How to Boost Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss

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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.

It's Menopausal symptoms. It's a number of other issues I'll dive into today, and I'll be covering the surprising truths 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 Axe Show. We gather here tonight to bring women back to their rightful place.

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So researchers have described the prevalence of metabolic health in American adults as alarmingly low. Only about 1 in 10 Americans is metabolically healthy, and poor metabolic health leaves people more vulnerable to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, having a heart attack, a stroke, and other major health crises.

And metabolic health is defined as having Normal blood sugar, healthy triglycerides, a waist circumference within a healthy range, and normal blood pressure and normal cholesterol without needing medications. Again, if you— if your medications are driving them into 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 metabolic conditions, and a couple of these are sure to surprise you. Now, number 1, of course, is metabolic syndrome. Okay?

Around 1 out of every 3 US 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 imbalanced and too much inflammation. 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, Josh, can you just— can you help me with my type 2 diabetes? He said, I've had it for 20 years. And The thing for him is just, he, you know, I looked, I had him write 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, 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 if you have type 2 diabetes or you are borderline prediabetic or insulin resistant, it's just a matter of time before you have these other organs that just completely shut down in your body. Number 3 is obesity. 42% Of US 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 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 4 is this: nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Now, listen to this. Nearly 40% of US 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, 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 and 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. So think about this. If you are a female with fatty liver disease, and that's 40% of women, listen, if you're overweight, you almost— 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, so issues there as well.

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. 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 US adults have 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 a— as an organ that's responsible for hormone balance.

But it is in a major way, especially when it comes to balancing out your estrogen. Now, number 5 is this hyperlipidemia, which is really connected to high cholesterol or excess LDL cholesterol. Now, Typically, LDL is labeled as bad. HDL is known as good 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 US 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, my own father-in-law passed away because of this and it was out of nowhere.

Wasn't—.

It was very unexpected because he had low-grade Uh, actually high blood pressure for years and, uh, and affected in that way. And we have a family friend recently— actually, I have 2, 2 of my, 2 of my best friends, their moms both in the past few years had strokes, and now they're, they're living with them and being full-time caretakers.

And again, it's overlooked things like high blood pressure, high triglycerides, too much cholesterol in the body. And this is your greatest increased risk of heart attack and stroke. And this is tied to metabolic dysfunction. Number 6 is high blood pressure. We just talked about this. 47% Of US adults have high blood pressure. This is linked to insulin resistance.

Obesity, of course, is connected there as well. And just stress, emotional stress, not diet, even though that's a big factor, but emotional stress and being too busy is the single greatest, greatest causative factor of high blood pressure. And also a lot of fear, anxiety, and worry in your life of being emotionally unhealthy. Is another big factor. Number 7, PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Around 15% of women that are of reproductive age have PCOS. This is really tied to insulin resistance and then elevated androgens. 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 your liver So some of these diseases are really connected.

Polycystic 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 the one of probably the 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 8, this might surprise you. Gout is a metabolic condition. Around 4 to 5% of US adults suffer with gout. That's uric acid buildup, often linked to obesity and insulin resistance. Number 9 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, We'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 that are seeing really, 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 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 good night's sleep and you're still not feeling well, or you have hypothyroidism or chronic fatigue 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. As we talked about, over 88% of people, that's literally almost 9 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 US adults are obese, okay, 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 Insensitivity, 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, 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 and some healthy fat. Okay? You can do small carbs, but that's really not your focus.

Protein, fiber, some healthy fat. Okay? So, it's meat, it's vegetables. Those are— I mean, that is the basis of your diet. 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, now let me give you what a diet would look like. Okay. It's to, for, to be metabolically healthy.

And this is a good diet that tastes good. Wake up in the morning. I'm just gonna share with you what I ate to be metabolically healthy. 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, a low— something low glycemic, high in fiber. And then 40 grams of protein.

Maybe it's 20 grams of a bone broth protein or stem cell protein or collagen protein, and another 20 to 30 grams of a plant-based protein 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 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 a cup of A sweet potato or quinoa or something like that, 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 grass-fed burger and then steamed broccoli and cauliflower 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, it's those healthy fats. And then for dessert, hey, have a bite of 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. 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 2 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. 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 So then impair insulin sensitivity, and they also dysregulate your appetite hormones like leptin and ghrelin. 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? 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 ghrelin, which also will cause me to store body fat. That's what's happening hormonally.

And here's— according, according to research, adults who sleep fewer than 6 hours per night are 55% more likely to be obese compared to adults who sleep 7 to 9 hours per night. 1 Hour of quality sleep of difference increases your risk of storing body fat or being obese by 55%.

Wow.

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 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, the, the, 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 3rd 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. Only 1 in 4 US 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 and 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, and people had to walk or ride a bike or a horse, or they had to do something. And listen, and I have not ridden many horses in my life, but I will tell you that the few times I have, it— I, I was working my legs. I remember my legs being— It was at least doing something.

My point is this, um, you need to be physically active, and sometimes it's just walking. Okay, so most people need to be walking an hour a day. 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 3 days a week where you did more physical activity, like, uh, went to a gym, maybe do some weights and cardio combined, something like that— if you do that 3 days a week, Went to the gym, and then on the days you didn't, you walked for 1 hour, that would be enough. And that would get you in really great shape.

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I'm praying for and excited about your financial prosperity. Now, the 4th most common cause of metabolic syndrome is this: toxin exposure. And this includes alcohol and smoking. Toxins damage your mitochondria, they disrupt liver detoxification, and they increase oxidative stress, all of which impair your metabolic pathways. Smoking increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 40% alone.

Heavy alcohol use increases the risk of metabolic syndrome by 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 2, let's say you're doing 2 drinks a week, that's really not going to affect you much. Okay? 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, um, 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, and they have very little metabolic dysfunction.

But overall, we see this, especially heavy drinking, um, causes major issues, or drinking Even, even 1 glass a day, that's not healthy. Okay? It's not healthy at all. I would say try and drink 2 weeks, 2 glasses or less a week. Okay? Keep it very low. And 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 all want that. Well, 9 out of 10 people don't have that. Okay? And the 5th Big reason why is hormone imbalances. Insulin issues, cortisol issues, leptin issues, estrogen issues, thyroid hormone issues, testosterone issues.

All of these hormone imbalances will cause metabolic dysfunction. Dysregulated 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. One of the greatest things you can do to become obese is have— 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 their metabolism.

It affects it as much as eating one of the worst meals you could ever eat, 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, like Matthew 5 and 6, listen, don't worry. Like, I take care of the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. I'm going to take care of you. Right. And I think that most of us are also— we're taught in the United States of America that success is the epitome.

Success financially, success in terms of 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, like I, my 1-year-old and 5-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, enjoying life, having a nice balance of working hard but playing hard and having great relationships. 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. 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, you're, you're constantly trying to, you know, volunteer and do this. Like 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.

Reading a novel for fun, going for a walk in nature just to take a deep breath and relax, doing lunch with a best friend and having 2 hours just to— and somebody might say, well, listen, that's not realistic with this day and age. We have to make money to send my kid to private school or do this. You know, the— it all comes down to priorities, and your health is a priority. I, 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, hypothyroidism, chronic constipation, immune deficiency. 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 when I was 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 pickleball, 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, this is one of the single greatest driving factors right now of poor metabolic health. The top 2 things are poor diet and stress. Those are the top 2 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 7 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 1, 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, burning 20 to 30% of its calories during digestion versus 5 to 10% of carbohydrates and only 0 to 3% for fats. Protein also preserves lean 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 Protein-rich diets significantly increase 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.

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, here's about what you want to do. Take your body weight. And consume at least half, if not 1 gram per body weight.

So, 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 meal. If you eat 3 times a day, you're gonna be consuming 30 to 40 grams of protein. Okay? Let's say 40 grams. Okay? So if you're 150, try 120. And, 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. That, 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 2, 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, here's the biggest reason why.

Right.

And when you get to be 60 and older, your metabolism starts to go like this. You move less. That's the biggest reason you're moving less weight. So, 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 2 discs in my back. And it kept me from doing triathlons, from doing CrossFit, from doing the Olympic weightlifting, those sort of things. But you know what? 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, 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. And again, I don't play, you know, pickup basketball as much, even though I might on occasion. Now I play more pickleball and 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've exercised more like I do now when I was in my 20s and 30s, cuz it was more longevity-based exercise. Okay. But, but, but be— getting older does not mean your metabolism crashes. It means that, uh, You need to find new ways that are easier on your joints and stay very active in those ways. Okay. Um, so, so important thing to consider.

Um, and, and one of the biggest things, as I mentioned too, it is weight training. Okay. You wanna 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 wanna walk and you wanna weight train. That's the, that, that's the single biggest thing. You're gonna do one thing, 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?

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It's not just about your thyroid. When most people hear about your metabolism, they think about— 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 is a major factor of losing weight or gaining weight. Okay. And so, so that's a reality. But metabolism isn't just tied to your thyroid. It's— I would say it's much more tied to cortisol and insulin.

And then those hormones impact your thyroid hormones. Okay. And but, but it's again, it's a multi-organ effect. That, that is taking place. And so you really want to nourish your body.

And here's the thing, 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— I mean, 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. Because here's how it works. Your pancreas manages blood sugar via insulin and glucagon. Your liver handles fats, toxins, glycogen, and estrogen. Your muscle is your biggest glucose consumer, and your fat tissues secrete hormones like leptin and ghrelin.

So again, you can see there's so many different organs and And tissues in the body that are responsible for your metabolism. Number 4 thing that surprised a lot of people is your mitochondria is primarily responsible for your metabolism from a cellular standpoint. Your mitochondria are the tiny structures in your cells that are like your engines that drive creating energy in your body.

And if those engines are damaged or weak or not functioning, or you don't have fuel, for those engines, those engines can't run properly. You know, your mitochondria has certain things it 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 urolithin A, which is really good for mitochondria. Your mitochondria love B vitamins, especially NAD+, which is a, a a, uh, a form of, uh, a B vitamin known as niacin. Um, so it loves that, NAD+ or NADH. Um, it loves coenzyme Q10. Uh, it loves, uh, creatine. It loves magnesium.

So your mitochondria needs certain nutrients and compounds to function at the highest level possible. And so, um, and it really loves adaptogenic herbs, Rhodiola rosea, ginseng, Ashwagandha, cordyceps mushrooms, all the whole category of adaptogens your mitochondria really loves as well. So mitochondrial health is very, very important when it comes to 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 NAD+, coenzyme Q10, alpha-lipoic 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 5, 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 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.

Maybe, 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 6, Your gut microbiome helps control your metabolism, as I talked about earlier. Your gut bacteria— here's one of the reasons why. Your gut bacteria produce short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, and they enhance insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation.

Dysbiosis 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, but most of 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, via numerous, numerous studies. In fact, there's one study that found this. This was in an advanced nutrition journal and they said microbial metabolites can induce epigenetic modifications with potential implications for 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 fat or a breast cancer gene or something like that in your body. If your gut microbiome's 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 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 cause that, you know, dysbiosis in your gut, which is then going to cause metabolic syndrome. And number 7 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. 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 2 studies that have showed that CGM-based diets didn't lead to significantly more weight loss than a Mediterranean diet or a low Uh, or lower fat diets. Uh, 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, so again, here's the basis.

When you are looking at a continuous glucose monitor, and that's where you take one of those patches, you put 'em on your tricep, and basically it's constantly reading something that indicates your— where your blood sugar's at.

Yeah.

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, 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 there's— it's spiking 30% higher than it should. Good. It's still spiking. It's still a problem.

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 you.

And I'd recommend again a Chinese medicine diet, uh, Mediterranean diet, or my favorite, the Biblio diet, which is a lot of biblical foods. And so it's a lot of It's pomegranates, it's berries, it's, uh, figs, it's extra virgin olive oil, right? It's doing a lot of these foods. Honey is your sweetener.

Um, but doing a really good, clean, healthy diet like that, um, 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. 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 2 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 boosts 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. And we talk about lowering stress, again, getting more sleep as well. That 7 to 9 hours a night is great. I wore this Oura Ring.

Again, 2 of my favorite ways to track your health are an Oura 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 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, bloodwork can be helpful in looking at some of these different markers. 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. Berberine 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 berberine 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.

Chromium picolinate. Okay. Chromium supports healthy blood sugar, typically 100 to 200 micrograms, 1 to 3 times daily. Alpha-lipoic acid also can be great. Magnesium is essential for ATP production. Coenzyme Q10, you can also get that from a heart glandular. You know, listen, there's a lot there. Important B complex, especially if you're not methylating well, can be good.

Vitamin D plays a crucial role there as well. 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, CoQ10, magnesium are probably your biggest ones to unlock and help fix your metabolic health.

Listen, your metabolism isn't broken. It's adaptive. 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 more, uh, you know, bandwidth in your, in your life and lowering those stress levels and just being 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, I've had them completely reverse it in less than 3 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 wanna say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe 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 wanna say thank you to all of you subscribers that are on mission with me to change the world. We've got some amazing guests coming on the show, amazing content, so don't forget to subscribe.

Awesome.

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 on, uh, for metabolic syndrome? Is this something you have?

Is it something that— are, are you doing some of the things, some of the things that I advise? Have you used 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. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you on the next episode.