Metabolic Flexibility as a Weight Management Tool: 67

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. I am the founder Cheryl McColgan, and today I am joined by one of my old friends, Zico Powell. And he has a podcast that I was on quite a while back, and we have known each other on social media now for a couple years. He does some awesome work, and so I can't wait to share his story with you today. Zico, welcome. And if you could just start by telling people, um, how you got into what you're doing today, because you have a very interesting past about how you grew up and how you became sort of interested in all of this health and wellness stuff. So I'll just let you kind of tell a little bit about your story, how you got into this.

Oh, friend, that's an excellent introduction, by the way, because I'm like old as dirt. So thank you so much for letting the audience know who you're talking to here. But, um, but yeah, so I grew up in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and my history is a little different than most people. Like, I wasn't overweight, but I was underweight. So growing up, I think I was, um, 17 years old, 5 foot 11, and I weighed about 113 pounds, right? So imagine how underweight I was at that time. So when I moved to the US, and this is when I moved to US, first time I actually weighed myself, right? And when I was here, I started to get interested in weightlifting because I was a skinny kid walking around. So I started weightlifting, eating more, and then I eventually would gain weight, you know, I would gain weight, lose weight. I mean, I've been over 200 pounds before, then I dropped back to 150. And I got to the point where it was becoming dangerous because it wasn't just about, you know, health anymore. It's just how much weight I could gain. Then I feel like it's like body dysmorphia, right? Like I gained this weight, but I'm like, I'm not happy with myself. I need to start losing this weight again. But anyway, but it really, when you look at it, I've been like healthy or semi, I've been fit all my life, not healthy. I was fit but wasn't healthy. I still had asthma, I had eczema issues. I mean, you look at me, I look good, you know, and, but you would never tell that I have all these problems. And this is something I tell people that we see people in the gym and we say, oh, this person looks so good, but that doesn't mean they're healthy. That's why you shouldn't actually strive to be like somebody else because you don't know what they're struggling with. So anyway, fast forward to about, let's say, 5 years ago, my asthma was really, really bad and it was bad to the point where days I couldn't work. I have to go home, lay on the couch. I mean, I'm completely dizzy. I feel awful. And the last time I— one of the times I went to the doctor, he said to me, I said, hey, Doc, look, because they put me on more medication, they kept increasing my medication. I said, Is something I can do outside of this medication, right? I'm going to take your medications, but now you have me on pills and Advair plus my Albuterol I've been taking and I'm not getting any better. I'm only in my 30s at this point. And he said, no, well, you know, you could try to eat better and that's about it, you know. And I was like, okay, no, this can't be it. There's no way this can be it. I'm too young to be on this many pills and I know what's going to happen down the line., right? So, I started reading books from like Dr. Steven Gundry, Dr. Mark Hyman, listen to podcasts like Ben Greenfield and the Modern Health Show. I mean, I just started ingesting that stuff all the time. And I started hearing those fantastic stories about how people change their, turn their health around. And I'm like, you know what, I can do these things. And so, when I started learning about lectins and learning about the gut and learning about all these things that I just never, all I knew was calories, right? I want to lose weight, I eat this many calories. I want to gain weight, build muscle, I gain that calories. I eat that many calories, right? So when I got to that point, I was like, I started making those changes because I'm Jamaican, I'm naturally skeptical. I don't believe anybody. I'm like, this guy just writing books because he's trying to make money. But something interesting happened. I started feeling better. I started like having more energy. I became happier, like just naturally. I'm like, there has to be something to this. So at that point, uh, oh, by the way, Killer, I started breathing better too, and my allergies were starting to go away. A lot of things that I thought— my eczema, my skin's all cleared up. I mean, those things started to happen. It made me more interested. I'm like, okay, how can I learn more? So I started studying, getting my certifications in fitness, nutrition, and personal training, and, you know, and everything, weight management. I started learning a lot. And when I was in the gym training clients, I started to realize that people were enslaved to the same things I were. They didn't know a lot of things that I knew. They— people, we talk about calories, but we don't know the connection between our health and our weight. We don't know how to actually eat to have a healthy gut. We don't know how to— the activities and the lifestyle changes like getting sunlight, vitamin D, and walking and digestion. Like all those things play in our health. So from the moment when I started feeling better and I started studying on my own and then I was working in the gym, it just became a purpose to learn as much as I could possibly learn so I can help others on their journey.

Zico, this is why I think you and I get along so well, because we both love to dive into the research and just constant learning. And before we go on to kind of more about how you work with people and, and how you got into that part of it, because you have so many certifications now at this point. I want to go back to something that you said about how you started really feeling better and you felt happy, which is— knowing you now, it's hard to imagine that you were never this, you know, this bubbly personality that you have now. Um, can actually be attributed somewhat to some of those things that you've learned. So what were the actual— I like for people to come away with like actionable things like from this podcast, right? So What were those things that you changed in your diet or in your exercise or whatever it was? Like you said, you were starting to listen to Dr. Mark Hyman and Gundry and all these wonderful people that focus so much on nutrition. What was it that you changed that you feel like attributed to all of these wonderful health changes that you experienced?

Oh, it's so many, but I can really give some few things that we can already do. The first thing was that wasn't even a nutrition thing. It was people. It's the people I was surrounded, that surrounded me were, they weren't, they weren't supportive. They weren't happy people. I was waking up to negative energy consistently. So that's one of the things that I changed. I was huge having the right people around me. The second thing was sleep. My, when I read the book from Shawn Stevenson, It's— I can't remember the name of it now, but it's on sleep. One of the top books on sleep in the world. And I learned so many habits to improve my sleep. Something simple, the alarm clock, you know, stop waking up to ank, ank, ank, ank in the morning and have a nice awakening in the morning to keep my cortisol levels low, right? My sleep hygiene, like learning that from the morning, getting sunlight and the other habits, you know, reducing caffeine at certain points.. And then what I do at night to prepare myself to go to sleep, even by adjusting how cold my house is, right? So I can, my body can naturally produce melatonin, resetting my circadian rhythm. Like that's a fantastic book. And I learned those things and I made sure I wore my fitness watch to track my sleep quality. And I could tell if I woke up and my sleep quality was bad, I didn't need my watch to tell me. I could tell just by how I felt. But if my sleep quality was awesome, I would look at my watch and be like, oh, yep, there we go. Sleep quality is good, right? So that was my next thing was my sleep. And then after that was nutrition, which is— this is very specific to each person and we know that, right? But understanding what nutrition was important for me, fasting is the first thing. And I believe that everyone, every adult should have some type of fasting protocol, right? Unless you're maybe underweight or maybe have certain health issues. That's a different conversation, right? Let's say most adults should have some kind of fasting protocol. But this is the problem I have with people. They hear fasting and they say, oh no, you know, fasting is bad. Or some people say fasting is good. Fasting is a tool and is a tool that should be used properly. You shouldn't— if you've never fasted before, you shouldn't go on OMAD and eat once a day. That's just stupid in itself, right? You should start off with something simple. And what I do is I knew that I didn't have the ability yet to fast for 14, 15, 16 hours. So what I would do, I started with 12 hours of fasting. I would stop eating at a certain point because I knew that if I ate at a certain point, it interrupted my sleep. So at least 3 hours before bed, I stopped eating. So that would be traditionally around 7:00 for me. And then initially I wouldn't eat till about 7 or 8:00 the next morning. That's it. That's how I started. And over time, as my body became adapted to that time, I would increase by 30 minutes, I would increase by an hour. Now, something that's happening on top of cellular autophagy, we know, is the benefits of fasting. But something on top of that that we're not paying attention to is that it's also teaching our body to burn fat for fuel, a.k.a. ketosis, right? It's a natural habit It's a natural— it's a natural— it's a natural— it's something that body does naturally. And I'm lost for words right now. It's something that the body does naturally. So you're training your body to run on fat for fuel so that it's a hangry feeling. Get a Snickers. No, if you're hangry, you shouldn't get a Snickers. You need to change the way you're eating. So in between the times that you don't have glucose for energy, your body can use ketones. And fasting is important. But again, you have to slowly build yourself up to that. Now, after fasting, I have to start learning what diet was important for me. So as I was fasting and I would slowly increase how much fat I eat, decrease the carbs that I would eat, then my body would not only be, be better at burning its own body fat, but also the fat from the food that I ate, which led me to become more metabolically flexible, which is the reason why most people struggle to lose weight because they don't have a flexible metabolism. Their body doesn't know, I don't have enough glucose. Let's switch over to burning fat. I mean, fat. Let's switch over to ketones. That's a story we can have as we go through the podcast, right? But essentially, those are the 4 things. So the right people around me, improving my sleep quality, fasting, and then also slowly getting rid of the crappy food in my diet and start to increase the healthy fats that I ate. And eating more clean carbs so my body could be more metabolically flexible.

Yeah, and that really leads into, uh, a good conversation because everybody that is familiar with this podcast has heard me talk all about fasting before and about keto, of course. Um, but two things that I know about you that maybe you could expand upon a little bit. One of them is you like to talk about metabolic flexibility a lot. And so this is something that I'm obviously very interested in too, but I would love to hear about it from your perspective because there's a tool that you use a lot and there's a certification that you have with them called— this tool called Lumen, and basically, it measures the acetone in your breath to tell, like, if you're in fat-burning mode or not. So it's a great tool for people to use for that. And then the second part of that conversation is, how do you use those concepts of metabolic flexibility as you start to work with people in your coaching? Well, how do you relate to them the importance of that when people, you know, they're not us, they haven't done a deep dive into all this. So I'd love to hear how you explain it to them in a more basic way because there's probably some people that are listening to this right now that are like, metabolic flexibility, wait, this is the first time I'm hearing of this. Or, you know, sometimes hearing it from a different person explained differently helps it land better. So if you could just talk a little bit about the tool that you use and then how do you work with your clients to get that concept across in a really comprehensive way?

Definitely, definitely. This is something I've spoken to many people about, and it really comes down to really just understanding the human body. So a lot of times we will see someone and we say that person eats whatever they want and they can't lose weight, right? Or they can't gain weight. So they can't gain weight. So they eat a lot, they eat a lot, they can't gain weight, but their, their, their body has the ability to break down the foods that they eat. Because you take that person, put them in a different environment, So let's say somebody is from the Caribbean, they eat a lot of carbs and you take them and you try to put them on a diet where they eat a lot of fats and not enough carbs. Their body is not going to have the ability most likely to break those carbs well. And that comes down to not having the gut enzymes. And I'm not going to get into all the science there. So essentially most humans are born with a lot of amylase, which is the ability to burn down, to break down carbs very well. It happens very easily. So some people say, well, that means we should eat a lot of carbs. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what it means, because carbs is used for quick bursts of energy, and that's why the body has that ability. Now, if you eat a lot of carbs, the body is very efficient. It's going to say, you know what, you're not giving me enough fat in my diet, so I don't need to really have the ability to burn down, to break down fat very well. I'm going to create more enzymes so I can break down carbs well, right? So then what happens is when you eat fat, the body doesn't utilize it very well for energy. And what the body doesn't utilize, it stores. So that's why we say, you know what, I only ate 1,000 calories today, but I'm still— I'm still gaining weight. Why? Because the food that you're eating, your body cannot break it down well, right? So what we want is that sweet spot. We want to have the ability to say, if I eat carbs, my body can break it down. If I eat fat, my body can break it down. Right. And I'll give you another example. Have you ever met someone who— and this is for the audience or for you, Cheryl, if you want to answer— who have been on, let's say, a high-carb diet for a long time and low protein, for example, right? It usually comes along with it. But when they start eating protein and fat, they're bloated. They don't feel good. You know, their energy's low. They just feel awful. Maybe get gassy and stuff like that, right? Because that's a sign that their body does not have the ability to break that down. Well, same on the flip side with keto. I love keto and I do not bash keto, but if you're always in ketosis and you never eat enough carbs, the same thing happens because your body is like— when you start eating carbs, you get bloated, you get gassy because you lost a lot of those enzymes. So metabolic flexibility is being in that sweet spot, is when you eat fat, your body can break it down and use it for energy. When you eat carbs, your body can break that down and use it for energy. That's how you keep the weight off, because instead of storing it, your body will recognize and say, oh, I know how to use it and it will use it. And that's how you get to that sweet spot. And that's what makes a difference. And that's why most people struggle. Now, with Lumen, Lumen is a breathalyzer. It's— they send it to you. Once you purchase it, you purchase their service, you blow into it. Essentially, let me put it this way. When you're at rest, your body should primarily burn fat for energy. But if you're in danger, let's say, or let's say you're running or doing intense work. Like if I'm doing like high intensity cardio, I increase my carb intake. But if I'm doing zone 2 slow cardio or sometimes maybe even weightlifting or depending what exercise is, I may use carb, I may use energy, the fat to fuel that workout, right? So when you're at a state that you're, let's say resting or moving at a slow pace, your body can utilize fat very well for energy. When you're, when you're in a high fast pace, your body can, should utilize carbs mostly for energy. So what they realize is this: when people are— they would take a test, a metabolic test, of someone who was sleeping overnight, and they would test them at time of the next morning, and they realized that people who were at normal weight would primarily burn fat when they were sleeping. But the people that were overweight or struggling to keep a healthy weight would primarily burn carbs while they were sleeping. So Lumen tests your metabolism, and when you blow into it, it would give you an idea of were you primarily burning fat when you were sleeping, or were you primarily burning carbs when you were sleeping? And once they figure that out, then their nutritionist gives you a nutrition guideline for that day. So it may look something like someone who's primarily a carb burner, because that's the case, they may have more protein and more fat in their diet for that day because they want your body to become accustomed to say, okay, I need to start learning how to burn fat. Now, I've had some people who come off keto, who've been on keto all their lives, and they struggle to burn carbs well. So they may increase some of their carbs in their diet to make sure that they keep that ability to burn carbs. So like somebody— so somebody like me, I'm metabolically flexible. There are times that I run on ketones. There are times that I run on carbs, but I had to do that because I had to train my metabolism to do so. So I never get hangry, if that makes sense, right? I don't get hangry because when I'm— when I— when my glucose is low, my blood sugar doesn't drop because I have ketones. One more thing I must say to this. I have worn a continuous glucose monitor before. And every day, there are days I do my 24-hour fast. You know, Cheryl McColgan, I do my 24-hour fast. I'm running on ketones, right? And every day around 1:00, my blood sugar would naturally pick up every day, regardless how fasted or if I'm eating food. My body would naturally do that. Now, that's because of my activities and the things that I do around that time. But my blood sugar doesn't drop because my body has the ability to switch between fat carbs as needed.

Yeah, and I think that's the trouble with most people nowadays because they never have that period of fasting. They're constantly snacking, they haven't trained their metabolism, and so that's when they really struggle and get the hangry monster like you're talking about because their body is— needs some energy but it doesn't know how to break down fat to get those ketones. And so sometimes in the beginning people need to be a little bit more strict, uh, staying low carb for a while so that their body can be trained to burn fat. And then after a period of time, if they'd like to, they can kind of shift more into this dual fuel model where they eat, you know, some more carbs, but their body still has learned that ability to burn fat really well. And so then they can go back and forth like you explained with metabolic flexibility. And when you work with people, most people Right. So nowadays, do you find that you work with people more on nutrition, more on weight training, or is it really more of both? What is your primary person that you work with nowadays look like? And have you seen a trend towards one or the other, like they're more focused on weightlifting, or they're more focused on their nutrition, or is it just a combination?

It's a combination, but I would say 75% nutrition. And the reason why I say 75% nutrition is because most people have an unhealthy or damaged, or should you say, inflexible metabolism, and they don't understand that. They come to me and they say, I've cut my calories, I'm eating 1,000 calories a day, I can't lose weight no matter what I do. And I say, okay, then you need to stop because you're cutting your calories too much. And whoever told you to do that, turn around, run away, and don't ever listen to that person ever again. Because that's what the problem is, because your body is not— your metabolism is unhealthy, your metabolism is inflexible, and you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to make it worse. So we have to start from the groundwork and be like, okay, what are you eating now? How can we get you to at least 3 meals a day? And if you're using Lumen, that takes all the guesswork out for me because I know exactly what your metabolism is doing and I get you on that path to where you can say, okay, now I see what I should have been eating to get myself there. Because you can't— because with Lumen, when you purchase Lumen, you go into a group and I think about 35,000 people in that group now, and I'm one of the group experts and they ask a lot of questions. So they're— because becoming metabolic flexible, believe it or not, is not just about food, sleep and all those and lifestyle habits all play a role in it. Weight training, the how you work out also plays a role.. Let me give you an example. When I'm doing high-intensity cardio, right, I tend to fuel up more with carbs. Now, when I am doing like zone 2 training, I fuel more fat. Why? Because zone 2 is more for relaxed training. I can even talk while I'm doing it, and that keeps my body in a fat-burning state. When I do zone 2 training and I blow into Lumen, it tells me that I'm at a 1 or a 2, which I'm primarily burning fat. Right. But if I go into where my heart rate is picked up really, really high because your body basically thinks you're in danger, and because when you, when you pick up your heart rate like that, it's adding a lot of stress to your body. Your body thinks you're in danger. And that's why we crave carbs and sugars whenever those things happen, because we need it for quick bursts of fuel. So something that's awesome about the Lumen Group is that people will ask, Okay, I'm not burning fat well. Why am I not burning fat? And then I ask them about their lifestyle. I ask them about their training. I ask them about what they do when they wake up. Because I had one lady told me that every time she goes into her Lumen in the morning, it's telling her she's burning carbs. She doesn't understand why. And I said to her, I guarantee you it's your morning routine because she told me what her morning routine was. And she said, you know what, that makes so much sense because when I'm on vacation, And I blow into my lumen, it tells me I'm burning fat. And I say, exactly, because we're on vacation. What? You're relaxed, you're calm. That's why, that's why training your body to respond to stress is also important. You know what I do when I wake up every day, Cheryl? I read the Bible and I journal. That's my first thing every day. I pray, read my Bible, and journal before I even do my cardio or anything. And that's my way to start my day. Now, some people may not pray, they don't believe in Jesus. That's fine, that's their thing. You want to meditate, however you want to do it, right? Whatever you think of. But you need to do something for yourself when you get up every morning. That makes a huge difference because we get up and what we do, I got to get the kids ready for school. I got to do this. And, you know, I got to, I got to get ready for work. Then I got to drive in traffic and I got to go work. I got to hurry and I got to log in. And then, and then, you know, I got to talk to these people. I don't like them. They don't like me. I don't want my boss to see me not working. So let me get back on the computer. The first 2, 3 hours of your day, You're stressed out. Your body thinks you're in danger consistently. You're stressed. So that's why you want a honey bun. That's why you want, you know, you want carbs because your body constantly thinks you're under stress. So I would say primary nutrition, but a big piece of it is I have to work with people on reducing their stress levels. I have to work with people with how you're working out for the goals that you're trying to accomplish. I have to work with people with, are you getting enough sunlight, enough vitamin D? I have to work people on how fast are you eating? Are you eating in a rush state? Are you eating in a state where your body can digest your food well? Or are you going for a walk after your meals, like even for 5 minutes just to relax your body, to help your digestion? There's a lot that goes— there's really a lot that goes into it.

Yeah, that's so important for people to remember that because I often say stress and sleep are two of the most under— if you're trying to lose weight, those are two of the most underrated things because everybody just wants to think, oh, I got my diet dialed in, why isn't this working? It's like you have to look at all those other lifestyle factors or it just won't work. Which kind of brings me to the next point. Your podcast used to be called the Zico Health Podcast, but you recently changed the name. And I think it's a really interesting new title. Could you tell us a little bit about the new title and kind of why you chose that and what it means to you?

Yeah, I'm going to make this one as simple as I can. Plus, we're kind of running out of time, so I don't want Cheryl to kind of kick me off the broadcast here. So let's, let's never see the Matter Over Mind experience just came to me one day. I call it a vision. I don't know what. It just came to me one day because I was like, you know what, all these things that I've done in my life and to be 40 years old, well, I was 39 at the time, and to be as healthy as I am would not happen if I didn't make lifestyle changes. Right. So I had to do physical things to get me there. I didn't just hope that, hey, I'm going to be healthy. I had to make actual changes. Right. So I said, you know what? And I've talked to a lot of people that have said to me, corrected me, said, no, it's the mind over matter. I said, I know, whatever you want to call it. But even if I had prayed and meditated and wished, I still wouldn't be this healthy if I didn't eat organic and do all the other things. That I mentioned that I did. So I call it the Math Over Mind experience, meaning that it's not a contest of which one is greater than the other. I can't tell you that even if I tried. But what I'm telling you is if you just make regular physical changes, even as small as they may be, that will start to change your life. So that's how on the podcast I bring on people like Cheryl, right? Who talks about ketosis, right? Or bring on doctor who talk about the health of the gut health. I brought on doctor the other day that mentioned the importance of your gut and your gut-brain connection and how important that, that, and the connection between mental issues and poor gut health, right? We talk, you know, so if we have to make those changes. So I said, you know what, I love that name. I love the Matter Over Mind. Because instead of just wishing my problems away, let's teach people how to make these gradual changes. So every episode that I have up there, every interview, every video, it's all designed to teach you at least one thing, one takeaway that you can have from that episode to help you to become a healthier version or make changes in your life.

I love that. And so if you had to say what one thing you would want somebody to walk away from this conversation today? If they— you could just pick one, what would be your number one thing that you want people to walk away with from knowing the Zico, like, mantra or Zico, you know, way of thinking?

The one thing I would say is tied between two things for me, but the one thing, if I had to pick, if it would have gone to my head today, is improve the health, improve the quality of your sleep. If you put a gun to my head, that's what I would say. Improve the quality of your sleep. Yes, there are so many other things that we can do, but sleep is always going to be— you can have the healthiest diet, you can have the best friends in the world, you can do everything you can. But if you're not sleeping well, you're going to feel like crap. So improve the quality of your sleep. And I do have an article on sleep. But you don't have to read my article. You can check out guys like Shawn Stevenson, one of the best books on sleep that I— probably the best book I've ever read, to be honest. Improve the quality of sleep and learn and know that sleep quality, sleep hygiene doesn't begin at night. It begins with what you do in the morning. So once you understand that and you start to make those changes, it can really transform your life.

That's— I couldn't agree with you more. It's one of the most, I think, and to your point, one of the most important, maybe the most important of all things that you can do for your health. So speaking of your article on sleep and where people can find you, can you share with everybody where's the easiest way to get in touch? Your podcast, the full name again, just so everybody knows, and your website, all that good stuff.

Just Google me, to be honest. I joke with my friends now. I said, like, I'm Googleable. Okay, just Google Norado Zico Power. A bunch of stuff is going to come up. But really and truly, you can just go to YouTube, The Matter of Mind Experience, or if you Google my name, it will come up. My Instagram, Zico Health. So that stays the same. If you want to Google Norado Zico Power's Instagram or Zico Health, Z-E-C-O Health, that's, that's where you can find me. If you want like any actual resources, you can just Google my— or look me up on Instagram and you can send me a DM. I'm also connected to Cheryl McColgan. We follow each other. And yeah, and I can— jump in my DMs and ask me any question you want. It goes down in DM. Your boy's okay with that.

Awesome. Well, I will make sure I put all your links in the show notes as well. But Zico, I just really want to thank you again for taking the time today to join us. And I loved your tips and I loved that we walked away with people knowing that sleep is the most important thing here.

Thank you very much, Cheryl McColgan. It was a pleasure to be here, of course.