88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Learn what metabolic health is and how to make lasting changes to your well-being.

88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, but don’t necessarily know why or what they can do about it. Learn what metabolic health is and the steps you can take to make lasting changes to your well-being.

What Is Metabolic Health?

Emily Johnson, MSc RD

We’re in a metabolic health crisis that’s only poised to get worse. Just 12% of Americans are considered to be metabolically healthy, and among those who are on the sick end of the spectrum, many don’t know what metabolic health is or how they can make lasting, sustainable improvements to their well-being [1].

But what exactly is metabolic health? Here, we’ll walk through the definition that researchers have agreed upon, explain what’s missing from current clinical guidance, and finally offer strategies to help you take control of your metabolic health through simple lifestyle changes.

Your body breaks down the foods you eat and converts them into energy through a process often referred to as metabolism. However, that doesn’t quite capture the full breadth of what it is. A more accurate way to think about metabolism is that it’s the sum of the chemical reactions in your body that keep you alive.

Whereas metabolism is all the ways in which your body produces and uses energy to keep you alive, metabolic health is how efficiently this process is working. When your metabolism is dysregulated, your metabolic health suffers as well.

In a clinical setting, scientists have identified five key measurements to evaluate metabolic health [2]:

Waist circumference of ≥102 cm (≥40 in) in men and ≥88 cm (≥35 in) in women

Systolic blood pressure of >120 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure >80 mmHg (depending on age)

HDL cholesterol of <40mg/dL in men, and 50mg/dL in women

There are a number of factors that can cause you to fall into the unhealthy range for one of these criteria, including poor nutrition, insulin resistance, smoking, a sedentary lifestyle, inconsistent sleep, and chronic stress or inflammation.

If you meet 3 out of the 5 criteria above, you have what’s known as metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance syndrome. Metabolic syndrome increases your risk of developing chronic diseases like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. One out of every three Americans experiences metabolic syndrome, which can significantly reduce your quality and length of life [3].

The clinical definition of metabolic health is helpful, but it doesn’t paint a complete picture.

That’s because a number or statistic often portrays metabolic health in binary terms, making it easy for you to believe that you’re metabolically healthy as long as you fall within a certain range or limit. 

In other words, even if you don’t have metabolic syndrome, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re metabolically healthy. That’s because metabolic health isn’t binary — it’s a spectrum. A lot can happen between being in a state of good health and developing diabetes and obesity, and oftentimes the symptoms of metabolic sickness go unnoticed or don’t show up until your condition is severe. Being out of the normal or healthy range for even just one of the criteria above can have short- and long-term effects on your health, even if you “feel fine” or don’t experience any visible warning signs.

At Veri, we believe that a better definition captures the entire spectrum of metabolic health, including both the clinical benchmarks and the intangible — but crucially important — aspects of your day-to-day experience. 

What’s missing from the clinical definition of metabolic health is variability — the way your glucose levels fluctuate throughout the day — which offers more insight into your metabolic health than a one-time test. Glucose variability matters as much as, if not more than, average glucose or fasting glucose, allowing you to understand where you are on the metabolic spectrum. A1C tests and glucometers can't show you your variability — the only way is by wearing a CGM (continuous glucose monitor).

Being metabolically healthy isn’t just a checkbox to increase your likelihood of living longer — it’s a way to improve your chances of enjoying a high quality of life and health throughout your lived years, with minimal suffering from mild and severe illnesses alike. Here’s what metabolic health encompasses from a non-clinical point of view:

1. Increased healthspan and the ability to do what you love 

We’re living longer than we ever have, but our quality of life and health is suffering. Being metabolically healthy increases your healthspan, or the number of years you spend in good health, free from disease, pain, and illness. When you increase your healthspan, you empower yourself to be physically and mentally capable of doing the things you love, even as you age. On the other hand, being metabolically unhealthy can dramatically decrease both your healthspan and lifespan.

Stress is a natural response to danger that helps you survive. However, chronic stress has a negative effect on your metabolic health, which in turn is correlated with greater levels of inflammation, obesity, and more. Being metabolically healthy involves managing your day-to-day cortisol levels using a toolkit of stress management techniques. 

3. The ability to adapt for a healthy and enjoyable life

The human body is an incredibly smart and agile machine that can respond quickly to events in order to maintain homeostasis, or physiological equilibrium [4]. When you’re metabolically healthy, your body has greater metabolic flexibility, meaning it can efficiently break down nutrients in food to use as energy, recovers well, and performs the way we need it to in order to function well. This, in turn, can help you live a fuller, richer life and have the vitality to do the things you enjoy.

Nutrition has the most significant impact on your metabolic health. Eating a diet that’s full of fiber-rich vegetables and fruit, lean protein, and healthy fats is not only integral to a healthy lifestyle, but the opposite (eating lots of ultra-processed foods and refined sugars) can have a detrimental effect on your metabolic health. 

What’s the relationship between glucose, insulin, and metabolic health?

Being metabolically unhealthy is often correlated with reduced insulin sensitivity or even insulin resistance, a condition where your cells stop responding to insulin. This can disrupt glucose regulation and puts you at risk for a number of metabolic health problems.

But what exactly does this all mean, and how do these pieces fit together?

Your body’s preferred energy source is the simple sugar glucose, which is found in carbohydrates. Your digestive system breaks down carbs into glucose, which enters your bloodstream and travels to different cells, where it’s transformed into ATP (energy).

The hormone insulin is the key to understanding the relationship between glucose and metabolic health. 

When you eat carbs, your blood glucose levels increase, triggering your pancreas to release insulin, which transports glucose to the cells and tissues that need it and unlocks those cells so that glucose can enter and be converted into ATP.

The proper functioning of insulin is essential to glucose regulation and metabolic health. But factors like nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress — Veri’s Four Pillars of health — can affect your insulin sensitivity, or how readily your cells respond to insulin.

When you eat foods high in sugar, your blood glucose levels spike rapidly, taxing your pancreas as it produces a large amount of insulin to bring those high glucose levels back down to normal. When this is repeated consistently over time, your cells may lose their responsiveness to insulin (i.e., become insulin resistant), a condition that affects 4 out of 10 non-diabetic American adults [5].

Why does this matter? When you have insulin resistance, you tend to have higher-than-normal levels of circulating glucose, even while fasting. As mentioned, fasting glucose levels are one of the five measurements of metabolic health, and when they’re out of range, you increase your risk of metabolic health problems and even metabolic syndrome.

On a day-to-day level, insulin resistance can have a number of effects on your well-being, including:

disrupting appetite and increasing cravings

increasing inflammation, which can chronically stress your body

If you’re wondering what you can do to make lasting changes to your metabolic health, the good news is you can improve your insulin sensitivity with a few simple tweaks to your diet and lifestyle. But it all starts with understanding your unique biology and what works for you.

At Veri, we believe that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. When it comes to the five clinical measurements of metabolic health, you can easily ask your healthcare provider during your next check-up to measure your waist circumference and test your HDL levels, triglyceride levels, blood pressure, and average fasting glucose levels using an A1C test.

But what happens between your routine doctor’s appointments?

We know that glucose and insulin play a key role in metabolic health, and monitoring your glucose levels is one of the best ways that you can empower yourself to make better diet and lifestyle choices. While an A1C test at the doctor’s office can provide you with a three-month snapshot of your average glucose levels, it won’t tell you anything about your glucose variability — or how much your levels fluctuate on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, people with the same A1C results can have vastly different metabolic risk profiles.

This is where a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) (paired with an app like Veri) comes in. Veri tracks your glucose levels in real-time and allows you to look inside your body and see what’s working for your health. Using the data and insights provided by Veri, you can connect the dots of your own metabolic health picture and build lasting habits in each of the Four Pillars to compound over time into better health.

Building healthy habits in the Four Pillars

While a CGM is a critical component in understanding your body’s personal responses to diet and lifestyle, you can start applying the principles of good metabolic health today. Here are key ways to get started, as well as links to our in-depth guides with tips and hacks you can implement today.

Nutrition. Eating a nutritious, balanced diet composed of colorful vegetables, fiber, lean proteins, and healthy fats — while avoiding processed foods and refined carbs — is the most important to way to stabilize your glucose levels. You can also experiment with meal timing (i.e., when you eat) to see its effects on your glucose levels and insulin sensitivity.

Exercise. Getting enough exercise — especially resistance or strength training — is key for heart health (which is inseparable from metabolic health) and increasing muscle mass. This can help regulate hunger levels, glucose regulation, and body composition, as well as improve insulin sensitivity.

Sleep. Practicing good sleep hygiene (getting enough sleep and sticking to a consistent sleep schedule) is critical to metabolic health, as bad sleep can make you less insulin sensitive.

Stress. Cortisol, the stress hormone, makes you temporarily insulin resistant. This is fine when you’re experiencing short-term (or acute) stress, but chronic stress leads to increased insulin resistance and inflammation, which can wreak havoc on your metabolic health.

Clinically, metabolic health is judged according to five measurements: large waist circumference, high fasting blood glucose, high systolic blood pressure, high triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol.

At Veri, we believe that metabolic health means increased healthspan, the ability to move and do what you love, low levels of stress, a nutritious and balanced diet, and the ability to adapt to an enjoyable and healthy life.

Glucose and insulin are the missing links in the metabolic health picture. Insulin resistance or loss of insulin sensitivity occurs when you repeatedly spike your blood glucose levels via a diet rich in processed carbs, a sedentary lifestyle, poor sleep hygiene, and unmanaged stress. 

Insulin resistance is linked to higher fasting blood glucose levels (a marker of poor metabolic health), but may also be correlated with worse body composition, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels.

You can reverse insulin resistance — and improve metabolic health — by monitoring your glucose levels and glucose variability using a CGM in conjunction with diet and lifestyle changes.

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What Is Metabolic Health? - Veri

Should you monitor your glucose if you're non-diabetic? Learn how a CGM can help you gain personalized, actionable insights into your health.

Why Glucose Matters Even If You Don't Have Diabetes

Dr. Vimal Ramjee, MD, FACC

At Veri, we often get asked, “Why should I monitor my blood glucose?” 

It’s a great question — especially since glucose monitoring is often associated with having a health condition like diabetes. But monitoring blood glucose can be helpful for non-diabetics as well: it allows you to gain insights into your diet, nutrition, sleep, and hormones in a way that is personalized, frequent, and actionable. 

Before we answer why you should monitor blood glucose, we need to understand the context. You may have heard that 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, and public health data show that we have been on a downward trend as far as metabolic health goes for quite some time [1]. Cardiometabolic health has been declining for the past decade, and over 800 million people globally are living with obesity [2,3]. 

Poor metabolic health is also associated with a higher risk for chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity and is linked to inflammation, fatty liver disease, PCOS in women, and insulin resistance [4,5].

1. The system is set up to treat people only after they’ve become pre-diabetic.

In its current state, the healthcare system only offers treatment for those who are pre-diabetic or diabetic. 

You maybe see your doctor once a year and get routine bloodwork, but unless your levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, or fasting blood glucose meet the threshold of abnormality, it’s unlikely that you’ll know your metabolic health has changed in any way.

Clinical care is often better equipped to put out fires rather than prevent them — which leads to many of us continuing to have our metabolic health decline, all while thinking we are perfectly healthy.

Metabolic health is viewed as a binary: healthy or unhealthy. 

But that’s not the way it works. Rather than black and white, metabolic health should be viewed on a spectrum, and there is a lot between being in peak health and developing Type 2 diabetes. Understanding where your health lies along this metabolic health spectrum is the first step toward protecting your health and preventing chronic conditions down the road. 

3. People don’t know where they are on this spectrum.

Physical inactivity, poor nutrition (especially a diet high in processed foods), high levels of stress, and lack of sleep are all significant contributors to metabolic health declining over time. While we can become more active or try to eat better, the real issue is that metabolic health decline often happens without us knowing it. 

Since symptoms of metabolic dysfunction tend only to show up when it becomes a severe issue, we’re often unaware of our metabolic health decline. Perhaps more importantly, people are unaware that there are tools to help them do something about it before their health reaches a point of concern. 

4. You can’t predict metabolic unhealthiness by looking at someone.

It’s a common misconception that having an overweight or obese BMI indicates metabolically unhealthy. In the United States, it’s estimated that approximately 10% of adults are categorized as obese based on their BMI but are metabolically healthy, while 8% of adults are categorized as normal weight based on their BMI but are metabolically unhealthy [6].

5. Glucose variability and fluctuation matter as much, if not more than average glucose and fasting glucose. 

Your blood glucose fluctuates throughout the day but is generally tightly regulated within a normal range by your body. However, when you repeatedly eat highly processed foods, skip exercise, miss sleep, and are stressed, your body’s ability to regulate your blood glucose effectively can begin to fall apart. This breakdown of effective glucose regulation is what slowly tips the scales toward metabolic dysfunction. 

In both diabetic and non-diabetic people, research has shown that higher glucose variability is associated with the development of heart disease and oxidative stress, which can lead to chronic inflammation and is linked to obesity [7,8]. Similarly, glucose dips after a meal can predict hunger levels and the amount you eat, so achieving stable glucose levels may help curb cravings [9].

6. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

We know that metabolic health is hard to predict, that we usually aren’t aware we’re metabolically unhealthy until we’re sick, and that glucose variability is an essential measure of health. So what can you do with this information? Monitoring your blood glucose is a great place to start. It gives you both immediate and long-term measurable data points that directly relate to your health. 

Lifestyle interventions, like exercise programs and dietary changes, can be powerful tools for preventing chronic conditions [10]. One 30-year cohort study found that lifestyle interventions significantly reduced incidences of cardiovascular events and microvascular complications (like neuropathy, retinopathy, and nephropathy), reduced all-cause mortality from cardiovascular events, and increased life expectancy [11]. 

In other words, this stuff is preventable — and taking action by monitoring your glucose and adjusting your lifestyle accordingly before you reach a diagnosis may even help you live longer. 

There are several ways to monitor blood glucose, but not all of them offer the same insights.

One testing method you may have heard of is the hemoglobin A1C test (hbA1C), which can be done at your doctor’s office via a blood draw. This test gives you an average blood glucose number for the past 3 months and is primarily used as a diagnostic tool for prediabetes and diabetes. 

However, most people only get routine blood work once or twice a year, so you’re not getting the complete picture of what’s going on with your blood glucose levels, and if you notice any changes in your hbA1C, you won’t have comprehensive data to give you insights as to why these changes occurred. 

Studies have shown that hbA1C is not as accurate in people who are nondiabetic when compared to diabetics, and hbA1C does not capture glucose variability, which we know is an important measurement for non-diabetics and diabetics alike [12].

A glucose tolerance test is another way to see how effective your body is at glucose uptake. This test is done at a doctor’s office and involves a blood draw followed by drinking a sugary beverage containing about 75g of sugar. After you drink this beverage, you’ll wait 2 hours, and have your blood glucose tested again. If your glucose is above 140mg/dL or 7.8 mmol/L, this indicates prediabetes or type 2 diabetes if it is above 200mg/dL or 13mmol/L. 

Again, this is a diagnostic test that would be difficult to repeat at home constantly and does not offer any insight into the metabolic health spectrum, instead showing binary results. 

Another option for monitoring glucose is using a glucometer to test your blood sugar, but this requires frequent finger pricks, which can be painful. It can also be challenging to interpret patterns, as the glucometer only shows you your blood glucose at that moment rather than over time. 

You can see what your glucose levels are in real-time and your glucose response to food, exercise, and lifestyle factors. You’ll also see trends in your glucose fluctuations, fasting glucose, average glucose, and the time spent in the optimal range of 70 - 140 mg/dL, or 3.9 - 7.8 mmol/L.

What can a CGM show you that other methods can't?

Pairing a CGM with an app like Veri provides personalized insights on glucose trends and allows you to see the connection between your lifestyle and its effect on your health. 

Since your glucose levels are affected by what you eat, physical activity, stress, sleep, and other lifestyle factors, seeing the glucose response show what habits may be hurting you and which interventions are working. 

For example, you might want to test which “healthy” foods are serving your body and your goals. One reason prescriptive diets aren’t effective is that we all have a unique response to food, especially carbohydrates. A CGM can show you which ones to keep and which to kick.

Continuous glucose levels in the Veri app, tracking your personalized glucose response to meals, workouts, and other life events.

Or, you might notice that the slump you feel every afternoon at work is due to elevated blood glucose levels, and you can experiment with changing your meal or trying after-lunch exercise to improve glucose levels and get your energy back.

If you discover that your glucose levels take over two hours to return to baseline after meals, you may be insulin resistant and can start incorporating things like strength training to increase your insulin sensitivity. 

Perhaps most importantly, a CGM paired with an app like Veri gives you tools to become an active participant in your health long before any adverse health outcomes occur. 

Prevention of chronic disease is much easier than managing one, and by understanding your blood glucose levels and the lifestyle factors that affect them, you can feel confident knowing you are actively protecting your health and well-being.

Metabolic health is linked to myriad conditions, like heart disease, diabetes, obesity inflammation, fatty liver disease, PCOS in women, and insulin resistance. But with monitoring and lifestyle intervention, you can take steps to prevent chronic conditions.

Metabolic health is a spectrum, and we often don’t know where we fall on this spectrum until we’re at the extreme and unhealthy end of it.

Glucose variability and time in the range are helpful indicators of metabolic health that offer more insight than a one-time test.

Glucose monitoring can show you where you are on the metabolic health spectrum and specifically what you need to change to improve your health. 

A CGM is the most effective and data-driven method of self-monitoring glucose both immediately and across time, helping you to detect trends and see your body’s real-time reaction to your health efforts.

Getting healthy doesn’t have to be confusing or complicated. Using your biological data to guide you, you can improve and protect your health in a way that works for you and your lifestyle. 

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Why Glucose Matters Even If You Don't Have Diabetes - Veri

Learn more about the benefits of stabilizing your blood sugar and how it impacts your mood, sex life, weight, sleep, and more.

Keeping your blood sugar stable isn’t a cure-all, but it can have a powerful impact on your short and long-term health. We cover how blood sugar relates to every system in your body and what you can expect when it’s back in balance.

8 Ways Balancing Your Blood Sugar Can Improve Your Health

If you’re like the 93% of Americans who are metabolically unhealthy, stabilizing your blood glucose can be a powerful tool for taking control of your health [1].

While blood sugar stabilization is not a cure-all, your blood glucose is connected to every one of your organ systems and, therefore, touches all parts of your health in some way.

From your mental health to your weight, your sex life to your sleep — there’s a link to blood glucose, which is why stabilizing your levels is such a powerful tool. 

So, how exactly does balancing your blood sugar improve your health? 

4 long-term benefits of stabilizing your blood glucose

We’ve talked a lot about dysregulated glucose contributing to the development of insulin resistance, which is closely associated with obesity, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and the development of chronic conditions like prediabetes, Type 2 diabetes (T2D), and cardiovascular disease [2].

High glucose variability makes your body work harder (produce more insulin) to keep glucose in range, which exacerbates insulin resistance and harms your health. It’s a vicious cycle of more glucose and more insulin. 

Reversing insulin resistance is crucial to reversing or avoiding conditions like T2D, obesity, prediabetes, and glucose intolerance. It may also help to mitigate conditions like PCOS, chronic fatigue, and inflammatory disorders like rheumatoid arthritis [3-5].

While insulin resistance is complex and affects many bodily systems, recent research suggests that the three most powerful mechanisms for reversing it are exercise, diet, and lowering glucose levels [6].

At the heart of reversing your insulin resistance is stabilizing your blood glucose and using Veri’s Four Pillars of health – nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management — to keep your blood glucose in range.

Healthspan is the period of your life spent in good health. Metabolic-related conditions, like obesity, insulin resistance, and poor glycemic control, are all predictors of major age-related diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.

Recent research has also linked insulin resistance to brain health, which is crucial to longevity and the prevention of cognitive decline [7].

Studies in diabetic patients have shown changes in brain structure and function linked to the development of diabetes, as well as changes in neurons associated with energy balance [8]. This suggests that insulin resistance and its progression to diabetes alters brain signaling and leads to a decline in overall cognitive health, which is closely tied to healthspan. 

Insulin resistance and waist circumference have also been shown to be associated with the shortening of leukocyte telomeres (blood cell chromosomes), which is indicative of aging [9].

This suggests that insulin resistance and increased waist circumference contribute to decreased longevity and healthspan. 

Because dysregulated glucose contributes to the development of insulin resistance, keeping blood glucose in a healthy range can help you stay healthier longer.

If your blood glucose is out of whack, it can have drastic effects on your endocrine system, which produces hormones.

Think of hormones as chemical messengers in the body that tell certain cells what to do. When hormones become disrupted, systems in the body begin to break down.

Everything from stress hormones, insulin resistance, sex hormones, hormones that regulate appetite, and hormones linked to organ function can be affected by blood glucose levels.

Research has linked insulin resistance to a decrease in estrogen production in women, which may heighten the risk of certain cancers, like breast cancer and ovarian cancer [10]. 

High blood glucose is also associated with increased levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that, when elevated over time, can contribute to inflammation, weight gain, and related metabolic illnesses [11]. 

By keeping your blood glucose stable, you can support the health of your hormones and, as a result, your major bodily systems. 

High glucose variability (frequent peaks and valleys) and elevated fasting glucose is associated with insulin resistance, which can lead to unwanted weight gain and make losing weight more difficult. 

Recent research has shown that insulin signaling and the function of transporter proteins that are driven by insulin are reduced in those with more fat tissue, even if they have normal blood glucose levels [12]. 

Similarly, those who were once obese/overweight and lost weight showed increased levels of insulin sensitivity, indicating that weight loss helped them to reduce insulin resistance [13].

Stabilizing and maintaining blood glucose levels requires making healthier choices regarding your diet, exercise regimen, sleep schedule, and stress management techniques. 

When you focus on keeping blood glucose levels in check, your biological data from your blood glucose levels steers you to healthier food choices. 

Healthier food choices and well-timed exercise can then help you reverse insulin resistance and lose weight sustainably, without the over-restriction and bingeing cycle that often leads people to regain the weight, despite their hard efforts.

4 short-term benefits of stabilizing your blood glucose

Stable glucose is key to achieving long-term health and avoiding the onset of chronic health conditions. But what about the short term? What can you expect in the first few weeks and months of better managing your blood glucose levels? 

Elevated blood glucose — high fasting glucose, or due to a meal high in refined carbohydrates — can lead to feeling sluggish, fatigued, or give you brain fog [14, 15]. When your blood glucose is well managed and insulin sensitivity increases, you reap the benefits of sustained energy and kick the afternoon slump. 

Research has linked high glycemic variability, specifically instances of glucose spikes and valleys, with feelings of irritability, anxiousness, and stress [14]. Several studies in diabetic patients have associated low blood glucose levels with feelings of nervousness and high blood glucose with frustration and agitation [16, 17]. 

Keeping glucose in range and avoiding extreme fluctuations can help manage mood swings and keep you more alert and upbeat rather than fighting negative feelings and crankiness. 

When you eat foods high in refined carbohydrates, your blood glucose surges, which leads to the overproduction of insulin to keep up with the spike. Once the insulin overproduction catches up, your glucose crashes, leading you to crave something sweet to bring your BG up to normal levels, and the cycle continues.

Even mild low blood glucose (between 60-80 mg/dL) increased drive for hyper-palatable, high-calorie foods [18]. By getting your blood glucose in check, you can get off the glucose rollercoaster and bust the cravings.

A spike in blood glucose causes a rise in insulin levels, which can increase the production of sex hormones called androgens, which are tied to skin health. When insulin levels are high, androgens lead to increased production of sebum and keratinocytes, which can leave skin feeling thick and oily and lead to unwanted breakouts. Studies have shown that having a low glycemic diet can lead to a reduction in acne problems [19, 20].

Your blood glucose levels are linked to your health as a whole. Stabilizing your levels can have a positive impact on everything from your mood and sleep quality to your sex life, focus, and more. On the other hand, letting your levels run wild for a prolonged period of time can lead to metabolic health issues such as insulin resistance, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.

What can you do to stabilize your levels?

Find an exercise routine you can stick to, preferably a combination of aerobic and resistance exercise.

Eat and drink well: avoid eating too many refined carbs or sugars, load up your plate with vegetables of all colors, and experiment with food order and timing to see what works best for you.

Excess cortisol and stress can harm your metabolic health, so practice deep breathing/stress management techniques.

Use a CGM to monitor your glucose levels and leverage personalized data to make better and more informed lifestyle choices.

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8 Benefits of Stabilizing Your Blood Sugar | Veri

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Insulin resistance may be the main reason you’re not losing weight. Learn the link between insulin resistance and weight loss, and what you can do to fix it.

Counting calories and not seeing results? Learn how the vicious cycle between insulin resistance and fat storage may be preventing you from managing a healthy weight.

Insulin Resistance: The Main Reason You Aren’t Losing Weight

If you’ve been struggling to lose weight despite dieting and exercising, insulin resistance might be to blame. According to a recent study, 4 in 10 young American adults without diabetes have insulin resistance, which has been strongly associated with adult weight gain [1, 2]. 

As a condition that impacts millions of non-diabetic Americans each year, insulin resistance (or impaired insulin sensitivity) can lead to weight gain as well as other more serious side effects in the long term.

Insulin resistance occurs when the cells in your body stop responding properly to insulin, a hormone in your pancreas that regulates blood glucose levels. 

Normally, the food you eat is converted into glucose, (your body’s preferred energy source), which enters your bloodstream and lets the pancreas know that it’s time to release insulin. But when too much blood sugar enters the bloodstream, the pancreas has to pump out larger-than-anticipated amounts of insulin. 

Eventually, the cells become desensitized to this excess amount of insulin and stop responding properly, resulting in higher-than-normal blood glucose levels.

Anyone can develop insulin resistance, but lack of physical activity, large waist circumference, and high total fat mass all appear to be contributing factors [3, 1]. Another contributing factor, and perhaps the most impactful, is diet — specifically, a diet high in processed foods, added sugar, refined carbohydrates, and low-quality fat has been strongly associated with the development of insulin resistance [4]. 

Some of the most common side effects of insulin resistance include weight gain, difficulty losing weight, blood sugar spikes after eating, extreme hunger or thirst, and tiredness. 

However, most people don’t experience symptoms of insulin resistance at all. Over time, insulin resistance can lead to prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes, as well as an increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality [1].

The relationship between insulin and weight

Insulin resistance can lead to weight gain, and vice versa, in a positively reinforcing loop. One study of 6,671 men and women found that adult weight gain was associated with more adipose tissue (excess weight that develops around the center of the body) and triglycerides in your liver in middle age, contributing to insulin resistance [5, 6].

Your pancreas and liver play a crucial role in regulating blood sugar levels. Under normal circumstances, when your body’s insulin sensitivity isn’t impaired, your pancreas releases insulin after a meal, which unlocks your cells so they can take in the glucose from your bloodstream and convert it into energy. 

Your Guide to Metabolic Health

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