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This week on the podcast Mikki chats to women’s health expert, naturopath Dr Lara Briden about her new book The Metabolism Reset (also called Metabolism Repair for Womenl). This book explores various aspects of metabolic dysfunction, including IR, fatty liver and blood sugar problems and why it’s so important for general health. Mikki and Lara talk about this in relation to Lara’s book but also their own clinical practice, so it’s a good ‘fly on the wall’ discussion
Lara Briden is a naturopathic doctor and bestselling author of the books Period Repair Manual and Hormone Repair Manual — practical guides to treating period problems with nutrition, supplements, and bioidentical hormones. With a strong science background, Lara sits on several advisory boards and is the lead author of a 2020 paper published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. She has more than 20 years’ experience in women’s health and currently has consulting rooms in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she treats women with PCOS, PMS, endometriosis, perimenopause, and many other hormone- and period-related health problems.
Reach Lara at www.larabriden.com, IG: https://www.instagram.com/larabriden/
Lara's books https://larabriden.com/lara-briden-books/
Lara’s previous appearance on Mikkipedia https://podcast.mikkiwilliden.com/33 and https://podcast.mikkiwilliden.com/248
Creators & Guests
What is Mikkipedia?
Mikkipedia is an exploration in all things health, well being, fitness, food and nutrition. I sit down with scientists, doctors, professors, practitioners and people who have a wealth of experience and have a conversation that takes a deep dive into their area of expertise. I love translating science into a language that people understand, so while some of the conversations will be pretty in-depth, you will come away with some practical tips that can be instigated into your everyday life. I hope you enjoy the show!
00:00
you
00:05
everyone it's Mikki here you're listening to Mikkipedia and this week on the podcast I talked to women's health expert and my good friend Naturopath Dr. Lara Brydon.
00:18
So Lara and I talk about her new book, The Metabolism Reset, which is also called Metabolism Repair for Women on the show today. And this book explores various aspects of metabolic dysfunction, including insulin resistance, fatty liver and blood sugar problems, and why it's so important for general health. And I mean, we obviously talk about this in relation to Lara's book.
00:46
But it's also about our clinical practice. So this is really like a fly on the wall discussion that Lara and I had just before her book was released, which I'm so excited to have been involved with. Lara Bryden is a naturopathic doctor and bestselling author of the books, Period Repair Manual and Hormone Repair Manual, Practical Guides to Treating Period Problems with Nutrition, Supplements and Bioidentical Hormones. Of course, I...
01:15
have no doubt that her new book, The Metabolism Reset, will join the ranks of her previous two books, which are just fantastic. With a strong science background, Lara sits on several advisory boards and is the lead author of a 2020 paper published in a peer-reviewed medical journal around the topic that she spends her life educating people on. She has more than 20 years
01:44
currently has consulting rooms in Christchurch New Zealand where she treats women with PCOS, PMS, endometriosis, perimenopause and many other hormone and period related health problems including the ones that we talk about in today's episode. So I have links to where you can reach Lara in her website and of course in Instagram where she shares so many educational posts.
02:10
and I've also got a link as to where you can buy her books from. In addition to all of that I've got the links to Lara's previous appearances on Micopedia, one back in the first year of the podcast and of course the one that we just released most recently where we delved into the topic of HRT alongside Dr Nikki Key. Before we crack on into the interview though I would like to remind you that the best way to support the podcast is to hit the subscribe button.
02:40
on your favourite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of Micopedia out there and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts. So more people get the opportunity to listen to experts that I have on the show, including Dr. Lara Brydon. All right team, enjoy the conversation.
03:00
Thank you so much for being with me this morning. I have to say, I got such good feedback from the conversation that you and Dr. Nikki Key had at my house about menopause, HRT, and answering a lot of the questions that a lot of women have, I guess, around that stuff. Yeah, that was a fun...
03:24
interview. There's nothing better than being in person. I wish we could have. You and I are physically somewhat close. We're four or five hours apart today, but still online. Still online. I know. I know. I'm so excited to chat to you about your book. Now, and of course, we're going to go into the details and what it covers, which is, it's not a departure from your
03:51
what you're knowing from, but it's much more of a broader topic. Would you say that? Yeah. In a way, it's a departure. I talk about that a little bit in the introduction and explaining my process around it, which was that obviously I'm most interested in women's health and menstruation still. I'm very interested in that and perimenopause and all of that. But as you know, metabolic health underlies
04:19
everything. It certainly it underlies mental health. It certainly underlies women's health as well. And by underlie, I mean, yeah, like that cellular energy, that insulin sensitivity, that has so many downstream consequences for women's health. For me, in the introduction, I talked about going a bit deeper into what I, you know, the way I do with patients. It's like, if you identify that there's a metabolic problem, then that becomes the priority.
04:46
from a clinical perspective, almost regardless of what's going on. And then conversely in the other direction, as we can touch on, female physiology impacts metabolic health. There's certain aspects of female physiology that I think can be targeted and thought about, including the pre-menstrual phase of the menstrual cycle and whether or not that reduces insulin sensitivity. We can touch on that today. Yeah. Nice one. And was it...
05:13
then the way that you're sort of describing it, Laura, was it like this natural sort of genesis of this topic coming from your clinical experience? Yeah, I've been thinking about this a bit because I've had some other questions coming in from journalists about my journey to this book. It's through the lens of working with my patients. All my work, all my books have been that, but this definitely, it's like and approaching it through the, I hope, through the lens of what
05:41
Yeah, what people's, you know, what I've observed with my patients, what they seem to need. And that's why, as we can discuss, you know, the book is essentially a troubleshooting manual because when you've got someone sitting there in front of you, they could be, they're obstacles or they're, you know, it's quite diverse, actually, there can be lots of different things going on with lots of different people. And as much as we would all love a one size fits all approach, it just never...
06:09
hands out, it never turns out that way. No, and I feel like that's a lot of us, that's sort of what we hope to get, you know, like you want to go on social media and see things like, if you're a woman, regardless of age, or you know, at whatever age group, because I know this isn't just a book for women in period menopause and menopause, it's just like across the life stage. But you know, if you're a woman and you experience this, this is what you do, because it would just make it so much easier. Exactly. And there's so many variables.
06:39
There's chronotype, different circadian rhythms, there's different body shapes, which I'm pretty fascinated about. I didn't give a lot of real estate to that in the book, but I do talk a bit about that. And obviously life stage and whether you're in your 20s or 30s or postpartum or puberty or perimenopause or 20 years after menopause, there's lots of different...
07:05
things going on. And a lot of us do with nervous system type too. So it's hormones, not just hormones, it's also nervous system type. I think we're starting to see, especially with some of the new medications for like the ozempic, semiglutide, with that whole turn of events, which has, I think, been super interesting. And I do touch on it in the book. To me, that just shines the light. It just shows how much of this is related to the brain and the nervous system. And obviously people have different...
07:32
nervous systems. There's the wiry, sympathetic dominant adrenaline types, and then there's the parasympathetic types. That's why there's such a huge variety of experience in terms of patterns of hunger, patterns of energy, and the type of movement people like or don't like to do. I guess I have a chapter in chapter four, which is the biology of metabolism.
08:00
I have a little box, pull out box right near the beginning saying, embrace the complexity. It's like, this is a super complex system. It's a little crazy actually, just how dynamic the system is. I was thinking of analogy this morning, rather than just something simple like a network of footpaths or sidewalks or something that you can navigate. It's like a rain forest. I can see multi-leveled, there's the under the ground, up in the treetops, it's like all this like...
08:29
you know, thousands of organisms communicating with each other. That's quite a broad analogy, but there's all different parts of the physiology are talking to each other. And yeah, the only thing you can do is just embrace the complexity and look for simple levers to pull, I guess, you know, actions to take that will reverberate through the entire system. And we've seen that in practice, because I know you work with clients as well. And you can just see, like sometimes a single change can
08:58
Okay, right. That's now affected sleep and hunger and everything. That's just had many downstream benefits. Yeah. No, I agree. It can seem really overwhelming to someone coming in and hearing you say how complex it is, but it really can be that you don't necessarily need an entire overhaul because sometimes focusing on this one thing actually just by default can change a number of things. And yeah, I agree with you, Lara. It's...
09:27
not promising isn't the right word, but it's reassuring, I think. It is. Yeah. Yeah. There's simplicity and the complexity. That's what happens on the ground. This actually ties into a message from my other two books, which is trust your body. We don't have to outsmart our body in this system. We can't, because the body knows best. All we can do is provide the body, specifically the brain,
09:56
book I talk about, I coined a phrase called the signals of safety and satiety. The signals of safety is from something called polyvagal theory. So that's not mine. That's existed. And I just tagged on satiety to that. So all the different ways you can tell your brain, it's okay. Everything's going to be okay. You don't have to go into panic, fat storing mode like there's enough food. We're not in a stress. It's not winter. Well,
10:23
It is winter for us in New Zealand right now, metaphorically. Just reassure the body and it knows what to do. I guess I still believe that. I really do believe that, trust your body. I think, yeah, obviously with caveats, I do understand sometimes people have really complicated things going on with their health and their bodies and might need some medical interventions like...
10:48
Totally acknowledge that. But at the same time, for a lot of the stuff, the functional day-to-day symptoms that we're working with, including mood, including metabolism, including menstrual health, we can work with our body. We can try to get the results by just giving the body what it needs. Yeah. And you begin by talking about the fact that the metabolic dysfunction and weight gain isn't the fault of the individual or isn't...
11:16
necessarily the fault of the individual. Do you want to just, should we just sort of start there, Lara? Yeah. Well, this is evolutionary mismatch, which I know your listeners will be all of, you know, all know all about that. Actually, you and I, Mickey met through, you know, an evolutionary medicine kind of group, and we, I think we definitely share that approach. So we are creatures, we're animals living in a certain environment, and the environment we evolved in.
11:45
a couple hundred thousand years ago, going back and even further back, was just so different from today. And there's obviously, I think the consensus, I think it's safe to say the consensus is that there's something in our modern environment or some combination of things that has really confused the regulatory mechanism of metabolic health in a number of people, not in everyone.
12:09
And I think that's the not in everyone part is partly genetics, partly epigenetics, just luck of the draw. You know, some people were sheltered from some of the modern food environment for different reasons. But I guess that's what I mean by it's, you know, it's not your fault. Like it's, we are, yeah, we're animals living in an environment that's not friendly to us in so many ways. It's not friendly to metabolism. And one of the effects of that is just...
12:35
one of the effects for people can be just feeling so hungry all the time. And I think one of my takeaways for people listening is, I know this is definitely directly from my patients too, like just the reassurance that it doesn't have to be like that. There is a way to be, to achieve ongoing satiety and not have that nagging, gnawing, feeling hungry all the time. And I hear from my patients, and it totally makes sense if that's your experience, you've been like that for decades.
13:05
you think, well, that's how it's always going to be now. So then you've got this mindset while thinking, well, obviously I need to restrict what I eat and I'm just going to have to like suffer with this hunger, unsatisfied hunger. And as you can imagine, like you can only do that for so long, but the alternative is to find ways, including dietary changes that will promote ongoing satiety. And you should find...
13:33
hunger decreases. I actually had, it's so funny, just right on time I had a patient, I still do see patients a little bit in Christridge. I had, I won't say when I saw her, but you know, sometime in the recent weeks anyway, I saw a patient and she, this is just an example of the complexity and like the individualized approach. So in her case, and I'm not saying, I'm definitely not saying this is what would be for everyone, but in her case,
13:56
She had a lot of inflammation in the gut, which was translating into endometriosis as well. She just had a lot going on, really severe insulin resistance that we picked up on blood tests. All we did, I mean, I didn't make any promises about it. I didn't make a whole cookbook list of all the things we're going to do for insulin resistance. We didn't even really talk about it that much to start with. I just said, look, your gut is problem.
14:20
We didn't heard this is very naturopathic, but we did. Let's just do eight weeks of wheat-free, dairy-free. I gave her berberine, not so much for the insulin side of things, but for the gut side of things. And we can talk about, I think that's one of the mechanisms by which berberine works. And about five weeks later, she came for a follow-up and she's like, boom, like my constant need for sugary snacks in the afternoon just disappeared. It's like, it's just gone. And...
14:47
you know, that is such an easier path than we could focus on. Okay, you know, obviously get nourished with your meals. We talked a bit about protein at that point, but already she'd had this relief from the, yeah, there's this ongoing, I feel so sorry for people who have that ongoing gnawing hunger. That must be one of them, at least the most unpleasant things to sort of happen, go through your life like that. Like it's a type of...
15:11
pain almost. Yeah. And it's distracting, right? Like if that's, if it's constantly on your mind, I talked to clients about this as well. It's like, it's preventing you from actually being able to do your best in other areas, you know? Like, like if you've got this thing gnawing in the back of your mind, then how can you fully give yourself to your work or your relationships or your, you know, whatever else, your extracurricular activities because it's so distracting. And
15:38
I don't think I'm a feminist at all actually compared to say feminist figures that I know. But you do hear that the diet culture and women starving themselves, quote unquote, starving themselves has prevented them from really sort of shining in other areas where they could, which I completely agree. Yeah. I touch on diet culture a little bit in chapter three. And one thing that, again, just my observation of the...
16:06
of the literature out there and with my patients, one of the main creepy parts about diet culture is this sense of shame or sin about being hungry. Women feel guilty about being hungry. That is so demoralizing. Again, this is a different way to do things. It's like hunger. If you're hungry, you're going to have to eat. That's just a normal animal thing. We've been doing that for millions of years. You can't feel...
16:34
ashamed about that or guilty, but instead the strategy should be find ways and there are a myriad of ways and effective ways to just naturally feel less hungry. And then from that, obviously, then it's way easier to just not eat things that you don't want to eat.
16:57
you know, in our brain in the book. And I guess, and this obviously comes into, you know, that mismatch between our modern environment and how we should have evolved, you know, and how we evolved. Talk to me about that, Lara. Yeah, well, something's gone wrong. So there's a quote from Kevin Hall in my book, one of his quotes, I loved it was like, clearly exposure to ultra processed food does something. He's like, it's not just that it bypasses the satiety mechanism. It's that it, you know,
17:27
confuses it or possibly breaks it all together. That's his quote. It's like something has gone very wrong. The poor brain, this ancient part of our brain is looking to decide how hungry we should be, how much fat we should store. It is so confused in some people. Obviously, some of that is from ultra processed food. There's so many debates about where that's coming from. I didn't come down firmly on which component of the diet I think is driving that. I suspect it's just a combination of things. There's a lot to do with the gut.
17:57
And then obviously for some people, and I do touch on fructose and that a little bit, and I do give some airtime to Richard Johnson's kind of fructose survival hypothesis, which I do think is super interesting. I know you've interviewed him. You put that in the show notes. And then for some people, obviously the reward system becomes very engaged and not everyone knows it's going to be a genetic component, but this is where food addiction starts to come online for people. So have you?
18:27
I'm just plugging different names. Have you interviewed Jen Anwen already about the... Yeah, she was published this week actually. Did you? Yes, such a great conversation. It was awesome. I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm going to. There's lots of quotes from her. She's obviously a psychologist, but she's a researcher. You can go to the episode and have a listen. I think growing awareness in society about...
18:55
The reality of food addiction is going to help for some people. It's not everyone. This is the thing. Whenever in the chapter on food addiction, I do say right at the front, this part might not apply to you. That's fine. You don't have to read parts that don't apply. I probably should have listened to that episode before I started talking about it. The thing about what I've realized about addiction too, because...
19:20
So much can be lost in translation and the meaning of these words. So I've tried to talk about food addiction a bit on social media and had some, rather in some cases, bristly responses from my audience to not liking that word at all. And I realized, it took me a while to kind of realize, but I think there's still floating out there the old definition of addiction, which is like a...
19:46
from like 100 years ago, which is like a moral failing. Like they used to think, you know, alcoholics were like just really bad people, basically sinful people. And, but the more modern definition is they've got a health condition. You know, this is, this is a hijacked reward system. This is, you know, this is something you can recover from and it can affect anyone regardless of, it's not a moral issue at all. So I think, you know, putting out there that.
20:12
Food addiction is, I believe, I'm convinced, is a reality for some people, is not an accusation against them. It's the opposite actually. It's just an acknowledgement that they're in the grip of something hard and very hard in some cases. It can be devastating lives. Food addiction in this sense is not just a casual, oh, you know, I give the analogy in the book, oh, I'm addicted to that brand of nut butter. No, no, no, no.
20:41
That's not what this is about. This is about shameful, like people feeling, having their lives derailed by, you know, binging and everything that goes along with that. So I'll be so happy when Jen's work and other people's work starts to bring this more into awareness and we start to get hopefully more treatment options for people and they don't feel so alone and scared with what's going on.
21:07
I agree, Lara. And it really, I'm often surprised at the pushback that comes when people talk about being addicted to food. Like it's absolutely impossible. It doesn't meet the criteria of the DSM-5, that manual or- Correct, yeah. Yeah, that's what sort of people talk about. We talked about that in my book. So I have a big section of my book about the controversy and all the different viewpoints of that. No, it's not currently in the DSM-5, but it will be. I think it's coming.
21:37
And it meets the criteria, like substance abuse is diagnosed based on symptoms and behavior. So if I have one quote from one expert saying, well, if you crave something to the point of severe mental distress, would like to give it up but can't or get withdrawal symptoms when you try to give it up, that's addiction. Yeah. That's how addiction works. And yes, it's more complicated than for a single substance because as you say, like food is a...
22:05
combination of things. And I think from my reading of the research, no one's saying it's addiction, it's not even as simple as sugar addiction. It's not. It's actually the whole package of ultra-processed. It's almost always ultra-processed food. That's where it almost all basically always starts. But in severe cases, it can transfer to other foods, like more whole foods in some cases, which is just a later stage transfer, I think addiction transfer.
22:34
Yeah, I don't understand the pushback about it. And yeah, some of the angry pushback. And I'm just like, well, you know, either if you're getting that angry about it, like either maybe it just doesn't apply to you, which is fine. But, you know, people are people out there who have different experiences than, you know, than, than that one person or, or maybe it does apply. And they're just getting really grumpy about it. That's another option too.
22:59
Were you surprised when you started researching the book and sort of delving deeper into the topics at the, I don't think you'll be surprised by the complexity because you're an evolutionary biologist. So you know complex, you know, you know that that's just part of the course, but it may be the differing opinions or how strongly people feel about metabolism, about metabolic health. Like I remember you and I having a conversation about that. Just to put another metaphor.
23:29
women's health. So I've spent 20 years critiquing hormonal birth control. You can imagine how controversial that is in lots of ways. I had no idea. I was like a babe in the woods wandering out into this. Just like bullets flying. And I don't know, I don't understand. I think it's, I don't know if it's because there's more men, male egos involved in the metabolic health field, but you are right. There are some serious throwdowns, like battles over
23:58
Seemingly, well, some of them are big, I guess some of them like in terms of macronutrients, and I guess there's some big things, questions at stake. But yeah, it's quite something to behold. And I don't... In my book, there's a bit you would have... Well, because you read the book and you were an early reader of the book, for which I'm very grateful. And you would have seen this quite a few places where I'm like, well, on this particular topic, depending on who you ask, it's either this way or this way.
24:28
quite a bit of uncertainty. There's still quite a lot of, I mean, the fact is, there's just so much we don't understand about it. Like no one understands yet. And I think almost in this area of health more than in almost any other, like there's just a lot going on that nobody knows about yet. We have to figure that out. Also, there's the fact that different things work for different people. And also there's this like religious aspect too. I totally get when someone has found a diet that works for them.
24:55
and perhaps transformed their life in so many ways, you are going to become an evangelist for that particular. It's like, well, why doesn't everyone just do this? Because it's done all these amazing things for me. And I do understand that. Yeah, no, totally. So do I. And do you know an area which really confuses me as to why people get so caught up in taking a side is the calories in calories out model?
25:23
But then the insulin, the carbohydrate insulin hypothesis, which, you know, we, you know, with the calories in calories out model of weight loss and fat gain, if you consume more calories than you burn, then you will gain weight. Whereas the carbohydrate insulin model, it's well, there's a hormone response that occurs when you consume carbohydrate makes it more likely to gain weight. And it,
25:51
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, I'm simplifying it, obviously, and we can chat about that. But to my mind, both of these can be true. Why do they have to be opposite ends of a metabolism spectrum? They're both obviously true. So I know you've, I just keep mentioning different names, because there's lots of really dynamic, interesting thinkers in this space. So I am going to mention Nick Norwitz because I'm pretty intrigued by a lot of his stuff. And I know you've
26:20
And he did a little YouTube video a while ago, just kind of pointing out, and I think he's right about this and we can talk about it. But I think the energy balance calories in calories out is something that can be measured after. Like that's what's happened in almost every case. That's going to be the outcome. But whether that's something people can set out to achieve is a very different...
26:45
question. So, you know, I think like almost like he points out, like in almost any study, if you look at it after the fact, yeah, there would have been an energy, a change in energy balance, but that's very different from setting out to achieve that. And so I'm kind of with him on that. And I think there was this great quote also from just another name, because people give a sense, I guess, give people a sense of who I've been reading and listening to. But Benjamin Bickman, have you interviewed him? Yes, I have. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. These are all these
27:13
old Mickey podcast you can go back and have a listen to. But he had a quote that was like, if you focus on getting insulin down, energy balance will take care of itself. And I would put other things in the front of that. If you focus on reducing inflammation, or if you focus on reducing intestinal permeability, if you focus on stabilizing the autonomic nervous system, or you focus on all these things, energy balance will take care of itself. I mean, I do think...
27:40
Most people already know they're supposed to be eating less. I mean, that's not something that has to be explained to people. The problem is that they're hungry. So the problem is, like I think the upstream, what you set out to do is stabilize the system in whatever correction needs to happen so they feel less hungry. And what I kind of intuitively knew, but hadn't really seen explained as well is that when
28:07
the two parts of energy balance are connected in the brain. So the neurons in the hypothalamus, where kind of all of this sits, when you go into a like a state of higher satiety, lower hunger, you pretty much automatically also go into higher energy expenditure. Like they kind of, they toggle together, right? So, which is why, for example, the GLP-1 agonists affect energy expenditure and so does bariatric surgery, which is pretty interesting. So when those signals
28:37
energy expenditure changes. So energy expenditure is highly dynamic actually. This is the part of the energy balance thing that I'm also thinking, well, you can't really set out to micromanage that because it's so dynamic. And as you know from, I don't know, that's another name I wanted to give, but I've forgotten his name. Just about the fact that when we burn a lot of calories with exercise, our metabolism- Ponza, Kinnon Ponza. Sorry? Herb and ponzer. Kinnon Ponza, yeah.
29:06
Exactly. So when we burn a lot of calories with exercise, the rest of our metabolism kind of adjusts to not, which totally makes sense from an evolutionary survival point of view, because if you're an animal out there trying to survive and you've just expended all these calories trying to hunt down something or move camp or whatever you're trying to do, you can't afford to just have your suddenly like doubled for the day or something, your expenditure. So again, it's a dynamic system. I just don't see how that
29:35
how energy balance can be micromanaged, but of course it can be altered. It can be, and the outcome can be, the outcome is obviously going to be a change in energy balance. And some of it's going to come from things like, even just things like adrenergic, like sympathetic adrenaline, stimulating fat burning and brown fat, which is super interesting. And of course it's, all of this seems very unfair because there's some people out there
30:04
who have active brown fat or a lot of the neat or the non-exercise, the just jittery people pacing around the house, they are burning so many calories and compared to other people. And it just, it feels incredibly unfair and it is, but that's just how this all works. And some of that can be maybe dialed up a little bit. I think people can try to.
30:29
Through some mechanisms, maybe enhanced brown fat, thermogenesis, I think we're going to maybe see more research about that coming up in the future. But some people, there's always going to be people who have more of that than others. Some people, depending on their body type, they're just energy conservers. Their body's just like, I don't want to waste all those calories. I'm coming from the genetic stock where we had to survive famines and I think I'm going to need that. And so I don't think you can override that. Yeah.
30:57
What camp would you fall into? Would you be an energy conserver or are you someone who has a high need? I'm trying to think of, you know, because we spent like quite a bit of time together and I don't, I mean, I know that you enjoy being active but that's a deliberate, like I love nature and walking and stuff like that. What do you think? Because I tell you what, I think I'm a conserver. I think- Oh, you do? Yeah, my brain overrides my natural desire to be absolutely lazy. A hundred percent does and that's how I grew up. And so, but-
31:26
because of my obsession with nutrition and physical activity, my brain is just now defaulted to override those, my lazy genes basically. I'm curious about my genes because I didn't share any of this in the book. I didn't have a personal, oh, I used to be overweight and then I write something like that in the book. All of it's just my patient stories, which there's a lot of diversity there.
31:52
Which are fascinating by the way. Yeah, I'm a pretty jittery person. So I do like I'm just like itching to get up for a walk in the morning and with my coffee. So I'm a little, I guess on the sympathetic dominant side. But at the same time, I can share, I thought about this a little bit, there's actually quite a bit of insulin resistance in my family. So I think probably some of the genes are there to...
32:22
have developed a bit more tendency in that direction. I suspect some of it's going to be luck. There's so many things that can happen during the lifespan that can intersect with this. Pure luck, when I was 20 something, 22, I got on a naturopathic diet and avoided processed foods. I've never had really vegetable oil or...
32:49
multi-state away from sugar and all those things like from an early age, which would have been on my side. I didn't have any sort of major gut issues or medications. These are all kinds of things that I think can affect people's long-term metabolic health. So yeah, some of that's luck. But yeah, and answer to your question, I'm probably moderately sympathetic dominant.
33:15
It seemed to get out. I absolutely experienced that. But I do think that I do have that lazy gene, which I'm constantly fighting with, actually. It's interesting what you say about that early exposure to the modern diet. Did you, and I can't recall this in your book, Laura, did you talk about Michael Rose's work? No, but go ahead and share it.
33:40
Yeah. Yeah. So I interviewed him as well and I heard him on a Rob Wolf podcast many years ago and then subsequently looked at his research and used to teach a little bit on it. And it's about your sort of your, what your ancestors and not your very early ancestors, but even your sort of more modern ancestors, what they were sort of exposed to in terms of food and how that impacts on what you've got the propensity to tolerate or not.
34:10
But his theory is that beyond those reproductive years, actually, we all should gravitate back towards the type of diet that you've just described because none of us are equipped to deal with the modern diet as it is. Of course, notwithstanding what you've said several times, which is everyone is really different and there will be people who will be resilient against it, but he makes a really good case that if you're over 50...
34:39
regardless of who you are and who your ancestors are, really looking at that sort of paleo-style diet, and he doesn't call it a paleo diet, is much more favorable for health. Yeah. I mean, yeah, as much as we've been saying there's no one-size-fits-all approach, I think one one-size-fits-all approach is to get off processed food. I mean, not sort of religiously, not to the point that you're worried about the occasional...
35:06
you know, protein bar or whatever, like, obviously, there's going to be some nuance to it. But I think in general, like I have a section of my book called being realistic about bread, I think just especially commercial packaged bread with the emulsifiers and the refined starches. I'm like, I think, you know, I've had heard from patients, once you make a decision about that, and sort of shelter from that, your weight will just, in some cases drift down. So I think yeah, committing to home cooked
35:31
meals. It's hard though. That's hard. That's a lot of work. That's an obstacle in itself for some people. The other thing about a whole food diet is the nutrient density. One of the other things that came to mind when I was thinking about my own personal history and ending up quite metabolically healthy in my mid-50s, which I'm very grateful for, is that childhood. I think we might have talked about this on a podcast before, but we were fit.
36:01
parents, both of my parents cooked. Liver was on the weekly, like we had liver once a week kind of thing. Oh, we were on the meal rotation. It was on the meal rotation and kidneys sometimes, like that was just a thing that we had in the 70s. And so, I mean, I do think some, well, because in the book I've identified what I call the five missing metabolic nutrients. It's probably way more than five, but like I think five big ones and two of them come from organ meats. So I think we...
36:29
I do think organ meats are missing. I know there's lots of people out there now taking liver supplements and stuff. So I think that's this merit in that. And certainly anybody who's brave enough to start cooking liver once a week, we haven't quite got there. My husband will make chicken liver pate once in a while. We have some recipes that we like. But do you eat liver? Yes, I do, but not often enough. And like you, I love pate. And the quick fry of the liver in the pan with like just...
36:58
some herbs or some spice or something like that. It's really delicious actually. You just don't want to overcook it. But I don't do it often enough. So, Lara, you just mentioned five nutrients that you feel are missing. Can we touch on them? Because I think that's interesting. Yeah. And I'm just giving these away in nutrients. I'm not trying to... Or in interviews, sorry. I'm not trying to be coy about what they are. People don't have to buy the book to find out what five I want.
37:28
there's lots else in the book that they want. But yeah, so the five I've identified, they're not surprises. I think they're not complicated, but magnesium, obviously, there's quite a lot of, I mean, some people, every researcher's got their idea of why they think there's this epidemic of metabolic dysfunction. Some people are going to say, you know, microbiome or whatever, all the different things, but some people say it's because we're missing magnesium. So there's that, you know. And what is it now, as I understand magnesium's really involved in blood sugar management, is that-
37:58
Is that why they're like, we're depressing the magnesium? The mitochondria love it. So a lot of this comes back to the mitochondria. In fact, all these nutrients support the mitochondria. They love, love, love magnesium. And we're just, there's many aspects in our modern diet that not only is our diet potentially lower magnesium, but we pee it out. We have a magnesium stress response where, I think it's strategic actually, like under certain, even just like caffeine or stress or whatever, we pee out magnesium.
38:28
to rev up the nervous system. We lose magnesium with insulin resistance as well. So that's another, it becomes a vicious cycle. So obviously, okay. So the five, magnesium, taurine, they're often, the amino acid taurine, they're often, they work together in lots of ways. They both have similar metabolic benefits for the mitochondria. They're calming for the nervous system. Taurine is a bona fide calming neurotransmitter in its own right. Some scientists think it might have its own receptor.
38:58
And then inositol and glycine. Inositol is one from the best source would have been organ meats historically. Glycine, obviously super popular. A lot of people are trying to get it from collagen, which is one way to get glycine. I just take straight glycine at bedtime because it's so good for sleep. And then the fifth one is choline. And we, yeah. So we used to eat a lot more choline than we do now. And choline- In organ meats?
39:26
Yes, again, organ meats, eggs, seafood, and choline can help protect or even potentially reverse fatty liver. Obviously fatty liver is a big part of metabolic dysfunction and insulin resistance. One of the messages I'm trying to get out there to people is if you've got fatty liver and there isn't, obviously there isn't another explanation put forward like alcohol or other things can cause fatty liver. But if there's no other explanation, it's metabolic dysfunction, it's insulin resistance. That is a hundred percent what it is. And
39:57
I would say nine out of 10 of the patients I've talked to who know they have fatty liver don't know that connection. They don't understand that it's a metabolic symptom. Oh, wow. I had no idea that that was so under the, like that people weren't aware of that. Yeah. Lara, do you know I was quite disappointed because I do want to actually chat a little bit about these nutrients if that's all right. I was disappointed that I, because I, as you know, I love like fried eggs.
40:24
lunch, just two fried eggs on my whatever salad. That's not enough choline for the day. It's not quite enough. It's about 300. That's going to give you about 250, 300 milligrams, something like that. We probably need at least 500. Some people say we might. We probably used to eat like 900, 1000 in an ancestral diet. We used to eat, well, just to get a little bit on the ancestral paleolithic site, we used to eat, I think we used to eat brains. We used to eat
40:54
Well, obviously, organ needs brain to be high in choline. So, yeah. And so I do take good green vitality pretty much daily. And I am going to check the back of that to see what the choline or how much choline is in there. Because otherwise, if you're not getting it through your diet, so if you're not eating organ meat, you're not having eggs. I have egg whites, but I think it's in the yolk, isn't it? It's in the yolk.
41:19
Yeah, I thought so. It's my understanding. Yeah. So supplementing really is the only way to sort of get that. And people are, and I go on, I'm just as a bit of a tangent, but there's nothing I hate more than going on social media and seeing like, people say, you can get everything you need from your diet. And I don't know why people still continue to roll out that trope. Like, it's just not true.
41:44
Well, not our current diet anyway. I mean, obviously we used to. I do feel that part of it is, you know, when you listen to nutrition researchers and, you know, um, I've, there's nutritionists who go on TV and they're like, you can get everything you need from diet. And I do wonder whether it's because as soon as they start acknowledging that you can't get everything from diet, then they start having to talk about supplemental support. And then people can't afford.
42:13
good diets now, so to then suggest they have to, on top of what they can't already afford, go and buy supplements, it's not a popular message. No. How do you get around that? It's a really good, I mean, that's a bigger question, obviously. I think, I mean, if the diet that we're describing, the kind of ancestral diet that we're bodies expecting to have, like very nutrient dense, you know, no flour or kind of fillers, empty calories, like,
42:41
you know, organ meats and lots of fresh vegetables. And I mean, that's obviously that's the diet the human body expects to have. And, you know, if that becomes the blanket recommendation for everybody, when that is a more expensive diet, that's true, actually. And you're right, there is this tension between, well, if we acknowledge the diet can't provide everything we need for optimal health, then yeah, you either have to take supplements, which
43:11
lots of people are very skeptical about it and don't want to have to do it understandably. Or we have to just revise, completely revamp the recommendations we're giving people, what to eat. It's a tricky situation. It is. It's a whole revamp of the food system, right? And that's, I think, that's when you said it's a bigger question. It totally is a bigger question.
43:30
One good thing in defense of the five metabolic nutrients that I'm proposing, just for whatever is worth it, and I don't sell them, just for everyone listening. I don't have any. I am Mara Brydon's magic five. No, I do not have any of those to sell for lots of reasons, for ethical reasons, but also just for the fact that you can buy them anywhere. What I was going to say is these are inexpensive supplements as supplements go, most of them. Probably on that list, so again, it's magnesium, taurine, and osse-tol.
43:58
A lot of those come together actually, especially in Australia and New Zealand, we can get powders that contain most of them. And then choline is probably the more expensive one, but even then choline is not, depending on what you do, like if you just do a lecithin or a phosphatidyl choline, that's not expensive. I personally take an activated choline called GPC, called Alpha GPC, I think. It's an activated choline.
44:26
That's a bit more pricey, but people don't have to go that route. No, I agree. We need to be careful just collectively as experts giving advice. We don't want to be making a long list of expensive supplements people have to buy. But we have to be realistic about what they need. That's the thing. Yeah. I truly think most people can afford to make it. If nothing else, I say to people, just get a magnesium supplement. You can find one on sale.
44:56
there's always going to be one around that is accessible. It doesn't have to be a particular brand. Although if we're talking about brands, you and I have spoken before, ethical nutrients does the magnesium glycinate, the taurine, and also has a bit of B6 in there, which I know is a nutrient you've talked about a lot with regards to hormones and things like that. Yeah, no transmitters. Yeah, for sure. It is interesting talking about the modern food.
45:24
because you do have again on social media, which is a reference point I come back to often because I'm on there a lot. That's where people get their information. People continue to send me, they send me these little video clips of doctors who, the most recent one was doctors talking about eating hot chips out at a restaurant. And he was basically bashing health influences who for all intents and purposes look after their health.
45:53
but they might go once a week or once every couple of weeks to eat out and eat hot chips. He's like, you know that that fat sits in your membranes for months. Oh, I see. He's got a point though, right? Because the type of oil is oxidized, it does sit in your membranes, it impacts negatively on mitochondrial function, but he's essentially saying you should never eat a meal out. I like how you describe an approach here.
46:20
get, you haven't put a percentage on it and people like to do that. But if you get the majority of your meals are home cooked, then it shouldn't matter that you still enjoy, that you don't get hyper focused on and hyper concerned about meals, you know, about certain foods and things like that. I agree. Well, you and I have...
46:43
you've probably seen me eat hot chips. So I do. You may have witnessed that personally. So yes, I guess I'll just give a little more nuance to that. I think, I guess one lens I might put that through, it sort of depends on what you can get away with. So it does depend. It depends on the individual situation. So certainly I think, certainly I think someone who's quite metabolically healthy and generally having whole food at home.
47:12
I mean, I just think life is too hard if you can never occasionally eat something that has vegetable. I mean, I generally do try to avoid vegetable oils or seed oils. But yeah, I don't think you can be... The rigidity around that can make life really hard, at least until the restaurant food supply improves, which we can all hope is going to happen. But the only caveat I'd put on that is back to food addiction a little bit. So I do think... And again, it just depends on what's going on with the individual.
47:41
The sage advice that's out there, which I know is not what you're saying, but the favorite mantra is everything in moderation. I would have to say that my conclusion after working 20 years of patients and looking into all of this, that mantra has the potential to do real harm to some people. To most people, it's fine. It's like, whatever, that's fine. It makes sense. But I think for people who are in the grip of food addiction...
48:10
they need a very different strategy. And for them, the solution is not even just rigidity. It's just about some abstinence from foods that are actively hijacking their reward system and their brain. And I think there is an argument in their case for, and it might not have to be forever, but they do need to be inside certain guardrails. Or one of the researchers or experts talk about bright lines of what you can eat, what's inside this.
48:39
area as part of the recovery from food addiction or hijacked reward systems. So I think I'm always... And food addiction is about one in eight people on average, they think. Certainly in the demographic, in women it's higher. In older women with insulin resistance, it's even higher. So it's not everyone by any extent, but it's a number of people.
49:05
I guess my observation, direct observation from patients is that for those people who do need some stricter guidelines, at least for a while, they, because what happens is, of course, they don't blame the advice or the system. Like they're trying to follow everything in moderation. They think, well, that sounds right. That sounds smart. Lots of smart people are saying that. And then they're like, but they, you know, crash and burn on that and binge and even just one mouthful of something leads them down a...
49:31
a binging episode and then they don't blame the advice or the external environment, they blame themselves. And they're like, well, I'm a bad person. I'm obviously, I'm broken. I'm very ashamed because I can't follow this advice, which obviously works for all these other smart people. So something's really wrong with me. And so that's very sad. And so like they need, they need to be said, it's fine. You need something different. You need a different strategy. So in answer to your question, I think.
50:00
depending on if the foods in the restaurant are trigger foods for them, and if they are in the grip of something like food addiction, then no, they should not have the occasional bit of something out, at least not as part of it when they're in an active recovery phase. Is that so much along the lines of what Jen Anwan talked about? Did you guys talk about that sort of thing when you interviewed her? Yeah, totally. Our conversation was very conversational as well. It's much like we're having, which
50:30
which I really enjoyed. I agree with you, Lara. I really, I feel that the message that you shouldn't have to avoid any food in order to be healthy is just not one that's really based in reality, what I've seen clinically, or reality, totally. And just to circle back, like well, back at the start, Lara, you discussed when you were talking about
50:57
hijacking of the brain and the hunger signal in satiety. You said, of course, there are some dietary strategies that help with satiety. Whereas I think people would go, huh, well, if it's not a diet strategy, and you have touched on it, but can we just talk a little bit more about that? What other strategies outside of diet can we consider? Well, this is my whole book. These are all the signals of safety and satiety that you can send your hypothalamus.
51:26
And some of the signals are coming from the gut, from the nervous system, from sleep, from muscle. I'm sure you've had experts talk about before that building muscle and moving the body actually promotes satiety in the nervous system, obviously, as long as you're getting enough food coming in as well. Yeah. So satiety is different than satiation. So obviously, like satiety, I would define more as not being hungry between meals. So it's obviously we're still going to be hungry when it's time to eat a meal. That's...
51:55
that's normal. That's 100% normal. That's never going to change. And that's desirable, isn't it? It's desirable. Yeah, that's what we want. Yeah. So because we're trying to be nourished. But satiety would be by definition not having blood sugar crashes between meals. And so there's lots of supporting the health of the whole system can promote satiety. But obviously certain food elements...
52:19
Well, certain food elements promote satiation in the short term for that meal and also just satiety in the longer term. And I think this is one area where in all the bullets flying, like, you know, debate out there, I think everyone agrees that protein promotes satiety. So I mean, that's an anchor. That's a really good starting place for people. And then, you know, avoiding ultra processed food can just mainly because ultra processed food seems to...
52:45
directly sabotage satiety and the satiety mechanism. That's a longer term plan. I would think some people are going to have satiety problems from high dose fructose. If there's a lot of that, I think that can directly damage satiety as well, according to Richard Johnson's work, but not everyone necessarily. I know that when I, Richard Johnson...
53:10
He, people think he's against fruit. I've never heard him say anything bad against fruit actually. No, no. And we're talking about that sort of mainlining fructose into your bloodstream, like soft drinks and things like that. Right? Yeah. And again, some people are more sensitive to it than others. So I think, yeah. Yeah. And Dapes, you mentioned, and I saw this in your book, like just things like, like those, like, um,
53:34
the raw vegan slices that are made on a bunch of or a base of dates. There is a lot of fructose in there actually. That's a big hit for some people. If they're already vulnerable for different reasons and their satiety mechanism is already teetering for whatever reasons, then I think yeah, heavy intake of that could be. I mean, it's sugar. It is sugar. Just to touch ever so briefly on the fructose side of things. It is. It's been...
54:04
I mean, my read of it is the research around high dose fructose damaging metabolism, not as the sole thing by any stretch of the, like, but it's pretty solid. Like, you know, it promotes fatty liver, it does all these things. Like the research is pretty solid, but yet there's, it kind of goes through this, like, in some people's thinking, it's like, well, but there's fructose in fruit and fruit is healthy. So that can't be right. Like sort of like this, like really like.
54:32
kindergarten level of... I mean, a small pear has four grams of fructose. That is very different from the 35 grams you're going to get in a big monster smoothie. I just feel like the emphasis on the high dose part, the emphasis on the dose, the emphasis on the health, the emphasis on the gut changes, because I've only known this for about five or six years, but a large component of the fructose that we ingest actually...
55:02
gets converted in the gut to glucose and organic acids. And also, as you learned from Richard Johnson, glucose in the body can convert to fructose via the polyol pathway. So there's a lot going on. And I think we can just talk about the fact that fructose is one piece of this big sprawling puzzle and it's not the only thing. And some people, it's not a big deal at all. And for some people...
55:31
It is, and depending on the amount. I forget where we started, but that's good. I was talking about the sort of satiety. You've mentioned the gut, obviously, several times, and it's a bit of your... As a naturopathic doctor, of course you do a lot of work in that. If you've got inflammation of the gut and intestinal permeability, that is going to impact on satiety.
56:01
regardless of diet or it's just going to make it more challenging to feel satisfied? Yeah. Well, I would say, I don't know about regardless because obviously diet affects intestinal permeability and diet has a huge effect on the gut health. But I think I can safely say or confidently say anyway that particularly SIBO, so small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and the way that drives intestinal permeability and pushes LPS or lipopolysaccharide
56:31
not only into the bloodstream, but into the visceral fat specifically, that creates visceral fat hypertrophy, that creates inflammation, that creates distorted signaling to the brain. And I feel confident in saying that intestinal permeability is a driver of abnormal hunger and impaired satiety. And I actually think that, not the only driver, but a driver. And I actually think looking at it all from the kind of a zoomed out, you know,
57:01
distance. I feel like, it's interesting actually, I feel like at least for some people, the mechanism by which a low carb diet improves their metabolic health is reducing endotoxemia and intestinal permeability. Because a low carb diet, a low FODMAP diet is an intervention for SIBO and intestinal problems. So it's, isn't it interesting because we have all these, we always try to put a narrative as to what we find things that work.
57:30
or that work for us individually or that work for other people. And then we're like, oh, it's because of the insulin or it's because of all these different... We have to put some explanation on it. But sometimes it could be a totally different explanation. I think low carb is potentially, in some people, it's main mechanism of benefit on metabolic health could be the gut. And I saw on Twitter, I guess, NetWax the other day, someone talking about how a low carb diet, this is just another example, lowered their thyroid antibodies.
57:59
And I'm like, that makes sense, but that could have partly been a low, like removing gluten, right? So when you go low carb, you also go gluten free, which is just a quirky, and that is not to say that everyone needs to be gluten free by no stretch at all. I do not think that at all, but some people really need to be gluten free. And those people who really need to be gluten free could stumble upon gluten free or accidentally get onto it by doing a low carb diet, right? So yeah, there's lots going on.
58:29
at the end of the day, I mean, it is all pointing us back to whole foods and taking whatever steps we need to have a healthy gut. And I'll just say a note on berberine as well, because I know it's popular. It is in my book. I don't recommend it as a blanket thing for everyone, but berberine, there's several mechanisms by which it can improve insulin sensitivity and metabolic health. I think one is an axon AMPK, that sort of enzyme. But it also...
58:59
improves intestinal permeability, reduces SIBO. So it's having a direct gut effect. And so does metformin, by the way. Metformin's an antimicrobial agent as well. So I feel like, yeah, it's interesting to think about how these, the mechanisms by which these things work. Yeah, interesting. And you might not know the answer to this, which is totally fine, because I've never, I don't, I haven't ever looked at it either. But metformin and berberine have same mechanisms of action. And metformin and...
59:29
can inhibit muscle growth. Does berberine do the same thing? I think it could, yeah. I don't have my fingertips, all the different mechanisms, by the way, those two things, but they are quite similar. I tend to, just for what it's worth for berberine when I'm prescribing that for patients, I tend to prescribe it in courses. We'll do a six or eight week course and then we'll take a break. Even then you don't do it daily. It actually works
59:58
it weekdays, take the weekend off, go back to it. But I don't love it as an absolute long-term intervention, mainly for gut reasons, but I think it could also. Yeah, anything that's going to impair muscle growth is not ideal long-term. I think that's true about Berberine, but if anyone's out there listening and going, oh, that's wrong, then I apologize. Yeah, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. Because I don't know. So that's good to get your thoughts on that, Lara.
01:00:27
I will actually, because I'm mindful of time, but I really do want to chat a little bit about fasting in women, because your book is for women. You do mention, obviously, fasting as a therapy for metabolic dysfunction, mitochondrial, biogenesis, et cetera. Your message isn't necessarily out of alignment with other...
01:00:53
female hormone experts and there are those out there that really advocate these quite strict protocols around fasting, around the cycle or whatever. So Laura, I just actually want to get your thoughts on the utility of fasting. You mentioned gentle fasting, which feels quite different from a strict protocol. Yeah. Right. So there is a section in my blog. It's not a huge section. It's near the end. And
01:01:17
I do talk about, I do a little Q&A about like, does fasting damage the thyroid? Like is fasting, you know, so I guess for what it's worth as a starting position, intermittent fasting, particularly time restricted eating or fasting overnight has been studied in women quite extensively actually. So yeah, I sometimes see this thing, like it hasn't been studied in women, actually it has. And specifically for
01:01:42
Women with PCOS, the insulin resistant type of PCOS, and women in perimenopause with it. Basically, when there's insulin resistance, it can be helpful. And one of the other phrases I say in the book is, you can call it intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating, or you could just call it not eating overnight, which is actually 100% what your gut microbiome and your liver, because there's a circadian rhythm in every tissue, and there's a lot of research into what they call...
01:02:08
misalignment, circadian misalignment in that the peripheral clocks like in the microbiome and the liver are out of sync with the hypothalamus clock. And that is not good for metabolic health. That's actually really quite devastating for metabolic health. So this is where we're back to us being animals, but we're diurnal creatures. And so we really do expect to get our food in during the day and not eat overnight. And so you can call that intermittent fasting or you can call it...
01:02:37
I'm just not eating overnight. I mean, for what it's worth, I'll also acknowledge that some people prefer to have a later breakfast. I mean, you can start to sort of then get into the nuances. I think, yeah, in the book I also talk about, so I talk about, a lot of it's going to depend on chronotype. So some people are hungry in the morning, like I ate by eight o'clock this morning. I usually eat by eight or nine. That feels good to me. But if some people feel better, maybe because they have some gut issues or whatever, they
01:03:07
protein breakfast, I think that's reasonable. I don't think that's harmful in any way. I do think for circadian rhythm, it's good to try to get some protein by at least by 10 or 11. But I don't think everyone, then I don't think it conversely, I don't think every woman should try to wait till 10. If they're hungry at eight, then eat at eight. And the other thing I would just say, a couple more things about intermittent fasting is yes, it can trigger or masquerade as eating disorders. Certainly I gave the example of some...
01:03:35
quote from one of my patients where she's like, Oh, you know, I went to an eight hour eating window and it felt great and I lost some weight. So then I went to a six hour and then I went to a four hour. It's like, don't do that. People who are already tending to under eating for some reason are sometimes going to feel like fasting gives them the opportunity to do that. But the fact that some people go off the rails with fasting and run into trouble.
01:04:05
doesn't mean that nobody should do any version of it. Right? Like it's, I remember Chris Palmer on Twitter, I gave this, I love this analogy, which is like, he said, just because, you know, people with OCD would be harmed by the recommendation to wash their hands, doesn't mean that you don't tell anyone to do it. Right? Like that's, you can't function like that. Like people have to put it through their own filter. It's like if restricting even in a gentle intermittent fasting is derailing for you, then don't do it. And the other thing
01:04:35
um, gentle overnight fasting or any version of fasting is it should feel good. So I do want to just touch on, um, hypoglycemia because this is something, I think this is something that affects women more than men. I could be wrong if someone out there listening is, has a way to dispute that then definitely, you know, let me know or chime into the comments or something. But I feel like because of women's nervous, some combination of nervous system and hormones were more.
01:05:00
were more vulnerable to episodes of hypoglycemia. And as you can imagine, hypoglycemia does not feel good. Like it is not only associated with ravenous hunger, but anxiety and jitteriness, it's not a pleasant experience at all. And so I think, and that comes, it has different mechanisms can cause, create a vulnerability to hypoglycemia. There's lots going on there. The autonomic nervous system is very involved. But I think for some people, it's...
01:05:27
in part because of metabolic inflexibility. So they're just not able to, in a fasting state, not able to sort of dip into their fat stores for energy the way they are supposed to be able to in the standard normal state. Because of course our standard normal just at rest is we should be always burning mostly fat, like a mix of fat and carbs, but mostly fat in that kind of resting state. And so if they're not doing that, and so then, and I've heard this from patients, it's like, well, I try, you know, they're like, they might even try gentle fasting, like from fasting from 7pm.
01:05:57
till 8 a.m. the next morning or something. And by 9.30 or 10 at night, they're like having a blood sugar crash and needing a cookie. It's like, and they experienced that even that gentle fasting is kind of traumatic. It's like, well, don't force it then. Like don't, the solution is not to force yourself through a blood sugar crash, but to actually go upstream or do all the other things like protein and building muscle and fixing your gut and stabilizing the autonomic nervous system so that your blood sugar and your metabolic flexibility is better.
01:06:27
And one more thing about blood sugar, because I had a very interesting comment on my social media. I learned so much from my patients and social media. I was talking about low blood sugar and someone said, this is her logic and this totally makes sense. Until she said it, I hadn't thought about it. So she's like, well, she knows that she gets low blood sugar episodes of low blood sugar. So she thought...
01:06:48
that that automatically meant, ruled out the possibility that she has insulin resistance because she thought that insulin resistance is a state of high blood sugar, right? So she's like, well, I must not have that because I've got low blood sugar some of the time. So I just want to say categorically for people listening, like one of the symptoms of insulin resistance is reactive hypoglycemia. So you can 100% have insulin resistance and have episodes of hypoglycemia. And in fact, you're probably more likely to. So by correcting
01:07:18
metabolic health, blood sugars, you're hopefully not getting those crashes. So that's a long answer to intermittent fasting. Did you have anything else to add about fasting? What are your thoughts about fasting food? No, I'm 100% with you, Lara. We are on the same page. I did know how you were going to answer that question, but people also really enjoy hearing your thoughts on it. I just think you can never put a blanket rule on anything. It's ridiculous to say
01:07:45
no woman should go more than 11 hours or whatever without food because it's dangerous. I see people saying that fasting is dangerous for women. And that kind of language is just that it's hyperbole and I think it's dangerous to say it's dangerous because people are missing out on real therapeutic benefits from changing diet practices that feel good. And I love the way that you put that, that what you're doing should feel good.
01:08:15
Yeah. And maybe it doesn't feel good right at the very start. Exactly. When you're getting into it, you know, because there's a little bit of discomfort. Well, you know what doesn't feel good is just looping back briefly to the food addiction. So the withdrawal phase and the initial phase of does not feel good. So that would be again, a caveat, a nuance. In general, the whole plan over like over the long term should feel good. But yes, they're going to be potentially some moments of discomfort if it's withdrawal symptoms
01:08:45
from food addiction. But in terms of the intermittent fasting, just on that for a second, if it really didn't feel good, like if there was, as I said, low blood sugar, then just take a few steps back, do some of the other things, and then try it again. Because this is the other thing that I realized some of my patients don't understand. Their experience of maybe that, trying to not eat through the evening, really didn't feel good at some point.
01:09:10
And then I do say to them, it's like, well, but now you're so much healthier and you've had magnesium and you're eating more protein and all these things. So chances are you try it again and it will feel good. Like it doesn't mean because that's how it was that one time doesn't mean that's how it's always going to be. Always going to be. Yeah. I completely agree, Lara, with how you approach it. And it's, you know, everyone is different and everybody is different. And what I loved about your book was...
01:09:39
you, yes, you didn't take a hard line on anything, but I think it was, I think that was really great because you do what you always do. You're so compassionate and you're so caring and your, and your message is these are thoughts, these are, these things can be happening. It could be this, it could be this, but you actually let the person, you give the people the different options, I suppose, and you let them sort of be guided by their own experiences as well. And you're just providing tools to help them.
01:10:09
to do it. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And thank you for, I just want to say on the record, thank you for your help with the book. As I said, you were actually the first reader and gave me some important early feedback and help and yeah, very grateful for that. Yeah, as I said, back in the early days, it's like even just knowing you had agreed to do that gave me the courage to kind of write some stuff because I thought, well, hopefully it's good and if not, Mickey will hopefully...
01:10:35
Hopefully tell me. I was so honored to have that role, Lara, and to just play even a small part. Do you know the hilarious thing is that we've spoken for over an hour and we've touched on only a few key things in the book. There is just so much in there for people to read and explore. When is it available? Yeah. It's out on the 28th of May. That's right. We didn't even get to the female hormone side of things. We'll have to talk about that in some future. We will. Yeah.
01:11:04
Yeah, it's out on the 28th of May. So it's in Australia. It has two titles, which is a little quirky, but that's just how it is with this one. So it's the metabolism reset in Australia, New Zealand, and it's metabolism repair for women everywhere else. Nice one. That is awesome, Lara. Well, we will obviously put links in the show notes to that. And I think everyone will know where to find you, but can you just remind them? Yeah.
01:11:30
easy to find. LaraBriden.com and all my social media and YouTube is at Lara Briden. Yeah, amazing. Thanks so much, Lara. Thanks, Mickey.
01:11:51
Alrighty, I'm sure that you really loved that. Please share it with people that you love as well. If you aren't a woman yourself, you probably know one and they're going to really appreciate you sharing the insights that Lara brings to this topic of metabolic health. Next week on the podcast, I chat to my friend, Alex Stewart on living a low-tox life.
01:12:16
Until then though, you can catch me over on Instagram, threads and Twitter @mikkiwilliden, on my Facebook page @MikkiWillidenNutrition or on my website mikkiwilliden.com where you can purchase our new cookbook 40 over 40. You guys are going to love it. Alright team, have the best week. See you later.