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How to support metabolic flexibility:
Learn Nutrition Science
Understanding the hormonal, caloric, micronutrient and macronutrient impact of the food you're eating, in what amounts, etc. is essential.
When you understand how to create and consume a healthy, balanced meal that keeps you full and energized for hours, you will teach your body to alternate between fuel sources.
Meal Spacing
Taking regular breaks from calories signals your body to make this metabolic switch to burning fat.
This happens naturally:
(1) Overnight when you sleep!
(2) In between properly balanced meals
If you're constantly snacking, you'll never reach the metabolic switch.
If you're hungry 1-2 hours after eating, it's possible that you're under-eating, over-eating processed food that is missing nutrients like protein and fiber that keep you fuller for longer, or have some underlying hormonal imbalance causing an increase in appetite.
Exercise
If you're sedentary, adding exercise to your routine can help your body burn fat. And it doesn't have to be all intense!
In fact, we do best with a baseline of mostly low intensity, all-day activity like walking.
Walking is such a unique human movement that lowers both cortisol and glucose, a win-win!
Macronutrient Ratios
Each person has a unique threshold of glucose that can be held in the body in the form of glycogen, largely coming from the carbohydrates that we consume.
The more muscle you have, the more carbs you can 'hold' in your muscles and liver.
As we age, as hormones change, and as we experience different seasons of life, our carbohydrate threshold at any given meal or day may change.
Regardless, focusing on high quality bio-available protein and fiber from vegetables as your two primary focus points for each meals will do wonders for your health.
Then, we can be very strategic about additional fats and carbs depending on our needs.
Meal Timing
Ever wonder why little kids have little interest in dinner?
They are in tuned with their bodies.
Most children who have not be conditioned by food rules will make breakfast their biggest meal when they are most insulin sensitive and able to put that fuel to use!
Lunch is likely a bit smaller.
And dinner is the smallest.
This is in total alignment with how we ate ancestrally and yet ironically, modern society has us on a flip-flopped schedule of skipping breakfast and then having our biggest intake of calories at night when we are least likely to use it for energy.
Your body doesn't want a huge influx of calories (energy) at night when it's getting primed for sleep and restoration.
If you're up all night digesting food, you won't sleep or recover as well.
This is just a snippet of the deep education we provide in Awaken Your Nutrition.
We are extremely passionate about providing you the full WHY behind everything so that you can make the most informed, empowered decisions when it comes to your health.
Click here to register by 8/31 to save $500, and we'll see you online next week for onboarding!
Shannon Morse and Lisa Kirby | Co-Founders of The Green Door Life
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