Sugar Insulin And Perimenopause

Dr Kirstey Holland 0:04

Sugar, insulin, and perimenopause. What happens to your blood sugar across the day and why it changes now? Last week we talked about food as inflammation and the fact that food basically sends text messages to your hormones and your organs and the rest of your body, and how the same meal can raise one woman's blood sugar gently and send another woman's saw ring.

Why Walks And Muscle Matter

Dr Kirstey Holland 0:32

This week I want to go closer in to the one hormone underneath all of that, which is insulin, and to what actually happens to your blood sugar across a single day. A couple of tips before we stalking around the block after meals can definitely help with blood sugar and insulin, and it can help you feel far better and stabilize blood sugar and stop the crashes. The more we exercise, the more muscle we build. The more muscle we have, the better we cope with more blood sugar and an insulin resistance picture. So moving is really, really important. Every single time we go for a walk, the cell opens, glucose goes into it, and we can use that glucose up. Now, because we're moving into a more insulin-resistant state in perimenopause, which is so unfair, we want to leave the glucose and the sugar alone as much as possible. So adding additional carbohydrates, things like oat milk or table sugar, to our food is only going to spike or exacerbate this picture. So it's going to send our blood glucose much, much higher, and we're also going to have to come crashing down. So we could potentially feel hyperglybitchy. So it's really important to stabilize and balance blood sugar and blood glucose. The

The Power Cuppa Explained

Dr Kirstey Holland 1:55

power cupper is designed to do exactly this, either in between meals or to start you off at the beginning of your day to extend your fast and support your body getting into a fat burn state and out of a fat store state. You've got a beautiful amount of collagen in there, sending the message to your body that we've got a little bit of protein on board. You've got your GI restore, which is your insoluble fiber, and you've got your beautiful exogenous fat, which is the MCT oil powder. That fat your brain absolutely loves. Your brain loves burning fat as fuel. It also teaches your body how to become metabolically flexible because your body goes, oh, I love this fat. Your brain absolutely adores burning fat as fuel. That's why lots of women report feeling really energized and they feel like their brains are on when they use the power copper in the morning. And of course, you're also starting to see the um the body composition changes as that weight starts to shift. You build more muscle and you lose more fat, of course, through moving in a way that you love. So all of the systems are connected. So please keep that in mind. Here's the picture.

How Insulin Resistance Builds

Dr Kirstey Holland 3:04

When you eat, your blood glucose rises and your pancreas releases insulin to move that glucose out of your blood and into your cells, where it becomes energy. So you can actually use the fuel that you've just eaten as petrol for your body. Unfortunately, when we're insulin resistant, we can't actually use the energy from our food as fuel because it's blocked in a sense. So that's why after eating, we can crave sugar, which is tragic, right? Because we should be able to access the energy from our food. But that's what happens if we're insulin resistant. And just a quick reminder doing our fasting insulin on a blood panel is a really helpful way to see whether we're insulin resistant. Other signs and symptoms are really thick, crusty, cracked skin on the bottom of your feet. Acanthosis negricans, which is the darkening of the skin in the neck, underneath the armpits, or in the brain, and skin tags can be a sign of insulin resistance. So that is the system working as it should. In perimenopause, the systems start to change because as your estrogen falls, your cells become less sensitive to insulin. So the same meal you've eaten for years now raises your blood sugar higher than it used to, and your body has to release more insulin to bring it down. When insulin overshoots, your glucose drops too far, and that is the afternoon slump, or it can be, the three o'clock craving for something sweet and the hangry feeling that comes when you've gone a little too long without eating. If you're unable to go between meals without feeling hangry or hypoglybitchy, you are not metabolically flexible. That's where we need to make sure that you are. Over months and years, when your cells are asked to cope with high insulin again and again, they stop responding to it properly. This is insulin resistance. And it is where the weight around your middle, the brain fog, and the energy crashes, and the cravings that feel impossible to ignore start to come from. Other cravings can come from unbenficial bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, but that's a different kind of craving. This sits in the reclaim phase of the hierarchy of healing because reclaiming your metabolic health is what reclaim is for. It matters because when your blood sugar is steady throughout the day, your energy comes back, your mood is better, your sleep improves, and your weight stops climbing. This is not about willpower, it never was. And it becomes much clearer once you understand what your body is doing and why, so that you can work with your biochemistry instead of against it. If you've ever eaten a good lunch and then found yourself hunting through the cupboard at three in the afternoon, exhausted and craving something sweet, this week is for you. That afternoon crash is your blood sugar rather than a lack of discipline. And once you understand what is happening, you can do something about

A Day Of Cravings And Slumps

Dr Kirstey Holland 6:03

it. I want to tell you about a woman I saw whose whole day was rule ruled by this pattern and who assumed for years that it was just how she was. It turned out to be her blood sugar, which was one of the most changeable things in her whole health picture. I really want to validate this, and I want you to be able to recognize it. Let me begin with the day you already know. You may wake up tired even after a full night in bed. You get going on coffee. By late morning, you're hungry in a way that feels urgent, not gentle. Lunch helps for a little while, and then by mid-afternoon you hit a wall. Your concentration goes, and you want sugar or bread or another coffee to get you through the evening. By nighttime, you're wired and tired at the same time, and the next morning it begins again. You have probably been told to eat less and move more, and you've probably done exactly that and watched it make very little difference. I want you to know that this pattern is real, it is common, and it has a mechanism. When I explain that mechanism to a woman in my clinic, the relief on her face is the same every time, because for the first time the problem is something that she can see rather than something she's failing at.

Metabolic Flexibility And Brain Fog

Dr Kirstey Holland 7:20

Understanding the biology. Here is the biology. Glucose is the sugar in your blood that your cells use for energy. Insulin is the hormone your pancreas makes to move that glucose into your cells. Every time you eat, especially foods that turn into sugar quickly, your glucose rises and your insulin rises to meet it. In a body that is responding well, the glucose goes into the cells, your blood sugar comes back down smoothly, and you feel steady. Now bring in perimenopause. Estrogen has a direct hand in how sensitive your cells are to insulin, and as your estrogen falls and swings up and down unpredictably, your cells become less sensitive to insulin's message. The glucose does not move into the cells as easily, so your blood sugar stays higher for longer and your pancreas responds by releasing even more insulin to force the glucose in. You end up with more insulin in your blood doing less work, and that is the beginning of the whole problem. There is one more piece to name it, because it explains the exhaustion. When insulin is chronically high, your body stays in a sugar burning state and cannot easily reach into its fat stores for energy. We were designed to be metabolically flexible, which means we can burn both sugar and fat as fuel. Your metabolism is meant to be flexible, switching between burning sugar and burning fat depending on what you need, a bit like a hybrid car moving between petrol and electric. In perimenopause with declining hormones and rising insulin resistance, that switch stops working well and you get stuck in sugar burning mode. That is why you can feel constantly hungry or hangry, crash in the afternoon, and gain weight even while eating less. Let's connect the symptoms to the root causes. Let me connect the symptoms you feel to what is happening underneath them. The afternoon crash is your blood sugar dropping after an earlier spike. The sudden strong craving for sugar is your body asking for a fast way back out. The hangry feeling that irritability when a meal is late is low blood sugar reaching your brain, because your brain runs on glucose and does not cope well when it dips. The weight settling around your midline rather than your hips is insulin resistance and falling estrogen changing where your body stores fat. The brain fog belongs here too. During the menopausal transition, your brain's ability to use glucose can decline at the very time your blood sugar is becoming less stable, and the result is that foggy walking into a room and forgetting why feeling. So this is why in perimenopause, there's never been a time in your life where you have been more inflamed with less energy. It is literally an energy crisis. When estrogen is dropping off her high, high peaks to her low lows, your brain is not able to use blood glucose in a way that it once was before. The brain requires ketones as fuel. That is why it is so important for us, in my opinion, to ensure that we are metabolically flexible and therefore we are able to burn fat as fuel. So we really need to start exercising that muscle of time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting, as well as the power cupper to get us there. There is a morning version of this, which I'll name because so many of you feel it. It is called the dawn effect, the natural rise in cortisol and other wake-up hormones between four and eight in the morning that raises your blood sugar to get you going. In a woman with insulin resistance, this early morning glucose rise can be more pronounced, which is part of why you can wake at three or four anxious or wake already exhausted and craving something. Introducing the healing framework.

Tests That Reveal Insulin Resistance

Dr Kirstey Holland 11:19

So what do we do? Firstly, we start the day with the power kappa. We get into a fat burn and out of a fat store stage right away in a supported fasting mimicking approach. We do this in the right order, the way we do everything in the hierarchy of healing. We do not jump to the metabolic work first. We repair the gut, we rebalance the hormones, and then in reclaim, we restore your metabolic flexibility so that your body can move between burning sugar and burning fat again, and your blood sugar is steady through the day. Before any of that, we gather the data. Because I do not want to guess at your blood sugar, and neither should you. In the foundational blood testing, there are three tests that reveal this clearly. Fasting insulin identifies the early signs of insulin resistance, often years before anything shows up in a standard result. HBA1C measures your average blood glucose over about the last 90 days, so it shows the pattern rather than a single snapshot. A glucose tolerance test reveals how your body handles sugar over time. Most standard GP panels do not include fasting insulin, which is exactly why so many of you are told everything looks fine when it doesn't feel fine. You may not be testing the right thing. Insulin resistance can start 10 years before blood glucose will change on a blood test. When you're asked to notice anything through this week, whether that is your energy, your cravings, your mood, or the timing of your afternoon slump, please use the perimenopausal symptom tracker first, then the lifestyle, food, mood, and pain diaries. They're there so that you can see your own pattern rather than trying to hold it all in your head. Some practical tips. Here

Build Meals For Steady Blood Sugar

Dr Kirstey Holland 13:11

is what you can do this week, and none of it is a restrictive diet. I always want you to eat according to your ideal foods in a way that satiates you. You are a mammalian creature. You need what you need. This is not about restriction. This is about satiety. Start with what steadies blood sugar rather than spikes it. Build your meals around the lean protein and plenty of green and colorful vegetables, and be more mindful with your carbohydrates than cutting them out completely. When you do eat carbohydrates, eat them alongside protein, fat, or fiber rather than on their own, because that slows how fast the sugar reaches your blood. This is where I'd remind you to have a look at the power in your plate teaching. Eating your salad or your um staring your salad or your grains first, then your protein, then your starters and your carbohydrates last. Pay attention to your afternoon. If three o'clock is where you crash, look at what you ate at lunch, because a lunch, that is mostly quick carbohydrates, sets up that crash a few hours later. Notice your mornings too and whether you wake already braced or already hungry, because that can be the dawn effect telling you your overnight blood sugar is not settled. None of this is about perfection. You can always begin again the next meal and the next day. What we are doing is building awareness so that your choices come from knowledge rather than guesswork. So let's just talk about the power in your plate. You've got three cups of green, one cup of colour, and approximately a palm size or a hand-sized piece of protein on that plate frizzled in lots of high-quality fat. Now that should do it. You might just need to tweak your amount of uh veggies to protein to fat to ensure that you're staying in a nice stable blood glucose range. For my patients that are wanting to be in fat burn, I'm looking for a blood glucose between 3.9 and 4.9 a lot of the time. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time.

Recap Plus Reflection Questions

Dr Kirstey Holland 15:24

Right. So here is what we've covered. Your afternoon crash, your cravings, and the hangry feeling are your blood sugar, not your willpower. In perimenopause, falling estrogen makes your cells less sensitive to insulin. So the same meal raises your blood glucose or your blood sugar higher than it used to. And over time, that becomes insulin resistance. This is measurable with fasting insulin and HVA1C, and it is changeable, starting with the food on your plate. This is something that we can reverse within three weeks. We do the metabolic work in reclaim in the right order after repairing the gut and rebalancing your hormones so that your energy comes back and your weight stops climbing pretty quickly. Some powerful reflection questions for you. When in your day do you most reliably crash? And what did you eat before that? At least an hour or two hours beforehand. And if you're noticing a crash, the next, you know, and if it if it's a if it's in a rhythm, so if you're always crashing at three, try a power kappa at two or a teaspoon of nut butter, for example, to balance your blood glucose. What have you been telling yourself the afternoon slump means about you? How often do you eat because you're hungry, and how often to stop a crash? Sorry, how often do you eat because you're hungry, and how often to stop a crash you can feel coming? What does the hungry feeling feel like in your body and who is around when it happens? What does the hungry or the hangry feeling feel like in your body and who is around when it happens? If your energy stayed steady from morning to evening, what would you do with it? What have you been told about your weight that you now suspect was not the full picture? When you last had a blood test done, did anyone check your fasting insulin? What is the one meal this week you could change first? How would it feel to stop treating this as a discipline problem? What would it mean to you to understand your own blood sugar rather than fear it? Some practical implementation.

Quick Actions And Clinical Notes

Dr Kirstey Holland 17:37

Actions that you can begin immediately aligned with the vitality protocol. Build each meal around lean protein and plenty of green vegetables. One cup of colour, three cups of green, at least 200 grams of high-quality protein drizzled in a beautifully high quality fat, MCT oil, olive oil, etc. Be more mindful with carbohydrates rather than cutting them out, and pair them with protein, fat, and fiber. Notice your three o'clock and trace it back to what you ate at lunch. Notice your mornings and whether you wake up braced, hungry, or already exhausted. Use the perimenopausal symptom tracker, then the food, mood, and pain diaries inside the vitality clinic to see your own pattern. Ask your practitioner about testing your fasting insulin and HBA1C, not just a single blood glucose reading. Remember, you can begin again at the next meal. This is awareness, not perfection. Use your power copper or a teaspoon of nut butter or a teaspoon of MCT oil to balance blood glucose between meals or to help you extend your fast. Just don't overdo the MCT oil. You could have thunder pants. Use the tips in the power in your plate teaching. Use one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in water before meals to help you become more insulin resistant. Clinical insights. These are some of the practitioner-level notes from my clinic. Fasting insulin is the test that changes what we can see. It rises years before HBA1C or fasting glucose move. So a woman can be well into insulin resistance while her standard results still read as normal. When a woman feels the pattern but her GP panel looks fine, this is very often the missing test. The afternoon crash and the sugar craving are not two problems. They are the same event seen twice. A blood sugar spike followed by a dip, and treating the spike removes both. A power cupper or a teaspoon of nut butter or MCT oil really helps here, ideally before the crash. So if you're crashing at 3 p.m., try the intervention at 2 p.m. Weight around the middle in perimenopause is a metabolic pattern, driven by falling estrogen and rising insulin resistance, changing where fat is stored, not a sign that a woman has stopped trying. Because the brain runs on glucose, and it is glucose you can dec and it's glucose you can decline in the menopausal transition, blood sugar instability and brain fog often go together. When I steady one, the other usually improves too. This is the reclaim work, and it only holds when repair and rebalance have been done first. It holds sustainably once you have repaired your gut and rebalanced your hormones. Steadying blood sugar on top of an unhealed gut and unbalanced hormones is much harder and it won't stick, which is why the order matters.

Thanks And Next Steps

Dr Kirstey Holland 20:46

Thanks so much for being here today. Can't wait to see you next time. Have a beautiful day. Cheers.