What is Metabolic Flexibility?

What is Metabolic Flexibility?

By Karrie Billets, Functional Medicine Nutrition Coach

Metabolic Flexibility describes your ability to switch between burning carbs and burning fat as they become available. This is something I counsel my patients for not only weight loss, but also optimal metabolic health. It can be the key in helping avoid many health issues.

If you have great metabolic flexibility, then you can burn carbs easily when you eat carbs, and you can easily burn fat when you eat fat (or when you don’t eat anything at all). In this manner, you can switch between carbohydrate metabolism and fat metabolism easily and efficiently.

People who have poor metabolic flexibility are at a much higher risk of disease and illness than those who are not. They tend to be resistant to the hormone insulin, and this means they are also at an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. These same individuals have a poor ability to access stored fats for energy, which means they are also much more likely to be obese. I call this being “metabolically stuck”.

Being metabolically flexible will allow you to safely and effectively use all of the foods you eat for energy. If you constantly choose to fill your body with carbs, that’s what your body will burn. It has no reason to dip into fat storage. Read that again!

You can optimize your energy production to perfectly match the exercise that you are currently performing. I advise patients how to adjust their aerobic exercise program for better fat burning and metabolic health. If you are metabolically flexible, your ability to lose fat and build muscle is going to be enhanced.

Signs of Metabolic Inflexibility

•   Hard time losing fat, even if you are in an energy deficit state
•   Drop in energy after eating a carbohydrate-rich meal
•   You get hungry 2-3 hours after eating
•   Poor sleep and lack of focus
•   Can’t function without coffee
•   You find yourself feeling lethargic, tired, and grumpy while intermittent fasting
•   Inability to exercise in a fasted state

If you want to learn how to become metabolically flexible, connect with me and I can offer guidance, tips and tricks to flip your metabolic switch!

Sources:

Goodpaster, Bret H., and Lauren M. Sparks. “Metabolic flexibility in health and disease.” Cell metabolism 25.5 (2017): 1027-1036.

Smith, Reuben L., et al. “Metabolic flexibility as an adaptation to energy resources and requirements in health and disease.” Endocrine reviews 3