How Do You Know if You're Metabolically Flexible?

How do you know if you're metabolically flexible? So there's not one way that you know, if you're metabolically flexible, it's sort of a combination of different things. So let's chat about what those are.

So the first way to tell if you're metabolically flexible is your ease of fasting. So when you wake up in the morning Are you able to go a little bit of time without eating right away, right, that would be a sign that you have good blood sugar regulation, you're able to, you know, go a little bit of time fasted in the morning, not saying that you have to do that. But if you're able to do that without feeling hangry, right, when you wake up, then that is a sign that you are pretty metabolically flexible.

So also going throughout your day, if you can, you know, go longer periods of time between meals, if you're able to skip meals a little bit easier. So you're not getting hangry in between meal timing, you're not always kind of picking for a snack, that is a sign that you have good metabolic flexibility. So yeah, just your ability to you know, go periods of time with fasting throughout the day. Not saying that you have to do that. But that is a good sign that you are pretty metabolically flexible.

So another sign of metabolic flexibility would be your ease of eating carbohydrates and your ability to digest them properly. Right. So when you eat a carbohydrate, how do you feel afterwards? Are you bloated? Are you super, super tired afterwards? Do you feel like you ate a carbohydrate and then like 10 minutes later, you just crashed. So those are some signs of potentially metabolic inflexibility.

So if you're able to eat carbs with ease, you eat them, you feel good, you have good energy, you're not feeling a crash later on in the day, your blood sugar, staying pretty steady, stable throughout the day. Those are signs that you are pretty metabolically flexible, so easily eating carbohydrates and being able to digest them and absorb them and use them efficiently for energy versus feeling like you are crashing afterwards or filling lots of bloat. That would be a, you know, a sign that you're not metabolically flexible.

So another sign of being metabolically flexible, is having stable energy throughout the day, and being able to concentrate and have you know, good cognitive function. So you're able to, you know, focus throughout the day, you have good mental clarity, you don't feel you know, brain fog, you're able to focus, you're not, you know, having an afternoon crashes or picking up that cup of coffee every few hours. That is another sign that you are pretty metabolically flexible in the sense of you have good stable energy, good blood sugar regulation, you can go throughout the day, not needing caffeine.

So another sign of metabolic flexibility be looking at your exercise. So are you able to work out at different intensities? And do that with some ease, right? So are you able to do low intensity activity, you know, like walking, cycling, walking on an incline on the treadmill and be able to do that with ease, right? Or are you able to do more high intensity exercise, like lifting weights, or doing sprints or bike sprints, or whatever it may be, you're able to work out in different energy systems with, you know, not feeling like you're gonna fall on the floor dead, that is a good sign that you are pretty metabolically flexible, and you're able to use different fuel sources efficiently for energy.

So what I mean by that is that you're able to, you know, if you're just doing low intensity exercise, you're able to, you know, tap into your fat stores and use those for energy versus if you're doing high intensity interval training, you're able to use carbs for energy, and you're able to efficiently switch back and forth between that. So that would be a sign of metabolic flexibility.

And another one along with exercise is, you know, if you're able to do workouts in a fasted state, so if you wake up in the morning, you're an early you work out early in the morning, and you feel good doing it in a fasted state that is a sign of metabolic flexibility, because it's a sign that your body's able to efficiently tap into the energy stores that has available and use those to fuel your workout.

Not saying that you have to work out fasted or that it's the best choice, but that would be just a sign that you you're probably a little bit more metabolically flexible. So another sign of metabolic flexibility is your emotional response to food. So this one is a little bit more on the psychological side of things. So really, what is your ease of being able to eat carbohydrates? And what is your ease of being able to eat fats? Like, do you fear eating carbohydrates? Or do you fear eating higher fat foods?

So if you are metabolically flexible, you're probably eating both of those types of foods, you know, at different times throughout your day, throughout your week, and you don't have this kind of emotional attachment to those, right. So a little bit more food freedom, a little bit less restriction, you're able to, you know, eat these foods and think about the nutrients that you're getting from them rather than feeling guilty about eating them. So that would be more of like a psychological sign of being metabolically flexible, the ease of eating different types of foods and not having an emotional attachment to them.

So those are just a few signs of you know, knowing how metabolically flexible you are. There's definitely more but those would be kind of the basics. So generally, you know, the more metabolically flexible you are, the better your age To be in tune with your body signals so your hunger, hunger signals your satiety signals, how you're feeling throughout the day, your energy levels, you know your performance in the gym, things like that. So those are all signs that you are metabolically flexible.

Thanks so much for watching. If you want to learn more about nutrition, fitness or metabolic flexibility, you can check out our website met Flex life.com. There you can find our podcast, Netflix and chill our nutrition and exercise programs, our latest blog posts, free recipes and much more