Getting Older doesn’t have to mean Getting Sicker: Is your metabolism working for you, or against you?
By Tyler Siedentopp, PT, DPT
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
“I’m going hungry all the time but I still can’t lose weight”.
“I’m always just so tired”
“I’ve got meds for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, but I don’t feel like things are really getting better…”
“Don’t get old…you’re body just starts to fall apart”
“My doctor said I have pre-diabetes but I’m not really sure what to do now?”
“I feel like if I only ate the serving size, I would never feel full!”
If some or all of these are something you have thought or have even said out loud, your METABOLISM may be fighting against you, making you older and sicker faster.
If that’s the case, the solution is to figure out how to get your metabolism back on your own team!
How do I know if my metabolism is fighting against me?
To have your metabolism fighting against you in your fight for health is like pushing a boulder uphill in a snowstorm. There are a lot of things working against you. But if you can get your metabolism fighting with you for your health, you now have a teammate in your journey towards healthy living.
Experts have identified 5 symptoms that, when combined with each other, signal that your metabolism is fighting against you. They are:
Abdominal Obesity
Insulin Resistance and Hyperglycemia
Hypertension
Inflammation
Dislipidemia (High cholesterol)
Together these symptoms are called Metabolic Syndrome…I know, boring name right?
On their own, each of these things is not great…
But the combination of two or more of them:
Interrupts the way our body communicates with itself…
Confuses the way our body uses and stores energy…
Hinders the body’s ability to heal…
Let’s break down how this happens a bit more and see what you can do to get your body back on your team…
Abdominal Obesity - The Fat that’s trying to kill you
How is my fat trying to kill me?
Short Answer: The excess fat cells in your abdomen are pumping your body signals that make it hard for you to regulate yourself.
Why is that a big deal?
Abdominal Obesity puts you at risk for:
Insulin Resistance and Diabetes
Cardiovascular Disease
Cholesterol Problems
High Blood Pressure
Diving in
Did you know that adipose (fatty) tissue is actually alive? It is made up of living cells called adipocytes that actually function in more ways than just making us frown when we look in the mirror.
Fat cells are essential to life as they store energy and provide us with ways to survive when we use more energy than we got from our most recent meal. They also release fatty acids into our bloodstream which help with many of the body’s natural communication pathways.
HOWEVER, if you have excess adipose tissue, especially in the abdomen (an area with a lot of blood flow and metabolic activity)…guess what happens? Those fat cells keep doing their job and release even MORE fatty acids into the bloodstream…fatty acids that in excess levels have been linked to cholesterol problems, blood pressure problems, artery hardening, and cardiovascular disease!
The fat doesn’t just stop at fatty acids either…each cell also releases signals to the body that encourage inflammation and hinder the body’s response to insulin…the body’s main way of controlling blood sugar.
So the more fat cells stored around the highly active abdomen, the more all of these excess negative signals get sent to the body and suddenly, your body’s tissues are fighting against you.
So where do you start? STOP WEIGHING YOURSELF
You don’t have to starve yourself and you don’t have to do 1,000 sit-ups a day to get rid of your belly fat. The answer to abdominal obesity is improving your nutrition and activity level so that you can lose weight gradually over a long period of time. In fact research has shown that the best way to lose weight and keep it off healthily is to lose no more than 1-2 lbs per week.
BUT more importantly than losing weight, you should be measuring your waistline!
Note: Waistline measurements of >35 inches for women, and >40 inches for men significantly increase the risk for metabolic syndrome.
As you get stronger from lifting weights and being active, you may be gaining healthy muscle weight but losing unhealthy belly fat…so the scale may be lying to you! Using a waistline measurement ensures that you are tracking the problem abdominal fat cells rather than your less specific overall weight.
IF YOU NEED SUPPORT IN THIS AREA, WE CAN HELP! FILL OUT THE FORM AND SOMEONE ON OUR TEAM WILL REACH OUT TO YOU.
Insulin Resistance and Hyperglycemia - “La la la la I’m not listening” - Your body
There is a lot of information out there talking about insulin, blood sugar, and hyperglycemia. If you throw the keyword “diabetes” into the mix, the search results can seem endless. So what is really going on with insulin resistance and why is it such a big problem?
Short answer: Insulin Resistance leads to Type II Diabetes
Why is that a big deal?
Type II Diabetes puts you at risk for:
Amputation…
Blindness…
Kidney Failure…
Painful Neuropathies…
And many other terrible things…
Diving in
Insulin is the body’s naturally produced hormone to decrease the concentration of sugar in the blood. It does this by acting like a key to unlock the “sugar doors” of cells and allow the sugar in the blood to be absorbed by the tissues that need it.
However, when the body’s blood sugar levels are consistently elevated above normal levels (aka hyperglycemia), the body ends up making a constant stream of insulin just trying to get back to normal. After a while of this, like a tired preschooler, the body sticks its metaphorical fingers in its ears and screams “I’m not listening to you anymore!”.
The cells themselves begin to get rid of insulin receptors so that they are not flooded with the overwhelming amount of insulin that is constantly being circulated through the body.
Now, the body has to flood itself with more insulin over even longer periods of time just to get blood sugar down to a reasonable level. This means the body is also dealing with high blood sugar for longer periods which has been shown to damage our kidneys, blood vessels, and eyes (Saklayen M. G., 2018).
But that’s not all!
Insulin, when properly controlled and regulating blood sugar levels actually also stimulates the feeling of fullness in the body’s tissues…This means that our insulin resistant toddler-bodies with their fingers in their ears not only aren’t listening to the body’s signals that blood sugar is too high, but they are also not telling us when to stop eating!
So where do you start? GET OFF THE BLOOD SUGAR ROLLERCOASTER
You’re going to hear this a lot today, but it comes back to establishing healthy nutrition habits and improving your fitness with regular and consistent intentional workouts.
Many people understand that if they have a candy bar, they will likely have a blood sugar spike. But did you know that carbs like bread and chips get broken down by your body and create the same blood sugar spike that sweets do? Carbs get broken down by your body and used as glucose for energy…and glucose = sugar!
A good goal to have is to aim is to keep carbs under 100 grams per day! (For reference, a slice of bread is about 20 grams of carbs). This allows a reasonable amount of carbs in the diet without rollercoaster blood sugar spikes.
If you don’t know how many carbs your eating, start tracking your food with an app. They’re are SO many great food tracking apps out there but one of our favorites at Village and the one that our Accelerated Nutrition Coaching Program uses is called Cronometer.
LOOKING FOR NUTRITION GUIDANCE? FILL OUT THE FORM TO GET STARTED
Hypertension - The Ball and Chain for your Heart
How is my own blood fighting against my heart?
Blood pressure is a measure of the amount of pressure pushing on the walls of the blood vessels in your body. Much like many of the topics we’ve discussed previously, there is a healthy range of blood pressure in our body that ensures our blood can get all the way to our brain when we stand up but also not burst any of the blood vessels in our body.
Short Answer: High blood pressure means your heart has to work harder with every beat just to keep you alive, constantly over stressing it and the blood vessels it’s pumping through.
Hypertension puts you at risk for?
Congestive Heart Failure…
Aneurysms…
Arterial insufficiency…
Capillary damage…
Diving in
Our arteries actually surrounded with muscle tissue that contracts and relaxes in order to route blood to certain areas and make sure oxygen gets to the tissues that need it most.
HOWEVER, when our body’s have too much insulin, our body has much harder time telling our blood vessels to relax. Picture instead of trying to blow up a balloon with air, you were trying to inflate a plastic water bottle…the balloon is stretchy and can respond to the pressure put into it, but the water bottle is stiff and will only stretch so far before it pushes pack…A LOT.
While high blood pressure is tough on your blood vessels, the real strain is actually on the heart. In order to overcome the elevated blood pressure in the arteries, the heart has to create a stronger pressure with every beat. This means that at rest, your heart might be pumping as if you were running a sprint just to get enough blood to your brain. And you can imagine the strain on your heart if you start exercising excessively and your blood pressure rises even higher…
So where do you start? STOP THE TENSION SIGNALS!
When our body is signaling us to have high blood pressure, we need to address all of the areas that are contributing to that. One of the first things to address is controlling our blood sugar. With that under control, you decrease that constant stream of insulin keeping your blood vessels from relaxing.
Our bodies are also made to be stressed and then relax. In the same way a slingshot works by being pulled tight and then getting completely released, our bodies need a pattern of stress and rest in order to function optimally. This looks like establishing a routine of fitness and rest in your life. When we exercise, our body is forced to respond to make up for the increased energy demand, and then when we return to rest, our body releases endorphins and other signals that aid our body in resting, rebuilding, and building resilience in all of out body tissues (including our heart and blood vessels).
Inflammation - A Runaway Train of Pain
How is inflammation putting me on the “Pain Train”?
Inflammation, when functioning properly, is a normal and healthy part of the healing process when tissues get damaged. HOWEVER, when the body is on high alert or receiving signals that damage keeps happening, inflammation can become a runaway train that causes systemic changes in the body leading to more pain, more disease, and overall lower quality of life.
Runaway Inflammation is linked with:
Atherosclerosis (blood vessel hardening)
Arthritis
Digestion problems
PAIN
Diving In
As previously stated, inflammation is the natural first stage of healing after damage occurs in the body and it is intended to function as a way to both protect and initiate regeneration of the tissue. However, if there are signals continuing to tell our body that there is more damage or even if our body just thinks there is more damage than there really is, it can get stuck on a Runaway Train of Inflammation.
The Inflammation Train picks up speed in a number of ways:
Earlier we discussed the ways excess fat cells become production centers for inflammatory signals in our body. Meaning that if you have too many fat cells in your body, your body is likely in a constant state of inflammation that makes you that much more prone to pains that last longer, digestion problems that don’t go away, and cardiovascular issues that get worse with time.
Another one of the main signals that we send to our body’s daily is the food we eat. And we can either send signals that work well with our body or ones that don’t. Eating processed foods and toxic cooking oils act like irritants in our digestive system leading to inflammation as the body tries to break down the chemically complex and processed structures.
All of these excess inflammatory signals get whipped into a storm of inflammation when other tissue damage occurs. Picture an injury where you twisted your knee and your body responds naturally with all of the inflammation it is supposed to send to the area…but now that gets added on to all of the other inflammatory signals already present from the fat cells and processed food! It’s not hard to see how the inflammation train picks up speed! Now combine that with a long term inflammatory condition like arthritis or fibromyalgia and you have a recipe for chronic inflammation and significant pain and discomfort.
So where do you start? TRIM THE BRANCHES AND CUT OUT THE SICK ROOTS!
Chronic inflammation unsurprisingly leads people to move less, when in all actuality, healthy movement is exactly the best thing to address it. Inflammation loves to stay stagnant and hang out where the perceived tissue damage is. But it’s exactly that stagnant area that needs new blood flow to help replenish the damaged tissue and begin the next stages of healing. If excessive inflammation is like an overgrown tree, healthy movement is trimming the branches of that inflammation: cleaning up the edges of the tree and helping the tree function more healthily.
But there might be some sick roots that need to be cut out from this tree as well: things like excessive fat cells, toxic oils, and processed foods signaling more inflammation to grow. These root issues need to be cut out from the tree because they really are making the rest of the tree sick: the normal and healthy process of inflammation has been taken hostage by these inflammatory signals.
4 Sick roots to CUT OUT TODAY:
Cut out processed foods from your diet (if the ingredients label has words you don’t understand, it’s most likely processed)
Throw out toxic oils like Canola oil, Sunflower Oil, Corn Oil (they cause inflammation in your body…plain and simple)
Replace your cooking oils with healthy fats like Olive Oil or Avocado Oil (they communicate well with your body)
Eat more whole foods and well sourced grass fed meats (communicate to your body well and actually reduce inflammation signals)
If this information is helpful, sign up for our Accelerated Nutrition Coaching Program which is a 12 week cohort that gives you everything you need to know about eating to communicate well with your body, getting you healthy, and enabling you to live a long and happy life.
Dislipidemia- Cholesterol Chaos
How is high cholesterol making my body chaotic?
The final piece of Metabolic Syndrome is cholesterol and in short, unbalanced and excessive cholesterol levels (High LDLs and Triglycerides with Low HDLs) leads to an unbalanced maintenance of the blood vessels in your body.
Short Answer: Combined with the other symptoms of Metabolic Syndrome, high “bad cholesterol” combined with low “good cholesterol” leads to vascular disease.
Putting you at Risk for:
Heart Attack
Stroke
Peripheral vascular disease
Blood clots
Diving In
The research on the isolated variable of dyslipidemia leading to disease is mixed, however, in the context of metabolic syndrome the data is clear…the union of these symptoms leads to significant blood vessel and heart issues.
The science behind “good cholesterol” (high density lipids or HDLs) and “bad cholesterol” (low density lipids or LDLs) comes down to how they function in the blood stream and body. Ultimately, we need cholesterol because every single cell in our body has a cell membrane made up of lipids or fat droplets. Due to their structure, “bad cholesterol” tends to stick to the inside of our arteries and “good cholesterol” works to take take that “bad cholesterol” and transport it to the liver to be processed.
That system works well when things are in balance, but tip the scales and arterial build up can begin to limit blood flow. If this goes on long enough, this can lead to heart attacks by blocking arteries supplying the heart or strokes from blockages cutting off oxygen to the brain.
So where do you start?
You will have hopefully begun to notice a theme in the action steps in addressing each symptom of metabolic syndrome…
Getting more leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables into your diet actually has been shown to lower your cholesterol as the fiber carries some of that “bad cholesterol” through your system before it gets absorbed. Eating grass fed and well sourced meats also lowers bad cholesterol as they have significantly higher levels of Omega-3s than our typical grain fed meats. By adding in these healthy foods into your diet, ideally you are crowding out the fast foods with high saturated fats and trading them for the more nutritious and delicious options.
Just like all of the other symptoms of metabolic syndrome, regular exercise and resistance training help decrease your cholesterol levels by allowing your body to break it down in your bloodstream. A research study showed that after only 1 hour of exercise, the body had an increase in the production of the enzyme that processes cholesterol for 24 hours! And not only that, after 12 weeks of training regularly, the participants had higher resting levels of that same protein…
This means that exercise not only helps lower cholesterol level in the short term after you finish working out, but consistent training also gets your body better at battling cholesterol even when you aren’t working out! (Wang, Y., & Xu, D., 2017)
READY TO FIGHT AGAINST YOUR METABOLISM?
FILL OUT THE FORM TO CONNECT WITH SOMEONE ON OUR TEAM TO SEE HOW WE CAN HELP!
In Summary:
Metabolic syndrome is a collection of symptoms that often appear together and signal that your body is fighting against you and making you sick.
The 5 aspects of metabolic syndrome are abdominal obesity, insulin resistance with hyperglycemia, high blood pressure, inflammation, and dyslipidemia.
Each of these symptoms work together to create a storm of cascading signals in your body that increase pain, disease, and take away from your quality of life.
Every one of these symptoms is addressed with a routine fitness program and healthy nutrition choices.
Just because you are getting older does not mean you need to be getting sicker. You can make changes today that over time will make you healthier, help you live longer, and allow you to enjoy the life you want to live.
Village Fitness And Physical Therapy
If you are fed up with your body fighting you every step of the way on your journey to health, if the symptoms described in this article sound like you, or if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired then it’s time to do something about it. At Village Fitness and Physical Therapy, we have developed a program that is specifically designed to address Metabolic Syndrome in people 40+. We would love to offer you a free 30 minute assessment with a Doctor of Physical Therapy to see if any of the programs at Village Fitness and Physical Therapy would be a good fit for you.
References:
Hirode G, Wong RJ. Trends in the Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in the United States, 2011-2016. JAMA. 2020;323(24):2526–2528. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4501
Saklayen M. G. (2018). The Global Epidemic of the Metabolic Syndrome. Current hypertension reports, 20(2), 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11906-018-0812-z
Sullivan, J. M., Baker, A., & Taleb, N. N. (2016). The barbell prescription: Strength Training for Life After forty. The Aasgaard Company.
Wang, Y., & Xu, D. (2017). Effects of aerobic exercise on lipids and lipoproteins. Lipids in health and disease, 16(1), 132. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12944-017-0515-
