How to Optimize Your Blood Sugar to Boost Your Metabolism with Dr. Brian Mowll

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where I give you the latest cutting edge intel to help you look, feel and think better. Now, today's show is all about how to optimize your blood sugar to boost your metabolism. We are going to be talking about slow metabolisms, fact or fiction, and the numbers you really need to know in terms of blood sugar and then quick hacks to fix that. Sound good? Well, I've got the perfect guest to yak about. It's a longtime buddy of mine, Dr. Brian Mohl. He's the founder and medical director of Sweet Life Dr. Diabetes Health Centers, and he serves clients all over the world as the diabetes coach. He's a master licensed diabetes educator and was one of the first docs to be certified to practice functional medicine by the Institute for Functional Medicine. And you know, if you've been around at all, I'm always saying, go see a functional medicine doc. Go see a functional medicine doc. So he's one of the first. Now, since 1998, he's been helping people optimize your health and metabolism, control blood sugar and reverse type 2 diabetes using a natural, personalized lifestyle approach. And what's cool is I've known him for a long, long time. He's going to reveal a secret here that I never knew that makes him even better at what he does. So I'm super excited to share Dr. Brian Mohl with you today. All right, let's do it. Dr. Brian Mohl, welcome to the I'm so glad you're here with me today.

Sounds great. This is always fun, jj. So excited to be here with you guys.

Well, plus, everyone loves this topic and you have so much to say on it. So let's dive in. But, you know, before we dive in to talking about slow metabolisms, which everyone wants to know about. So I'm just teasing everyone. How the heck did you get involved with blood sugar and metabolism?

You know, for me, it's just such a huge problem. I've always struggled myself, to be honest, with weight. You know, as a kid, I was a little heavy. I know, hard to believe. But it's something that if I don't watch, I gain weight very quickly and had struggled actually about 10 years ago with weight myself. I was up at 218 pounds. I'm like 167 now. So that's like 50 pounds heavier. High blood pressure, high blood sugar and super stressed from a change in practice, professional shift. And just I was kind of a mess. So that was, that was personal experience, but it was that. And also I just love helping people with this, particularly diabetes, blood sugar and metabolism issues, because we see results and it's like clockwork. We do the right thing, put the right pieces in place and people get results and it's so satisfying.

Well, I love to hear your journey because I honestly didn't know that. It's really hard looking at you to believe that. But I believe that when people have gone through it themselves, it reminds me back when I was a personal trainer and I was helping women who were pregnant with exercise. And once I got pregnant, I'm like, oh, you know, it's like, it's hard, hard to really be amazing at something unless you've gone through it yourself. So that's, that's. And obviously it's working because I would have had no clue. So good for you. Now let's dive into one of my favorite things ever goes right there with being big boned. You know, used to be 20, 30 years ago, people would tell me they were big boned. Now they say they have a slow metabolism. So let's dig into this. I mean, is there such a thing, Is this a real thing, having a slow metabolism?

Well, there are things that can slow down our metabolic rate. For example, as we age, we lose lean body mass. That's going to slow down our metabolic rate. There are things like hypothyroidism, low thyroid function, which can slow down our metabolic rate, although not as much as people think it does, but from one person to the next. I don't think the, I don't think some people are just cursed with a slow metabolism and there's nothing you can do about it. I always think the power is in our hands to change that and to influence our bodies to have a better and faster metabolism. And there's actually a lot to that and we can dive into some of that today. But I think the main takeaway there is if you feel like you don't burn energy all that well, like you don't burn a lot of energy and you have a slow metabolism, there's ways to change that, to speed that up.

Well, I'M sure everybody wants to know that. Like, who doesn't want to know that? And that's an important takeaway. It reminds me a lot of looking at, like, people have a genetic propensity to crave sweets or to overeat. Yes, you might have that propensity, but it doesn't doom you. And it sounds like it's the same thing here.

Right. I will say too, that some people are very good at fat storage. And you know, this was probably once something that was, that was good. You know, when in times of famine, when food was not plentiful or not available at all times, it was probably good to be able to store fat when necessary. But today, you know, there are people who are still very good at fat storage and they're the ones who are going to get heavier faster. Like, I see people with diabetes and blood sugar problems who aren't heavy. And sometimes that can work against you. And in other words, instead of all that extra sugar going into fat storage, for people who don't store fat very well, they become diabetic faster, which is an interesting, interesting way to think about it. So sometimes it can help. But of course it. In this day and age when food is plentiful and abundant and most people don't really lack for food, being good at fat storage isn't something that we generally look at as a favorable trait.

Right. So what was good for us 5,000 years ago in terms of survival is not really that helpful now.

Right.

Let's dive into. Because we kind of tease people with this and I know they want to know. Let's talk about metabolism and fat burning and what really controls that.

Yeah. So two of the things I mentioned earlier, actually having more lean muscle mass is going to be probably the best way to change that in the long term. So resistance training, high intensity interval training to actually build up your body's ability to burn fuel at a higher rate, to actually add more mitochondria, which are these little energy factories in the cells that burn fat and burn glucose. We can actually add more of those. When we stress the body in a way that actually causes us to need to burn more energy. And that's with things like exercise, high intensity interval training and exercise resistance training as well, stresses the muscles. Right.

High intensity interval training and resistance training specifically.

Exactly. Like slow cardio is still helpful. It's beneficial. It's fat burning exercise. But we get much more bang for our buck with higher intensity interval training and resistance training.

Okay, perfect.

So that's things like lifting heavy things. It can be body weight exercise like push ups and sit ups and squats and lunges and so forth. It can be dumbbells, like holding hand weights, for example, and doing those same types of things, squats or lunges with hand weights. Or it can be high intensity interval trainings like stair climbing or sprinting. And that doesn't mean you have to be a sprinter, but it means walking fast, swimming fast, riding your bike fast, a faster pace than you normally would.

So let's talk about blood sugar and how that relates to metabolism.

Sure. So blood sugar is something that should stay fairly constant, just like body temperature. You know, we have a blood sugar that should range, there's a range there. But somewhere between 76 and 92 is considered normal fasting blood sugar. So that's something that can be measured on a lab test or even with a finger prick with what's called a glucometer, a blood sugar meter. And normal is considered right in the mid-80s, around 83 to 85. So it should stay right in that range. No matter what you do, no matter what you eat, no matter what exercise you do, the body should keep it in there just like it keeps your temperature in a fairly constant range. But oftentimes people will lose control of that healthy blood sugar and it'll start to rise and it'll go above 100. And then it's considered to be pre diabetes or glucose intolerance. And then if it gets high enough up over 126 is the cutoff, then we diagnose type 2 diabetes. And that's usually when things are out of control and it starts to move into that disease state. So blood sugar is important because we need to burn glucose for fuel. We also burn fat for fuel, protein. Interestingly, we don't burn for fuel. That's used as a building block for muscles and things like detoxification and healing. But we burn fat and sugar for fuel. And we need to be able to get those into our cells to be able to convert them into energy like gasoline in your car. But when we have high blood sugar, that means we're not utilizing that. It's like we have all this gasoline but we can't get it into the engine.

Yeah. And so where I always like to get this info because as you know, I think there's this idea out there that we'll just watch your blood work and then at the point you cross that line. Okay, right. And it's not like we woke up one day and we're diabetic. Maybe this is a process that happens over time. So what would you say to someone who's starting to now see their blood sugar creep up. Right. And they're starting to store more fat around their waist. They're doing all those. All of this stuff is going in the wrong direction. What would you tell them? What are your top hacks to start to turn this around before it ever gets to that point?

Yeah. So we have to look at the right thing. And the right thing for people in that situation is a hormone called insulin. And you can measure this with a blood test. You have to have your doctor do it, but it can be measured with a blood test. And it's important to make sure you are using insulin properly and that you're not making too much. A lot of people will become over insulinized or what's called hyperinsulinemic. Too much insulin in the blood, and that comes from, you know, overstimulating it with too much too many carbs, too many simple processed carbs, refined white sugar and processed foods in the diet. We get this over stimulation of insulin, and insulin makes us gain weight. You know, that's the secret sauce to basically short circuit the metabolism. So we want to first of all look at that and measure it.

But let's look at when you talk about measuring it, and I'll tell you, it was very interesting. My son with the brain injury, one of the things that happens is their pituitary goes wonky. And I started to watch and I was gone from where he lives for a couple months, come back, it's literally been two months. He gained 30 pounds, no change in diet, no change in exercise, really good diet. And so I had to push the doctor to get an insulin. His insulin level was 19. The doctor said it was normal. And I'm like, what? Normal for who? A diabetic. So what numbers are you looking at? Like, where's your ideal range for. And let's go for blood sugar, hemoglobin, A1C, and fasting insulin as your. What would you look for a range and then what would you start to say is, oh, you better start focusing on this.

Yeah, great question. And I'll add actually a couple more real quickly to that too, but for insulin, since we started with that, the range that the lab's going to give you is not a functional range. It's a range to measure, measure pathology. The most common pathology that doctors are looking for when they do an insulin test is what's called an insulinoma, which is a tumor on the pancreas that causes hyper secretion of insulin. So that's what that test is traditionally done for. We do it functionally. And when you're asking for an insulin test from a metabolism perspective, you're going to look at it from a functional perspective. In other words, what really should it be? What's optimal? So that range is. Is between about two and a half and five. Fasting versus the lab value will sometimes go up to 22 or 24, depending on where you are in the country. So 19, as you mentioned, is very high. When it gets over 10, that's considered to be hyperinsulinemic. In other words, the person's definitely making way too much insulin for. For what would be considered a normal metabolism.

What's important for people to understand there is, once that's happening, you try to lose body fat, and it's like the doors are locked.

Yeah. Insulin is literally like a doorman for fat cells. The lipase enzyme that breaks down fat is insulin sensitive, and it basically shuts down in the presence of insulin because insulin is a storage hormone. So in the presence of insulin, your body wants to store energy, not burn energy. So it's all storage, storage, storage. And you've got to be able to get the insulin down at least below 10, closer to 5, to be able to actually burn fat effectively. And like you said, most people just don't do that. In fact, most people I test now, I am working with a population that is a little more overweight and people who have blood sugar problems. But almost everyone I test has elevated insulin levels.

Yeah, well, almost everyone I start to look at has elevated insulin, low D and elevated blood sugar. You know, it's like chronic issues. So. All right, so then we'll go back to. I kind of derailed you here. So you have this going on. What are some of the things that you can do? Give someone some wins they can have right away for starting to turn this around.

Right. So to resensitize the body to insulin, we've got to decrease the requirements for insulin. And the main thing there is cut out the processed, refined carbohydrates and sugar in the diet, because those are the things that require and stimulate the most insulin release. So when you eat something, even like what most people might consider to be healthy, which would be like a bowl of oatmeal or orange ju juice in the morning, those are loaded with starch and sugar. And some people can tolerate that fine. You know, like somebody who's a very high active young person, perhaps doing sports and so forth, they might be able to Tolerate that just fine. Whereas people who have less lean body mass or less active may not be able to, you know, handle that much starch or sugar. So it causes this insulin surge, raises insulin, causes us to store more fat and burn less fat. So that's one thing. Also, obviously we mentioned earlier resistance training and high intensity interval training. The interval training is particularly good at increasing our cells sensitivity to insulin. And the more sensitive those cells are to insulin, the less insulin we need to make so our insulin levels will start to fall, and then we can burn more fat. So those are two things is high intensity interval training and cutting the carbs and sugar out of the diet, which, of course, those two things are good for a lot, not just lowering insulin.

And the important thing here is you didn't say, you know, exercise more so you burn more calories. Lower your. This wasn't about calories. And that's the big thing I want to emphasize is this is really looking at your body hormonally as a chemistry lab and going, what are the things that are going to shift this so that you're shifting to fat burning, not fat storing?

Bingo. Absolutely.

Yeah. So really, all that's happening when you're looking at your blood sugar and insulin is you're finding out, okay, where am I in this continuum? And you're talking about, you know, some people can handle it. I think with all of us listening. Just assume you can't.

I agree with that.

Unless you're like, you've got, like this belly that you want to show off to everyone because it's so flat and you just can't seem to keep the. The weight on, and you build muscle easily. Just assume that you're a fat, a better fat store than you want to be, and soon assume you shouldn't be doing this. I know that, you know, I can't eat oatmeal. It just hijacks my blood sugar. I start the day with oatmeal. I'm just trashed for the day.

Yeah. And one clue that you're insulin resistant is you do something like oatmeal and you feel trashed. I mean, you're. You just. Your energy goes in the tank or two hours later, you're craving food again, particularly carbohydrates or sugary foods. That's one clear sign that you're insulin resistant. You eat a sandwich for lunch, and an hour later you're hungry again, or you're looking for some chocolate or something sweet, or your head's laying on the desk because your energy's in the.

So let's bless this myth. You just brought this up last thing. Let's just talk real quick about this idea, because I still remember when it all happened. I was a personal trainer at the time, and all of a sudden, the recommendation was to cut your fat really low and to eat every two hours like we should all be grazing. So give me your feedback on that concept.

It's an interesting point, because in conventional diabetes management, that's the recommendation. Also, it's 4, 5, 6 small meals a day. And the idea is to, quote, unquote, keep your blood sugar level. But what it does, unfortunately, is every time you eat, you're going to stimulate this hormone cascade, and you're going to stimulate insulin release. So, remember we said earlier that the goal is to get your insulin levels down low enough to where your cells can become resensitized. It's like if you go to a loud concert and your hearing is sort of desensitized, you know, you get that ringing in the ears. The only way to heal that is to get somewhere quiet, you know, so you can start to become perceptive again to sound same thing with insulin, the only way to resensitize those cells is to decrease the insulin in your bloodstream. And you're never going to do that if you keep eating all day long. So what I found works best for increasing insulin sensitivity is long stretches of time between meals. So, not that you can never snack, but, you know, we shouldn't be eating at night. And there are benefits for some people of not snacking because it gives the body a chance to kind of reset and get out of the fed state. The fed state lasts about four hours, and we really want a little bit of time past that for the cells to start to resensitize to insulin.

All right, now I'm going to throw a curve ball at you. Ready?

Yes.

All right. So what's the one thing you do every day, Brian, that you think makes the biggest difference in your life?

The one thing I do every day for my weight and metabolism that makes the biggest difference in my life. Anything.

For your mood, for your happiness. Anything. The one thing that you do, no matter what.

Get to bed early, get to bed by 10.

Good. Everybody hearing that?

I think sleep is so crucial for health. And, you know, there are times over the course of a year traveling or working on a project where I have to break that rule for a few days or whatever, and it's. It makes such a huge difference. It throws everything off, throws my exercise schedule off. It throws my Diet off. All of a sudden, I start getting hungry at night. So getting to bed early by 10 every night is huge for me.

What are we gonna do about mindshare, Brian?

That ain't happening.

Yeah, for everybody listening, we have an event every year that I put on that we kind of have these dance parties till midnight. And I was like, just thinking about you dancing it away at like 11:30 at night. I missed it then. But, you know, that's what we train for. We train for those times. So there always are the exceptions.

But.

But generally, gosh, the biggest difference, eight to nine hours of sleep. If we had to choose one thing for balancing blood sugar is super key. So I'm glad you brought that up. Now I know you have something awesome for all the listeners. I always love it when my fabulous guests give out a great gift. So tell us about this blood sugar manifesto.

Yeah, it's called the blood sugar manifesto. So basically what I did is I decided, you know what? I want to give away my best secret. So I actually sat down over a weekend and wrote this ebook. And I put basically everything that I teach my clients in there, from the diet to the exercise strategies, things like sleep, stress management. We break stress into three types of stress that are really hugely important. The 10 factors that I think are most important to impact blood sugar and insulin levels and metabolism. Key supplements, not products, but nutrients that we recommend to help with insulin sensitivity and blood sugar. So everything's in there and we just decided to give it away to people so that people can take this and really start to make some changes for themselves and get themselves healthy.

Cool. I call that then. No excuses, right? Free. And we'll have it in the show notes. But you can also, if you're listening, go to jjvirgin.com Dr. Mole. And that is Dr. And then it's not spelled like it sounds. It's M O W L L. So, Dr. Mole, M O W L L. And thank you so much for joining me. You are always just an awesome wealth of practical, applicable info, which I love. I love it when people can take action fast. So thank you, Brian.

We always have a blast. Thanks, jj.

All right, now after the break, I'll be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. This is the time where we answer a listener's question and I always try to find ones that go super well with the show today. Now here's where I'm finding my questions. I find them, you know, sometimes people just send them on into our customer service but most of the time I'm finding them through our social media, especially Facebook lives. I love jumping on. I do a weekly show on Facebook Live. So if you're not over there hanging out with me yet, go on over to JJ Virgin Official and and jump on those Facebook lives and ask questions. And today's question is perfect for what we've been talking about. It's from Sharon in Lubbock, Texas and she says, all right, you say sleep is super duper important, but you also tell us to exercise. I kind of have to pick getting enough sleep or getting in the exercise. What do I do? This is a good one. So here's the deal. No one here is telling you to do loads and loads of exercise. In fact, I built my whole platform. I started years ago when we were being told to do this long slow distance. You know, if you couldn't exercise at least 30 minutes, don't bother and ideally do an hour plus a day. And I kind of was controversial and bold as I like to be and said no, no, no, no, no. It's really all about intensity. And the cool thing here is the more intensity exercise, the less you need. So, so what you can actually do if you're really short on time because I'm always say choose sleep first. How's that? Choose sleep first but don't blow off the exercise. And here's what you can do. Get yourself an exciser X I S E R and you can grab it on my website. Actually, jjvirgin.com we've got some special deal there. Or go to burst to blast fat and you're going to just throw in a couple bursts throughout the day. So you're going to fit fitness into your life. So one of the things with high intensity interval training is to go all out, move as much of your body through space for 30 to 60 minutes and then walk around to recover and repeat to accumulate four to eight total minutes of bursting three times a week. Now, here's this twist on this. You don't necessarily have to do that all at once. You could do it throughout the day. In fact, when I was on Dr. Phil, we had a gal on there who was having tough time losing weight, need a little boost to her metabolism, which hiit training does. And so we had her jump on the exerciser throughout the day. So that's what I would tell you to do if you feel like you can't fit it in. Get your sleep, get up first thing, throw a burst in or two. And then just keep that exercise or burst trainer somewhere where you trip over it throughout the day. Not really. Or if you're going to work, hey, run up and down the stairs, throw in a couple more bursts. Because if you're throwing them in throughout the day, you're not going to get stuck sweaty. So you can add them in and everything counts. And that's what's key important here, everything accounts. All right, remember, jump on Facebook and join my Facebook lives and ask me questions, and if I don't get to them there, which we usually do, we'll also answer them here. And I am so appreciating the audience here on the podcast and what you're saying on our reviews. And every week I like to feature a review of the week. And this week, like, how could you not feature this one? And I'm just sending massive gratitude here because this is from Human Sled. And she says, or he says. I'm not sure if it's he or she says, the strategy and woman who saved my life. I mean, wow. And says my strategy. Do everything JJ tells me to do, whether it is about my personal nutrition and fitness or ways to create impact in my business. JJ is my mentor and I tell anyone who asks, the podcast is just another example of her total dedication to quality, excellence, and lifelong abundance. Thank you, jj. Your podcast and your team are world class. Thank you. Super appreciate Human Sled. Love to know the story behind that name. And if you'd like to leave a review. And by the way, we so appreciate these. We read them. The whole team reads these reviews and then we feature one every week. So I'd love to feature you. Hint, hint, hint. And thank you again for joining me. And I want to remind you that we gave you some super easy, actionable stuff to do today. So do it. It's only good, all this information if you put it into action. Alrighty. This is JJ Virgin signing off. I will see you next time. Bye bye.

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