Do You Have The 3 Big Undeniable Signs of Metabolic Damage?

Today we are going to answer the question: Do You Have The 3 Biggest Signs of Metabolic Damage?

Kathy is a 64 year old retired nurse from Ontario.  She had spent her whole career working in health care and considered herself pretty knowledgeable about health and the signs and symptoms of what health looked like… and didn’t look like.

Which is why she was worried.  

She knew her health markers were heading in the wrong direction if she wanted to be playing on the floor with her grandkids for the next 15 years.  

Kathy knew she needed to lose weight and get healthy but she didn’t know where to begin. She didn’t know (yet) that her health markers were telling her exactly what she needed to do and exactly what was wrong.

Kathy hadn’t been exposed to the three big signs that she was suffering from metabolic damage. So she could quickly self diagnose the root cause of her weight problem and poor health and focus on getting the right solution so she could focus on her life, not her weight.

So, I want to dive into those signs for all of us with: Do You Have The 3 Big Undeniable Signs of Metabolic Damage?

Sign #1: Stubborn Belly Fat

The first sign of a damaged metabolism is stubborn belly fat.  

Do you have stubborn fat that is accumulating more and more around your belly? This is the classic symptom.  More importantly, is the circumference of your belly more than 35 inches?

Metabolic damage causes your body to preferentially store fat in your belly.  And it’s ridiculously stubborn.  Even if you do lose weight, it comes off your tummy last.

This is a hallmark sign of metabolic damage.  This means, in order to burn inches of fat off your belly, you need to repair your metabolism, not do more situps.  You need to learn what and when to eat to get your metabolism to a place where it stops storing fat in your belly and starts burning it.

Without this repair work, without fixing this root cause, you may lose a little weight in your face, arms or legs, but that belly will just continue to grow.

This is actually dangerous as well, because what’s really happening is that your body is storing fat inside your organs like your liver and your pancreas.  This leads to things like diabetes and fatty liver and can make you very unhealthy.  It’s also storing fat around your organs, this is called visceral fat.  This is the dangerous fat associated with heart disease.

If you have stubborn belly fat, especially if the whole area from your bust to your legs is growing, that is a big warning sign that you are suffering from metabolic damage and weight watchers don't address this. At all.

Sign #2: Low Energy

The second common symptom of a damaged metabolism is low energy.

Low energy is a blaring sign that you’re not creating good clean energy from your food or your fat and this is due to your damaged metabolic machinery.  This is as clear as night and day.

If the car engine is broken, no matter how much gas you put in, it’s not running at 45 mph all day.  Nope.  It’s sputtering around, barely making it.

Low-energy can look like this:

Waking up super tired like you never even slept.

Needing caffeine first thing in the morning or you’re a total mess.

Craving high carbs, sweet foods for breakfast.

Needing snacks at 10am to help perk you back up.

You need “perking” with food all the time.

You’re hungry all the time.

You have to eat every 2 hours. 

You can’t think well and get foggy without food.

You get cranky if you don’t eat every 2 hours.

You need caffeine by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. 

You always feel sluggish.

You say things like,” I need rest” or “I better not overdo it.”

You take naps.

You can’t stay awake while reading or watching TV or a movie.

You’re just tired.

This is what it feels like to suffer from metabolic damage.  It looks like a haggard, tired woman with too much weight… it feels like a haggard tired woman with not enough pep.

If you feel you’re propping up your energy levels all day, especially with food or caffeine, you are most certainly suffering from a damaged metabolism.

Sign #3: Abnormal Lab Values

Now, with this third symptom we are going to get more concrete.  And to be clear, you don’t need all three symptoms to know you have metabolic damage. One yes and that’s your answer. You know what you need to do: stop dieting and repair your metabolism.

This symptom is helpful because it can show you that metabolic damage is a real clinical thing, not one that I made up and one that you can see get objectively better as you repair your metabolism. 

How do you know when it’s fixed?  We have objective measures for that too.

These are going to be your lab numbers.  We are going to look specifically at your fasting blood glucose level, or your fasting blood sugars. There are lab markers, but for this video, your blood sugar is a good starting point.

Ok, with your fasting blood glucose, this is a big red flag.  Normal levels for the US should be 70-99 mg/dL or if you’re Canadian, 3.9-5.5 mmol/L.  I see the beginning of metabolic damage and belly fat at a fasting blood glucose of around 88 mg/dL.

If you’re over that number at all, really over 88, you are suffering from metabolic damage.  You are burning sugar all the time and not fat and you’re not even burning the sugar well.  

It’s hard on your body to have high blood sugars all the time, these high blood sugars both create metabolic damage and are a symptom of metabolic damage. 

Ok, let’s summarize what we’ve talked about today.

If you are a woman over 40 with stubborn belly fat that won’t come off with diet or exercise, or if you feel like nothing you’re doing is working and you can’t lose weight you are dealing with metabolic damage that needs to be fixed. 

If you are a woman over 40 with low to no energy and need snacks and caffeine all day.  If you just feel sluggish and tired and like you’re not at your best energy levels you are dealing with metabolic damage that needs to be fixed so that you can have energy.  No amount of sleep, snacks or caffeine will fix this.  Once you fix your metabolism, you’ll be able to burn your body fat for energy and feel amazing.

If you are a woman over 40 with higher blood sugars you are certainly dealing with more severe metabolic damage and your body is in a state of reactive crisis every time you eat.  No amount of exercise or portion control is going to fix the metabolic damage that is being shown in your lab work.  Once you fix your metabolism, your blood sugars will normalize and your labs will normalize, including your cholesterol.

These are not the only symptoms of metabolic damage, but they are three big ones.  

The Freese Method is a 12-week metabolic repair program for women over 40 who need to lose weight, especially belly fat, achieve glowing health, and never gain back a pound.  We use 5 foundational steps to help you do the right things in the right order.  To know what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat, why you eat and how to protect your new metabolism using all real food, no supplements or weird things.

This is a real transformation. This is the way you should be eating forever.