Even if you're not hungry in the morning, eating a substantial breakfast with protein and carbohydrates sets your metabolic tone for the day. This practice stabilizes blood sugar, preventing the crashes that lead to mid-day and evening cravings.
When addressing hormone imbalances, start at the base of the "hormone pyramid." Optimizing foundational hormones like cortisol (stress) and insulin (blood sugar) is essential, as they directly impact thyroid function and sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone.
Focusing on building muscle is crucial for long-term health, particularly for women entering perimenopause. Muscle helps regulate blood sugar, reduces inflammation, and protects against osteoporosis, dementia, and heart disease, making it a vital health indicator.
Instead of obsessing over "fixing" issues like fatigue or bloating, reframe them as signals from your body. Listening to these cues allows you to understand and address underlying root causes, rather than just masking the symptoms with temporary solutions.
Your food cravings may not be entirely your own. Harmful gut microbes can release compounds that chemically increase your desire for the ultra-processed, high-sugar foods they feed on, effectively sabotaging your health goals from within.
Instead of chasing weight loss, focus on foundational health markers like inflammation, blood sugar balance, stress levels, and nutrient deficiencies. When these systems are optimized, sustainable weight loss and body recomposition often occur as a natural side effect.
Counterintuitively, if your blood sugar doesn't spike after consuming sugar, it may not mean you're healthy. It could indicate your body is overproducing insulin to compensate, a sign of advanced insulin resistance which often precedes prediabetes.
Foods manufactured with a "bliss point" of fat, salt, and sugar chemically alter your taste preferences. To appreciate natural flavors, you must undergo a period of retraining your taste buds, as they crave what you consistently feed them, not what is actually nutritious.