ancestors used to.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
Eat a lot more coaling that we do now.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
A lot of that came from organ me It's also
shelf like seafood eggs.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
And then there's an.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Nutrient called inocetol, which anyone who doesn't think about polycystic
over syndrome or PCUS would have heard all about inocetol.
It's also been clinically child for insulin distance. And then
glycine is another amino acids. So those and those five
and in Australia and New Zealand we can get those
kind of often mostly combined. We can get like figure
(40:30):
four of them in one supplement, and then maybe just
take the coaling.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
Right, I see what I use with a lot of
my patients.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
But serioustically, we should be able to get everything else
that our bodies need from our food.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Hopefully, Yes, I mean I think one of the problems
is our foods. Modern foods ply is lower in micronutrients,
not just those nutrients that I've listed.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
But other ones as well. That the New Zealand foods
PLI is quite.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Lower in selenium, for example, which would be another micronutrient.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
That choose a nuts is that the brazil nut.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
You can have will nuts.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
It's high in brazil nuts, and my patients that's what
they do, and that's fine. Like two or three bizil
nuts today it is enough for slenium. And so selenium
is one of those new chants where there is a
toxic level too, so you don't want to take too much.
And I think if people are already taking two or
three bizil nuts, they don't they shouldn't also supplement it.
But selenium is important for autoimmune thyroid and let's come
up a few times today.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
But I just prettyman listening.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
If their thyid has been underactive, they should ask the
doctor if thyroid antibodies was tested. And then look at
that section in my book. There was just this fascinating
new paper talking about how women with high thyroid antibodies,
this kind of autoimmune reaction against the thyroid, have symptoms
like joint pain, joint swelling, you know, anxiety fatigue, even
(41:42):
if their thid formale levels are normal on a blood test,
which is very interesting. So it's kind of more around
the immune side of things.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Okay, So essentially, if what I love about the book
is it's kind of like a trouble shooting guide, you know,
for you to kind of go on a bit of
an investigation and work out where you might be at.
But if someone just feeling a little bit sluggish, if
they are worried about that excess weight that maybe appearing
around the waist and things, actually you can do a
bit of trial and error. But if you if you
(42:11):
just start pushing back against that ultra processed food, push
back a little bit against that sugar, look after yourself
a little bit better in regards to getting you know,
move a little bit and get some sleeping things. Theoretically,
you know, a month or two down the line, you
should generally be feeling better.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Oh yeah, the trigger starts will come down what people
sort of feel later around the waist. I mean, yes,
we can also give you just sort of a bullet point,
you know, easier or less to fill up on protein
potentially tech magnesium, move the body into some form and
align cuccadian rhythm. This is we haven't talked that much
about circadian rhythm yet, but it's hugely important for all
(42:49):
of this as well. So the body needs to know
properly when it's night and day and when it's night,
and that's done partly with late it's also done with
the timing of meals, and this is where I think
some benefits from meal timing come in. So the timing
of protein protein in the morning and then not eating
overnight can help with the circadian rhym Actually, as you know,
(43:10):
in the book, I talk about all the different metabolic
obstacles people can try to identify and correct, and then
I have some easy wins, which are the you know,
super easy ones that have a high impact or high benefit.
Correcting circadian rhythm is an easy win because it doesn't
take that much to do it and the body loves it.
And it's so funny in this area because every group
(43:32):
of scientists who are whatever they're studying, you know, the
microbiome or the metochondria or the circadian rhythm, they all think, Okay,
this is the key to metabolic health, this area that
we're talking about, and certainly the circadian rhythm scientists are like,
it's all about circadian you.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
Know, just do that, everything else will fall into blaze.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
And so that's more about having a breakfast when you
wake up, lunch and dinner and then going to be
at a decent time and waking up.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Is it what you're saying saying it's about getting morning light,
actually stepping outside in the morning if you can. It's
going to depend on time of year, but I do
encourage people go for a morning walk if you can,
or at least just take your coffee outside and like
take your dog into the back garden or something.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Get that sort of light.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
And sheltering from blue light or bright light in the evening.
And also not eating overnight is really important, and so
I mean that's sometimes easier said than done. So certainly
people are creating sugar overnight, then there's maybe some other
steps that have to happen to be able to not
eat it in the evening. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
I saw a funny real the other day.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
I think it was Amy Schumer, and there were you know,
there were people in the waiting room and the doctor
came out and see, I'm just going to tell you
all because there was a sleep minute just put down
your phones, just at least put down your phones, And
they went, is there not something else you can do?
Speaker 2 (44:44):
Is there a pill?
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Is there something else? I'll do anything else, but let's
have it for me, isn't it? And I was just thinking,
Francis Skirt, you did right. If you did these simple
things for a few months and then think things weren't
feeling better, that's when it's time to.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Go and and be stick. If these feather if these
blocks in the way.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
A really common obstacle, I'll just share with everyone. But
I see with my patients is gut health. And I
know we've already talked about that a few times. But
if people have if they're bloating daily, feeling uncomfortably distended
and gassy and bloating, or you know, constipation or loose spouse,
if there's something significant like going on in the gut,
even if it's just IBS, yeah, that's the label that's.
Speaker 5 (45:22):
Been given it that needs to be sorted.
Speaker 4 (45:25):
Like from my experience, sometimes there's a patient the few
patients stories, it's ten patient stories in the book. I
only realized after the fact that three of them are
about fix fixing gud health. To fix metabolic health. So
in one story, I can remember this patient very well.
She had terrible sugar cravings and she was trying to
mentally like overcome them, and you know, trying all different things,
(45:46):
even like the good things like magnesium and eating protein,
and nothing was working. And I said to her, let's
just you know, let's just focus on your gut right now,
because you've got this terrible IBS and you're uncomfortable. And
we did you know, her bald treatment for that. And
then she's like a month later, she's like, oh my goodness,
my sugar cravings have just gone. And that is an
experience that I've heard from patients. You know, craving's got
(46:08):
like appetite regulating or even just spontaneous weight loss from
fixing the gut sometimes. So that's a it's one of
those ones that.
Speaker 5 (46:15):
Is just a common obstacle. It's just nothing else.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
Just keep investigating. And I think that as women, we
have really good intuition and we should rely on it
a lot more. And I think if you're thinking, you know,
if you're thinking, I'm not things aren't quite right. I'm
not happy with where they're at, just keep investigating. And
I love the fact that the way in the book too, Lara,
you give advice around how to talk to maybe a
(46:41):
GP about a particular thing that you're concerned about, so
you can go in and say, hey, look this is
a concern. Should we look at this and should we
look at that? Which I think is really great information
for us and how we then kind of communicate how
we're feeling with our medical experts. Oh, Lara, it's been
so good to have you here. And look, you did
do a very very job of taking an incredibly complex
(47:02):
topic and explaining it to us. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
And I know, I know there are things that we
haven't like you say, the mitochondria and things, but that
it's in your book, I really recommend it. It's an
easy read on a complex topic. That's how I would
put it, and I really appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Thank you so much, Lara.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Thanks, Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
She was great and you no confession time, I just
the penny dropped as we we're talking. No, it's it's
not sheltering from alcohol on a holiday, That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
It's why you can't sleep.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
You know, I'm wide out in the open with alcohol.
I'm on holiday. And then I'm waking up, ping, why
can't I sleep? My brain's going.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, I just think it's so funny the way we
keep getting told that this Louise. Sometimes the penny doesn't
drop quite as fast as you think it would.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Well, it drops intermittently.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, just evaporates. I don't know anyway, Look, society loved it.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
That was so good.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
It is really interesting. So, you know, because I have
a problem with society. I don't ever really feel full.
So it's not like I have hunger pains and I'm
I'm like, you know, maybe you haven't eaten for a
long period of time and you're way past lunch time
and you're hungry. It's not bad. It's just that I
don't ever feel full. So I'm like, oh, yeah, I've
have a bit of that, and I'll have a bit
of that. And I do have an issue with sugar,
(48:29):
and you know, I can cope with quite a lot of.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
It, ie to eminems and not finish them. Though I
don't don't experiment out there, but I that that there's
something about a pack of eminem So don't beat yourself
up about that.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
It's just give me min ms.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
My birthday and the Mother's Day everything, just give a
peck and emms should be happy.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
But there are some things I can only have one off.
I could only have one donut, for example. You couldn't
have more than one doughnut.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Surely I don't eat donuts very often, right, it depends
who's making them, to be honest with you, not not
a really beautifully made one. I could probably go one
and a half.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I could push the boat out of it anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
The point is this has been a bit of a
come to Jesus moment for me, this book, Yes, and
where I'm at, And I would like to just get
better general health. I want to prevent anything sort of
cropping up that potentially could in the next few years.
And I think perimenopause is just a cruel little pitch
at times, isn't it. And if I'm going to get
on top of it, I need to behave a little
(49:29):
bit better.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
So yeah, and I think I think you and I like,
I mean, you know, we are seventies babies, but also
we are anyone in our age group is on the
cusp of this talking about perimenopause a lot more, right,
So had I known a lot more about what was
happening in my early forties. You know, outcomes, I'm not
(49:51):
sure what outcomes could be different, but things would probably
be different.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
We were really active, but we also we also make
decisions about around trying to simplify our love. So the
whole idea is just cook more of your own meals, right,
But we now rely on meal kit services that come
with a lot of sources and things. We're now relying
on people to help us manage our lives and make
our lives better. So we thought we were making decisions
a lot of the time in our own best interests
(50:16):
and our own best interest and to make our lives easier.
And then occasionally you just send to go, okay, now,
how do I just go back a few steps here?
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Yeah, but if you keep those two things in mind,
this is for us anyway, the satiety and the weight
gain around the middle, because I was always slender. So
the weight gain around the middle, it's not that I'm
embarrassed about it or shamed or any of those things.
It's that I know what that means and it's not healthy.
Speaker 5 (50:39):
Fan.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
So if that could just go back to my backside,
I'd probably be okay with that. But we know you
can't do that, and you can't spot eliminate it either.
So the only way really is to just be really
honest with you yeah, and not focus on the weights,
not focus on actually the weight. Just get it focused
on the health and hopefully there'll be some nice side
effects along the way. Thanks for joining us on our
(51:03):
new Zealand Herald podcast series, The Little Things. We hope
you share this podcast with women in your life. We
can all understand metabolic house a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
I hope it's been terrified for you.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
You can follow this podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and for more on this and other topics,
get to Zet Herald dot co dot zet and we'll
catch you next time on The Little Things.
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