Dr. Morgan Nolte
Appearances
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
I think I want to approach this interview as if somebody has never really heard about insulin or insulin resistance, and I want to build a really strong foundation for them to understand it. And then we can kind of go deeper throughout the interview. So insulin is a hormone made in your pancreas, and it is absolutely vital for our survival.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
It has a lot of different functions in our body, but the primary one that I focus on is blood sugar regulation. And as you know, continuous glucose monitoring is a hot topic right now. And the glucose that we're monitoring is actually a downstream effect of how well your insulin is working, how sensitive you are to insulin. So when you eat like a high carbohydrate meal, for example,
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Your, the carbohydrates are broken down into glucose in your blood, right? But your body doesn't like high blood sugar. So it has to release insulin to move the blood, the sugar from the blood into the cells to be stored. So insulin's role is to move blood sugar from the bloodstream into the cells for storage. And that's why I call it the fat creation and storage hormone.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So insulin has two primary roles, regulation of blood sugar, fat creation, and storage. It also has other roles, but those are the two primary ones relevant for this conversation. And a beautiful example of that is a type 1 diabetic. So people with type one diabetes, they don't make their own insulin anymore. So their pancreas isn't making insulin.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So if they eat a high carbohydrate meal, their blood sugar is going to spike and it's going to stay elevated. It can't get into the cells to be used for energy or to be stored to be used later for energy. And so type 1 diabetes used to be called the wasting disease because people would literally waste away. They would eat, eat, eat, eat. They'd be thirsty.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
They had plenty of available energy in their cells, but they couldn't in their body, but they couldn't get into their cells because insulin wasn't there. to unlock the cell for the energy to get in. And so once insulin was created and a type one diabetic could then inject themselves with a proper amount of insulin, then it was now a survivable condition.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So that's a really beautiful example of why insulin is crucial for our livelihood. We can't survive without it. But the problem comes when our levels of insulin are elevated too high for too long because insulin is an inflammatory hormone in excess and inflammation is kind of like the root of all chronic disease. And so when your insulin levels are high,
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
That's going to trigger more fat creation and storage. So from a calorie standpoint, we can talk about this a little bit more. I think this is a good place to put it in. We've been taught about the macronutrients, right? We have carbohydrates, we have proteins, and we have fats. Those are the three major macronutrients. Carbohydrates have about four calories per gram.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Proteins have about four calories per gram and fats have about nine calories per gram. So traditionally, women are taught, men are taught, you need to eat a low calorie diet. to lose weight. You need to be in a calorie deficit. So what do they do? They reduce the fat in their diet because fat's the most calorically dense. So then they're left eating a bunch of vegetables.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And if they're smart, also a bunch of protein, but not a lot of fat. So that's the caloric model, but from an insulin model, if you're looking at like a chart of time and then the insulin response, Carbohydrates at four calories per gram have the highest insulin response. We're talking starches and sugars.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Now, protein will actually reduce that, excuse me, fiber, the other type of carbohydrate, will reduce that insulin response. But for people who are trying to follow this low fat diet to lose weight, if they're having like snack well cookies and Ritz crackers and all of these carbohydrates that are low in calorie, they are spiking their insulin, spiking their fat creation and storage hormone.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So protein has a moderate impact on insulin and then dietary fat has almost negligible. So it's almost reverse, you know, from a low fat to a higher fat diet and protein really needs to be the staple of the diet so that we maintain lean muscle mass. So again, focusing on calories in calories out, all calories are created equal.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
you are losing so much valuable insight on how to actually fuel your body for long-term weight loss. Because when we're focused on that, you're focused on how can I eat in a way that keeps insulin low. So that's going to be prioritizing healthy fats, protein, and fiber, and including starches and sugars if you want strategically, and also building and maintaining lean muscle mass as you age.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Because when we're talking about glucose after a meal, For example, when you're eating a high carb meal, it has to go somewhere. Like where does that glucose go? Well, your muscle tissue is a really big repository for glucose. And the more muscle mass you have, the better insulin sensitivity you can have and the easier your weight will stay off.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So it is a much bigger conversation than just how do I lose weight or, you know, eating a low calorie diet. It's really about how do I eat in a way that keeps my insulin and inflammation low and also supports healthy muscle mass so that the weight that I lose can stay off.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Absolutely. Well, I think especially for women going through menopause, they know that that is kind of a volatile time for their hormones. And a lot of women are like, oh, I gained weight because of menopause or menopause is causing me to gain weight. I'm like, no, it's not. Menopause is a date on the calendar one year from your last missed period. So blanketly blaming menopause is not helpful.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But understanding the hormonal changes that go on during menopause that cause you to gain weight during menopause, and specifically for a lot of women, they're gaining belly fat. They might notice that the belly fat that they have is getting firmer or harder.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
That's indicative of more visceral belly fat, which is more unhealthy, more inflammatory than the subcutaneous fat that's under the skin that you can pinch with your hands. So women during this menopausal phase of life, they very well may be noticing 20, 30 plus pound weight gain in the years surrounding menopause, even though they're like, I'm not eating any differently.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
I'm not exercising any differently. I'm having some menopause symptoms, but I should not be gaining this weight. And as a woman, I think it's wise of us to go back in time and say, well, when else did you gain weight in your life without really changing what you were eating or how you were moving? And there's two other times, puberty.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So when a girl goes through puberty, she's going to gain weight. But then also really telling one is pregnancy. And so if you're looking at how does insulin change during a woman's pregnancy, insulin goes up during pregnancy. Insulin resistance goes up during pregnancy because the body is trying to gain weight.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So lo and behold, if we look at, well, what happens with insulin as a woman goes through menopause, it goes up. And the reason is because when a woman goes through menopause, her estrogen levels go essentially plummet over time. And estrogen is an insulin sensitizing hormone, which means you need a less, uh, less insulin to maintain stable blood sugars.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And if you need less insulin, that's going to cause less fat storage, but as insulin drop, or excuse me, as estrogen drops going through menopause, that baseline level of insulin will go up.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And that's why women are experiencing more weight gain, even though they're not eating differently, even though they're not really exercising differently, their insulin has gone up because their estrogen has gone down.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And another really important key factor at this stage of life is, well, your body needs estrogen, not just for reproduction, but for your brain health, your bone health, your skin health. It's important. It's not just a reproductive hormone. So when your ovaries stop making estrogen, then there's two organs that pick up the slack.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So the adrenal glands, which sit on top of the kidneys, will start to make more estrogen, but also adipose or fat tissue will start to do the estrogen production. So now not only are you having more fat because you have higher levels of insulin, but that fat becomes more valuable real estate because it's producing estrogen and it becomes harder to lose.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And one of the big things that women overlook when it comes to weight loss is stress management. And especially in this midlife range, they might be, you know, getting the kids out of the house or having young grandkids. A lot of times they have aging parents and that's causing a big stress on their life. They're in the thick of their careers or they're nearing retirement. That's a stress.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
the adrenal glands are also responsible for stress hormone production. And so if the adrenal glands are just pumping out the cortisol, pumping out the stress hormone, two things, right? The first is they have less capacity to really optimize estrogen production so that your body relies even more on your fat tissue for that estrogen.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So stress management, if you can bring that cortisol down, you can kind of allow the adrenal glands to pick up even more of the estrogen production to make the body more comfortable releasing some of that fat tissue. But the second thing is Think about what cortisol does. Cortisol is your stress hormone.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And back in the day, if you were faced with an enemy or a tiger is a common example, and you had a runaway, that's a stress on your body. So when cortisol is released, that causes your blood glucose levels to go up so that your muscles have available glucose to soak in when they're contracting and you're running away.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But the problem with modern day stressors, like a sick parent or an angry boss, is you're not really moving your body to utilize that glucose. So cortisol goes up because you're stressed. Your blood sugar goes up in response to the elevated cortisol, anticipating you to fight or flee the situation, but you don't.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And so if muscles aren't soaking that glucose in, the only other way it can get into the cells is through insulin. So that's kind of a double-edged sword on stress in midlife, especially for women, is if their cortisol is going up, their insulin is going to go up, and their fat is going to be more likely to go up too. So that's kind of the whole picture of why weight loss –
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
gets harder after menopause, it's definitely not impossible, but it is the time to optimize your lifestyle, to lower the insulin, lower the cortisol, lower the inflammation. And then your body will feel like, okay, I can, I can release this weight now, but just following a low calorie diet, not going to cut it anymore. So we have to have a more specific approach for this phase of life.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
I like to say there's four pillars to a low insulin lifestyle. There's nutrition, and that includes what you eat, which we kind of already covered, and when you eat. So intermittent fasting, we'll get to that. It includes physical activity. That's the second pillar. Stress and sleep. Those are the four primary pillars.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And I include, if you're thinking about environmental toxins and other types of toxins, I include that in the stress. There's different kinds of stress and that would be a form of cellular stress. And then all of that is on the foundation of mindset. And I describe it as like a healthy habits house.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
If you're trying to build a house of good nutrition and physical activity and good sleep and stress management, and you build it on sand, that's not gonna last. Those habits aren't gonna last. But if you have a strong foundation of mindset, then those habits will last, whether you're going through a stressful season or you have a busy work project or it's over the holidays.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Like anytime somebody gets off track, quote unquote, it's a mindset issue. And so I think that's a huge component of my coaching and of our program is addressing habit change and mindset. And so I think we can kind of wrap that up at the end, but just to kind of dig into some more of the science behind insulin and inflammation. If we're talking about intermittent fasting,
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
What a beautiful question. No one has asked me that question before, so I'm going to have to really think about it. The first thing that comes to my mind, and I'm so happy to unpack mindset. We could have another entire episode on mindset. I think the first thing is comparison.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And so if we're thinking about social media and we're thinking about scrolling through Instagram, scrolling through Facebook, and you're seeing people losing weight, you have no idea how they're doing it. You have no idea if they're doing it in a way that's sustainable, but you compare yourself to them.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Or maybe you see a picture of yourself from 20 years ago and you're comparing yourself to yourself 20 years ago. And you're like, oh gosh, like I have gained some weight. So anything that draws your attention from your progress to like the gap in the progress. I don't know if you've heard of the book, The Gap and the Gain.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Okay. I think that's a really helpful analogy here. So a lot of people focus on the gap of where they are compared to where they want to be. And I think it's a lot more advantageous to focus on the wins and how far you've come. And our brains, primitively, want to look for the negative. We are wired to look for danger and for the negative things that could go wrong.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But we have the power to choose our thoughts. We have the power to choose our thoughts, which means we have the power to choose how we feel. And so if we have that power, we need to use it. And one way that we can use it productively is anytime you find yourself in a gap, like, oh, I've only lost half a pound this month, you're comparing where you are now to where you wanna be.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And we have to, but what else changed in this month? Are you being more consistent with your water? Are you being more consistent with your protein? Are you having a better emotional attitude? Are you sleeping better? We have to rewire our brains to focus on our wins and not comparing ourselves and not focusing on where we wanna be, but instead how far we've come.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But kind of thinking about, especially women and post-menopausal women, a lot of them come from the Weight Watchers generation where the end-all be-all is the scale. And that was the only measurement of progress. And they perhaps were shamed in a Weight Watchers meeting. Like, oh, you only lost a half pound. Are you sure you did everything that you could? And so that really plays into it.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
A lot of like trauma from weight loss happens. And so we have to retrain our brain. Another really, really powerful thing that's overlooked is not practicing gratitude. So gratitude is one of the fastest ways to kind of raise your vibrations. And when I say vibrations, I mean your thought frequency.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
A lot of people are, I don't even know, I wish I knew the percentage of people that were on anti-anxiety medication or antidepressants. And I really wish that physicians knew more about mindset and the power of gratitude and the power of diet with mental health, my goodness, and started to prescribe this stuff either before or in conjunction with those medications.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But when we focus on specific gratitudes, that will help elevate your vibrations. And so I think a lack of that is important. I think the other thing that I want to add in is a lack of understanding. You're like, what are they doing? I don't necessarily think that they're doing something, I just think that they don't understand. that they can choose their thoughts.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And they don't understand that your thoughts create an emotional, like it's actually a vibration in your mind. And the emotion that you feel is a direct relationship to the thoughts that you were thinking. And then the emotions that you feel will drive your actions. Oh, I'm stressed out. So I'm going to go eat. Well, why are you stressed?
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
You're stressed because you had a thought that ignited the emotion of stress in your body, which drove you to eat. And then that eating, if you do it over and over, it becomes a habit. And so I think that a lot of people just aren't aware. that they can choose their thoughts. Therefore, they can choose their emotions and behavior change becomes so much more enjoyable.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
You're not trying to like white knuckle your way there. So those would be kind of my top three things, like being in the gap instead of the game, not practicing gratitude, and then just not being aware that you have so much power that is untapped if you're not paying attention to your thoughts.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And it is funny. Please don't anyone like leave him a negative comment for interrupting me. I see those on YouTube a lot, like not necessarily from you, but oh, I'm so glad that you did that.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Okay, so I'm going to use that haterade in the future probably. So I wanted to talk about the pillars, right? So we talked about nutrition. You want to prioritize a high protein, healthy fat, fiber diet, keep starches and sugars to a minimum. When you do eat them, use the strategies to reduce their blood sugar impact that we talked about.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Intermittent fasting is probably the most powerful tool that you can use to lower blood insulin levels. However, a lot of people are jumping into this tool too soon. So intermittent fasting is pretty much anything over 12 hours. In my opinion, the research will vary. There's not a great definition. It's also known as time restricted, restricted eating.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
You're just choosing to eat within a certain window. So I think 12 hours should be the baseline for pretty much everybody. 7.00 PM to 7.00 AM. That's a great baseline. 8.00 PM 8 a.m. I prefer people to eat a little bit earlier before bed, like stop eating at least like three hours before bed, I think is great for sleep.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Anywho, intermittent fasting will be so powerful, but if you're already stressed out, it's not going to be your best first step or your best strategy because it is kind of like another layer of stress on your body. So for people in pair, for women in perimenopause, it might not be the best solution, especially if they're really stressed out. Men tend to tolerate intermittent fasting really well.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Post-menopausal women tend to tolerate fasting very well. Women who are still cycling like myself, we have to be a little bit more specific around when we're fasting. So like anything longer than about, 14 to 16 hours I save for the week of my period.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Um, and like the week kind of like the week after, but I don't like to fast during ovulation and I don't like to fast, um, the week before my period around, around that time. Um, So the hormone production is just ramping up for women. We tend to need a little bit more food. We want more food. And so like honor your body and fast according to your cycle.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But I tell you what, like if you can tolerate intermittent fasting, once you have those baseline health habits established, again, like mindset, weekly accountability meetings, sleep, water, protein, That's a really, really great strategy for you to move into. But I'm not a fan of using fasting as the end-all be-all.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Because if you don't have good baseline health habits, your results from fasting will be short-lived. And so we want to use it as a tool in the lifestyle. Use it strategically. I think that a lot of people could benefit from like a 16-8 schedule during weight loss. I really like that. And then one day a week doing like a little bit more of an extended fast.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
It's like a 20 to 22 hour fast doing one meal a day. And then one day a week doing like not really any fasting. So having like a... Oh, 12 to 14 hour fast day, kind of like an exception day is what I call it. That seems to be a really nice rhythm for women, especially to lose weight like Monday through Friday. Maybe you're eating 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., an eight hour window.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And then on Saturday, that could be your exception day. Maybe you go out to eat, have three meals a day, and then on Sunday, just have one meal a day. So it's okay to mix up the fasting schedule. And then I usually like longer fasts for weight loss plateaus and for severe blood sugar issues.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So if people have really, really high blood sugars, like one of our members right now doesn't want to take blood sugar medication, blood sugar lowering medication. And so his starting blood sugars were around 300, like baseline. And so he needed a little bit more of an aggressive fasting schedule to get those blood sugars down. So he's doing like a 36-hour fast a couple days a week.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And so for him, that's a good strategy because we really want to be bringing those blood sugars down. For women who have a weight loss plateau, if they can try like a 36 hour fast, that might be a really nice strategy. So I view it as a tool in the low insulin toolbox, but not the end all be all.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Exactly. Yeah. But I love fasting. I think it's a great way to like recalibrate your relationship with food. For me personally, it really highlights a lot of my Cravings are emotional. So is it physical hunger or is it emotional hunger? And a lot of times it's emotional hunger that we're experiencing. And so I think it's a great way to learn those true hunger cues versus emotional hunger cues.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
I do. I think that there are some benefits for autophagy from longer fasts, and she would agree with that. Autophagy is that cellular cleansing process. It starts at about 18 hours of a fast. And the longer you fast, the deeper you get into autophagy. And so there's some really good evidence that longer fasts that stimulate autophagy may be efficacious for cancer prevention.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And so for me, that's the trade-off is I want to do all I can to preserve lean muscle mass. But once in a while, I want to bias the autophagy benefit. And I don't have the weight to lose either. Like I'm kind of in that maintenance phase. Fasting is harder for me. Like I think I did a 40 hour fast once after a really heavy food vacation and that was fine.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And I think I've done a 40 ish hour fast once. another time and that was okay, but it's hard, you know? And I think that there's companies like Prolon. I don't know if you've had them on the, on the show and they're like a fasting mimicking diet where you eat a little bit of food, but you stay kind of under the nutrient thresholds that prevent autophagy is kind of my understanding of it.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
It took me a long time to wrap my head around that. Um, And I think that that might be a little bit more of the route that I go. If I want to focus on autophagy, like boosting it just to make it a little bit easier for me. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, in general, I agree.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And it's interesting, like Dr. Peter Atiyah, I saw he was on some show, maybe, you know, like some Netflix documentary with maybe Chris Hemsworth and he was having him do a four day fast. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Right. But then in his book, Outlive, which was very dense, did you read Outlive yet?
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Exactly. Yeah. And I really thought that was really interesting that he changed his mind on fasting. I used to prescribe like those longer extended fasts and now I don't think the trade-off is worth it. And I'm like, that really makes sense. So I kind of agree with like Dr. Atiyah and what Cynthia is saying. And just from my own personal standpoint, like
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
I feel better when I don't fast for an extended period of time, but I want to do it occasionally just for the autophagy, but I probably won't make it that long, that long, like a four day fast, a five day fast. Like it's just not probably in my, and I don't have it in me to do it.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So I think that there's benefits, especially for people like that gentleman I was talking about for blood sugar management. There's benefits for those extended fasts, but for just people at a healthy baseline, we got to prioritize the muscle mass, I think.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Yeah, let's talk about sleep next. A lot of people don't understand how important sleeping, you know, seven to nine hours a night is. I think eight's kind of the sweet spot. And I used to say, I'll sleep when I'm dead. I used to get, you know, five to six hours of sleep regularly a night and didn't know, like, I just think a lot of people don't know how important sleep is.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So the reason that sleep is really important is because of how it affects your appetite. If you are not sleeping well, you're going to have a higher level of stress. So cortisol. And those levels of cortisol actually make you want to eat more carbohydrates. So that's an important thing after a bad night of sleep, like just pay more attention to your hunger and your satiety cues.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
You're going to be more likely to overeat. You're going to be less likely to feel full after you eat. It also just doesn't recharge that willpower battery, like that emotional reserve that we all have before we get to the screw it line in the day. Screw it, I don't care. Like the better, the more sleep you have, the more reserve you have before you get to that screw it, I don't care line.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So sleep is important. It's important for your hormones. It's important for muscle mass, like human growth hormone, for example, spikes at night when you're sleeping. That's when you repair. That's when your muscles build and get stronger. So again, back to the muscle conversation, sleep's important for that. I think that, like I said earlier, everything is easier with sleep.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But it ultimately comes to how does it impact our hormones? And it impacts your ghrelin. It impacts your satiety hormones. It impacts your cortisol. It impacts your human growth hormone. And so some practical tips for people to sleep seven to nine hours a night. Very important. consistent sleep and wake times.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So if you're really struggling turning the TV off at night, you have to ask yourself, like, is it more important that I watch this one more episode or is it more important that I get a restful night of sleep to support my health? Like, obviously that's more important. So you have to be on the same page with your partner about what time is bedtime.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Um, I want you to, if you need to set an alarm on your phone, if you need to, I wish that like TVs had like automatic shutoffs or something like that. But stop, you know, stop at the middle of the episode before they hook you in with another hook. Stop between episodes. You got to figure out a time to turn that TV off. The other thing is blue light blocking is critical.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So blue light is emitted from all of our screens, cell phones, computers, TVs, tablets. And the amount of blue light that's emitted naturally as they make their products is about the same that you get from the sun at noon. And blue light goes into your eyes and it actually causes a slight elevation in cortisol. Again, the stress hormone, but it's not just like, oh, we need to fight or flee.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
It's also let's stay alert. We need to stay alert here. Cortisol and melatonin, which is your sleepy hormone, are on a teeter totter with each other. So if cortisol is up, your melatonin cannot come up naturally. And so when we block that blue light, we help lower the cortisol production so that melatonin can naturally come up.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So if you're popping a melatonin gummy or you're taking a melatonin tablet and you're not already blocking your blue light, please do that. You need the orange or like the amber colored, like the blue light blockers, not just the yellow, not just the light tinted. You need the ones that block nearly all blue light.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Yes, your TV will look funny, but you will sleep deeper and you will fall asleep faster because your melatonin is naturally increasing. So a couple things, and that's so obvious. It's like, if you've had a stressful day, of course, it's harder to fall asleep. Of course, your sleep isn't that good. And that's again, because your cortisol is up. So your melatonin can't come up.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
A couple other tips is to eat carbohydrates earlier in the day. So a higher carb meal around bedtime might impair sleep and try to stop eating around three hours before bedtime. That's going to help obviously reducing alcohol intake.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
If you choose to drink, do it earlier in the day so that it has time to metabolize and it doesn't wake you up in the middle of the night from your blood sugar kind of spiking and then dropping again. Early morning sunlight is gonna be great for your circadian rhythm to help reset that internal clock. If you can get outside,
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
It it's so hard sometimes, but even like, I'll just pause when I take the kids to school and I'll try to look towards the East and get some natural sun in my eyes, even if that's all I get. It's a pause within about 90 minutes of the sun coming up. So all of those are some really simple tips that people can do to improve their sleep.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But cleaning up your diet will help too, like reducing the added sugar, reducing the blood sugar spikes throughout the day. That's all going to be great for your sleep. Some simple things people might not think about is an eye mask and earplugs. So we want it to be dark. We want it to be quiet and we want it to be cool. We live in a farmhouse that'll be 100 years old in 2030.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And so there's really poor insulation in the closets. And so we got an eight sleep, which is a mattress cover that, have you heard of that one?
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Yeah, I like it too. And it really helps because in the thick of the summer, our bedroom's like 80 degrees. And I'm like, oh my gosh, do we need to get a window AC? What are we going to do here? But the eight sleep, it can cool off or it can heat up based on what you need. And so that's really helped me sleep better in an environment that can get kind of cold or get kind of hot.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So I think all of those are basic sleep tips and people aren't doing them. They're so simple. And I think it's Jim Rohn that said, you know, it's the simple things that lead to success. The hard part is it's like it's easy to do. the simple things that lead to success, but it's also easy not to do them. So that's all these things that I'm talking about that we're talking about.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
They're simple habit changes and they really have a cumulative effect. And that's why when someone comes to me, someone came to me today during a coaching call I was like, what do you think about this blood sugar supplement? And I'm like, I think we have bigger fish to fry. Like, are you doing your mindset stuff? Are you sleeping? Are you drinking your water? Are you eating your protein?
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Are you eating your fiber? Like once we have these in place, let's sprinkle in some supplements to augment your results or to break a plateau or whatever we need to do. But if we're ignoring these simple basic health habits, which so many people are, you're not going to get results. You can't out supplement an unhealthy lifestyle. So I think that's a really important point.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
And then the last phase of the pillars is stress. And I wanted to save this for last because it really works into mindset nicely. So for stress, there's different types of stress. There's emotional stress. There's physical stress, there's metabolic stress, there's cellular stress.
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The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So emotional stress is like you're angry, you're scared, you were offended, you were hurt, you're stressed out, you feel it viscerally in your body. The physical stress would be things from like a high intensity interval training session, intermittent fasting perhaps, strength training. All of those would be good stressors on your body in moderation. not in moderation.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
The next would be like a metabolic stress. So when you have those refined seed oils or when you have added sugar, that's a stress on your cells. And then the last would be like the cellular toxins. So if you're eating things out of plastic or if you're cooking on nonstick cookware, I live on a farm. We have pesticides around us. Like that's definitely a cellular stress.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
which concerns me a little bit. So, you know, heavy metals in your water. For example, we really tested the water when we moved into the farmhouse, because I wanted to be sure that our old pipes weren't leaching metals into our water. So all of those things are cellular stress. but predominantly the biggest problem is the stress caused by our own thoughts. And that's where the mindset comes in.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
So, so many people are causing inflammation by their negative thinking. And so, When it comes to stress management, I mean, I'm never going to tell someone don't go to counseling. I think if you need professional help, please get professional help. There are also so many things that you can do to help your own mental health.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
Every single thing that we talked about today is going to help your mental health. Exercise can be very beneficial. From an insulin standpoint, I kind of skipped over this one, but we want to focus on strength training, all major muscle groups, at least twice a week at a moderate to high intensity.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
That means that you're getting to muscle fatigue, like where you can't do another one with good form after about 10 to no more than 15 repetitions is what I usually recommend. If you're doing more, you need to increase your weight.
Dhru Purohit Show
The Biggest Warning Signs That You Have Fatty Liver and What To Do About It
But then whatever reduces your stress, if that's gentle walking, if that's running, I used to teach jazzercise, if that's yoga, we want to do the stress reduction physical activity exercises. Those are the two that we focus on at least at first. So that can be great for stress management.