5 things slowing down your metabolism

1. Skipping breakfast daily & having coffee on an empty stomach

This habit might initially help you drop some weight but over time this will create cortisol issues which will lead to leptin resistance (weight loss resistance). When your body runs on stress hormones, eventually your thyroid & adrenals will suffer, leading to poor sleep, weight gain around the belly, energy crashes and poor mood. 

2. Eating a restrictive diet  365 days per year

Diets like keto, carnivore and intermittent fasting can actually have extremely wonderful therapeutic results, but if the body is always in this 'down gear', the thyroid can eventually pay the price. This typically manifests as low T3. Sometimes there is a medical reason to follow these diets long term, but many people can benefit from using them strategically to heal and then adopting a way of eating that allows you to implement some local and seasonal carbohydrates to create metabolic flexibility. 

3. Artificial light at night from TV's, phone screens & light bulbs

Artificial light at night has been tied extensively with obesity & hormonal cancers, and has also been scientifically shown to raise glucose in the absence of food. The biggest issue with artificial light at night is that it will block the body's ability to release melatonin which is essential for our mitochondria to run efficiently (and for a health metabolic rate).

4. Eating too close to bed, especially foods that raise insulin

When we think of the metabolism, almost no one mentions leptin resistance or mitochondrial function, however, these 2 things are basic & vital when it comes to a healthy metabolism. For max mitochondrial function, we also want max melatonin production (this shrinks the space between respiratory proteins in the mitochondria) & eating something that raises your insulin will not only block melatonin production, it will also compete with leptin at the hypothalamus for docking space.

5. Skipping morning sunlight & having poor circadian health overall

Since leptin is a circadian hormone & depends on your morning signal as much as it does your evening signals, when you do not set your morning circadian rhythm, this makes the night time docking process even more arduous. Sunrise and UVA light are vital in setting your cortisol/melatonin patterns & synthesizing all the other downstream hormones (example: thyroid hormone, testosterone, progesterone & estrogen)