The Dr. Josh Axe Show - How to Boost Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss

Starting point is 00:00:00 According to recent studies, only 12% of Americans are metabolically healthy. That means that 88% of people are unhealthy with their metabolism, specifically as it connects to inflammation and insulin. And there are numerous conditions, many that will surprise you, that are connected to metabolic dysfunction. And it's not just diabetes or being overweight. It's low testosterone in men. It's PCOS.

Starting point is 00:00:27 It's menopausal symptoms. It's a number of other issues I'll dive into today, and I'll be covering the surprising truce about your metabolism and what truly drives energy, weight, and blood sugar, and how to reclaim control of your metabolic health. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Jack's show. So researchers have described the prevalence of metabolic health in American adults as alarmingly low. Only about one in 10 Americans is metabolically healthy, and poor metabolic health. health leaves people more vulnerable to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, having a heart attack,

Starting point is 00:01:23 a stroke, and other major health crises. And metabolic health is defined as having normal blood sugar, healthy triglycerides, a way circumference within a healthy range, and normal blood pressure and normal cholesterol without needing medications. Again, if your medications are driving them in a normal range, that doesn't mean you're metabolically healthy. It means that you are covering them up with a Band-Aid. Now, the most common metabolic conditions, those involving the disruptions in how your body uses energy, such as glucose and fatty acids and hormones, can be ranked by prevalence. And I'm going to go through the most prevalent metabolic conditions, and a couple of these

Starting point is 00:02:02 are sure to surprise you. Now, number one, of course, is metabolic syndrome, okay? Around one out of every three U.S. adults, according to the CDC, has metabolic syndrome. Now, metabolic syndrome is a group of, if you have numerous of these disorders together, you have metabolic syndrome. It's a cluster of conditions that occur together like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess abdominal fat, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels. And this is a big deal because, as I mentioned earlier, it greatly increases your risk of a heart attack, a stroke, and type 2 diabetes. And the root is really this. Again, with most metabolic conditions, it is insulin being inbalanced and too much inflammation.

Starting point is 00:02:49 So metabolic syndrome is number one. The second most common metabolic condition is type 2 diabetes. Nearly 12% of U.S. adults, that's 38 million people as of 2023, have type 2 diabetes. We know that's caused by high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and beta cell dysfunction of the pancreas. complications of type 2 diabetes long term are neuropathy, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease. And I had a man reach out to me this week, a family friend. And he said, hey, Judge, can you just, can you help me with my type 2 diabetes? He said, I've had it for 20 years.

Starting point is 00:03:25 And the thing for him is just, you know, I looked at him right down what he's eating on a daily basis. And it's just way too many carbohydrates, way too many processed foods. He just doesn't realize. And then too much stress. There's a number of those things causing it. But he reached out to me because he's starting to have neuropathy and kidney disease. He's in his mid-60s and his body is just totally breaking down because of it. And listen, it's just a matter of time.

Starting point is 00:03:50 If you have typed two diabetes or you are borderline pre-diabetic or insulin resistance, it's just a matter of time before you have these other organs that just completely shut down in your body. Number three is obesity. 42% of U.S. adults are obese. this is often considered a metabolic disease because it's linked to insulin resistance, inflammation, lipid dysfunction. It's important to know that your body fat, if you have extra body fat especially, it acts as an organ. So just like your muscles are an organ or your brain's an organ or your heart's an organ, your body fat is an organ that releases hormones. And it's connected

Starting point is 00:04:30 to hunger hormones like ghrelin and fat-burning hormones like leptin and a number of other hormones in your body. And so if you have excess fat, you have these hormones that cause you to have more food cravings and cause you to have low energy feeling lethargic and also causes you to release these inflammatory compounds that causes your joints to deteriorate and hurt. So the reality is, is obesity due to the extra fat causes metabolic dysfunction hormonally because it acts as an organ. Now, number four is this, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Listen to this. Nearly 40% of U.S. adults have fatty liver disease. That is crazy. You know, fatty liver disease is when your liver starts obviously having a lot of fat embedded in the tissue and around the liver itself. Okay. And this causes, of course, long term it can cause cirrhosis, causes fibrosis. But basically, one other big issue is your liver isn't able to fully detox properly. So we have all of these environmental chemicals we're exposed to on a regular basis. BPAs, forever chemicals, chlorine in fluoride in our drinking water, medications, you know, air pollution, all this stuff, glyphosate from our food that's bombarding our body. Our liver is overburdened and your liver is responsible for balancing out estrogen levels.

Starting point is 00:05:56 So think about this. If you are a female with fatty liver disease, and that's 40% of women, Listen, if you're overweight, there's a very good chance you have fatty liver disease. Okay. And that extra body fat and what that's doing around the liver specifically keeps your body from detoxing excess estrogen, which greatly increases your risk of breast cancer and other types of cancer like cervical and ovarian cancer if you have excess estrogen. In addition, with excess estrogen, it's going to increase your risk of PCOS and of infertility. So issues there as well.

Starting point is 00:06:33 And what happens is sometimes you can have this excess estrogen that's turned into androgens. And then you can, women can start having more male-like characteristics. Now, here's another thing for men. Think about if you have excess estrogen, your body's not getting rid of estrogen. That causes testosterone to drop and starts men to have more feminine-like characteristics, which, of course, men don't want as well. That's not healthy. That's not how God created you.

Starting point is 00:06:57 So overall, fatty liver disease, this is probably the least talked about, metabolic condition that people are suffering with and they don't even know it. In fact, I would guess that probably even though 40% of U.S. adults have a fatty liver, over 80% of people don't know they have a fatty liver. It might be over 90%. It's very, very high. And this is connected with major hormone imbalances in the body. And that's why most people don't think of the liver as an organ that's responsible for hormone balance, but it is a major way, especially when it comes to balancing out your estrogen. Now, number five is this, hyperlimidemia, which is really connected to high cholesterol or excess LDL cholesterol. Now, typically, LDL is labeled as bad. HDL is known as good

Starting point is 00:07:45 cholesterol. It's way more complex than that. But just for simplicity's sake, let's say the reality is most of the time when your LDL is very high on your blood work, that is definitely tied to excess inflammation and insulin resistance, and that's a metabolic disorder, also having low HDL and high triglycerides. Also, 38% of adults in the U.S. have high cholesterol. The risk associated with that is atherosclerosis, heart attack, stroke. And, you know, there are so many people, and men specifically, they get to be around 60 years old and they'll have a heart attack. Or women, they'll get in their 60s or so, and they'll have a stroke. You know, I'm thinking right now, My own father-in-law passed away because of this.

Starting point is 00:08:34 And it was out of nowhere. It was very unexpected because he had low grade, actually high blood pressure for years. And it affected him that way. And we have a family friend recently. Actually, I have two my best friends. Their moms, both in the past few years, had strokes. And now they're living with them and being full-time caretakers. And again, it's overlooked things like high blood pressure, high triglycerides, too much.

Starting point is 00:09:00 cholesterol in the body, and this is your greatest increased risk of heart attack and stroke. And this is tied to metabolic dysfunction. Number six is high blood pressure. We just talked about this. 47% of U.S. adults have high blood pressure. This is linked to insulin resistance. Obesity, of course, is connected there as well. It just stress, emotional stress, not diet, even though that's a big factor, but emotional stress and being too busy is a single greatest causative factor of high blood pressure and also a lot of fear, anxiety, and worrying your life, being emotionally unhealthy is another big factor. Number seven, PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. Around 15% of women of reproductive age have PCOS. This is really tied to insulin resistance and then elevated androgens.

Starting point is 00:09:55 Okay. And obesity can also play a role, but it's really that insulin resistance being the single greatest factor correlated with the androgens. Remember the androgens earlier I talked about if you were liver. So some of these diseases are really connected. Polysistic ovary syndrome is primarily an issue of the pancreas with insulin and secondarily an issue of the liver when it comes to also estrogen clearance. And we know PCOS is probably one of the, if not the single greatest driver of infertility in women today. And so major, major issue there. And so here's the thing. If you want to heal polycystic ovarian syndrome. You have to focus on your metabolic health and fix insulin primarily followed by liver health and reduce inflammation. Number eight, this might surprise you.

Starting point is 00:10:42 Gout is a metabolic condition. Around 45% of U.S. adults suffer with gout. That's uric acid buildup, often linked to obesity and insulin resistance. Number nine is type 1 diabetes. Now, we know this is an autoimmune condition where you have destruction of the pancreatic. beta cells. And really the consequence there is complete insulin deficiency. Now, I've cared for a lot of patients with type 1 diabetes over the years. And even if we can't get them completely off insulin, we can get them to be able to greatly reduce insulin. Now, I want to say there are some more advanced therapies today, such as stem cell therapy and other things where they're sort of reigniting and working on the pancreas itself. There's forms of regenerative medicine. There's

Starting point is 00:11:27 seeing really good results with type 1 diabetes and the improvement, even maybe certain cases of the reversal of with that. But overall, for the most part, there are absolutely things you can do to greatly improve it, even if there's not a 100% cure there. And then number 10 is mitochondrial disorders. Now, I would say the amount of people that have mitochondrial disorders that are genetic, that's rare. However, the number of people with mitochondrial disorders, that's rare. However, the number of people with mitochondrial dysfunction is very high. And that's really going to be connected to low energy. If you suffer with fatigue and exhaustion and low energy, you get a night, good night's sleeping, you're still not feeling well, or you have hypothyroidism or chronic fatigue

Starting point is 00:12:12 syndrome, something where you're just tired a lot. That's tied to mitochondrial dysfunction. And I would say over 50% of people have mitochondrial dysfunction to where they're just fatigued and tired constantly. You can see here on this. summary table, the most common metabolic disorders that people suffer from, and they're numerous, you know, as we talked about, over 88% of people, that's literally almost nine out of 10 people have a metabolic disorder. And now I want to dive into the biggest root causes of metabolic health or poor metabolic health. And number one, by the way, is being overweight. Now, obesity itself, which 42% of U.S. adults are obese, okay,

Starting point is 00:12:57 which it's the single greatest driver of insulin resistance, as I mentioned, because the extra body fat you have acts as a hormone, and that disrupts insulin sensitivity, okay? And hormone imbalance causes inflammation. So if you are 5 pounds, 20 pounds, 50, 100 pounds overweight, one of the single greatest things you can do is focus on losing the body fat, okay? And you don't want to do it with fad diets. You want to do it with lifestyle changes.

Starting point is 00:13:25 and you want to do it dietarily by focusing on getting rid of the ultra-processed foods, getting rid of the excess sugar, and focusing on consuming a diet that's low glycemic. Here's the secret. Protein and fiber in some healthy fat, okay? You can do small cars, but that's really not your focus. Protein, fiber, some healthy fat, okay? So it's meat, it's vegetables. I mean, that is the basis of your diet.

Starting point is 00:13:54 if you want to reverse metabolic dysfunction, if you want to lose body fat quickly, most of your diet should be protein such as meat and vegetables. Okay, now let me give you what a diet would look like, okay? It's to be metabolically healthy. And this is a good diet that tastes good. Wake up in the morning, I'm just going to share it with you what I ate to be metabolically healthy.

Starting point is 00:14:15 Wake up in the morning and do a superfood smoothie. Now, the smoothie is this, okay? It's a half a cup of berries or a half an avocado. or a half a can of pumpkin, something like that, or something low glycemic, high in fiber, and then 40 grams of protein. Maybe it's 20 grams of a bone broth protein or a stem cell protein or a collagen protein, and another 20 to 30 grams of a plant-based protein

Starting point is 00:14:42 or a protein that comes from animals, like it could be egg white or it could be beef protein, but some sort of protein, okay? So you've got protein, you've got fiber, and then you could add water or even a little bit of cold. coconut milk in there and get some healthy fats there as well. Okay. And then here's another thing to be metabolically healthy. Add pumpkin pie spice or a full teaspoon of cinnamon in there because that's amazing for insulin. Okay. Do that for breakfast. For lunch, what I would say is do organic meat, do a side of vegetables. And if you want to do a small amount of carbs, maybe it's like a quarter of

Starting point is 00:15:15 a cup of a sweet potato or quinoa or something like that or or have a big salad. with vegetables or soup with vegetables, or soup with meat and vegetables and rice, something like that. And then for dinner, what you want to do is meat, double vegetables, and some healthy fat. So it might be grilled salmon or a grass-fed burger and then steamed broccoli and cauliflower

Starting point is 00:15:43 or carrots and asparagus and then put some tahini over it with some sea salt or some hummus or some cashew cheese or something like that, you know, those healthy fats. and then for dessert, hey, I'll buy a dark chocolate. If you did a diet like that almost every day, your metabolic health would improve very, very quickly. In fact, I've had people follow a diet like what I just shared with you, and I've had people lose over 100 pounds in a year.

Starting point is 00:16:08 Okay, I've had people lose 20 pounds in, you know, in I would say as little as a month, but a lot of times two months. Okay, 10 pounds a month, okay? So you can lose weight very quickly if you really focus in. Now, I do want to mention one other big factor, okay? So that's fixing insulin directly. One other big factor that causes metabolic dysfunction is excess cortisol. And if cortisol gets too high, that will cause insulin to get too high, okay?

Starting point is 00:16:37 Or if cortisol is imbalanced, especially at nighttime, that's another problem too. But chronic stress and poor sleep. Both elevate cortisol levels. They also then impair insulin sensitivity. and they also disregulate your appetite hormones like leptin and grelin. If you don't get enough sleep or you get stressed, you are hungry. Have you ever noticed when you're stressed out? You just want to eat a bag of potato chips and a pint of ice cream?

Starting point is 00:17:03 That's that cortisol. And know that next time. Okay, I'm stressed. Why am I hungry? Oh, I see. My stress is driving cortisol. That's then driving insulin. That insulin then is turning on my hunger hormones of leptin and grelin,

Starting point is 00:17:16 which also will cause me to store body fat. That's what's happening hormonal. And here's according to research, adults who sleep fewer than six hours per night are 55% more likely to be obese compared to adults who sleep seven to nine hours per night. One hour of quality sleep of difference increases your risk of storing body fat or being obese by 55%. Chronic stress doubles the risk of metabolic syndrome according to medical research through cortisol dysregulation, which then causes. abdominal fat accumulation. Okay. So in addition to following that low glycemic, high protein, high fiber diet with moderate fat, but if you can do, and again, lower carb, if you can do that and get some of

Starting point is 00:18:06 the stress off of your plate, take more walks outside, create more margin to do hobbies and things you love, spend time around more uplifting people and not around the relational stress or the toxic people in your life. If you can make those adjustments, you can lose weight very, very quickly and fix your metabolic issues very, very quickly. Now, another causative factor, the third biggest cause of metabolic syndrome is this, a sedentary lifestyle. Sitting is the new smoking. Lack of movement reduces muscle glucose uptake and weakens and harms your mitochondria leading to blood sugar issues and fatty acid imbalances.

Starting point is 00:18:46 Only one in four U.S. adults gets enough physical activity. people with low physical activity levels have a 73% higher risk of developing insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. So, and think about it like this. Like part of our issue today is most of our jobs in our form of transportation is done via us not moving. Okay. So our work, most of us have desk jobs or work from home on a computer. Most people, when they need to go somewhere, they're riding in a car. Historically, over 50% of jobs were agricultural.

Starting point is 00:19:17 girl and people had to walk or ride a bike or a horse. They had to do something. And listen, and I have not ridden many horses in my life, but I will tell you that a few times I have, I was working my legs. I remember my legs being, it was at least doing something. My point is this. You need to be physically active. And sometimes it's just walking, okay? So most people need to be walking an hour a day.

Starting point is 00:19:42 It could be 30 minutes in the morning or 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes at lunch, 20 minutes at night. If you did that and then had three days a week where you did more physical activity like went to a gym, maybe do some weights and cardio combined, something like that. If you do that three days a week, went to the gym, and then on the days you didn't, you walked for one hour, that would be enough. And that would get you in really great shape. So you don't need to go and work out an hour a day, an hour three days a week or 40, you know, you can get a lot done if you are smart with your time.

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Starting point is 00:21:47 85% think about this. Drinking heavy alcohol is worse for your metabolic health than smoking, even though smoking is terrible for your health. Heavy alcohol use is incredibly damaging. And even moderate drinking can disrupt liver metabolism and blood sugar regulation. Now listen, if you have one day a week where you want to have one glass of wine or even up to two, let's say you're doing two drinks a week, that that's really not going to affect you much, okay?

Starting point is 00:22:14 But if you're drinking daily, even if it's one glass a day, or you are drinking heavy on the weekends, it is absolutely going to cause major issues. And by the way, I know this because when you look at certain other countries like Italy and France, I mean, they may have a small amount of red wine here and there even throughout the week. And actually drink even more than I said. And they have very little metabolic dysfunction. But overall, we see this especially heavy drinking causes major issues or drinking even one glass a day. That's not healthy.

Starting point is 00:22:46 Okay. it's not healthy at all. I would say try and drink two weeks, two glasses or less a week. Okay? Keep it very low. In the last major cause of metabolic health issues, and again, this is having a poor metabolism. We all want to have a healthy metabolism, right? You want to be burning fat. You want to be lean. You want to have good energy. You want your blood work to look good, right? We will all want that. Well, nine out of ten people don't have that, okay? And the fifth big reason why is hormone imbalances. Insulin issues, cortisol issues, leptin issues, estrogen issues, thyroid hormone issues,

Starting point is 00:23:20 testosterone issues, all of these hormone imbalances will cause metabolic dysfunction. Disregulated hormones distort hunger, fat storage, energy use, making it harder to maintain stable blood sugar and weight. High cortisol and chronic stress are linked to a 220% higher risk of obesity. obesity. One of the greatest things you can do to become obese is be chronically stressed. In fact, isn't it crazy to think about that even though you're not doing anything, just being in a stressed out state is as bad for you as eating a milkshake and French fries and pizza? Isn't that crazy? Most people think that stress does not affect their weight at all. They think it does not affect

Starting point is 00:24:06 their metabolism. It affects it as much as eating one of the worst meals you could ever sitting there drinking a soda and piece of pizza. That's how bad being in a stressed state is. And most of it has to do with we're way too busy. Most of us also, a lot of people also live in a state of fear, wanting to please everybody, of worry and trying to control things out of your control. So much of this also comes down to building your faith and following the advice in the Bible where God is saying, you know, it's like Matthew 5 and 6, listen, don't worry.

Starting point is 00:24:39 Like I take care of the lilies of the field and the birds of events. I'm going to take care of you, right? And I think that most of us are also were taught in the United States of America that success is the epitome, success financially, success in terming, having a lot of fame and followers, looking like the perfect family on the outside. And we're all trying to maintain this appearance and be successful in the eyes of the world with power and fame and money and all those things. That's very stressful when you feel like you have to perform in that way. But when you know that God loves you unconditionally, and I think about it like this.

Starting point is 00:25:16 Like my one-year-old and five-year-old right now, the thing I want for them most in life is to be growing in their character, for them to be kind to others, and for them to use their God-given gifts to grow in those in order to serve other people and make the world a better place. And I also want to see my girls happy, laughing, like enjoying life, having a nice balance of working hard but playing hard and having great relationships. It's like, that makes me happy. Your Heavenly Father is the same way. He wants to see you joyful and happy and using your gifts, but also playing, having fun. How many of you, when you think about your average week, are you playing and having fun? Are you doing things you love to do? You're deeply connecting with others.

Starting point is 00:25:58 Or are you every single minute, you're bringing kids to soccer practice, you're bringing them to dance, you're bringing them to gymnastics. You are, you know, you're constantly trying to, you know, volunteer and do this. every part of your day you've got something scheduled, every single part of it. And maybe part of that is doing one thing that's healthy. And I find this with a lot of my patients is when my patients have this mindset that, oh, I just have to do more to get healthy. Oftentimes, the single greatest thing you need to do to get healthy is do less, okay? Or do something where you're not trying to get ahead.

Starting point is 00:26:35 Reading a novel for fun. going for a walk in nature just to take a deep breath and relax doing lunch with the best friend and having two hours just a and somebody might say well listen that's not realistic with this day and age we have to make money to send my kid the private school or do this it all comes down to priorities and your health is a priority I can say this I had a mom who had cancer and was very very ill growing up my mom had cancer twice chronic fatigue syndrome

Starting point is 00:27:02 hypothyroidism chronic constipation immune infection my mom was very sick growing up. And I would have rather lived in a smaller house or not gone to a, I went to private Christian school or a younger, but then public school later on. But like we would have been happy to, you know, just go to the public school if my mom was healthy in there and fully vibrant and healthy. That's more important than us living in a certain size house. So I would just say it comes down to priorities, but you really want to focus on if you want to heal yourself metabolically, create that time to do those things you love. Play pickable, go golf, spend more time as a family doing those fun things, okay? And say no to more things, okay? Don't say yes to everything. But again,

Starting point is 00:27:43 this is one of the single greatest driving factors right now of poor metabolic health. The top two things are poor diet and stress. Those are the top two things. Okay. And you want to fix both if you want to fully heal. So if you want to be metabolically healthy, we have to fix these issues. Now, I want to go over seven surprising truths about your metabolism and just little tweaks, things you can do that will make a Big difference in healing your metabolism and fixing metabolic dysfunction. Number one, double your protein intake. Did you know that doubling your protein intake can burn an extra 200 calories? Protein has the highest thermogenic effect of any macronutrient,

Starting point is 00:28:23 burning 20 to 30 percent of its calories during digestion versus 5 to 10 percent of carbohydrates and only 0 to 3 percent for fats. Protein also preserves lean mass. muscle mass, which is critical for long-term calorie burning. There was a meta-analysis, which is multiple studies were taken together. And they confirmed that protein-rich diets significantly increased calorie expenditure and the feeling of being full, getting rid of cravings, meaning that they keep you from overeating and help you produce more energy or help you expend more energy during digestion.

Starting point is 00:28:58 And eating an extra 30 grams of protein at each meal may translate to you burning around 70 to 200 extra calories a day. Now, I would say for most people, here's about what you want to do. Take your body weight and consume at least half, if not one gram per body weight. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you should probably be getting a little over 100, between 100 and 120 grams of protein per meal. Okay. So that's each, if you eat three times a day, you're going to be consuming 30 to 40 grams of protein. Okay, let's say 40 grams. Okay. So if you're 150, try 1.50. 120. And that's like what I talked about earlier, right, doing that smoothie in the morning, 20 grams of a bone broth or 10 grams of a bone broth and 30 grams of a plant protein, something like that.

Starting point is 00:29:43 That 30 to 50 grams of protein is what you want to be shooting for. Again, the research is showing that's one of the single greatest things you can do to fix metabolic syndrome is just eat more protein. Number two, aging doesn't mean your metabolism crashes. Research shows energy expenditure remains stable from about age of 20 to 60. Big metabolic drops happen after 60, especially in those who don't exercise and maintain muscle mass. Here's the biggest reason why. When you get to be 60 in older, your metabolism starts to go like this. You move less.

Starting point is 00:30:17 That's the biggest reason. You're moving less weight. So if you can maintain being active, and listen, I want to say this, when I was in my 20s, I was doing CrossFit, I was doing triathlons, I was doing bodybuilding. Like, I was very active constantly. I had an injury in my 30s, herniated two discs in my back, and it kept me from doing triathlons, from doing crosser, from doing the Olympic weight lifting, those sort of things. But you know what?

Starting point is 00:30:46 I still work out. You know what I do now? I swim and I cycle and I lift weights and I play with my girls in the backyard. And I walk more. I can do more hikes in nature. So even though I may not do the same type of movement I did in the past, I am still doing everything I can to maintain muscle mass and stay very physically active. Okay.

Starting point is 00:31:07 And again, I don't play, you know, pick up basketball as much, even though I might on occasion. Now I play more pickleball in tennis and those sort of things. So, you know, as you age, figure out what's more age appropriate. And also, here's the other thing. I wish I would have exercised more like I do now when I was in my 20s and 30s because it was more longevity-based exercise, okay? But getting older does not mean your metabolism crashes. It means that you need to find new ways that are easier on your joints and stay very active in those ways.

Starting point is 00:31:37 Okay. So important thing to consider. And one of the biggest things as I mentioned to, it is weight training. Okay. You want to do one hard day of cardio really to support your VO2 max, so some sort of burst or interval, ideally one day a week. But then with that, you want to walk and you want to wait train. That's the single biggest thing. You're going to do one thing.

Starting point is 00:31:57 Try and keep on muscle mass. muscle is a longevity organ. You want to keep healthy. Do you have unexplainable illness, hormone dysfunction, weight loss, resistance, brain fog, and you're tired of being dismissed when you know something isn't right? Well, get my at-home testing of targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid, and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. The truth is, your doctor's probably reading your blood work all wrong. They're missing the same. cellular issues behind the symptoms.

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Starting point is 00:33:02 It's not just about your thyroid. When most people hear about your metabolism, they think about your thyroid and thyroid hormones because they are fairly connected to your metabolism. However, metabolic syndrome involves dysfunction across multiple organ systems. Your liver, your pancreas, your gut microbiome. I didn't even get into how your gut bacteria are critically important for creating serotonin. and hormones and detoxification and all kinds of things. And so, in fact, there are plenty of studies showing microbial imbalance in your gut

Starting point is 00:33:35 is a major factor of losing weight or gaining weight, okay? And so that's a reality. But metabolism isn't just tied to your thyroid. I would say it's much more tied to cortisol and insulin. And then those hormones impact your thyroid hormones, okay? But it's a multi-organ effect that is taking place. And so you really want to nourish your body. And here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:33:56 If you follow the diet I talked about earlier, a lot of protein like meat, wild caught fish, eggs, grass-fed beef, chicken, those sort of things, loads of vegetables, certain types of fruit like berries and apples. If that's the basis of your diet, maybe some healthy fats, extra virgin olive oil, some coconut, avocado, walnuts, if that's your diet, you're supporting every one of those organs. You're supporting your thyroid, your liver, your gut, your pancreas, if you follow a diet like what I talked about. Here's how it works. Your pancreas manages blood sugar via insulin and glucagon.

Starting point is 00:34:32 Your liver handles fats, toxins, glycogen, and estrogen. Your muscle is your biggest glucose consumer and your fat tissues secrete hormones like leptin and groin. So again, you can see there's so many different organs and tissues in the body that are responsible for your metabolism. Number four, thing that surprised a lot of people is your mitochondria is primarily responsible for your metabolism from a cellular standpoint. Your mitochondrial, are the tiny structures in your cells that are like your engines that drive, you know, creating energy in your body. And if those engines are damaged or weak or not functioning, or you don't have fuel for those

Starting point is 00:35:11 engines, those engines can't run properly. You know, your mitochondria has certain things that loves, okay? Your mitochondria loves certain foods, in fact, pomegranates are one of the foods your mitochondria loves the most. Your body's able to convert, especially if you have a healthy gut microbiome, that into something called uralithin A, which is really good for mitochondria. Your mitochondria love B vitamins, especially NAD plus, which is a form of a B vitamin known as niacin.

Starting point is 00:35:42 So it loves that, NAD plus or NADH, it loves coenzyme Q10, it loves creatine, it loves creatine, it loves magnesium. So your mitochondria needs certain nutrients and compounds to function at the highest level possible. And so, and it really loves adaptogenic herbs, rhodila rosea, ginseng, Ashwaganda, cortisept mushrooms, all of the whole category of adaptogens, your mitochondria really loves as well. So mitochondrial health is very, very important when it comes your metabolism. And as we age, our mitochondria become less efficient and we have fewer number, which can lead to blood sugar problems, weight gain, chronic disease, and a number of other things. But again, the N.A.

Starting point is 00:36:26 80 plus coenzymecogen alpha lopoic acid is pretty good as well. And then the adaptogenic herbs and the foods like pomegranates, berries, extra virgin olive oil are very, very good for those. Number five, this is going to surprise some of you. Being skinny does not guarantee a good metabolism. Have you heard the term skinny fat, right? There are some people who look skinny, but they still are storing a fair amount of fat on their hips or their midsection around their organs, visceral fat. And it can be hidden on people that look pretty thin. But this visceral fat disrupts insulin, causes inflammation, cholesterol issues, keeps your liver from detoxifying and balancing hormones. So just because you're skinny, listen, if you're one of those people

Starting point is 00:37:16 that you're skinny, but you're very inactive and you don't eat healthy and you think, well, hey, I just have a good metabolism, you think you do. You think you do. You think you do. You. You you. Maybe your body's maintained being lean, but it doesn't mean you don't have fatty liver disease. It doesn't mean that you are hormonally healthy. It doesn't mean your mitochondria aren't dying off. And so, again, being skinny fat does not mean you have a good metabolism. Studies show about 20% of normal weight or skinny people have metabolic syndrome markers. So body weight alone can be deceptive. Number six, your gut microbiome helps control your metabolism, as I talked about earlier. Your gut bacteria, here's one of the reasons why your gut

Starting point is 00:37:58 bacteria produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, and they enhance insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation. Disbiosis of your gut having excess candida, H. Pylori, parasites, a number of things in your body contributes to weight gain, poor blood sugar and metabolic dysfunction. Actually, parasites can cause you to lose weight, but that's, maybe that's the outlier. But most the time when you have bad microorganisms in your body, you gain weight and it causes a greater amount of inflammation. Okay. And so we know this via numerous, numerous studies. In fact, there's one study that found this. This is in an advanced nutrition journal. And they said, microbial metabolites can induce epigenetic modifications with potential implications for

Starting point is 00:38:41 obesity. So here's what happens. Bad microbes in your body, if your gut microbiome gets unhealthy, it's one of the single greatest factors that turns on certain genes, right? So epigenetics. So you might have an obesity gene or a breast cancer gene or something like that in your body. If your gut microbiome is unhealthy, it'll turn that bad switch on and maybe good switches off, okay? What that does is it might cause you to produce less good fatty acids, which can then damage your cell membranes. Now oxygen can't get in and out of your cell, increasing your risk of cancer, inflammation, and a number of other issues. So according to this medical journal, your gut microbiome is. very tied into your epigenetics, which can then affect your metabolism in a very, very crucial

Starting point is 00:39:26 way. The biggest things that we know that destroy our gut microbiome are antibiotics, birth control drugs. So medications, but really antibiotics and contraceptive drugs are the worst of the worst, for the most part. Low fiber diet, so you don't have enough good fiber in your diet. Those are the biggest things that really caused that, you know, dysbiosis in your gut, which is then going to cause metabolic syndrome. And number seven is this. Continuous glucose monitors, CGMs, aren't as accurate as we used to think. However, they are still very helpful, and myself and many other functional medicine doctors still recommend them. So CGMs can help some people discover their sensitivities to carbs, even ones like oatmeal or quinoa or fruit.

Starting point is 00:40:16 CGMs also help by providing instant feedback, which can motivate people to make better food. choices without waiting for a doctor visit. However, there have been two studies that have showed that CGM-based diets didn't lead to significantly more weight loss than a Mediterranean diet or a low or lower fat diets. However, simply tracking meals, whether in an app or on paper, was associated with lower blood sugar and overall health because it makes people more aware. So here's the basis. When you are looking at a continuing, glucose monitor and that's where you take one of those patches you put them on your tricep and basically it's constantly reading something that indicates where your blood sugar's

Starting point is 00:41:00 at um some of those findings it might jump more it might be a little bit more volatile and jump up more than is actually affecting your blood sugar but that doesn't mean it still isn't affecting it it might just be a little bit showing a little bit more uh it's a little bit more volatile like the spike is a little bit more severe than it actually is However, that doesn't mean it still isn't telling you what you should eat. So, okay, maybe it's spiking 30% higher than it should. It's still spiking. It's still a problem.

Starting point is 00:41:33 So I do recommend one of the greatest things any of you can do is do a continuous glucose monitor while following a really healthy diet like a Mediterranean diet or the Biblio diet, as I've talked about with Jordan Rubin, a biblically based diet. You know, a diet that's full of real food, ideally even a diet that's personalized for And I'd recommend, again, a Chinese medicine diet, Metatrini diet, or my favorite diet, the Bibliot diet, which is a lot of biblical foods. And so it's a lot of meat. It's pomegranates. It's berries.

Starting point is 00:42:02 It's figs. It's extra virgin olive oil, right? It's doing a lot of these foods. Honey is your sweetener. But doing a really good, clean, healthy diet like that while doing a continuous glucose monitor has major, major benefits for your metabolic health. Major benefits. And you can do it just one month. and see, hey, maybe there's a certain food that's really causing your blood sugar to spike and get out of balance.

Starting point is 00:42:28 And so it's super, super helpful. So in summary, remember this, if you are going to fix metabolic issues, fixing cortisol and insulin, those are the two most important hormones you need to focus on. Also, remember, 88% of people, that's almost 90% of people, have metabolic health issues, okay? Eating more protein, boost your metabolism. that's one of the single biggest things you could walk away with, get more protein. Muscle mass is important. So weight training can be incredibly helpful. And remember, it's multi-organ-based using food as medicine, lowering stress, just being more active are the biggest things you could do to fight these issues.

Starting point is 00:43:06 And we talk about lowering stress. Again, getting more sleep as well. That 7 to 9 hours a night is great. I wore this aura ring. Again, two of my favorite ways to track your health are an aura ring. It can tell your HRV, which is really tied to stress levels and your sleep quality. And then using a continuous glucose monitor, if you want things that are really dynamic to test your metabolic health, those are some of the absolute best you could do on a regular basis to help yourself. And listen, blood work can be helpful in looking at some of these different markers.

Starting point is 00:43:35 But overall, there's a lot of things I just told you you can do right now to start naturally improving your metabolic health in a big way. Now, in addition to the diet that I talked about, you can take some supplements that are very beneficial for metabolic health. The first and primary is Bayberry leaf, which contains berberine. Burbering helps lower blood sugar and improve insulin sensitivity, very similar to metformin, but without as many side effects. So I like berberine. I actually don't think berbering is, you should take it for long, long term, more than a year, but for a period of time or on and off, I think berberine is great to take.

Starting point is 00:44:10 Chromium pecolonate, okay? Chromium supports healthy blood sugar, typically 100 to 200 micrograms, 1 to 3 times daily, alpha hypoic acid also can be gray. Magnesium is essential for ATP production. Coenzym Q10. You can also get that from a heart glandular. Listen, there's a lot there important. Be complex, especially if you're not methylating well, can be good. Vitamin D plays a crucial role there as well.

Starting point is 00:44:35 And then just getting more good herbs, adaptogens and cinnamon and ginger and turmeric. All of those also help metabolic dysfunction. But the biggest are going to be berberine and chromium, okay? and then omega-3s as well, CO-10, magnesium are probably your biggest ones, to unlock and help fix your metabolic health. Listen, your metabolism isn't broken. It's adaptive.

Starting point is 00:45:00 It's just responding to your lifestyle, what you're eating and your stress levels. But your body has an amazing capacity to heal. If you can take action with improving your diet, focusing on creating more, you know, bandwidth in your life and lowering those. stress levels and just be more active, you can fix and heal your metabolism very, very quickly. I've had people heal metabolic syndrome in 30 days. People with major metabolic syndrome have had

Starting point is 00:45:28 them completely reverse it in less than three months. And so if you take the right action, your body can heal very, very quickly. And by understanding what actually controls and impacts your metabolism, if you make a few of these targeted changes, your energy can increase, you can lean out and get your ideal body composition and long term increase your longevity. I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Jack show. Each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, and spiritually. Make sure to subscribe. Again, I want to say thank you to all of you subscribers that are on mission with me to change the word.

Starting point is 00:46:04 We've got some amazing guests coming on the show and amazing content, so don't forget to subscribe. Also, thank you, all of you for sharing these episodes. You're making a difference. The podcast is continuing to grow and explode. in such a major way in popularity. So just thank you so much, everyone, for sharing this. And if you're watching on YouTube, let me know, what is your single biggest takeaway for metabolic syndrome?

Starting point is 00:46:27 Is this something you have? Is it something that are you doing some of the things that I advise? If you use a continuous blood glucose monitor, what have you noticed, maybe surprisingly, has the biggest impact on your metabolic health? I'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you on the next episode.

The Dr. Josh Axe Show - How to Boost Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss

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