Episode 331: SOLOCAST Top 5 Biggest Blocks to Better Body Composition

In this episode, Tara breaks down the top five hidden blocks to better body composition—low deep sleep and under‑recovery, poor insulin sensitivity, not enough muscle, overeating “healthy” fats, and the “I come last” mindset—plus practical fixes you can start using right away.

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CHAPTERS:

00:00 – Solo intro: 5 biggest body comp blocks

00:45 – Sponsor: Peluva minimalist shoe ad

02:31 – Block #1: Under‑recovery and low deep sleep

07:00 – Fixing deep sleep: stress, nervous system, rituals

12:04 – Sleep environment: cool, dark, quiet room tweaks

13:31 – Night wakings, blood sugar drops, CGM insights

15:37 – Perimenopause, HRT and better sleep

21:40 – Block #2: Insulin resistance and labs that matter

27:33 – Fasting insulin ranges and getting more sensitive

34:23 – Block #3: Not enough muscle mass (why it matters)

41:31 – How to actually build more muscle and recover

41:57 – Block #4: “Eating healthy” but way too much fat

49:28 – Block #5: “I come last” mindset and boundaries

51:51 – Missing piece: fun, joy, play as real health

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

What's up, guys? Uh, I have a solo cast for you guys today. I wanna share with you the top five biggest blocks to better body composition that I'm seeing not only in twenty twenty-six, but definitely highly prevalent, at least in the last three to four years, if not my entire career.

What I see going on currently for a lot of people is that there are a ton of people who are exercising, they're eating relatively healthy, they're trying really hard, but they're missing some of the deeper either physiological or psychological key components that are making this journey much harder than they need to be.

So I hope that this is enlightening for you guys. We're gonna get into our top five. Okay, before we get into the episode, I wanna take a moment to tell you guys about Peluva Shoes. So here's what happened. So Mark Sisson, if you don't know Mark Sisson, you should know Mark Sisson, okay?

Go look him up and start following Mark Sisson. Um, Mark Sisson and also Brad Kearns, who have been on he's been on the podcast, uh, a few times now, and Mark has also. They are, like, legendary OGs in the health and wellness industry. And, um, Mark, who also started Primal Kitchen, if you're familiar with that brand, um, has started Peluva Shoes.

So Peluva means foot glove in Portuguese, and these are minimalist zero-drop barefoot shoes, and they have that five-toe articulation. I resisted trying these out for a long time 'cause I thought they looked nerdy. I'm just being so real. Um, but after many times of Brad being like, "Dude, just try them, just try them," I was like, "Okay, okay, I promise I'm gonna be honest with you." Yeah, I wear them all the time.

I absolutely love them. I didn't think that the five-toe articulation was really that important 'cause I've been a longtime fan of Vivobs and barefoot shoes, and still love Vivobs too. Um, but wow, like, major difference. Like, I was like, "Okay, now I'm, like, really actually using my foot the way I was supposed to." So they are awesome.

Um, I told Brad, I was like, "You're right, dude. I love them so much. They're awesome." Um, and then they offered to sponsor the podcast, so thank you to Peluva, and they also offered to give you guys ten percent off if you would like to try them out, which I highly recommend.

Um, you can go to Peluva, that's P-E-L-U-V-A.com/coachtera, or you can just use the code coachtera at checkout and get ten percent off of your order. And I highly, highly recommend getting some of their toe socks while you're there because you're gonna need toe socks. All right. Let's go ahead and get into the episode.

All righty, biggest blocks to better body composition. Number one, I am starting with under-recovery and low deep sleep specifically. So I know you've probably heard this before, but it needs to be said a lot more times. Your body does not transform during the workout itself. It transforms during the recovery, right?

The training is a stimulus. Recovery is where the magic happens, and there are way too many people that I would say don't either don't really value that or don't really understand what that means. So let's start with deep sleep 'cause this is a huge overlooked piece of recovery. Maybe it's not overlooked.

Maybe you're struggling with that, and I'm gonna get into the nitty-gritty with you on deep sleep a little bit and, like, what the most common blocks are and what you can do about them. And here's why. Here's why deep sleep is, like, critical. Critical, not just for body composition, but your entire quality of life, and I dare say longevity because it's that's when the most potent repair of your entire body happens, including your brain, all your organs, all of it.

So when we hit a vanity standpoint here on body... Maybe it's not a vanity standpoint. Maybe it's a longevity or health standpoint. But whatever your reason for seeking better body composition is, deep sleep is when you release roughly seventy percent of your growth hormone for your entire life. Most of it happens during slow-wave or deep sleep.

This is one of your body's most major repair and recovery states. It's not only the growth hormone release, but it's, it's the muscle recovery, the nervous system restoration, your immune system repairs, your metabolic restoration, tissue repair. It is critical. And I, it, this is honestly, like, if that if you know your deep sleep isn't great, just don't even worry about anything else for a minute and just focus only on that and getting that resolved.

And a lot of the other things, the nutrition, the training, the mood, all of that will get better. So here's why deep sleep matters for body composition specifically. So this is very well-researched, but low deep sleep and chronic under-recovery, which is correlated, the, this is all that it's connected to physiologically.

Your insulin sensitivity is worse. Your cortisol regulation is worse. You're gonna have way more cravings and hunger. Um, you're gonna have way worse recovery from your workouts obviously. Your energy output throughout the day, both in your training workouts and also just throughout the day, is going to be lower.

Um, your ability to build muscle is going to be lower. Your inflammation levels and fluid retention are going to be higher, and you are gonna be more likely to store body fat. So there's a lot that happens for body composition by getting adequate deep sleep. Uh, numbers-wise, we like to see about an hour and a half plus of deep sleep per night.Tracking.

And let me fill you guys in real quick. I am wearing an Oura Ring. I have worn the Whoop strap and the Oura Ring, um, for a long time, both of them. Those two are my favorite, for sure. Oura Ring, um, uh, if we were looking at all the different categories where they've...

people have tested all the different ones and just in my experience with clients, Oura Ring is my preferred, but Whoop strap is totally fine. Like, several of my clients currently have Whoop straps. Um, I have seen decent results with some of the Garmin watches some of my clients wear.

The, uh... When you look at the nitty-gritty, they're not quite as good. Watches don't, they're not as close to the skin always as the rings can be, and so the data can be, like, a little bit more off. But I would say those three, what I have found, have been the best.

Apple Watch sucks. Do not go off your Apple Watch for deep sleep tracking. Like, I have had so many nightmares. It's like, we thought somebody wasn't getting any deep sleep, and then they got a Oura Ring, and they're fine. And I just learned that the hard way. And also, there's, there are studies where they've compared these.

I would not rely on your Apple Watch or Fitbit or those things for, um, sleep tracking. So Oura Ring, Whoop, or maybe a Garmin. I, I say maybe 'cause I'm not quite as sure about that one, but it seems to be okay. Okay So that's what we're looking for is about an hour and a half plus of deep sleep per night.

So let's get into the causes of low deep sleep and solutions. So first, chronic stress, nervous system dysregulation throughout the day. if you're living in constant urgency, overstimulation, over responsibility, emotional suppression, and you just expect your nervous system to just magically become super regulated and totally able to release and relax at night, I mean, there are a few outliers like that, um, and genetics play a role there, but a lot of people, this is the thing.

And they... It's like everybody wants to get all biohacky about it, and it's like, mm, well how often do you feel calm, restored, lots of time, ample space throughout the day? Okay, if that's, like, almost never, it... You're not going to have as great of an ability on a nervous system level to be able to just release like that during sleep.

So some signs that this is you could be you're, like, wired mentally, but your body feels exhausted, your mind is racing all the time, you're waking up around 2:00 or 4:00, 2:00 to 4:00 AM, you have a lot of jaw clenching. Um, your, your fragmented sleep, it's, you know, you're waking up and going back to sleep a lot, or you just wake up feeling unrefreshed.

Okay, solutions. So for this one specifically, the, the nervous system, chronic stress, dysregulated thing, you're gonna have to learn some new skills. You're going to have to... You know, if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll always get or what you've always gotten kind of thing. So you're going to have to implement some new stress regulation strategies during the daytime, not just bedtime.

So it's like maybe creating a new flow where it's like, "Okay, between these big moments of my day, I'm gonna meditate for three minutes," you know, or, "I'm gonna allow myself time to, like, lay down for five minutes during this time and this time." If you work from home, you know, make it yours.

You work for, at a place, "I'm gonna, like, go for a walk and just, like, sit outside for a little while," or whatever you got, right? Just throwing out ideas, but that is gonna have to happen. I also say mindset work is critical for this because a lot of people, like, this, the stories that we're telling ourselves and the beliefs that we believe are very often, uh, either creating unnecessary stress or exacerbating it for way longer than it needs to be there.

So a lot of times we need new tools. We need paradigm shifts. We need ways to work through these things. Um, another simple one, stop working right until sleep. Entrepreneurs, I am looking at you. Business owners, I am looking at you. If you are working all the way until you go to bed, that has got to stop, and I hope you listen to my last one, the fifth thing we're gonna get to in this conversation of the blocks to better body composition because I think there's a huge correlation there.

And I want you to remember me saying this right now when we get to that last one if you're working all the way till bed. You have time to relax. You do. You can figure out solutions on how you can have time to relax. Okay, also more solutions for this pattern of chronic stress.

Reducing overstimulation, like, how can you reduce this, you know... Are you jumping constantly onto your emails and social media between meetings, you know? Is it, do you constantly have to have noise coming in, podcast, books? Like, allowing some time for right? Practicing that skill. Um, evening wind-down rituals. I am a huge fan of this.

Just like if any of you are parents or, you know, one... gonna be

Mm-hmm

the, there's, pretty much every parent knows that if you want your baby to go to sleep more easily, you have a ritual, right? It's like they have their bath, and it's the same scent of the, the bath soap, and then you read 'em a book, and then you nurse them, and then you sing 'em a song, and la, la, la, la, la.

And it, the, it really helps the baby get the cue, like, oh, it's bedtime. We are just big babies that grew up. So, like, what is your nighttime ritual? You ever thought about that? I, uh, what I really recommend is bringing the lights down in your house, even if you don't have...

I mean, it's really cool if you want salt lamps and all kind of stuff. But just having the lights way lower can help. And if you're gonna have a screen in your face, get some blue blocking glasses, but try to work on not doing that. Um, another idea is journaling or some sort of brain dump, walks outside, doing breathwork.

Othership is a nice app for breathwork, um, that is very accessible, and they have free ones in there. Um, healthier boundaries, you know. Um, so you, you know, a few people can manage this, but most can't, and that is you can't live in fight or flight all day and then expect to have deep restorative sleep at night.

Okay. The next biggest, uh, issue, you know, causes of low deep sleep that I wanna talk about is your room being too warm. This is really low-hanging fruit. You want your room between sixty-five to sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit typically works well for many people, maybe a fan. Um, I have one of those Dyson fans in my room that kinda acts like a white noise machine.

Then I've got my ceiling fan, and I've got it turned down to sixty-six at night. So that is awesome. Um, some people might need a cooling mattress pad, especially if you're perimenopausal. It's a great idea. Um, next are light and sound disturbances. I know it sounds like duh, but, I, I mean, I just kinda wanna throw it out there to you.

Like, if your sleep sucks and it's because of, you know, animal... I mean, if you have a baby, like much love, uh, you just get a big hug, okay? Or like little, little kids, I get it. All right. But if it's not that, if it's something that's manageable, like really, really take that by the horns, okay?

Like, you know, uh, is, is your partner snoring? Like, what can be done about it? Like, maybe at least sometimes sleeping in a different area while they work on that. I'm serious, so that you can get the deep restorative sleep that you need. Um, for light, I mean, I have blackout curtains, heavily recommend.

Some people like sleep masks. I can't stand. I do not want a freaking mask on my face when I'm going to sleep. Uh, mm-mm. But for a lot of people, that works really well. Um, again, keep the lights really low in your house an hour or two before bed.

Um, and yeah, white noise for some people can be really, really helpful. All right. Another big reason for deep sleep not being great is blood sugar dropping too low overnight. And if you can, I totally recommend getting a continuous glucose monitor. Um, for resources on that, two options. If you're working with somebody like me or Coach Daria in hire or, you know, somebody who does this kind of stuff, I would recommend getting a cheaper continuous glucose monitor I use Stelo usually, S-T-E-L-O.

It's a hundred bucks for two monitors in each of those last two weeks, so it's like for a month. I think it's a great deal for one of the coolest things you can find out about your body. Or if you're nerdy and you just feel like you can navigate that yourself, you can do that.

Or if you want guidance and you want like a nutritionist in there where you can like ask all these questions and they're watching it and blah, blah, blah, Nutrisense is great, and there's a discount code on my website for that. Okay. But blood sugar dropping too low overnight is extremely common, especially for people who are dieting, highly stressed people, people who tend to undereat, um, very active people.

So if your blood sugar drops too low at night, your body will release some cortisol or adrenaline to wake you up. And, you know, this is a very common cause for that two to four AM wake up people have, and especially when it's, "And then I can't fall back asleep." Perimenopausal ladies, I'm getting to you in a second, but this is part of that, and a lot of it is because progesterone and, um, very commonly estrogen are too low to buffer that cortisol rise in luteal phase.

I'll get there in a second. Okay. But yeah, if you feel like, "Boom, I'm awake," like that's adrenaline. You know what I mean? Um, so sometimes that can be offset through eating, um, more adequately throughout the day, especially carbs. Or, um, sometimes I have to have clients have a little bedtime snack, just some carbs and protein and a teeny bit of fat in there, um, because we're working on their body's ability to store glycogen carbs properly and like release them.

So try that out. Try that out and see if that helps, okay? Perimenopause. Okay. So, um, just wanna say, I mean, part of it is like I always say like you can't escape perimenopause completely, but you can do a lot of things. So for sleep, let me, let me try to sum this up quickly since I know I'm spending a lot of time on this.

Um, so when you're going through perimenopause and you're gonna work with your provider, whoever you go to if, if you wanna do HRT. But at first I'll say if you wanna do HRT. So progesterone is what they're gonna start with first, okay? 'Cause that starts declining slowly. Estrogen just goes erratically, like kinda up and down through perimenopause.

So progesterone is very helpful. Progesterone is very calming. It impacts GABA, our ability to feel cool, calm, collected, not anxious. But it's really only gonna impact you in that first half of the night, right? So if progesterone is working, you're gonna fall asleep, well and s-stay asleep for the first part of the night really well.

But it, it depends on the person. But for some women, that, that's about where it ends, and they still wake up around, you know, two to four AM, and they're like freaking up, and it's the nightmare, right? So if that is happening, and you're having like night sweats and these signs of low estrogen, it might be a great idea to talk to your provider about starting very low dose estrogen because that estrogen helps buffer that cortisol sensitivity, right?

So just throwing that out there. Um, also, if you're not gonna do the HRT route, I mean, definitely recommend a cooler room, um, having possibly like a chili pad or s-you know, some inexpensive version of that. They're really expensive. Um, but like a cooling mattress pad, um, really watch over your nervous system regulation, stress management, um, you know, don't overdo it with training.

All of that, um, can help, but it probably ain't gonna do it all together for most women, okay? Last... couple more on this deep sleep thing 'cause it's so important. I put this first for a reason, okay? It is so critical. If If you've got this on lock, awesome, you know, and I hope you keep listening just so you're aware of these things.

But if you don't, like, this is numero uno where I would pay attention first before anything else on your body composition journey, okay? Alcohol, um, it's pretty well known alcohol is a massive disruptor to deep sleep for most people. Alcohol sedates you, but that is not the same thing as deep restorative sleep.

So I really... when my clients are kind of on a journey with alcohol and figuring out where they're at with that, I love for them to wear an Oura Ring or Whoop strap or some sort of sleep tracker that's actually adequate like that, um, to... so they can just see it, you know, not in some sort of shamey way, just in like an awareness way.

Like, okay, wow. Okay, got it. You know? And it, it's, uh, no pressure, but it, it's just really great to know, you know, and just kinda see that, that reality check. Okay. Uh, late night stimulation. I cannot recommend this enough. I mean, I know everybody has different life, life circumstances, and I'm not trying to be, like, insensitive to, you know, somebody be like, "Well, guess what?

I have to take my special needs kids to their therapist at seven PM, and then I, you know, it's the only time I have to go grocery shopping." I, I... so I'm not trying to be insensitive, okay? I'm just saying, if possible, um, avoiding anything stimulating. Uh, uh, like, honestly, the whole evening if you can.

Like, allow your body to slowly come down. Like, slow down your evenings as much as you can, especially after dinner, right? You can go for a nice slow walk. That's awesome. We're gonna talk about that on our next point, uh, for body composition. But just, you, you know, I, I, I really made an effort to stop, like, going to the stores at night and being all those fluorescent lights and, you know, having social outings midweek so often.

You know, it's very rare I do something like that now. Oh, that has helped a lot. You know? Um, slowing down on the, the doom scrolling and intense work and, like, emotionally activating conversations. Like, if somebody texts me at seven PM on a Wednesday, I'm like, "Oh, I'll have to talk to you tomorrow," most of the time 'cause, like, that will keep me up.

It's too stimulating for me, right? So, you know, reading, stretching, meditation, relaxing music, a nice slow walk, like, talking to your loved ones if you live with people. You know, like, slow it down. It makes a huge difference. Um, okay. And then circadian rhythm. I just have to hit on this.

Uh, there's so much to circadian rhythm, but on a really simple note, if you can work on, if it works in your life, I know some of you guys have extenuating circumstances, okay, but if you can work on going to bed about the same time and getting up about the same time every day, it will change your life.

You will be like, "I had no idea I could feel like this." If you're already doing that, you're probably like, "Yeah, I know, dude." But I mean, really, truly, one of the most profound shifts I ever made in my health was getting my circadian rhythm better. Our bodies love predictability like that.

It's like, "Oh, we get it. This is when all the chemicals do this," blah, blah. So I mean, circadian rhythm regulates your cortisol timing, your melatonin release, your insulin sensitivity, your energy levels, your hormones. Like, it, it is so important. So sleep hygiene is like, um, you know, getting morning sunlight, getting some light from the sun in your eyes, ideally within thirty to sixty minutes of waking, five to fifteen minutes, you know, make it reasonable.

That's huge. lowering the lights at night. Uh, relaxation support, maybe taking some magnesium glycinate before bed, you know, stretching, breathing, reading, calming bedtime routines, and then your body will just start naturally waking up about the same time. And, and, and do that in a way that, like, you can get sufficient duration.

So many people are, like, planning on sleep deprivation.

Don't, don't plan on sleep deprivation. It's so much harder. Your, your, your appetite will be dysregulated. Your energy's off. Your mood is off. Your, your... all of the systems in your body are off. It's so much harder to have thriving health with ease when you are chronically sleep deprived.

So that is... I know I took some time on that, but I really, really wanted to hit how important it is to get proper sleep duration, proper deep sleep. And, um, and just, you know, the last thing I'll say on this whole note is, like, when I talk about under-recovery, I'm not just talking about sleep.

I'm also talking on, like, are you... you know, how, how exhausted are you feeling after your training sessions? Maybe you need more recovery days. This is a point that a lot of people are not adequately giving themselves. Like, and you know, maybe you don't need to go so intense out of the gate at the gym to the point that you just feel like crap for a day or two.

That's not how you should feel after training, you know? So, like, back it off a little bit if you're feeling exhausted after training. Meet your body where it's at. Give it a day or two of recovery, and then do it again. And little by little, you can increase your frequency or your intensity.

Um, but you really, you don't wanna push yourself past your body's ability to recover properly. And honestly, that's one of the reasons I love the Ouras and the Whoops and the, you know, all of these trackers is 'cause a lot of people, you know, we don't have great experience with this.

We're so used to just overriding our bodies that it can be nice to have something be like, "Hey, guess what? Like, you're barely recovered today. Like, you really shouldn't be weight training." So that can be a nice tool for that as well. Okay. You guys ready for number two?

The second biggest contributor to not getting your, the body composition results that I am seeing so much is a lack of insulin sensitivity, and I'm saying it like that for a reason. I'm not saying insulin resistance. I'm saying a lack of insulin sensitivity, and that's why I'm this is why.

So, so a little bit of framework. Insulin, you eat carbs, insulin comes and helps shuttle them into all the cells of your body, right? So the more sensitive to insulin you are, without turning this into a huge physiology lesson, essentially, it's going to be a lot harder for your body to be fat Okay?

I'm putting it really simply for you. Um, it helps... When you're more insulin sensitive, your body will handle carbohydrates more efficiently. Your blood sugar stays more stable, so you're gonna have less energy and mood drops and be having cravings and things like that. Your energy is better all day.

It's a lot steadier. Again, yeah, you're not gonna be reaching for carbs and fast acting, you know, "I'm gonna freaking die. I need some food right now. Ugh, I can't believe I ate that." That drops dramatically, and your body composition just improves more easily, and it's much easier to sustain when you are more insulin sensitive.

When insulin sensitivity is poor, you are going to need more insulin to do the same job, and when that happens, fat storage becomes a lot easier, muscle building becomes harder, and your, your cravings and these, like, mood and energy crashes go up, okay? So let's talk about blood sugar for a second and what this actually means.

So if I wanna talk about functional ranges and then, like, conventional lab ranges for these things. So fasting glucose on a conventional lab, it's gonna say generally anything under 100 is normal. Um, in functional, what I mean by functional is, like, we are looking at the deeper functions of the body and what creates thriving health, not just this person isn't diseased needs, like, medical intervention for a disease state, right?

So in functional ranges, it's generally, depends on the practitioner, but somewhere, you know, in the 80s I always say is, like, fantastic on your fasting glucose. Maybe down to 75 depending on context, up to 90. If I see, like, 91, 92, 93, I'm like, I'm not too concerned about that.

You know, 94 maybe. But once I start seeing, like, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100 plus, I'm like, "Whoa, why was that so high?" Right? It's just a question. It's not enough by itself. Okay. But just so you know. HbA1c, um, this is looking at, uh, roughly three months worth of blood sugar levels.

It's like how glycated your hemoglobin is. So conventional labs are looking at under 5.7 is normal, but in functional, we really wanna see that between, like, 4.8 and 5.3. Depends on the practitioner, of course. You know, if I see 5.4, I'm like, "Okay, that's fine." 5.5, I start to be like, "Mm, is there something going on with this person's blood sugar?" 5.6, I'm like, "I don't really like to see that," okay?

Um, and this is the biggest one. It's fasting insulin, and guess what? You're probably not gonna get it. You're probably... Like, your doctor is gonna most likely give you a hard time if you even ask for it. They're gonna be like, "What? Do you think you have diabetes or something?" Like, so, um, I usually just order this separately.

There's lots of places you can order online, and higher. I have a service that I can just send them labs to get and then they just go into a lab or whatever. But there's probably some that you can maybe just... I know, you know, there's like the general... What does Mark Sisson say?

Oh my God, I forgot. But what I'm trying to say right now is, uh, I use Rupa Health with my clients, and so I can, like, just have them go get, like, just insulin and HbA1c or whatever. Some of the online services that I know of, you have to get like the full panel and spend hundreds of dollars.

I'm not sure if there's something for the general public like that if you, like, just wanted to order insulin online, but there probably is, is what I'm saying. Okay. So, uh, fasting insulin. This one is like, wow. Like, conventional labs will say that anything up, like, two to 25 or sometimes even higher than two, but anything up to 25 is normal.

No, it is not. If your fasting insulin is 24, uh, in my opinion, that's insulin resistant beyond, like, definitely personally. And, you know, in, in metabolic-focused practitioners, we generally like to see somewhere between, like, two and eight, and ideally, like, six or five, four maybe. Up to 10, I would say is generally agreed upon as totally good and healthy.

What I'm trying to say here is, like, I'm not talking about disease.I'm talking about what is going to make it easier for you to have better body composition with a lot more ease. That rhymed. Okay, so like that's what I'm trying to tell you, is like the more insulin sensitive you are, the easier it will be to have better body composition for the reasons I listed before.

So do I like to see like six, five, four? Yes, I definitely do. When I see ten, am I kind of a little bit on the fence of like, "Mm, how much do we need to focus on this?" Yes. If I see 15, am I like, "Do you... you should probably do keto if everything else is aligned for that?" Yep, definitely.

My sister did, uh, was fifteen on hers, and she did keto, and it dropped down to five, her fasting insulin, in a matter of months. It was I can't remember how many months. I made a post about it. But it was, like, pretty fast. I was like, "Awesome." And yes, weight's coming off, better energy, all of that.

So you want to be insulin sensitive, okay? It is going to make everything easier in your body composition. So how do you become less insulin sensitive? Sedentary lifestyle, low muscle mass is a big one, uh, poor sleep, chronic stress, uh, excess visceral fat, actually, like visceral fat in and of itself can, uh, worsen insulin sensitivity, um, ultra-processed foods, constant grazing and snacking.

Yeah, that's my list. So how to become more insulin sensitive? Build muscle, period. the muscle is one of the body's largest glucose disposal sites, right? So you have all these carbs in your system. The I've always called them, uh, carb storage tanks, right? So when you eat carbs, they go into, it goes into your bloodstream as glucose.

Insulin comes to send it somewhere, and it uses what it needs. It, sends it to your brain and your organs and everything for immediate energy, and then it's like, "Oh, what do I do with the rest of this?" Well, if you have room in your liver and in your muscles, it can send it there.

And once all of that is full, then it goes to body fat when you're insulin sensitive. And so the bigger muscles you have, the more room there is to store this glucose. So it's called glycogen once it's stored, right? So I mean, that is a huge advantage, especially if you're somewhat consistently exercising, building muscle.

You're, like, using up that glucose that was stored in your muscles, making room for more. It, like, becomes harder to be fat because you're just it's like a revolving door, right? But if you have very low muscle mass and you're sedentary, your liver and especially muscles, they're smaller. You're not using it up that much.

What is your body supposed to do? It's gotta put that somewhere so you don't, like, go into, like, a coma and die if it gets high enough, right? Um, so it has to store it as body fat. It has to get it out of your bloodstream. So building muscle is hands down my number one way to become more insulitive.

insulitive. Insulin sensitive. Next, uh, how to be more insulin sensitive, improve your sleep. So this is well documented in research. There's tons of studies on this, like they do these, you know, they'll take these metabolically healthy guys, and then they'll sleep deprive them, and then their insulin sensitivity just drops off a cliff.

You know, so that is huge. Um, walking more, um, after meals is great. It's not always possible, but it is great. Um, but just walking more in general really helps with obviously overall health but also with, you know, making sure you're just kinda using the energy that you've been intaking throughout the day.

Um, and then improve your meal composition. Like, quite frankly, since I got fit, like my I hope you guys are here. If you're not here, please practice being here. Like when you're going to make a meal, think, "Okay, I need protein, I need fiber," and that fiber, get that from whole foods, right?

'Cause they're full of micronutrients. When I say fiber, I mainly mean plants. Yeah. Plants, right? Lots of, lots of plants, you know, as long as you don't have some sort of special issue or whatever right now that you're working on with your gut or something. Protein, plants, you know, a little bit of fat, healthy fats on there.

You don't need a lot. We're gonna get into that, actually. It's one of my things. Um, but yeah, like have that balanced meal. It helps so much, and you'll stay full so much longer. Do you guys know that eating, like, omega-3, like fatty like all sorts of fish, omega-3 rich foods and fibers act like GLP-1s in your body?

Like that is how a lot of people have drastically changed their body composition. You know, think of bodybuilding and how they've influenced all these people in the world and all these people changed their physiques dramatically. What were they doing? They Figured out that if they ate more protein, not too much protein, but if they ate more protein and more fiber and whole foods, everything got a lot easier because they were full so much longer, right?

So that is huge on many levels, um, from blood sugar regulation, to feeling full for a long time, to nourishing your body with the building blocks it needs to recover well, et cetera. Okay. Um, all right. So recap. Number one reason that your body composition might not be changing is underrecovery and deep sleep.

Number two was you're not very insulin sensitive. Number three, I am going to highlight specifically insufficient muscle mass. I don't think people realize, I really don't, like I, in my opinion, most people need a lot more muscle mass than they have. Like our lifestyles, we're in this weird part of humanity, right, where we don't have to do physical work, a lot of us, like almost ever.

But like think about humans forever. Like, like think about it. If you had to get your own food and grow your own food and like maybe have animals that you're raising and like build stuff and like, like we need more activity, quite frankly. And the more muscle mass you can have in this modern age, the easier it is going to be to have better body composition, period.

It's like it takes you from everything is hard and like I'm always having to watch what I eat, and I'm like living off salads and like, I don't know, just running all the time when I feel like I'm getting fat and like there's just this everything feels so hard on a body composition level.

It takes you from that to like things get a lot easier the more muscle mass you have. Muscle is not just aesthetic. It is a metabolic organ. It is a glucose disposal site. It is a protective tissue for aging and metabolic health. It is money in the bank is how I look at it.

I'm 43 at the time of recording this. I am like, good for me that I have been spending the last decade plus of my life just building muscle because I know what it's doing for me long-term, and I want that for everybody. And it is, it can become so fun.

It can be be nerdy. I know you guys are nerdy. You wouldn't be listening to this. Like make weightlifting a hobby. Make it a hobby, not a to-do list, not, not something that you just need to do. no, make it a hobby. Get nerdy. Really fall in love with it if you haven't already.

And, and really like understand like your relationship with yourself with weightlifting, right? It's a journey. First you gotta like learn a bunch of stuff, and you're not gonna be able to go all out all the time. But as you go deeper in that journey, you can get really good at it, and it's so fun, and I, I just really can't like shout this message louder.

Like get get more muscle. Get more muscle and your body composition thing will become so much easier. All right. So why low muscle mass makes your body composition harder, well, one is you're gonna have lower metabolic capacity, meaning like that whole carb sponge thing I was talking about, like you just have lower glucose or glycogen is what we call it when it's stored, lower glycogen capacity.

That makes things way harder to have better body composition. Um, your nutrient partitioning gets less. Your, you become less metabolically flexible. You're less insulin sensitive. You're, you have way lower calorie buffer. You know, you feel like you can't really eat carbs without getting fat and blah blah blah. And, um, this whole like skinny fat thing that people talk about, it's just...

I, kinda don't like the phrase 'cause, I don't know, it just feels mean or something, but just wanna highlight, like you can be on a scale, like a, a, a normal weight, right? Like I, I can't tell you how many women I've worked with over the years that are like 140 pounds or something like that, and they're like 30-something percent body fat.

They're like 35, 37% body fat. You know what that means? That means that they have so little muscle. And when you have that little muscle mass, it is going to be incredibly hard not only, only to maintain your body composition. You're gonna feel like you're chronically dieting, always having to exercise.

But like I just think of like what it would feel like to like carry myself around in the world. I... it just feels like life would be exhausting 'cause like you have such little functional weight, right? Like muscle is functional weight. When I, when I qualified for Boston and ran Boston, I had a lot of muscle for a marathon runner, but it was working for me, you know?

And like that feels good. It feels real good, first of all. Like just going about life, it's like I can just move better. I'm not exhausted all the time, but it also is underneath of that is like a way, way healthier metabolic system, okay? Like everything I've just described.

And this is why I've, for years, been like kind of in your face on social media about the programs on women to like not look a certain way and not look muscular. Like it really makes me mad. It really makes me mad because I know what it can do for a woman's quality of life and her energy levels and her long-term like not having to worry about food so much anymore and like this whole, ladies, you listen, you know what I'm talking about, like just this whole weight on your shoulders over your whole life of like, "Oh, no, I'm getting fat," blah, blah, that so many women deal with.

It's like you're free from that.And, and, and you're, you're going to, like, be way less likely to get injured when you get older. You can eat food. You can be happy. You feel better during the day. Your just everything feels so much better. And then we have these programs like, "That's not feminine," and it's like, ugh, it's really sad.

It's like, okay, so we're going to limit our own ability to have amazing quality of life so we can look a certain way to please some sort of standard that got placed on us. Like, mm. So that's why I get kinda... I'm kinda out on your face about that because I had to work through that myself, right?

There was an early point where, like, I was just trying to get fit. I wasn't trying to get, like, muscular or, like, super muscular, right? And then I started getting more muscular, and then I started, like, not training arms and stuff 'cause I'm like, "Oh, they're already muscular enough." And I had to have, like, a little talk with myself, a little, you know, a little, a little moment of, like, you know what?

If if, uh, you know, many of you, it's no surprise I've been single for a while. Like, if some guy doesn't love me because I have muscular arms, screw him. I am not gonna limit myself and what I love doing and what makes me feel so amazing to fit some sort of standard that somebody else is putting on me.

So just passing that along. All right. Um, okay, so, you know, I won't go deep into how to build more muscle, but the, the key things are you need progressive resistance training, you know, continuing to make it harder and harder, eat enough protein, get solid recovery and good sleep, and you need to eat enough food and ideally regulate your nervous system as much as possible.

Okay, number four. Um, this is a little weird one. You I mean, you may have heard me say this on, like, a social media post, but I don't see very many people talking about this in the industry, but I am running into it like crazy. maybe because I teeter in the keto world and stuff, so maybe a lot of people who come to me have kind of been down those paths.

I'm not really sure. I don't know if it's, like, particular to my world or if it's just happening broadly, maybe influenced by the keto movement. But it's this, people who are already eating healthy and living a pretty healthy lifestyle are eating way too much fat.

and they're not keto, right? Like, the mentality has become... Like, I cannot even tell you how often this is happening. A lot. The mentality has flip-flopped. You know, these are people who maybe aren't tracking their, probably not tracking their food. They're just, like, generally eating healthy and exercising and stuff, and they're like, "What's going on?

Like, I eat, like, organic and pasture-raised, and I eat so healthy, and I train, and I walk, and I sleep, and..." This is a big block, like a big blind spot for a lot of people. Um, it's The mentality has become, it's almost like, well, healthy fats are good for you, so, like, oh, that's fine.

But then carbs have become this, like, well, don't have too many of those. Let me keep those mitigated, but fats kinda like, yeah, that's healthy. It, it, the pendulum swing. And the reality is this: fats are, are really good for us, and we need them. We just really don't need that much.

I highly recommend if this is, like, pinging something in you of like, "I wonder if that's going on with me," and you're, you know, you're in this, like, "Well, geez, why am I, like, not... I don't know. Like why do my results not match my lifestyle?" Take a look.

You know, you guys probably know this, but just in case, fat is nine calories per gram, and protein and carbs are four calories per gram. So it's very, very, very calorically dense. And also, fat doesn't have the middleman that carbs have. These carb sponges I was talking about are muscles.

You don't have that with fat. So you eat it, your body uses it to make sex hormones and, you know, cell membranes and, it's good for your brain health, and there are vital processes that require fat. But, you know, you don't, you definitely don't need nearly as much fat as you do protein and carbs if you're not on a ketogenic diet.

It adds up fast, really fast, right? I mean, if you have a salad with avocado and nuts and some cheese and some olive oil, I mean, that salad can quickly become twelve hundred calories with, like, ninety grams of fat or something. I'm serious. And maybe not inadequate carbs, so then your muscles get flat.

You, you, you don't recover as well. You might not even sleep as well, and then you have that extra body fat. This is a huge common thing, and I do think it's part of the fact that modern wellness culture right now has been really, really influenced by keto and, like, bulletproof coffee and fat bombs and, you know, anti-carb messaging.

Let me summarize it like this. If you are not keto, you really need to be prioritizing carbs and protein. Way more than fat, okay? Let's keep it simple. Um, so at some sort of target, you know, granted, I, I... It's really hard for me to give general recommendations personally because I'm like, "Well, what about this and what about that?" But if we're gonna be general, I would say somewhere between 25 to 35% of your total calories from fat if you're not keto and you're, like, intentionally looking at your body composition, okay?

Um, but yeah, it's very common for me to see people eating well over, sometimes over 150 grams of fat a day. So just a word to the wise, okay? So, um, you know, it might be cool to just track a little bit in MyFitnessPal or something like that and see what's going on there.

All right. Number five. Our last one is gonna be mindset, and hear me out, even if you don't think this is you, okay? I call it the I come last mindset. I think that this encompasses a lot of, uh, like what would I say? People think it's something else, but it's this.

Does that make sense? So a lot of people think their problem is a lack of time or a lack of motivation or, um, they're, you know, they're just too busy, right? And I'm telling you, I, I'm inviting you to try this one on and ask yourself when you're in this, like, you know, maybe you're thinking about some sort of change you want to make in your health.

You know, maybe this is inconsistency with exercise, maybe this is inconsistency with nutrition, maybe this is sleep stuff, you know, going to bed too late, whatever. Um, you know, not having time to focus on like nervous system regulation or mindset or any of these things. And, and ask yourself, like, am I just too busy or am I in a I come last mindset?

Because this is how it plays out. Like, it's like work comes first. Work think about that, especially you driven entrepreneurial business owner types.

Think about that. Is work coming before you? A lot of y'all probably don't think you're people pleasers or any of that, right? You're like, "I'm a driven freaking boss," right? But think about that. Is my work... Am I prioritizing my work life over myself?

And then also parents or whatever way this plays out, other people's needs coming before your own. Now, I get it that sometimes they're going to have to, right? But chronically, situationally and chronically are very different, right? Situationally right now, if my son catches the kitchen on fire, um, I'm gonna stop this podcast, right?

But if every single time I'm trying to go to the gym or, you know, I I'm dinners or food is like it's a chronic thing. When it's a chronic thing, we need to look inside, not situationally in terms of how we are relating to our life. Are we really taking the reins and making sure that we are prioritizing ourselves?

Because guess what? Like a lot of us think it's loving to put everybody first and it can be. But especially if you're a parent, if you're modeling for them constant self-sacrifice where you don't matter, that is what they are going to pick up on the most. So think about that as in terms of being loving is like what you are modeling for, especially your kids if you have them, right?

Clients, uh, you know, anything else, right? Family, friends. Like when there's a chronic issue of not prioritizing yourself somewhere in your health, I find it, I, I love to just summarize it as I come last mindset, and I will share with you real quickly. I noticed I got into this after moving back from Hawaii to Utah.

I just was obviously very overwhelmed with that. And, you know, my kids are all acclimating and, you know, in three different schools and trying to run the business. And oh my gosh, we don't have a spatula. And like, you know. And I noticed at the gym I had fallen into the habit of like, you know, walking and working on my phone, but it was going for way too long to the point that I wasn't even lifting a lot of days because I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I went too long.

I just gotta go home now and get on client calls." And I realized after a while I'm like, whoa, I, I, I, this, this has gone way past just that acute moment. I'm like, this is just becoming a habit now where I'm not prioritizing myself. So I made a commitment to myself.

I was like, "No, no, Everything will work out. I will get to my clients. I will get to the other things. I will get to my I matter. I am going to..." Actually, so I had to break the pattern, right? I'm like, I'm not gonna walk first. I'm gonna lift first because I don't want to get stuck in that.

And I'm actually gonna put my phone down while I walk, and I'm gonna walk like I mean it. And that has been such a positive shift for me. And I saw my body composition almost immediately start improving and my stress levels. So sharing that example with you is like, you know, I could have easily just been like, "Well, it's just really stressful and I, I don't really have much time because I have so much on my plate with work." Well, somehow it's all working out.

You know what I mean? So just really inviting guys to consider that, like if there's aspects of your health where you feel like it's situational, that you can't, question that. It's like, is it really just because you are believing, maybe it's subconscious probably, that you only get to do those things when everything else is taken care of.

That is an I come last mindset, right? And, and this, this is huge because then now you're in a, a life in which like you're... It's like servant energy. You know, it's just like everything is responsibility and stress and take care of everything. And that is not good for recovery, uh, quality sleep, excellent quality of life, like healthy hormones and all of the chemistry of your body.

We need-joy, we need space. And so often it's simply because we are not creating that for ourselves. And this is the last thing I'm gonna hit on, on this, um, on this whole episode actually. And it, and it goes along with the I come last mindset. I think a massive, massive piece of health that is missing in many adults' lives is not prioritizing fun and joy and feeling alive.

I actually think men are so much better at this than women, just being honest. Like I see men constantly like out, you know, fishing with their friends or, you know, like going to shoot hoops or something. I just saw a guy yesterday, he's like, looks like he's like, I don't know, in his late 40s, he's got his long board, you know?

Like I do find generally speaking, I feel like men are better at prioritizing this. So just a little push for us ladies like, and also men if this applies to you, is like how often are you prioritizing fun and joy and play and feeling alive? Because without it, when you stop playing and laughing and exploring and being spontaneous and feeling connected and experiencing joy, there, I, I don't, I don't think that's health.

I don't, I don't think health is just having a stressful to-do list of what you should eat and how you should train and taking supplements. Health is so much more than that. Health is being connected to nature and being with people that you love and laughing and laying down in the grass and experiencing joy and dancing and wonder and awe.

Like we, we're missing that focus a little bit in our current, you know, social media health messaging. It's so stressful. It's like everything is just like take this and do this and don't do that and da, da, da, to-do list. And like you cannot, in my opinion, be healthy without happiness.

Yeah. And, and quite often we just need to prioritize it, right? It's like, oh Saturday, okay, well I gotta like clean my whole house and do all these things and then maybe I can squeeze in some fun. You know, and like, oh nope, didn't have time. I'm too tired.

I'm just gonna watch a movie.

I just have a feeling that there is something you can do about that. I really, really do. 'Cause I have been in that boat many times myself, and then I sat with it and I chose differently and I found out I actually did have time and I actually, like it wasn't the external circumstances that I thought they were, it was me not choosing it.

So that is my, my plea. You know, fun, fun is not frivolous. It's not unproductive or irresponsible or something you earn,

especially when it's laughing and being outdoors and, you know, recreational activities and adventure and being with emotionally safe people and novelty and feeling present and alive. It's critical. It's foundational. We are, that's what helps you shift out of chronic survival physiology into like heaven, you know? And, and we just have to choose it.

And, and I definitely am making my, my, my, my plea for being outdoors more because we need it. Our, our, we made way too cool of shelters and we're just in them way too much and it is not good for our bodies, our souls, our mindsets, our moods. We need to be outside more.

So, so the top five biggest blocks to better body composition from my list, especially in twenty twenty-six are number one, low deep sleep and under recovery. Number two, lack of insulin sensitivity. Three, insufficient muscle mass. Four, people who are already eating healthy and they are overeating fat and they're not keto.

And, and five is the I come last mindset, which includes not having fun enough. All right. I hope you guys have gotten value out of this. Please let me know what you thought of this episode, and if you have any follow-up questions, you can definitely DM me on all social media platforms, ideally Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Inside Out Health podcast. I hope it's been helpful to you in your journey. If you think that it might be helpful to someone you know, please share it with them. Please share on social media. It really helps me grow the show and reach more people with these amazing messages.

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