[00:00:00] Kevin: Does this sound familiar? You find yourself overweight. Maybe 10, 20 or 30 plus pounds overweight. And you decide to do something about it. So you steal your resolve and you go on a diet. It's a tough road, but you're tougher. You're up for the challenge. You cut out your beloved pizza and ice cream and you eat more salads, you stayed disciplined and on track.

Until finally you hit your goal weight. You congratulate yourself for having the fortitude to accomplish this goal. But then a year or so later, you somehow find yourself right back where you started. Or worse yet, maybe even a little heavier than your pre diet weight. So you start the cycle all over again.

The fact is that most of us have, at some point in our lives have had personal experience with the difficulties of maintaining a healthy weight. But why is that? I mean in this day and age of such fantastic [00:01:00] technological advancements and so much scientific knowledge.

Why is it so hard? We often hear experts say that it's simple math simply eat fewer calories than you expend in. You'll lose weight. And while that's a great starting place, that advice has been around forever. And as a population we're still becoming more overweight, not less.

But despite all the nutritional advice, tips, tricks, diets, pills, detoxes, supplements, and fads. Many of us are still struggling with maintaining a healthy weight.

Hello, and welcome to the over 50 health and wellness podcast. I'm your host, Kevin English. I'm a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach and my mission is to help you get into the best shape of your life regardless of your age, so that you can show up in life as the healthiest, [00:02:00] strongest, most vital version of yourself.

Before we kick off today's show. I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by the silver edge. The silver age is my online personal training and nutrition coaching business, where I help you get off the exercise and diet hamster wheel and start making permanent healthy lifestyle changes.

So that you can enjoy the second half of your life with strength and confidence. So that you can remain active and healthy in your fifties, sixties, seventies, and beyond.  If you're interested in learning more, send me an [email protected] and we'll start a conversation.

My promise to you is no hard sales pitch, no annoying incessant follow-up emails, just an introductory conversation about your personal fitness goals. Okay. Enough shameless self promotion. Let's get on with today's show.

[00:03:00]My guest today is Dr. Morgan Nolte.

Dr. Morgan started her professional career as a geriatric physical therapist. But in seeing that the vast majority of her patients were overweight and obese, she decided she wanted to dedicate her life to helping people maintain a healthy weight. Today Dr. Morgan is a weight loss coach and entrepreneur.

And creator and host of the reshape, your health podcast. And as you'll hear in this insightful interview, Dr. Morgan has a very clear and concise message

on how we can combat the obesity epidemic. This was a great interview. I personally took away some great information and I know you're going to love it. So without further ado. Here's Dr. Morgan Nolte

Morgan: I am your typical woman.

You know, I think that I grew up thinking that losing weight was all [00:04:00] about eating less and exercising more, that it was about energy balance. And I believe that so hard. I actually had a condition called exercise bulimia in high school for about 10 months. And that was really driven by sports performance.

I was an athlete and I wanted to run fast and I wanted to get lean. And so I would eat something and then I would immediately go exercise it off. That's the term exercise bulima. And then all of a sudden, for some reason, I must've just gotten so tired of restricting myself from sweets and I just went the other direction.

You know, I, I ate all of the sugar, all of the things, the brownies, the cookie, the puppy chow, a lot of added sugar food products. And. I didn't care, you know, because I live that super restricted, eat less exercise more, and I [00:05:00] hated it and I hated how I felt. And so I really swung the other way and didn't realize the metabolic harm that I was doing to my body.

And,  through high school, through college, I always knew that I wanted to be a physical therapist to help people. And that was really driven by my relationship with my grandparents. So eight out of nine of my grandparents were at our wedding. You know, they were healthy enough mobile enough to come to our wedding.

And that was really special. And as I got into the field of physical therapy, I did it with that intention to keep grandparents healthy so that they could be there for their grandkids. Like mine were there for me. And I know. That they have an irreplaceable role in their family's lives and their grandchildren's lives.

And so I actually decided to pursue a geriatric specialty in physical therapy. So it's three years in school, a year long residency. And what I noticed was there was a really stark [00:06:00] contrast between the health of my patients and the health of my grandparents. Right. So my patients were all around, not all, but there were a lot of 60 year olds who were acting like 80 year olds or 90 year olds.

And my grandparents were 80 year olds acting like 60 year olds. I thought what's going on here? And I also noticed  something where when I would do a medical review, like a history before I did an eval, they all had the same underlying health conditions and excess weight was one of them that often wasn't even listed as a past medical condition because it was over.

It's so common. I mean, at least 95% of my patients in geriatric physical therapy were overweight or obese, but then further, they always had this triad of high cholesterol, high blood sugar, high blood pressure. And when you're trained in traditional medicine, like I was, you treat those things in [00:07:00] silos, right?

Like this medications for high blood pressure, this one's for high blood sugar, this one's for high cholesterol.   And another thing that they had was cognitive impairment, super common way more common than people realize and adults over 50 cause dementia starts in middle age. And so this is my professional and personal background, I know that my patients are unhealthy. I want to help them be healthier. And  I feel like I'm limited in this role as a geriatric physical therapist, and then everything changed. When I had my son, so I have a three-year-old boy Dawson and Leah is our little one-year-old  and after I had Dawson, that was the first time in my life. When. I really struggled to lose weight. I was heavier than I would have liked. I couldn't exercise, you know, your postpartum, you can't exercise. And so, you know, I was eating cliff bars, you know, the cliff bars that we all think are healthy, [00:08:00] that there's as much sugar in a Clif bar as a Snickers bar.

And  I was trying to exercise. I just could not get the weight off. And that's really, when I dug through the literature for myself and found out that everything I knew about weight loss was wrong. It was not about eating less. It was not about exercising more, the only way to lose weight, keep it off and get healthy is to live a low insulin lifestyle.

Now, what that means is that there is no perfect diet. There is no perfect exercise plan. That's why not one thing works for everyone, but there is a way to keep your insulin low. And I know we're going to talk more about what is insulin, what is insulin resistance? And so I started to apply these principles to my own weight loss journey after I had Dawson and the weight came off with ease and it came off so fast with Leah.

And I thought to myself, if I have been to school, for seven [00:09:00] years, Plus, and I have never even heard of the term insulin resistance, and I've never learned how to live a low insulin lifestyle. Who's teaching this to my patients and the straw that really broke the camel's back for me to leave physical therapy and start

helping people live a low insulin lifestyle as a profession was I had a patient who was morbidly obese bed bound for at least 10 months  because of her diabetes and she had neuropathy, she had wounds. She had to go on Medicaid because of her medical expenses move into a different house. And while they were doing that, they were transporting her on a, on a stretcher and she felt they had to, they had to, you know, they can't see me right now, but I'm manipulating my hands.

They had to turn the stretcher to fit her through the door and she fell off. She fell off the stretcher. And I thought there's no better definition for [00:10:00] rock bottom. And so they picked her up, they called PTO T and there was so little that we could do for her. the highest level of function that she got to was hiring from the bed to the recliner.

And that was her quality of life. And I thought we can do better. People deserve better, but we have to catch them earlier. We have to catch them at least in midlife, if not, before, not when they're bedbound, because that's when insulin resistance is severe and it becomes harder to reverse the longer you have it.

So I tell people your weight will never be easier to lose than it is today. It will never be easier to lose than it is today. So people have to get to the point where they commit, right? Like, you know that your trainer people have to commit. They have to take responsibility and they have to be in it no matter what.

And I always say, there's no [00:11:00] failure after go, you know, once you start. You don't ever have to start all the way over again. You're going to mess up that's okay.  And so that was really the straw that broke the camel's back for me, you know, learning how to lose weight, myself, becoming a super passionate advocate for preventing the diseases that I was treating in geriatric physical therapy, like the diabetes, dementia, heart disease.

So that you can live a healthy, active life, right? Like that's your mission at silver edge is to help people live a healthy, active lifestyle. And I think that. There's a lot of misinformation, about how to do that. So that's kind of why I'm here today. Spreading my message.

Kevin: Yeah. that's fantastic.

Thanks for sharing that. So there's a lot in there. I, love the expression. No failure after go. Cause you're right. It's, it's a journey, right? It's it's not a destination and we're all in our journeys. We'll plateau. We'll. Quote unquote fail, which just means we'll learn along the way, but we'll have setbacks, [00:12:00] right?

So it's not a linear line, like a graph going from bottom to up.  It's a jagged line that as long as we're trending in the right direction, we're moving in the right direction. I wanted to just talk a little bit about, you had mentioned.  That you were inspired by your grandparents and that you would see these 60 year olds coming in for care that were acting like they were 90 year olds.

Maybe let's talk a little bit about lifespan versus health span and folks may or may not be familiar with that term health span, but let's just talk a little bit about why that's critically important, because I think that's going to help us set the background here as we get into our insulin.

Morgan: Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, a person's lifespan is how many years they live a person's health span is how many years they live with good health. And if you choose to live a healthy lifestyle earlier in life in your thirties, forties, fifties, you will have a longer health span into your eighties, into your nineties. [00:13:00]

essentially, you're gonna maintain a high level of function until maybe the last little bit. And then there's a steep decline where you maybe get sick, you get frail we pass away. If you do not live a healthy, low insulin lifestyle. You will have a slow and steady decline. Your memories will be limited by your mobility.

You will have a hard time walking. You will have pain, you will have inflammation. You will have brain fog. You will have low energy and you will have multiple co-morbidities. I asked a client one time. I said, you know, what do you want to take a pill? Or do you want to change your nutrition? And she said, I want to take a pill.

And I said, you better plan on taking five. Because all of these things are caused by insulin resistance. So you better plan on taking one for cholesterol, one for diabetes, one for your memory, one for your vision.  And it's just, it's so [00:14:00] much simpler Kevin to prevent disease, but I think that people just don't know the consequences.

And I think that's really where my unique perspective comes into play because I know. I've seen the consequences firsthand as a geriatric physical therapist. And I want to do all I can to not get there. And I want to do all I can to help other people, not, you know, need a call light and wait 20 minutes to go to the bathroom.

Not have to wait for their chairlift to go up so that they can stand and just be independent and active and mobile. So we really want to live a healthy lifestyle to expand the health span. that's a really good point that I actually haven't. talked about in content before, so thanks for bringing that up.

Kevin: absolutely. I thought that it followed very well from what you were talking about, and I love that your message is all about prevention because you're right. The longer we go. These poor habits.   the more and more it's entrenched and the harder it is to reverse or arrest  the metabolic [00:15:00] damage that we're doing.

So with that, as our background, let's talk about insulin. Let's start with what is insulin. Why is it important?

Morgan: Sure. So insulin is a hormone that is released from your pancreas and it's an anabolic hormone. And that means that it builds up. And so it plays a lot of different roles in the body and the role that I focus on and the one that's most common is how it affects your blood sugar.

And so I want to just explain how insulin impacts your blood sugar so that people have this framework. If you pretend like you're looking at a ball, like a, any sort of ball, that's a cell. Okay. And then there's a receptor on the outside of that ball for insulin. And then there's a channel for glucose or blood sugar to go into the cell to be stored as energy or used as energy.

And when your blood sugar goes up, which we'll talk about [00:16:00] what causes blood sugar to go up. Your pancreas releases insulin to bring your blood sugar back down to move the blood sugar into the cell. So insulin acts as a key and it binds to the receptor on the outside of the cell. And then glucose moves from the bloodstream into the cell because your body does not like change.

It likes to maintain a very tight blood sugar control. So about 70 to a hundred is a quote unquote normal fasting glucose level. And so if people aren't even sure if they have, trouble with blood glucose, that's a really good place to start is to check your fasting glucose, which is at least an eight hour fast.

I like to stay closer to 12 hours, nothing but water. And just get a glucometer, prick your finger, check your number. If it's over a hundred, then you're technically in the pre-diabetes realm and you really need to be paying close attention to this interview. [00:17:00] So what happens is your blood glucose, right?

If we are constantly stimulating it, constantly raising our blood glucose, that means that we're constantly stimulating our insulin because that blood glucose can get into yourselves through two mechanisms. And I like to say push insulin pushes it in, but it really just lets it in or muscle demand can pull it in.

So we exercise, we go for a walk, our muscles need that instant energy, so it will pull glucose from the bloodstream. So I think that's a really important concept to remember here.

So insulin resistance is a little bit tricky to understand it's when your body becomes resistant to insulin's effect, right? And in one of insulin's effect is to lower your blood sugar. So when you're insulin [00:18:00] resistant, your cells become resistant to the insulin and your blood sugar remains high.

And so then more insulin is released to push the blood sugar in. So essentially you have a higher serum level of insulin and insulin is the  primary hormone that controls your body set weight. So when you have excess weight, you have excess insulin and the only way to lower it and keep it off is to reduce your insulin.

Not calories. That's a crucial distinction. There is that we have been misled for decades to believe that calories is the end all be all for weight loss and it's insulin. So I like to explain insulin resistance in terms of other resistance that people are more familiar with. So alcohol is a very common one, right?

An alcoholic. Maybe when they first start drinking, they get a buzz after two beers or three beers, but over the years they keep putting [00:19:00] the alcohol into their system and they develop a tolerance and they require a higher amount of alcohol to get the same effect. The same goes with insulin and glucose.

, it's just the same thing or antibiotics, right? If you take antibiotics over and over, your body can develop antibiotic resistance. If you stimulate your insulin over and over, your body will develop insulin resistance, so more is needed. And again, that pushes your set weight up.

So here's how it can really develop to chronic disease. And why it's one of like the root cause for diabetes, heart disease, dementia, insulin resistance leads to higher blood sugars, higher blood sugars leads to inflammation and inflammation leads to these diseases. So  if we want to reduce inflammation, we need to reduce blood sugars.

If we wanna reduce blood sugars, we need to lower them lower the insulin and insulin resistance and [00:20:00] inflammation really are kind of the two links that cause nearly every chronic disease it's even been shown and things like osteoarthritis. So it's so interesting. Like the salt, the chondracytes, if your joints they're sensitive to glucose.

Right. And so when they can't absorb it to make more synovial fluid or more cartilage, that's really when the arthritis will start to get worse and worse. So insulin resistance, we think of it as a metabolic thing, but it impacts our skin. It impacts our joints. It impacts, everything about our health.

So, is that a good overview of insulin resistance? Or did you have any follow-up questions there? I think

Kevin: that's an excellent overview of insulin resistance. Absolutely. So we're getting this idea that a reduced insulin is going to lead to higher blood sugar, which is going to reduce the inflammation. I think most everybody listening knows implants.

Bad. That's not good.  So help us connect the dots here. So we've, got the idea that this insulin [00:21:00] resistance and we're building this up over time, much like we do with say an alcoholic and drinks.  But it's going to be linked to all these negative health conditions. What do we do then if we are somebody we know is in this condition, where do we start now to reverse this, correct.

This at least arrest it.

Morgan: Well there's debate about that.

And so while insulin resistance is the root cause to disease, we have to learn what's the root cause of an unhealthy lifestyle. Why are people not making time to prioritize their health? So we're going to get it. But I do think that it's helpful to explain sustainable weight loss as a coin, right? So there's two sides of the same coin.

There's the strategy, the low insulin strategy. And then there's the mindset. So the mindset piece, which I'm sure as a great trainer, I'm sure you've worked with many, many clients about mindset and [00:22:00] being committed and breaking through different myths. Surrounding what it means to live a healthy lifestyle.

So let's talk about the four pillars of living a low insulin lifestyle and why mindset. I describe it as the foundation of those pillars, because I don't know if you're a spiritual person, but there's a scripture verse that says, you know, if you build your house on sand, when the rain comes. The house is going to fall.

Right? And I think a lot of people are trying to improve their nutrition and improve their exercise and stress and sleep on a foundation of sand on  limiting beliefs. Right. And so it's not going to stick. They're not going to be consistent, but if you focus on that foundation of a healthy mindset and follow through and consistency and belief, that's huge.

Then as you work to develop your healthy lifestyle [00:23:00] there, those habits are gonna be more likely to stick when the rain comes. Cause everyone knows life happens that we get off track. It's okay. It's normal. You don't beat yourself up over it.

Kevin: that's a great analogy. And I'd like to think of it as a pyramid, right?

To your point, the exercise and nutrition are important, but if you look at the base of the pyramid, that's gotta be the mindset, right? It's gotta be mindset. And to your point consistency, and then we're gonna stack on healthy. Activities on top of that, but yeah, I see where you're going with that.

And I love that analogy of if you're building sand castles, basically, if you start with the tip of the pyramid, it doesn't work that way. You have to have that firm foundation first love that.

Morgan: It's true. And I can talk a little bit more about mindset, because it's such a, kind of a woo woo topic.

I think when people first hear about it, they kind of overlook it and it's not until you really get into it that you, that you value it. So what the four pillars are to live a low and sun lifestyle, which again is required the [00:24:00] only way to lose weight, keep it off and prevent disease. The first pillar is nutrition.

And that includes what you eat and when you eat and we can dig into this later if you want. But what you eat is essentially a sustainable, healthy, lower carb diet. And I say diet, but I mean lifestyle, right? We're like, we're doing this for the rest of our life.  And that does not mean you, have to exclude all carbs.

That doesn't mean that you can't have what I call an exception meal every now and then.  It's just a healthy, lower carb lifestyle, whole foods  high protein. And intermittent fasting. So this was a huge myth that I had, that you had to eat five to six mini meals a day to lose weight. And if you're insulin resistant, which 85% of adults are insulin resistant, right.

85%. And that's pretty in line with the number of people who are overweight or obese, because I think one thing I [00:25:00] didn't mention was, well, how do you know if you're insulin resistant? Well, you can get your insulin levels checked, or if you have high blood pressure and excess weight. Probably certainly insulin resistance.

So you can look at your waist circumference, your, your weight, your blood pressure, all of these symptoms. And I talk a lot about that on social media, like symptoms of insulin resistance. Anyways, intermittent fasting, you do not need to eat five to six meals a day. Okay? Every single time you eat, your insulin is released.

And the goal is to live a low insulin lifestyle. So I really advocate for either three solid meals a day. Or intermittent fasting, two meals, maybe a high protein snack, super basic overview. The second pillar, hello is movement. We need that healthy movement. And another big myth that I had was that cardio was king.

That's not true.

Kevin: Right? I think a lot of people, probably females, especially are kind of fed this culturally [00:26:00] that, that cardio or lightweights or walking.

Morgan: Yeah. Well, we have the Jane Fonda videos. We have the zoom, but we have, and I used to teach Jazzercise. I had to give it up when I started my business. I love it, but we definitely under dose strength training and women now, minute for minute strength training

will improve insulin sensitivity better than aerobic training. And that's because we want to build healthy muscle muscle matters, right. Because when we have more muscle, so essentially muscle in most people. Most healthy people. Muscle is the number one receptor of glucose aside from our brain in the body.

And so when we can have more insulin receptors, when we have more muscle, we can reduce our insulin resistance. And so I see in the gym all the time, I'm in there with all these high school boys lifting my weights and I see women, you know, on the treadmill or on the bike, on the elliptical. And [00:27:00] I'm just.

Oh, you could get in and out so much faster and have a more effective, efficient workout. If you just strength train right. Moderate to high intensity. That's a huge problem in geriatric physical therapy is under dosing. And  my favorite geriatric physical therapy quote is the only reason that an adult should be kicking their leg with a little ankle weighed on from a seated position is if their goal is to kick a ball from a seated position, right?

Like we need functional strength training at a moderate to high intensity. When I talk about underdosing, I'm sure a lot of your listeners are like, what does that mean?  Moderate intensity is I like to say 12 to 15 reps to maybe 10 to 15 reps to muscle fatigue. Like you should not be able to do another rep with a good form after 15 reps.

And you can build up to that over a couple of weeks. Like you don't have to start right there, but. You need to get there high [00:28:00] intensity. I just to keep it simple, 10 reps or less is what I usually say. Muscle fatigue. Can't do another rep. That's how hard we need to be training. And is it comfortable? Not always, you know, you can learn to appreciate it.

What's more uncomfortable is needing someone to help you get out of the chair when you're eighty okay. And feeling like a burden to your family. So you really have to weigh the short-term discomfort to the long-term benefit of strength training.

And a lot of women just don't know how to do it. You know, you're a really good person there. You have that personal one-on-one approach.  You have at the exercise videos, from what I've researched for people to do this stuff, you have to strength, train. Now the other forms of movement, like walking and stretching, those are great, right?

But we want a walk to reduce stress, to reduce cortisol, which I'll get to in a second, we want to walk for socializing, right? We don't need to be walking to burn calories. That's just not, it's just not the right mindset [00:29:00] to have. Stretching is very important for aging adults to maintain our mobility, to reduce fall risk, to reduce joint pain.

And so I really encourage people to focus on flexibility and strength training, and then walk kind of as it's, as an adjunct, as a great form of mobility and movement, but not to lose weight.  You know, and honestly, Dr. Jason Fung has a great quote, that exercise is great for us and should be done every day.

Just don't expect to lose weight and that's very much true. So now the third pillar is stress and. Do you work on this a lot with your clients? You talk about stress management, how it impacts health.

Kevin: I do certainly as a part of the recovery. Yeah. So it's that eat? Train recover sort of three legs to a stool.

Absolutely.

Morgan: Yeah. Well, what happens? I think.  Women, right? Especially cause we wear so many hats where mom or wife were sometimes grandma, a lot of women that I work with are caretakers to aging [00:30:00] parents.  They're still working. They have a lot of balls in the air, a lot of stress. And back in the good old days, right?

Our stressors were fighting or fleeing. So we are going to fight an animal. We're going to fight someone or we're going to flee. We have to run your muscles. When you're stressed out, they need energy to fight or flee. And that energy comes in the form of blood glucose. So when you are stressed out, your cortisol will go up when your cortisol goes up, that causes your blood sugar to go up.

And if you're not using your muscles, right. To pull that glucose in and use it. Your insulin will go up. So most of our stress today is like an email I need to talk to you or, you know, something going on with kids or aging parents or during COVID. And so we have elevated blood glucose and we're sitting and we're not doing anything with [00:31:00] that extra energy.

And that really, really does contribute to insulin resistance is stress. And then the fourth pillar is sleep because many people don't realize that chronic sleep deprivation is a form of stress on the body will increase blood glucose will increase cortisol. Will increase insulin resistance. And here's the deal.

I like to say that sleep is like recharging your willpower batteries. And so who wants to follow through on their good intentions when they're sleep deprived? Now one and from a hormonal standpoint, your growth hormone, human growth hormone, which really is important for building muscle and declines naturally with aging.

So we really want to be proactive with our sleep as we age, because that's when we get those bursts of growth hormone. You're not getting as much, so you're not burning as much fat when you're sleeping. You're not restoring those muscles. And then two other really important hormonal changes is your Graylin or your hunger hormone will [00:32:00] go up after a night of bad sleep and your leptin or satiety hormone goes down.

So you're going to be craving more carbs, especially for that quick energy, since you're tired. And you're not going to sense when you're full. So it's going to be easier to overeat on unhealthy foods, more sleep deprived. So those are the four pillars, nutrition, movement, stress sleep, and there's toxins and other things like that.

But most people just have to like get the basics, you know, and then under all of that is the foundation of mindset. And I think that that's so personal for people. Like the more coaching that I do, the more I realized weight is such a personal issue. You know, it goes way back to childhood when their mom shamed them for being overweight, when their partner left them for being overweight  when they have shame and guilt for feeling full, like this is a big one.

If we're going to talk about mindset, Just some common ones that I see I'll look at [00:33:00] people's foods, food blogs, or are you eating 800 calories a day? You know, you're supposed to be eating more than that and I'm not going to say number. So I don't want people to, to get that in their head that they have to hit certain numbers.

You know, eating half of the food that I'm recommending and they're like, well, I'm full. I thought that I was supposed to stop eating when I, before I was full. So they've followed, intuitive eating, right? There's all sorts of different weight loss approaches, intuitive eating is not the best strategy for someone who has insulin resistance because your, your hunger hormones are off.

You're going to be hungry all the time. You're not going to be as satiated. And so you have to learn how to properly structure your meals to keep insulin low. So, but when I dug deeper into this, why are you chronically under eating? Well, I thought that's how you lost weight. Why, why are you afraid of being full?

Well, because in the past, when I was full, that meant that I, you know, kind of binged or that I [00:34:00] overate and that, that meant that I wasn't going to lose weight. And I like to say what fires together, wires together. And so in her brain, she's firing together feeling full with feeling shame feeling guilty feeling like she's not losing weight.

So she's going to try to do everything that she can to not feel full, which means she's going to under eat, which means she's under eating healthy nutrients. And that's what I have to explain to people is. Look, different macro nutrients. I teach people about macro nutrients will affect your satiety hormones differently.

Have you talked about macros on the show before? Is your audience familiar?

Kevin: Certainly have, yeah, but just as a recap, that your macros are your carbohydrates, your proteins and your fats, and certainly we've talked about them a good

Morgan: bit. Yep. Yeah. So when you're eating nutrient dense foods like healthy fats, protein, fiber, Which is a type of carb you're going to feel full, right?

And I, I advocate you need at least 30 grams of [00:35:00] protein at a meal for optimal muscle protein synthesis. If you're eating 30 grams of protein, healthy, fat, and fiber, you're going to feel full and you certainly don't need to feel guilty or shameful about that. You need to feel. Like yay. I'm fueling my body, you know, and I think that that's a big mindset barrier that I have to help women overcome.

Low fat is big. Have you talked about low fat on the show?

Kevin: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So let's, talk about that because, sorry. Folks that are 50 and older, we've went through. We've all lived through that. Fat is bad and fat is what makes us fat.  So if you want to take a minute and talk about healthy fats and the importance of fats, I think that'd be valuable.

Morgan: Absolutely. So fat will not make you fat unless it's the unhealthy kind of fat. So let's kind of break it down. I like to say there's healthy, neutral and unhealthy fats. So. When we're talking about fats, let's start with the unhealthy ones first and move our way up the unhealthy [00:36:00] fats. Well, first of all, I'm going to back up and say why we thought fat made us fat in the first place.

It's because there's nine calories per gram of, you know, in a gram of fat compared to like four calories for protein, I think in carbs. And so when we were, when we were working from this calorie philosophy, which is wrong for weight, We thought, Ooh, to eat more food, I have to eat less fat. Right. I can eat more food if I eat less fat.

And so they kept their fat low because they thought it was calorically dense and would make them fat. When in reality, when we're looking at how different macro neutral affect insulin, it's completely different. So when you're looking at that, let's give them that overview. Carbohydrates is an umbrella for

three main things, fiber starch, sugar. So starches and sugars, especially when they're refined like flour products or, or added sugar. [00:37:00] Those are going to spike your insulin. Fiber actually is a negative food. It has a, it will slow digestion and bring the overall insulin response of a meal lower. Protein has a moderate impact on insulin.

Not very much, nothing that we need to be too concerned about. Fat has the lowest, the lowest response on insulin. So while it has the most calories, right? It has the lowest insulin response. That's why the keto diet works really well for fat loss, because it has a low insulin, high fat diet. Most women want more food variety than the keto diet.

So I'm not a big advocate of anything that you can't sustain for the rest of your life. So if you want to do keto. Plan on doing it for the rest of your life, if you want to keep the weight off  or like to, to break through a plateau or something. Okay. So that's kind of the overview of how macros effect insulin. Talking about fat.

The unhealthy kind that we really, really do want to limit  is trans fats. So. [00:38:00] Margarine. I can't believe it's not better. A lot of processed foods will have trans fats and processed omega six fatty acids. So things, a lot of like  processed vegetable or seed oils, like soybean oil will raise insulin resistance directly cause inflammation at the cellular level and contribute to insulin resistance.

So those are the types of fats that we do want to keep low on our overall. Now the Nutro runs saturated fat. They have been demonized and they do not need to be demonized. I like to say they are not the healthiest form of fat that we can eat. They're not the unhealthiest and they actually have some health benefits.

I really recommend that they come from those whole food sources versus the processed meats, because there's other additives in there that will contribute to inflammation. And then the healthy fats are going to be mainly the plant-based fats. So, or like avocados, there's different categories like mano on saturated  different kinds of [00:39:00] polyunsaturated.

I won't get into that.  Or like  fatty fish, for example. So omega three fatty acids  plant-based omega six fatty acids that are whole foods. So we talked about the processed and refined omega six fatty acids. Those are going to be inflammatory, but the ones from the whole foods like nuts seeds, those are healthy for us.

Avocados are great.  But really you gotta really focus on those omega three fatty acids to reduce inflammation and what most people don't understand is. That there's different types of omega3s and salmon and green algae are the most bioavailable forms that will reduce inflammation in our body. But the stuff from plants like chia seeds, nuts, avocados, there's a really low conversion rate to the type of omega-3 fat that's anti-inflammatory.

If you're only relying on those, plant-based strictly plant-based. I mean, unless it's green algae, then you're not really getting the full anti-inflammatory benefits. And [00:40:00] that's why some sort of omega-3 supplementation is often recommended, especially for aging adults who really want to reduce their inflammation.

So I really have to do a lot of work with my, with my women to  to get them comfortable, eating cheese, again, to get them comfortable eating peanut butter and not feel guilty about it. Yeah. It's like that guilt. And I think that fear of failure is so real. I don't, I don't know if you've worked through that with your people before, but.

I have different exercises where I really work people through. Like, what are you afraid of? Are you afraid of regaining the weight? Are you afraid of  failing? You know, are you afraid of disappointment? And then how, how is that fear? Affecting their emotions and how is, how are those emotions affecting their actions and their results.

And we have to really trace it back back to that fear and that line of thought and change it to a more positive empowering thought. [00:41:00] And I think that's kind of the core of the mind. That I do is helping people. I call it, dig for gold, you know, dig for the thought gold, pull their little thought, weeds out and replace them with something more positive.

And so that's kind of what I love to do and what I love to teach. Kind of in a nutshell, I go on some tangents there.

Kevin: that's very well said. And I, especially like the way you talk about  digging for gold, but. Quite apparent that we eat for a lot of reasons, besides just Being hungry.  We eat for emotional reasons, many of us, and it's very complex. Right.  And we make different choices when we're sad or depressed or anxious or angry, then maybe we do, and we've had a full night's sleep and we're feeling positive and full of all this energy. So realizing that and working backwards cause you're right.

It's very difficult to tell somebody, well, just eat these healthy foods and stop eating those unhealthy foods.   much more complicated than that. And that's why diets fail. I mean, diets are a horrible idea. I think we both are on the same. [00:42:00] There have strong views on quote-unquote diets, but.

You went through some of those macros, and that we talked about the protein being   the neutral and healthy fats being positive. And we talked about the carbs and you made a distinction between, say the carbs and say a sweet potato versus the carbs in a box of Kraft, macaroni, and cheese, or wonder bread.

So these really highly processed foods  these  hyper palatable foods. Talk to us a little bit about carbs and why carbs are so well, they're demonized now because the vast majority of carbs that we get in our Western culture.

Now our processed foods we eat, I think it's 70 something percent of the average person's diet is coming from processed foods. That's primarily processed carbs. Right,

Morgan: right. Yeah. So carbohydrates   what's really important to understand is how these are broken down in your body. And. Again, just kind of a big [00:43:00] picture overview, their starches they're sugars and there's fibers, and very, very rarely.

Is a carbohydrate, one of those nutrients in isolation, right? So if we have a sweet potato, there are some sugars there are some starches, there's some fiber, but it's the ratio of sugars to starches, to fiber that matters. I teach people how to track net carbohydrates, which are. The total carbohydrates in a food minus the fiber, right?

Cause the fiber has a negative impact and those are really that the net carbs, if you're going to count carbs, those are the ones that matter. So I think it's also important to recognize that there are different types of simple sugars. So when carbohydrates are broken down in your body, they can be broken down into glucose or fructose or

galactose. And I'm going to talk about [00:44:00] glucose and fructose because those are the two most common. So starch when we're talking about flour, right? That is 100% glucose. It's a bunch of different glucose molecules that are strung together. Table sugar is 50% fructose and 50%. Glucose linked together. So half glucose, half fructose.

That's why, when we say starch is just sugar it's because it's just a bunch of little glucose molecules strung together where this gets really important from a metabolic perspective is that every cell in your body can use glucose, but fructose is metabolized almost exclusively in the liver. So when you eat, let's say a hundred grams of carbohydrates from pasta versus a hundred grams of carbohydrates from soda.

Sugar, right. Pure sugar. [00:45:00] You're getting either a hundred grams of glucose or you're getting 50 grams of glucose, 50 grams of fructose so that glucose can be metabolized anywhere in the body. It's less metabolically damaging the fructose. The liver has a really limited capacity. Think of it as like a small

machine. And so it can get backed up quickly. And when that happens, it has to turn it into liver fat and that liver fat will directly contribute to insulin resistance in the liver. So your tissues, it's really interesting when you get into insulin resistance because your fat cells can become insulin resistant.

Your muscle cells can become insulin resistant, your liver, your brain. And so that's why added sugar is especially harmful for our health because it's 50% fructose metabolized almost exclusively in the liver and will contribute to insulin. Faster because there's less room for it to be metabolized.

[00:46:00] Whereas glucose, your, my arms can use it. My legs can use it. My liver can use it.  And then fiber will slow the response. Like it kind of keeps food in the digestive system longer. And so it's not going to. Like, that's why it's important to, for example, keep the peels on, on your vegetables. If you can.

Cause there's more fiber in there. It's going to slow the insulin response. I have a few carb hacks that I like to share. So if you're going to eat carbs, which I recommend is fine. You want to know how to eat them and reduce the glucose spike afterwards. Cause some members like Morgan, I gained two pounds after I had some ice cream.

And why did that happen? How can we make that not happen? So a couple of tips here. Is before you eat a high carb meal, take a couple tablespoons of apple cider. That's going to help pre digest some of the glucose in the meal, reduce the spike.  Another tip is to take a short walk after the meal, 10 minutes, maybe a 10 minute walk after the meal, that's gonna [00:47:00] create muscle demand for some of the glucose and, make more room in the liver to help digest the things you can eat your high carb meals earlier in the day.

So when we're thinking about  insulin resistance, It fluctuates, right? So you're, you have a greater tolerance to digest carbohydrates earlier in the day than later in the day. So have a high carb lunch and a lower carb dinner. Another thing that's important is, you know, try to stop eating at least three hours before bed so that you have time to digest the meal.

What's another good carb trick, not having carbs first. So if you want to have some, some keenwah some help with some sweet potato. You will have a lower overall glucose response from that meal. If you have your protein first, you know, the, the steak, the chicken, whatever, your pred salmon, and then the carbs versus if you have the carb first, cause you're already have protein in your stomach and your digestive system to slow.

Slow it down. So those are just a few of the [00:48:00] carb hacks that I like to teach people.  It's also very important if you're using intermittent fasting, not to break your fast with carbohydrates because your body's just going to suck them right up. So really try to break your fast with some protein and fat, And that's a longer fast. If you're doing a 16 hour fast, you can maybe just push them towards the end of the meal. But if you're doing a longer, fast 24 hours, let's say  you really do want to wait to have carbs, have a little bit of fat, have a little bit of protein first, wait half an hour, an hour. And then you eat your meal.

I did want to touch on insulin resistance for women a little bit more because. And I haven't really read this in books because a lot of books, no offense, Kevin, but they're written by men. And I didn't learn this until I was researching it independently. And that's that insulin resistance goes up after menopause.

So estrogen is protective against insulin resistance. That's why women before menopause, they can, they have a trimmer waistline. So estrogen is protective for our bone health and our belly fat. When [00:49:00] estrogen goes down, So will your bone health. That's why strength, training and protein become even more important with aging and then your fat it redistributes.

So you lose that protection against insulin resistance. And so women will have more belly fat than they're used to after menopause. And if, they want to get rid of that eating. Low fat, low calorie will not work you like you have to keep your insulin low. If you really want to maintain your physique and maintain your health.

So I did want to really point that out from a woman's perspective after menopause, when your estrogen goes down, it becomes that much more critical that you're focusing on your health and keeping insulin low.

Kevin: Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And I can say that  pretty much the there's a parallel for men, right.

And I think that's probably just true in aging in general, but as men and we're aging and our testosterone is declining, I think we see a similar thing there, right? The, fat redistribution in the longterm.  But. [00:50:00] I think also that our lifestyle plays a lot to do with that because we had talked about an aging.

We're going to have these lower  hormones. Typically we're going to lose muscle. We're going to lose bone density and some of that's inevitable, right? nobody's going to defeat aging. But our lifestyle has such a strong, strong impact on that. And some of these tips that you're talking about, certainly in this, this low insulin lifestyle and your   four pillars, certainly those things will keep us healthier.

And in the game a lot longer increasing that health span.

Morgan: Yeah. Yep, absolutely.

Kevin: Great. Well, Dr. Morgan, we have covered a lot here today. I want to thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge with us. What is on the horizon for you? What's next?

Morgan: Oh, gosh, that's a great question. I guess. No one's ever asked that right now.

I'm really focused on building  a community of women, right? Who are looking to live a low insulin lifestyle. [00:51:00] I'm I have a program, weight loss for health and so on. I launched that a few times a year for open enrollment. I'm really focused on that. I'm focused on getting the word out, just like I am today to spread the word.

I have a podcast too. I think that you're going to be a guest there in the future. It's called reshape your health with Dr. Morgan multi.  And so I like to do those weekly usually and  hang out on YouTube and Instagram. But my true passion is just coaching people like weekly office hours with my members where I can get in there and one-on-one calls.

And you know, when I look at the future, I just, I hope more people know about this know about insulin resistance and care. Like I just, I think that once, you know, the science behind stuff, it becomes a lot harder to justify bad habits. It becomes a lot harder to turn a blind eye and stay apathetic.

And so I want to light a fire under people's rear ends too, to make them see the [00:52:00] consequences of not taking action earlier in life.  Wherever that takes me, I'm open, I'm open wherever the road, whatever the road has ahead of me. I'm really willing to do what it takes to get the word out.

Kevin: Yeah, that's fantastic.

And I have to admit until I kind of started digging into your message and certainly learn a lot here today.  I obviously, I know the insulin plays a, a big part in our health and our.  Body shape, right? It does, but I've not heard this message put in this way. And I think that you've got a very fresh, original voice here and certainly an important message.

And we're recording this in may of 2021. We're hopefully at the, maybe at the tail end of this pandemic. But one thing we've learned is that overweight and obesity puts you at risk. It just puts you at your health at risk in so many ways. And certainly. Come to light here. When we see the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic have been people that are overweight and obese.

So [00:53:00] there is a lot of, to your point, we started with your own personal journey, right? And you had this very big prescription of, well, I should exercise more and eat less and that's not so helpful to people I'm finding. It's a, it's very vague.  Be to your point. It can, it can mean anything. If people are going for a walk every day or they're restricting their calories  or maybe going on diets that are not sustainable, these things aren't successful.

Right.

Morgan: So, no, you can have a low calorie, high insulin stimulating diet. Yes, you can. Right. I mean that's and I just think that getting the science out there is really important.  And talking, talking more about the mindset too, you know, and letting people know you don't have to be perfect. Do you need to give yourself grace and patience and keep going?

Like the successful people in life are successful simply because they keep going. Right? It's like, if something doesn't work out the first time you try it, try again, try something different and give yourself the grace to do that.

[00:54:00] Kevin: Oh, a hundred percent. And I'm a big proponent. I suspect. Two as well as small steps, even baby steps.

Cause these small steps over time can make huge results. If we make these small incremental changes and weave them into the fabric of our life and they become a habit and it just becomes something, we do a part of who we are.

That's going to affect you. Long-term one-year five-year 10 years down the line, much more so than yo-yo dieting or new year's resolutions on your exercise, et cetera.

Morgan: And it's not just you. Right. And I think that's really important to remember is that our health effects have a ripple effect.

That's your spouse, who has to take care of you. If you have bad health, it's your kids who maybe they don't trust you with, you know, your grandchildren to carry them up the stairs. Maybe they're always giving you side glances, like don't drop my kid. It's it's the, the, again, like do not let your memories be limited by your mobility.

Take responsibility and be consistent and you will see [00:55:00] results.

Kevin: I love it. I love it. Well, let's Dr. Morgan, let's leave it there. I want to thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all your knowledge and your wisdom with us. You are very inspirational. It's obvious that you're very passionate and lit up about this subject.

So I just encourage you to keep it up and I wish you all the best in all your future endeavor.

Morgan: Thank you so much, Kevin. It was a pleasure to be with you today.

Kevin: Well, that's our show for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, you can find all of the show notes and more over at www.silveredgefitness.com/episode 61. You can also continue the conversation over there. I'd love to hear your thoughts and your feedback, but before you go, I do have two favors to ask.

One, would you please give this show a [00:56:00] review on whatever platform you're listening on. And two, would you please consider forwarding this episode to anyone who you think might be interested in. It could be a family member, a friend, or a coworker. The easiest way to do this is just send them a link to this episode. And again, that's silver edge fitness.com/episode 61. Thanks again for spending time with me today and until next time stay strong!