Blood Sugar & Metabolic Health Explained: Circadian Rhythm, Blue Light, Stress, Insulin Resistance & Sunlight | Blood Glucose Regulation with Danielle Hamilton

0:04 This is the Fitness Wisdom podcast.

0:09 One of the biggest flaws that I see in the health space is that everyone, when they're talking about metabolic health, they're just focused on nutrition. And that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm not saying that food and nutrition is not important, but we're overlooking a massive piece of the puzzle. And that's why I've got Daniel Hamilton on the show today to both some myths and blow our brains today. So thank you for being here, Daniel. Thanks for having me. This is going to be a very exciting discussion and an important discussion because we need to bring more nuance to this whole blood glucose regulation and metabolic health perspective.

0:42 Because as I, as I just mentioned there on the intro, everyone just thinks it's all about the food and cutting out the carbs and eliminating entire food groups and creating fear over certain foods. When in reality, our body was designed to be able to process and utilize all different types of foods, right? And you would go as far to say that you can even dysregulate your blood glucose levels and your metabolic health without even putting a single thing in your mouth, right? So This is why you are here today to actually blow our minds.

1:14 But before we dive into any of that, do you want to start off with a a broader perspective, describing to the audience what metabolic health actually is? Because we throw this word around, but do we actually know what we're talking about? Sure. Yeah. So metabolic health has to do with our body's ability to break things down to get energy and get energy to our cells. So it's all about utilizing and having the energy that the cells need to carry out tasks. So a lot of us think of energy, Oh, I have enough energy.

1:49 I don't need a coffee that that way, like, oh, I'm good. I, you know, drank my coffee or I didn't need an extra coffee. I have enough energy. But the energy that we're talking about in the body really has to do with do does the liver have enough energy to do all the tasks that the liver needs to do? Does a cell have enough energy to do all the things that the cells need to do? And the brain, which is the largest consumer of energy. So it's it has to do with our blood sugar, but it really comes down to our mitochondrial function.

2:21 And so when we're looking at our blood sugar levels, it's a really powerful indicator of it. It's sort of a symptom and it's something that we can control, but it's not the entire picture. And so a lot of people are just chasing flat lines on a glucose graph. And yeah, that'll definitely help you feel significantly better if your blood sugar was spiking really high and crashing really low and all over the place. That stability is powerful for healing, but it's not the only story. And I think that so many people just get stuck there because that's what they understand, that's what they can measure.

3:04 And our mitochondria, I like to look at them as the sentient sensors. They're scanning our internal and external environment looking for signs of threat. And many of my clients come to me after years of so much stress, whether it's from trying to fix their health problems or trying to get it right and trying to do all the things in the day and taking every supplement and researching everything and doing all the bio hacks and getting outside and like, it's so stressful even just naming all of that.

3:34 And so many of them, their, their mitochondria are scanning and it's like, Oh my gosh, this is, this is like there's a problem here. And many of them have come from a background of a history of chronic restriction, restricting calories, yo-yo dieting, restricting carbs or the other way where it's just so many carbs, eating completely out of season and sort of the other end of that spectrum. And either way you slice it, there's stress at the root of that. And the mitochondria, I'm not an expert in the cell danger response, but they can get stuck in this sort of response where their body, where the the mitochondria are in more of a protective state.

4:19 They're not prioritizing growth and detoxification. They're more like, whoa, stuff is going on. We can't focus on all those other things. We have to protect you. So the mitochondria are in this protective state from stress. And so I find that stress, any type of stress, whether it's nutritional deficiencies, blood sugar spikes, lack of exercise, too much exercise, repressed emotions, being inside all the time, too much Wi-Fi. I mean, stress comes in so many forms. And all of that stress, I believe, is dysregulating our metabolism.

4:57 It's dysregulating our mitochondria's ability to regulate our glucose levels and be in a state where it's like, oh, we had some carbs. Oh, that's fine. And, and be resilient and, and be, be robustly vibrant and healthy. And so adding more stress on top of an already stressed system, you know, sometimes it can have benefits because of hormesis. So we stress the Organism just a little bit and then we get a really good adaptation. So what I mean by that is like if I did 1 bicep curl, that's not enough stress to grow my bicep.

5:34 If I did 10,000 bicep curls, I'd probably tear my muscle. I wouldn't recover. I damage, I would, I would hurt myself. That's too much stress. But maybe 10 solid, really heavy bicep curls would actually help to grow my muscle. So that's the sort of right amount of stress for my body to get stronger. Now, I think that a lot of us in the health space are doing things that are causing so much stress. I see this with my clients that they're trying to do all the things they're working out even though they're super depleted.

6:07 They're not taking a rest day because they need to, you know, get all their steps and they need like, there's just so much stress out there and people thinking, Oh my God, there's lead and everything. I have to get rid of all this stuff. Like there's just so much so many things coming at us that I think overall we have such a high baseline stress level. And on top of that, we try to add strategies like sauna and intermittent fasting and cold plunging and, and lowering carbs and all these things.

6:37 And it's just piling on more stress. So for some people that can help, but for some people it doesn't. And oftentimes they just keep trying harder because they're like, this is what I'm supposed to do to help my blood sugar. So I kind of went all over the place, but I'll let you jump in guys, if you haven't already. Smash that subscribe button and the like button. Now back to the show. No, I love it. I love it. That was a fantastic breakdown. So what you're basically saying there is that metabolic health and glucose regulation is not just only down to the food that you're eating, but it's all of these different environmental and lifestyle factors that you just named there.

7:13 And a lot of people are not actually realizing how their lifestyle is actually contributing to their metabolism. How your environment and the way your psychological environment, your external environment, your internal environment, all of these things are influencing your metabolic health at a very fundamental level. And as you explained, is that the ability for the cell to utilize the energy that's actually coming in and process it efficiently and either store it or give us energy is what would we would call good metabolic health.

7:46 Whereas poor metabolic health would be when the cell is more rejective, right? When the cell is not able to take in the energy. And so therefore it stays floating around in our system, making it appear as if the food that we are consuming is the problem, but the food that we're consuming is revealing there is a deeper problem actually going on. And I think this is the level at which we need to go to as people in the, you know, space. I'll ask people in the nutrition space and take responsibility because I feel like blaming entire like foods and food groups is a really silly idea when we don't actually understand context.

8:24 Because as you mentioned, something that works for someone may not work for somebody else. And we need to ask be asking the reason why is actually not working for somebody else. And because it's so bio individual and so bio energetic, right is we know that biophysics is what governs our biochemistry within our body, the greater forces outside of our body and inside which are influencing our metabolism. So what kind of symptoms can someone experience when they have poor metabolic health so that it can maybe like identify and find some similarities?

8:58 Yeah. And this is a a great question because so many people are like, well, if my metabolic health was bad, surely my doctor would tell me. And I see people every day who whose doctors are missing type 2 diabetes diagnosis. My doctors missed my hypoglycemia, doctors who think that a fasting blood sugar of 100, I think it's 5 millimoles is fine. And I don't believe that that's fine. I think that's already showing signs of dysfunction. So I just want to say, you know, I'm sure most of the people listening to your podcasts are probably in alignment with the fact that we can't wait for our doctors to catch this.

9:35 So the earliest signs of blood sugar dysregulation often happen in the brain because the brain is the largest consumer of energy. So we might start to notice and they also show up and these are early signs. They also start to show up when a meal is missed or delayed. So if let's say a meeting is running late or you're on a podcast and it's running late. And what you may notice is that you may start to feel a little bit light headed, tired, dizzy, you may get headaches, you may start to feel anxious, depressed, irritable and feeling hangry, feeling urgent, hunger is is very common.

10:16 And just having sort of like a brain fog, difficulty concentrating type thing. Feeling like I need to go lay down and take a nap, feeling like I need another coffee. So just in general, all of those things, we can see that the brain's struggling to get energy. And So what it does often times is it will send us signals like that so that we go get more food. All of those things. If I'm tired, if I'm like kind of foggy, yeah, I, I could easily think, oh, let me just go to the break room and grab a snack or let me just go grab another coffee because that would give my brain that energy it needs.

10:53 So we often self medicate in the first sort of when these symptoms are showing up. The other things that can happen are that we can start to get a sort of sympathetic activation. So this is really, if the blood sugar does dip low and the adrenals come in to kind of pump us with stress hormones, glucocorticoid hormones to tell our body to release new glucose, make new glucose. And, and so I for example, when I was dealing with my hypoglycemic symptoms, I was going to get fasting blood work and I felt so dizzy.

11:26 My head felt like a balloon. I almost passed out and I was really, really shaky. So I get that's how like hypoglycemia manifested me. I would, I would get like really, really shaky and that sort of heart palpitations. Those types of things are very common, but not everybody feels every symptom. You might be like, I don't feel like I really feel those things. And my blood sugar definitely doesn't go low. So it may have started to go low maybe when you were a child, maybe, you know, when you were a teenager.

11:57 But over time, what do we do when we have those symptoms? We start eating. So then our blood sugar actually starts to become more dysregulated. We get more insulin because if we're eating multiple times of the day, snacking all the time, we are going to keep making those insulin levels rise. And that's, that can potentially make those glucose levels rise as well. For some people it makes their blood sugar drop and for others it makes the blood sugar go high. And so the brain symptoms are very common and there's, there's symptoms.

12:29 So our blood sugar effects every single cell, organ and process in the body. So that means that we can get symptoms anywhere in our body. So it's sort of, it could be tricky to nail down, but as the blood sugar dysregulation and metabolic health sort of worsens, the symptoms become more widespread and more severe. So instead of just brain fog over time, after years of this, maybe we get mild cognitive impairment and maybe after more decades of it, we've developed Alzheimer's, which is called type 3 diabetes.

13:04 So it's that we could see maybe we get a little headache in the afternoon and we need a little snack and then goes away and then maybe it turns into chronic migraines. So the symptoms tend to worsen and the the symptoms can, as I mentioned, be widespread with all these different organs. So chronic prolonged blood sugar and insulin, leptin dysregulation can drive any sort of heart disease symptoms, high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes, arrhythmias. We can get issues in our our stomach, our gastrointestinal tract, poor balance of bacteria, there is fertility implications.

13:44 So that was one of my biggest issues that I had polycystic ovarian syndrome and I was able to reverse it not by addressing my hormones, but by addressing my blood sugar and metabolic health because that was at the root of my hormone balance. And so I find that for pre menopausal women, instead of focusing on the hormones directly, if you focus on the the metabolic health, things can regulate on their own. There's also skin issues. I had a lot of acne and so that was sort of a symptom of mine when my blood sugar would spike, high insulin levels, acne is common, even eczema, rosacea, workening of the skin folds.

14:19 So a lot of skin issues. No, I mean literally you could take take any organ in the body and there could be issues of blood sugar dysregulation, the eyes because there's small blood vessels. It's common in people with type 2 diabetes, diabetes to experience blindness or macular degeneration, and that's due to the impact of high blood sugar levels over time on our vasculature. And so it really impacts the small blood vessels the most. So we see issues with type 2 diabetics in the eyes and the kidneys where there's lots of really small vessels.

14:54 And so, yeah, I mean, you can again, the the liver, you know, fatty liver disease, just pick an organ and the blood sugar can dysregulation metabolic health can really impact that. And what we start to see on lab panels where your doctor then starts to get concerned, they may the insulin might be doing such a good job of keeping the blood sugar regulated that maybe your insulin is like at a 12A15A20A50. And the blood sugar might still be kind of in the normal range. But there's really issues sort of brewing in the background when that's already happening.

15:32 And when the doctor might not bat an eye about a blood sugar of 102, but the person has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, triglycerides, can't lose weight. So all of those things are now that's metabolic syndrome, right? And so they used to be called insulin resistance syndrome. So for some people, it's easier to conceptualize because they know a little bit more about insulin. And so that's when the doctor will get concerned, but still they but they do give you blood pressure medication, give you cholesterol medication, not tell you to change your diet and your lifestyle and monitor your stress and move your body and all those things.

16:12 Imagine spiking your blood sugar without eating cake. Elevating course is all your stress hormone without being stressed and suppressing your body's most powerful sleep. Antioxidant and regeneration hormone, which is your melatonin. This is why I make sure to wear my yellow daytime blue light blocking glasses every time when I spend time indoors under artificial lights and in front of greens to protect my eyes from oxidative stress and my entire body. And if I'm going to be exposed to artificial blue light, especially after sunset, I'm going to wear my red lens blue light blocking glasses to support my melatonin production and release.

16:44 So if you want to protect your energy levels, sleep, and biology from artificial blue light, head over to the description and you will find all of the links with a massive discount on my favorite. Blue light blocking glasses. You said so many great things there. Basically what you just highlighted was the metabolic health and blood glucose regulation is literally foundational to the overall health of our entire being pretty much. And it's pretty much an energy mismanagement, right? So when the cells are not getting the energy that they need, they are literally screaming for energy.

17:15 And then that is like forcing us to overeat. And then we are we are reinforcing the problem by eating more food even though we already have enough energy available, but the body can't actually access that food or the cells can't actually access that food. And something very important to mention is, you know, you mentioned when you talk about blood sugar and you talk about, yeah, just high insulin levels, the first thing that will come to everybody's minds, right, is immediately, oh, you must have been eating too much sugar and all of this.

17:43 But you know, it's so easy to confuse the sugar that we eat with just high blood glucose levels. And certainly if we are eating in excess, of course, the body cannot utilize it all straight away. But in a normal situation, or rather what I would say a healthy situation, if you're overeating, your body should be able to store that excess energy into fat tissue. I feel like that is a healthy response by the body. But if it's not able to do that, where you see lean diabetics, for example, it's like keeps on circulating around in your system.

18:16 You are storing more visceral fat, you're creating more inflammation and you're causing a whole cascade of issues, right? So do you want to maybe now dive into the fact and explain to people how actually our environment shapes our. So people actually move a little bit away now for a, you know, few moments from nutrition and what we actually eat to actually understand how does our environment influence our metabolism and our blood glucose? Yeah. So our body receives signals from the external world that tell it what it needs to do.

18:52 So I want you to consider that our bodies has hundreds and thousands of tasks to carry out in every cell every second of the day. And we have all different processes to run. And just like think about an airport, it needs some level of organization. It's like, OK, this lights going out, this one's coming in, this one's going out, this one's coming in. So we need to organize all of these tasks. And as humans, we are better able to do certain things, certain functions of the body at certain times of the day or night.

19:23 So for example, in the morning we're much, in the morning and early daytime we're much better at digesting a metabolizing food than we are at night time. At night time we're much better at resting, restoring, repairing. And so the body has this sort of organizational system based on a 24 hour cycle because we live on a planet with a 24 hour day and night cycle. So the body is ideally is In Sync with the sun's rhythm so that the sun is giving the body the signal of hey, it's this time. So now you need to do these things.

20:02 So it doesn't really sound stressful. Like, oh, if the body doesn't know what time it is, that's very stressful. It's like, it doesn't sound that stressful. But I love to use the example of have you ever taken a really long nap and you wake up and you're like, Oh my God, where am I? Like what day is it? What time is it? You're just so. Confused. And it's like, why is that the first thing we try to do with our conscious mind too? Why is the first thing? Why do we have a low level of panic? And why is it that the first thing we try to do is figure out what time it is and what day it is?

20:38 And where am I? Because if we didn't know, we wouldn't know what to do. Should I be decorating for Christmas right now? Should I be brushing my teeth and putting on my pajamas? Or should I be on this podcast? Should I be going to a doctor's appointment? Should I be, you know, we don't know what to do if we don't know what time it is. So the body is no different. And so that's why the body relies on light signals as its primary time giver to keep track of what time it is. So it knows, OK, it's time to metabolize.

21:07 OK, it's time to, you know, release insulin, it's time to digest. It's time to do this. And so the, and, and you know, so many more things, but in order to keep everything running smoothly, like a well oiled machine, the bodies, the, the best way to do that is to make sure that the body is being exposed to the light of the sun and the darkness that the absence of the sun provides. And so what's happened and why I think there's so much more metabolic dysregulation lately and why my clients who are really stuck on just working with food and they don't take into account the light, the stress, the emotions, they don't see the long lasting process progress that honestly they used to see when I first started in like 2019-2020.

21:56 And so things have shifted over the past several years in our environment in terms of our light and our frequency environment. We're also inside all the time and even just COVID, you know, the mandates and lockdowns, it's like we're much more in our house. During that time. They rolled out 5G, which is a frequency which is like an invisible form of light. And we all, they also over the last decade or so have switched out all of the light bulbs. So now they've really gotten rid of so many incandescent light bulbs, which has regulating beautiful light that comes from a heat source versus LE DS, which have a strobe effect.

22:40 So they're flashing on and off like every couple of seconds. And the elephant in the room is that we have screens all over the place. And these were addicted to our screens. And sometimes we're watching a big screen and we have a little screen in front of us and it's, and we're hooked up to Wi-Fi. So it's just like screen central. And so that light is impacting our body. It's telling the body mixed messages. So the body is getting the signal. Oh, OK. It's about 9:30 in the morning. And then I open my phone and it's super for bright and it's like, Oh no, it's 12:00.

23:18 And or then I'm in bed at night and my body's like, oh, OK, I think it's like 9:00 PM. And then I open my phone, it's like, OK, it's 3:00 PM. Let's do all the 3:00 PM stuff. So because light is the primary time giver of the body, we are being so bombarded by these confusing chaotic signals. I like to also, I love analogies for this kind of stuff. So I like to think about the body as an orchestra. And when the sun is conducting the orchestra, everything is going so beautifully that you know, the the clarinets are coming in on time and the cellos are coming in and then there's harmony and it sounds beautiful.

23:55 And when we have LED lights, the Wi-Fi, the screens, the computer, the laptop, the overhead lights, we go into the bank and it's bright and, and then we're inside, we're turning on lights at night. I like to think of that as a bunch of kids from the audience run up to the front of the orchestra and start going like that and directing the orchestra and the orchestra is going all out of tune and it's it's like anarchy. So that's what I like to think of when these light sources are are like telling our body what to do, we just are getting confusing signals.

24:29 So it's not like our body doesn't know what to do. It's just being told to do something that we don't want it to do. So for example, to ground this a little bit into reality, at night when the sun goes down, our cortisol should be dipping because that's when blue light is what makes our cortisol rise. And so when blue light is in the picture, like in the sun, there's blue light in the sun. That's why this the sky is blue. And so in the morning, the cortisol should rise beautifully and peak in the midday and then start to come down.

25:02 And so our cortisol rhythms actually follow the sun. And so when the sun goes down, there's now an absence of blue light in our environment. And so let's say our early ancestors would have had fire light where there's almost no blue light in there. It's very low to the ground. It's, it's sort of dim. It's the the warm toned lighting. And that light doesn't impact pack the cortisol, so the cortisol can continue dipping down and that allows melatonin to start rising. The absence of blue and the absence of bright light allows melatonin to start rising, which helps us sleep, but also drives all these repair processes in our body.

25:41 And so when at night in 2026, what happens is the sun goes down, we flip on lights, we probably flip on overhead lights. They're LE DS. So I just moved into a new house and there's a horrendous, horrendous LED lights above me. And they, I filmed them on my camera on slow motion. They're strobing, they're flickering like crazy. And it, they're so bright. Like I feel like I'm in an on an operating table, like that's how bright these lights are. And meanwhile I come in, I'm like just not going to use those overhead lights.

26:16 I have a nice salt lamp behind me with a dim, warm glow. So but in 2026, the average person doesn't know this. So they go in, they flip on their lights, not thinking anything of it. They flip on the TV, they're on their phone. And so they're actually being bombarded with so much blue light that is then raising their cortisol, which then raises blood sugar and then raises insulin. And so we're essentially telling our body to do these things that it's not designed to do at that time. And so it drives so much dysregulation because at that time, all those things should be coming down so we could sleep and repair and we can get into a fat burning mode instead of stay in a fat storage mode with high insulin.

27:02 And that insulin is also going to block a hormone called leptin. And leptin's job, it's a hormone that's made in the fat cells. And leptin goes up to the brain at night and says, hey, here's the rundown of how much stored energy Danny has. She's got this much stored sugar in her liver. She's got this much body fat and she's got this much large and you know what, that's a little excess. So tomorrow feel free to lower her appetite and let's, let's feel free to burn off, you know, some of that storage because we're at a little bit of an excess.

27:35 So you can go ahead and do that no problem. So that's how leptin should work to regulate your appetite levels and your hunger levels and your body weight. But when when insulin is rising and cortisol is rising, it's it's sort of competing for space at the hypothalamus, which is like the Control Center of our brain. And the the brain never gets the signal that leptin is there and never gets the information that leptin needs to share with it. So my understanding is that the brain thinks, Oh my gosh, I don't have any stored fuel.

28:07 We're obviously starving. There's obviously a famine. And So what happens is that the next day it's the the leptins, like, OK, we need to raise her appetite, maybe make her anxious. So she goes out and gets food. And obviously we don't have any stored body fat and we certainly don't have any sugar in the liver. So can't burn that between meals, can't burn that overnight. So then it doesn't try to right, right. And so then we're going between meals. Let's say I just ate breakfast and a couple hours later it's like, why am I hungry?

28:36 It's because your, the blood sugar maybe got used up from that meal. And when the liver is supposed to kind of top you off with some sugar, if leptin is low or leptin is dysregulated or not communicating well, your body doesn't see that you have it. So it's like, Oh, she we better make her hungry. So she goes to eat and so that's how that kind of comes in. Also, if you have high insulin, insulin is telling the body to be in a fat storage mode, not in a breaking down and burning up fuel mode. So same it, it disallows the body to utilize the stored glycogen in the liver or body fat for fuel.

29:15 So as you mentioned before, metabolic issues often show up in an energy access problem, like we're not able to access, we have stored energy on our body in the form of body fat and glycogen, but we can't access it to use. So that's, it's super common in the people that I see. And that's what we try to work on optimizing. And we can't really get there because leptin is this hormone of light. And so if we want leptin to be working correctly, we have to get the light environment dialed in. And you know, it doesn't have to be perfect, but we've got to be consistent and we need to be mindful about the the light environment because in 2026 the default environment is working against that system.

30:01 Everybody knows about vitamin C, but have you ever heard about vitamin G? I'm talking about grounding. We know that oxygen is important for our survival, but what if I told you that grounding is just as foundational for our health? Your body is literally a battery and needs to be recharged every single day. Modern life, depleted fatigue, insomnia, brain fog, and restlessness. These all sound like a charge deficiency to me, you see. Grounding. Is not optional, it's foundational. This is why I make sure to get my bare feet on the ground every single day and to ensure that I stay grounded 24/7 like our ancestors.

30:36 Did I use my favorite grounding sheet as I sleep to keep me connected to the earth? At all times, check out my favorite grounding mats and sheets that I use on a daily basis by heading over to the description below. And make sure to use the promo code attached to get a massive discount on your entire order. Absolutely. Wow, that was such a fantastic breakdown. And This is why, I guess so many people, you know, calorie restrict or restrict themselves so much and they jump from one diet to the next because they acknowledge that they are carrying excess amounts of body fat and they understand the fundamental principles that I need to burn more body fat than I'm taking in in order to lose body fat.

31:12 But what if your body actually can't access your body fat for energy and you're just constantly, you know, you are dieting and dieting and dieting and you actually can't have access to that, you know, and that's actually the reason why you are not dropping the body fire in the 1st place. And leptin again, is the center of this controlling, you know, the energy management in the system, telling the thyroid how much energy we have available, how it should regulate metabolic rate, whether up or down energy availability.

31:40 And all, pretty much all our reproductive organs, everything in our system that requires a big energy demand is controlled by leptin, or rather the signaling by leptin. So the body can know how much energy there is available and if it should actually, you know, what it should actually do and how you should function. So symptoms like, you know, fatigue or infertility or blood glucose dysregulation, all kinds of symptoms that modern humans are experiencing today can actually be tied back to leptin dysregulation, whether too high or too low.

32:14 And as you mentioned, the light, the lighting playing a central role in all of this, how it's actually regulating our hormones, right? It's not just about the food that we eat. The food is, is an incredible signal for our body. It's can serve as an energy source, as a building block or whatever, but it's not actually giving the instructions of how everything should, you know, orchestrate itself as you mentioned about the orchestra. So I guess a next logical question would be, you know, because you talked about the impact of artificial blue light on our metabolic health and on our blood sugar.

32:48 And but then what other things are you aware of that can actually contribute to insulin resistance and even blood glucose dysregulation, which is actually not even related to diet? Yeah. So the number one thing I see is actually repressed emotions and being just out of alignment, I think with with your purpose. So I'll just quickly ground this in an example of a client. I had a client who had a lot of hypoglycemia. So her blood sugar was crashing quite a bit and we were able to, I was able to help her stabilize her blood sugar and then her blood sugar was kind of sitting a little bit higher, more in that pre diabetic space.

33:31 And I see that oftentimes with my hypoglycemic clients. And so that's sort of the insulin resistance showing in the background. And so her blood sugar was really stable. She felt so much better. And, you know, she, her energy was stable, her moods were better. I mean, so many things in her in her health turned around. She had so much more resilience. She could work out, but her blood sugar was just sitting high. And she was telling me that she was going through a really difficult time with her husband.

34:01 And, you know, her son was also having issues with the with the husband and it was really weighing on her. And he went out of town for a week. And she's like, Danny, I need to send you my blood sugar grafts because that line that was sitting around 100 milligrams per deciliter dropped down to the 80s that entire week. And then he came back and it went back up. So when you see things like this, just just so clear, you're like, I cannot ignore the fact that our emotional state has a huge impact on our metabolic health.

34:40 And so I keep mentioning hypoglycemia because although most people with blood sugar dysregulation experience high blood sugar, I happen to work with people who experience a lot of low blood sugar and hypoglycemia. So I've come to specialize in helping people with this as this was my manifestation. And you know, people just kind of kept coming to me and I just got the opportunity to work with thousands of people with this very difficult sort of manifestation of metabolic issues, some people so severe.

35:13 And so I've had the, the, the honor of, of learning from them and being able to really support them. And what I noticed with a lot of my hypoglycemics, and I see this also too with people with more of the high blood sugar pattern as well. But there's often these personality traits that are like 100% of the time there. So again, it's something I can't ignore. So we are often people pleasers, have perfectionistic tendencies, type A personalities want to get things right. We're often high achievers.

35:52 We are kind and helpful and generous and maybe overdue. We may be fawners like that nervous system state, fight, flight, freeze fawn where it's like we perceive that the safest thing to do is to sort of people please in that moment. And we're often the eldest daughter as well. And so there's this whole picture of the people that I see and these sort of personality traits. And one of the biggest things is that when people are like this, we are often very good at repressing emotions. And so our natural state is to push down what we feel and take care of other people, be highly attuned with other people's emotions.

36:35 And I don't have time to feel. And so we all have heard of the book, I'm sure called The Body Keeps the Score. And so we know that repressed emotions and traumas and these daily chronic stressors are inside of the body. And I believe that the mitochondria are picking up on this and they're saying the external world is scary. And, you know, thinking about all these things that I can't control is so fearful. It's, it's, it's terrorizing. And so instead of the body being like, oh, let's look at these things.

37:10 Let's let's sit with these things. It's like, no, I will die if I feel those emotions. It literally feels like it will die. So I believe that it's giving us chronic health symptoms to give us somewhere to funnel our attention and to give us some something to control. And I see this so heavily related to our blood sugar because when we're in a stressed state, we know we're getting stress hormones. We know that the stress hormones are directly impacting our blood sugar levels. So for me, it's, I'm seeing this very, very clear connection between our, our stress levels, our repressed emotions and what's happening with our metabolic health.

37:51 And so many of my clients are really sort of stuck in that cell danger response. It's like, where's this danger coming from? It's coming from me perceiving like, you know, I got a divorce and Oh my God, what's going to happen and all this stuff and the, the, the shame and the betrayal and the fear and the like. There's so much there. We have decades full of emotions that we never got to feel. And it's not only because we repress emotions, it's also because it's not appropriate for us to maybe in the middle of the grocery store, just like breakdown a cry.

38:24 So we keep it in. And there's also sort of this fight as we're as being children between authenticity and connecting and attaching to our caregivers. And we will always choose that connection because that means survival. A lot of us are simply just sort of an energetic mismatch for the families that we were born into. So maybe you're really kind of a reserved person and you're a little bit Shire and you were born into this family that's like so expressive and they're loud and they're and they're yelling and they're angry and and that's a that's a mismatch.

39:01 So even just that can cause significant distress that we hold our entire lives. And so a lot of times again, we're getting these symptoms so our body can have something to control something that it's. So a lot of this, this information comes from this incredible woman named Nicole Sachs and her work with Doctor John Sarno, who is someone who coined the phrase TMS. So TMS stands for tension myositis syndrome or the mind body syndrome, they call it. And it's really where your mind is is creating due to the the nervous system physical symptoms in the body.

39:44 So we all know that a stressful day, we could get a headache or if it's like, Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous about this thing and we might have to run to the bathroom. We think about biting into a lemon, our mouth starts salivating. We know that our thoughts and our nervous system can create physical experiences in the body. But what Nicole says is that when? These symptoms become chronic. We stop looking at the nervous system as a driver. So I'm dealing with an allergy flare right now and there's, you know, horrible allergies in Central Texas.

40:17 I mean, the pollen counts, if high, is considered 100. The pollen counts have been 8000. So we're talking about like astronomical amounts of pollen, but not everyone experiences these allergies. Not everyone is getting this. And so sometimes the body will give you things that are believable and things to take your attention. So when I can't breathe through my left nostril and I'm blowing my nose and I'm my eyes are so itchy, it has my full attention and it's taking my attention away from something it deems scarier.

40:49 So I clients help them to start seeing some of the patterns. So when they sign up for my program blood sugar Mastery, I like to tell them how you show up to anything is how you show up to everything, right? You've heard that saying before. And so they use the opportunity to be like, Oh, I already see, I feel like I'm behind. I'm trying to get it right. I feel like I have to watch every single video. I feel like, like, and they just have these patterns. And so we sit with that and we observe and we say, yeah, I do this everywhere, right?

41:26 So we can start to use, they start to use the program as this little microcosm of seeing. How am I relating to this? I'm wanting to fix it. I'm wanting to get it right. I'm wanting to, I, I believe my body is broken and that it needs fixing and that I have to do something right. So then we could see, oh, if I believe my body is broken, if there's something wrong with me, if my body is betraying me, if I'm in a battle with my body, what message is that sending to my mitochondria? And I like to remind people that I believe our body is self healing, right?

41:58 And so this sort of approach and all of the circadian and, and sort of the biophysics approach is based on that premise that when we put the body in an environment that is conducive to healing, it will itself. And so that's why I love the idea we can get outside and get the sun on our face and put our feet on the ground. And that's promoting a healing space for the body. It's sending signals of coherence and telling the body what to do. And so it's like, oh, I get it. And so then when we feel our feelings and we drain this emotional reservoir, the body is not like, Oh my God, everything's trying to kill me.

42:39 So it can move through that cell danger response. It doesn't have to stay stuck in this protective. And so then again, it's unlocking this healing. It's not that the body when it's in a cell danger response has a deficiency of glutathione and methylated B vitamins and antioxidants. No, it's purposefully down regulating methylation. It's it's down regulating, you know, antioxidant production. It's up regulating inflammation because it's trying to communicate to the body. And in functional medicine, we go in and we're like, Oh my goodness, look at this.

43:12 You have no B, no B vitamins and you don't have this and you need to take that. And I don't believe that's what brings safety to the body. I think that the body is doing this on its own beautifully. It knows what to do and that the approach needs to come from one of getting real with am I in alignment with what I want? Like is there, am I stuck in a marriage that isn't serving me? Do I need to make changes? Like the other day I was having this allergy outbreak and it was like a month ago and I'm like, I have to move.

43:42 And I was just like, I have to move. I have to get out of this house because it wasn't because the house was a problem, but it just wasn't in alignment. And I, I've been doing this work to try to be open to receiving information about like for me, I got really connected with God and, and source by doing all of this quantum work and being out in nature. And I feel like you almost can't help but to develop a deeper spiritual connection by doing this work. And so I feel that, you know, by being more in alignment, I've become more of, more able to just receive these messages that are supporting my highest good.

44:22 And so I moved to this new house and there's just a new energy and, and I, I feel different and I feel like just thinking about the energy in my old house, it's like that was it like I, I, I was meant to leave. I, I got all that I needed from that house and, and I just needed to move on. And so anyway, all of that to just say that I think that this is a huge, huge piece of what people are dealing with and why they could cut the carbs, they could have a straight blood sugar line, they could even get outside.

44:54 But if they are chronically repressing anger and rage and guilt and shame and fear and grief, and we're never allowing ourselves to feel those things and instead being like, I'm just going to go for a walk so I can get my steps and I'm going to get outside. We are using. I want you to consider that you may be using health strategies to avoid feeling your feelings. So if I could leave you with anything, it is feel your feelings. They will set you free. Connect with the like minded community. Get ad free episodes.

45:23 Submit your burning desire questions to the guests of the show to just topics and guests that you would love to see on the show. Get access to my programs, protocols and blogs as well as exclusive discounts on my one-on-one coaching programs. Get access to the Fitness Wisdom Podcast community starting from just $2.00 a month. The link is in the description. I look forward to seeing you in there. Oh, that's fantastic. What a what a wonderful answer that was. And it's truly that we are like multi dimensional beings, right?

45:50 And all of these things that you mentioned are influencing our nervous system state and our body is never actually attacking us or doing something against us. Is always responding and adapting the best it can based on the situation that it's in and the resources that it has. So if the best thing that it can do is give us pain and inflammation and symptoms and so on, that's what it's going to do to grab our attention because what is pain and all of these discomforts? It's a request for change, right?

46:17 And if we don't change something, we're just going to keep on going over and over and over repeating the same patterns. And I'm, it's my belief that if we actually put our body, as you said, in an environment which is conducive to health, aligned with the night and dark cycles and honor our rhythm with nature, we're able to reconnect and gather that charge that our body needs to gather that voltage and that energy, that cellular charge. And then we can then maybe start to process those emotions slowly, slowly, you know, in a more healthy way rather than them appearing to the surface in, in terms of, you know, aggressive symptoms which feel very uncomfortable to our body.

46:57 But our body is able now to deal with it because our body has the cellular energy to actually deal with the actual problem. Whereas when we're already in an environment which is, as you mentioned, fighting against us and working against our biology and is already signaling to our body states, you know, that we should be in a state of fight and flight, how on earth are we going to heal, regenerate, repair, detoxify? We know that the parasympathetic state is where all of those things actually take place.

47:23 And survival is not thrival, right? You don't. You don't thrive in a survival state. You're running away from the threat. Yeah, so I would love to actually move into some solutions. Do you want to say something? Sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, I just said I'm going to steal that one. Survival is not thrival. I love it. Yeah, I, I say all the time on my podcast because, you know, it's so true that when you're running away from a threat, you can't, you can't thrive. So I want to dive into some solutions for the audience.

47:53 And let's, let's talk a little bit about the importance of of sunlight on metabolic health and blood glucose regulation. And let's dive into specifically the different wavelengths, how those actually specifically influence our mitochondria and our metabolism. I think it's super important for people to understand, OK, they now they know all of the things that are affecting them, which is pretty much all the stressors really, Right. But then how do we make our body more resilient? This is where we're going right now.

48:20 Yeah. I love this question. And this is so powerful because we realized that so many of these strategies to really support our metabolic health are free. So feeling your feelings completely free, getting outside, completely free. And so it's obviously we can see why that, you know, maybe mainstream, you know, the powers that be don't want us to know these things. And I just think again, it's really taking back that autonomy and my body can heal and like all the answers are within me and I just need to get more in touch with my natural state and, and be in nature.

49:00 Getting outside is going to be absolutely phenomenal for our body because as soon as we start to see that first light of the day in the morning, we're starting to get the appearance of red and infrared light. So infrared light makes up about 50% of sunlight and it's available all day long, all year long. And infrared light specifically optimizes our mitochondrial functioning so that it enhances the energy efficiency and it boosts our blood sugar metabolism. So it, the thinking is that and, and red light as well, it makes the mitochondria take in glucose more effectively.

49:41 So that is how it lowers blood sugar. I have a lot of people who experience what's called the dawn phenomenon where they wake up and their blood sugar is high in the morning. And so getting outside first thing and getting red and infrared light on your skin and in your eyes will naturally help support your mitochondria to utilize that glucose much better. And when we're grounding as well, that is also super balancing and healing for the body. We're pulling in that charge and the light in the morning from the sun is going to be much obviously more aligned with what our body needs to gradually raise cortisol as opposed to flipping on a light, opening the fridge, turning our phone on and having all that blue light being blasted into our eyes.

50:30 So that the, the cortisol, which also has to it, it, it will rise gently as the sorry. I'm just seeing, Oh, my cat's outside my window. I'm so sorry. I was like, what is that? The, the, the cortisol will rise gently and that will bring the blood sugar up gently as opposed to a big burst of blue, which can really just raise that the, the blood sugar very intensely. And when there's insulin resistance, the body struggles to pull that in. So that's why the blood sugar stays up higher. So just getting outside in infrared light and red light in the morning is phenomenal for our body.

51:08 And so this is happening before the sun comes up and right at sunrise. And when we get sunrise, now we have that, that introduction of blue light into the environment. And some people are like, wait, but I thought blue light was bad. And it's like, no, it's amazing. It's necessary. If we didn't have blue light, we'd all be in bed. We'd all not be able to get out of bed. So we need the blue light, but the blue, only when it's paired with this red and infrared is it beneficial for our bodies. And it's always that way in the sun because that blue light, like I said, is sort of energizing.

51:45 It's going to drive up cortisol. But what did I say about the infrared? It's going to pull that down and sort of balance it out. And so in the sun, it's always the correct light for our bodies. And it's only in our devices where we pull out all the red and infrared. There's no infrared light in in an LED bulb or my phone. And so it's that unbalanced blue that starts to cause problems. So back to the infrared. It also stimulates the production of sub cellular melatonin, which is melatonin that is used as an antioxidant by the mitochondria.

52:20 So this is really important. So if anyone has inflammation, this is really helpful. And I mean, this light is so powerful. We also have it out in devices. So I have a big red light therapy panel right next to me. And so this is the light that people are putting on their face. And so why are they doing that? Because it promotes inflammation reduction, It improves wound healing, it grows collagen, it reduces sun damage, it reverses aging, it builds collagen, it reduces wrinkles. So there's so many benefits of this.

52:55 And red light by itself also has similar benefits to infrared, but it's beneficial for hair growth, skin health, reducing signs of aging, nerve pain, thyroid health, injury recovery. So getting outside at sunrise is just such a foundational way to start your day and support the right hormone cascade of everything that needs to happen during the day. And so I like to think about when I get outside at sunrise, it's like if you've ever seen an, A waveform of like audio and video and you know how they go, like take one, It's like that clap.

53:33 Well, that clap is to make a line in the waveform so they can match those up. So then the, the mouths will move at the same time as the audio is going. I like to think of when I get outside at sunrise, there's that clap. And then my body is now synced up to the sun's schedule. I'm not on my work schedule. We're not on our kids sports schedule. We're on the sun's schedule. And so that's why getting outside at sunrise, I feel, is so, so powerful. Based on my research, this is the best Shilajit in the world.

54:06 Here's why you need to know about Shilajit. Shilajit is a herba mineral substance made from the decomposition of plants and bacteria. This process taking place over thousands of years. It's harvested from the Altai and the Himalayan mountains. Think of it as a hyper concentrated plant matter that is made by Mother Nature over thousands of years. In many cultures and traditions, it's known as the destroyer of weakness. Let me tell you why. Shilajit is loaded with ionic minerals which are the most biocompatible with our human body.

54:34 It also has a very high concentration of folvic acid. This folvic acid allows those minerals to get into the cell and do their work. Minerals are absolutely essential for all processes of the body. I'm having good energy levels, enhanced cognitive function, hormone optimization and so much more. You name it. This is why I use shilajit on a daily basis because it works on a foundational level, on a mitochondrial level, and we know that we need healthy mitochondria in order to produce cellular energy.

54:59 Something very important to mention is the quality of shilajit. The The one I use has been tested for heavy metals and impurities, ensuring the highest quality Sheila jit. So if you want to experience this incredible ancient substance and find the one that I use on a daily basis, head over to the description below and use the promo code attached to get a discount on your entire order. Yes, the sun is absolutely incredible. It gives us so many light nutrients, you know, and in our indoor environment, we are literally devoid of all of the essential wavelengths that our body and biology needs every single day.

55:31 It's not something optional, it's actually foundational and if we don't get a disease, manifestation is inevitable. That's my personal opinion and we can pretty much see it everywhere in the world right now. What has really changed? Yes, the food has changed over time quite a lot. It has become more processed and modified. But let's face it, like you know, it's not that people are eating that much more food. Our environment has changed so much that our biology can literally not keep up, creating a non-native type of stress which our body simply can't understand.

56:06 And then therefore we are under this constant subconscious stress which we're not aware of even though it's right in front of our face, right? And it's so obvious, but yet not so obvious because, you know, we are addicted to these things and we're meant to be addicted to the sun. And that's why our blue lit screens are so addictive. But because we're doing them in an indoor environment devoid of all the other beneficial frequencies of light, we are just staying hooked indoors, and that's literally destroying our biology.

56:35 Do you have any other favorite ways to lower blood glucose and improve your metabolic health beyond sunlight? Yeah, I did want to talk about the other wavelengths, if that's okay. And then kind of, yeah, pepper this all in. So one of the other things is that in the morning, so I'll, I'll kind of infuse other strategies just like you mentioned, as well as keep talking about the light maybe throughout the day and evening. So one of the things that I see a lot in the blood sugar space is that everyone got the memo in 2018 to skip breakfast and to do intermittent fasting.

57:13 And what I see with my clients is that that may have certainly worked at the beginning for a lot of people, right? Because we're eating less and we're, you know, not inflaming ourselves whatever with with some of the breakfast choices that people are having. And so at first it's an acute stressor and the body's adapting and getting stronger. But when people are living in this highly stressful environment, skipping a meal during the window that they're most insulin sensitive and most able to metabolically manage food, what happens is they're running on stress hormones through their whole day.

57:52 So the stress hormones are building up and high cortisol levels and, and high stress hormones are creating a physiological insulin resistant state. And what studies actually show is that when someone skips breakfast, their blood sugar responses at the subsequent meals are higher and the more you go through the day. So often when people have sometimes I see this reverse and people who have severe circadian dysfunction. But in general, the average person is going to be most insulin sensitive earlier in the day, becoming more insulin resistant as the day goes on.

58:31 And So what that means in plain English is that your blood sugar response to your meals will be better at the beginning of the day as opposed to the end of the day. So if you're skipping breakfast and shifting that eating window into the time of day where you are least insulin sensitive and having the worst blood sugar responses to your meals and having a higher blood sugar response because you skipped breakfast, this is not, not, not helpful for most people's blood sugar. And what happens is people cling to it because they think this helped me at first and they think that it's going to keep helping.

59:08 But the body is now looking at this, I think, as a chronic stressor and it's just, it's not working anymore. So eating less, pushing your body more, sometimes it has a limit to how much it can be pushed because that stress becomes like the 10,000 bicep curls, right? It becomes, oh, this is actually too damaging. My body's not not recovering from this and I'm not getting the the adaptive benefits from this stressor. It's just stressing my body. So for some people who still occasionally want to do some intermittent fasting, shifting that eating window earlier is going to be so much better for the body.

59:46 And it's, I mean, my sleep is so much better when I stop eating earlier. So there's so many downstream benefits of this. So what I recommend for people is getting outside at sunrise and then eating breakfast kind of within that hour of sunrise and eating outside if you can, when the weather permits and eating that breakfast early in the day because that's when we're going to have our best blood sugar response to our meals. I could eat tons of carbs at breakfast and not have even a blip on my blood on.

1:00:17 In my glucose monitor, whereas if I ate that meal at dinner or after dark, forget it, it would be elevated and it stays elevated and it goes up and down like all night long. It's so wild. Just the timing that, and that's our circadian rhythm. Meal timing is actually our secondary circadian signal or secondary time giving signal to the body. So light is #1 meal timing is number 2. So the other thing I see people do that unknowingly really negatively impacts their blood sugar is that they, they start their day with coffee.

1:00:53 And so don't worry, I love coffee. I just had some coffee. So I always tell my clients you don't have to cut out coffee. Just if you have it with breakfast or after breakfast, it has less of an intense impact on your stress hormones. And this is even studied as well, studies showing this and you get less of an epinephrine response, which can drive more insulin resistance. So by just having your coffee with your breakfast or after, I have mine after breakfast and I think of it as a reward for having breakfast.

1:01:26 So it encourages me to get my breakfast right away so that I get my coffee as a as a treat. And what I noticed on my CGM personally that if I have coffee on an empty stomach, I will get a blood sugar spike from the stress hormones and then I will get a dip and it will dip down below baseline. And I've had that forever. I didn't realize it, but I used to get shaky after I had coffee and I thought it was too much caffeine. But when I got a CGMI tested, my blood sugar was like 60, which is quite low, like 3.2 or something like that.

1:01:58 And so it's very low. And so it made me hypoglycemic, so when I have it after breakfast, I get no response to my blood sugar. So it's amazing. And a lot of people don't have an appetite in the morning. And what I want to let you know is that by getting outside consistently for sunrise, you're getting the right signals to start triggering your appetite to come back online. So it may take a month of consistent getting outside for sunrise to actually become hungry in the morning. I remember when this happened to me because I would wake up, have my coffee, and then not eat breakfast until like 9 or 10 because coffee is an appetite suppressant.

1:02:40 So I was shifting my window back into that less it's optimal period. So I started having protein shakes. I'm not the world's biggest fan of protein shakes, but this was an opportunity where I'm like, there's no way I'm eating anything before my coffee, so I'll do a protein shake first. So I did that for about three, 3 1/2 weeks. And one day I go outside in the morning and I'm just looking at the sky and boom, I'm like, I'm hungry, I'm hungry. It worked. And so I was able to actually eat food and then do coffee and then dial in that that sort of morning routine.

1:03:15 That's been really helpful. Your skin is not just a barrier, it's a living organ. Anything that you put on it gets absorbed into your lymphatic system and your bloodstream. You see skin health is a reflection of your internal health. This is why I make sure to only use non-toxic skin care products. This is why I love Fat Skin, a non-toxic all natural skin care brand made to work with your skin, not against it. Every ingredient has a purpose to nourish, protect and support your skin the way that nature intended.

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1:04:11 And there was a just a recent meta analysis that came out, you know, a study of studies which, where they did on the time restricted feeding. I'm pretty sure that you, you maybe saw this already where they, where they compared, you know, just time restricted eating in general to not time restricted eating. And they saw that it had a beneficial effect compared to not doing it. But then they compared early time restricted feeding with late time restricted feeding. And that they actually found that the early group, the one that ate their dinner earlier and ended the day earlier had better outcomes than the ones who.

1:04:43 So again, another win for the circadian alignment, right? Which is actually shows us that how important it is to honor our light and dark cycles and live in alignment with nature. Really, right. So where does like seasonal eating fit into all of this? Like how does seasonal eating influence our metabolic health and our insulin sensitivity? Yes, absolutely. Our eating seasonally is, it's definitely a challenge in our modern supermarkets because you walk around and there's things from everywhere you don't even like.

1:05:16 Hardly anything has grown close to where I live. It's just all shipped in from all around the world. So eating seasonally we're as close to seasonally as possible is really important because food contains light information. And when that information is a huge mismatch, like, oh, this food was grown in the southern hemisphere and I live in the Northern hemisphere, that's a really big mismatch. So that confusion creates sort of chaos and inflammation in the body. And there's also the role of deuterium.

1:05:46 So deuterium is a heavy form of hydrogen. So let's go back to 7th grade biology. Hydrogen has one proton and one electron. Deuterium is a form of hydrogen where there's one proton, 1 electron, and also a neutron in the nucleus. And so as the hydrogens are going down the electron transport chain in our mitochondria to make energy, there's this one step that's a tiny nanomotor. And so it's spinning. And basically think about that nanomotor being able to accommodate 1 basketball, which is the one proton in the nucleus.

1:06:21 But when we have deuterium, there's two basketballs, it gets jammed. So it's sort of the motors in our mitochondria. And so having high amounts of deuterium in our body can really impact our metabolic health. So where's deuterium? Deuterium is often found heavily in high sugar foods. So in tropical fruits, coconut water, even the water closer to the equator has higher deuterium and the water closer to the poles have less deuterium. And so why? So why is it OK? Why isn't everybody in Costa Rica just dropping dead of having too much deuterium and metabolic dysfunction?

1:07:01 Because when you are in Costa Rica, you can deplete that deuterium much more easily. We can deplete deuterium in the cold, but many people are not doing lots of cold exposure. But we can also really deplete it from the like sauna heat sweating. So the deuterium, I was in actually Costa Rica and I had, I was enjoying all the fruit there. And so I would have breakfast, have some of the fruit and then I would go walk home and I was taking videos. I'm like, I'm on my deuterium depletion walk because I was just sweating because it was so hot.

1:07:37 So when we're eating seasonally, we're able to have more of an appropriate light information in the food as well as deuterium content for the climate that we're in. So yeah. Is there something you wanted to add to that? Actually, yeah, because I wrote an article recently about deuterium and because I've never heard anybody talk about it from the perspective of energy intake in general. Like I've just heard these just these statements about deuterium inherently being bad. And I'm not saying that the theorem in excess is not bad.

1:08:13 What I'm trying to say is that I've never heard anybody talk about it in context of in a calorie surplus versus a calorie maintenance versus a calorie deficit. Have we ever compared that? And have we ever seen what is the difference? Because we know naturally when we consume less food and we are burning more body fat as a fuel in general, are we able to now deal and process high carbohydrate or carbohydrate rich foods better? I would argue yes, because our insulin sensitivity is naturally more improved and so on.

1:08:44 I don't know what your thoughts are on this. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me. And that's really interesting, an interesting concept because so with many of my clients, we we for a period of time do a therapeutic state of nutritional ketosis and that's very deuterium depleting. And I think that's part of the benefits of why my clients just see such healing from that temporary protocol. And it makes sense then that if we're depleting all of this deuterium that we'd be able to maybe handle more of it, you know, But yeah.

1:09:23 And even being in the, the calorie deficit. So. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very interesting thought. I, I'm really looking forward to, to learning more about that and, and seeing what sort of research, you know, pops up about deuterium. Yeah, light is the instruction manual for your body and there are specific frequencies that modern human is deficiency in these days, red and infrared light is specifically known for improving mitochondrial function, boosting ATP production supports collagen production, so skin health and joint health and my personal favorite.

1:09:54 Is the cellular. Elatonin production. Elatonin is not just a sleeping hormone, it's one of your body's most powerful antioxidants. Let's face it, nothing beats the sun. But if you can't get outside, you need to find a way to supplement red and infrared light back into your life. This is why I love to use my Megalin Red Light Therapy mat every time when I do my daily mobility routine. It speeds up my recovery from my workhouse, improves my blood flow, makes my skin glow, and most importantly, leaves me feeling regenerated.

1:10:21 You see, light isn't optional, it's foundational. If you want to check out the red light therapy that I use on a daily basis by Megalin, head over to the. Description below and you'll find all the details. Yeah, because I've. Just heard many experts online, I'm sure you know, you're aware of, you know, most of the experts who are go on podcasts and they share about like Deter in general. And I absolutely agree with their point. Like I don't think that's something to disagree with the actual science and the mechanism in the way that it, you know, breaks the mitochondrial engine.

1:10:50 But then I feel like that's one of the biggest arguments for carnivores and low carbures, which was when I used to be carnivore and do more low carb for many years, I understood about the consequences of deuterium and I used that as one of my ideas of why I wouldn't consume carbohydrates and that carbohydrates are the devil, right? But I didn't understand all of these concepts which you were discussing today back then about the importance of our light environment, our seasons, like the temperature, like even the amount of the energy intake, how how it plays into a role of all of this.

1:11:25 And so it's, it's so much like context and nuance dependent, like the entire discussion today. I hope that people kind of grasp the idea of what what we try to do here is to help you understand that it's not so black and white. You can't say that carbs are bad or carbs are good. Like all macros, in my opinion, have a value in the human body and your body is supposed to be able to tolerate that and digest and process them efficiently. And the question we should be asking is why the body cannot process, utilize or digest, or why are we having elevated blood glucose levels or high insulin and so on.

1:12:03 Because it may not be the food that we're putting in. Of course, if we're eating in excess, it can cause it can make me make the problem worse. You're adding more fuel to the fire, but it may not be the start of the actual fire. So I hope that many people found a lot of value from our discussion today. We gave me you gave people so many incredible tips and you really enlightened us. You bust you bust so many myths and it just shows you how every single nutrition argument is literally flawed if you don't take into consideration so many different factors.

1:12:36 You know about the individual, just like you said, even just about the status of your nervous system, which is I feel like the biggest thing, right? Because everything that we do in order to align ourselves with nature and sleep well and all this is really to have a good nervous system regulation and deal with life and stress better, right? So when we regulate our nervous system, we have more charge, like our body is working optimally, it's insulin sensitive. Then we can eat more carbs and potentially not get fat if we are, you know, exercising, moving our body, having more muscle, all of these different ways to improve metabolic health.

1:13:11 Is there any final words that you'd like to leave the audience with, Daniel? Yeah, I wanted to talk about UV light. If we could just dive into that, really. Let's go. Because, yeah, so UV light is very demonized. And so after sunrise, shortly in the morning, UVA light comes online. And UVA light is present in all sunlight all over the globe, all all year. But it actually does really magical things in this morning window. And so it's stimulates palm C, which breaks down into things like beta endorphins and that supports the release of dopamine and serotonin.

1:13:52 So we can feel good, like you said, addicted to the sun because it's so good for us and we can feel motivated and, and happy and ready to take on our day. It supports the release of, of thyroid hormones and it starts producing melanin in the skin, which acts like a natural sunscreen. And melanin can actually split the water molecule and help us create molecular hydrogen, which is the most powerful antioxidant because it's so small. It can like it's a particle and a wave so it can move through cells and it's capable.

1:14:30 Melanin is capable of binding with heavy metals. And I mean, just absolutely amazing things. So UVA Light is a great time to get outside. And this can work in that morning routine with the sort of the pattern of sunrise, breakfast, coffee if you drink that. And then a walk in the morning is just an amazing way to get all of those light sources in the morning, get moving and really get all those benefits. And UVB is the light that is by far the most demonized. And so I was, I was moving and the movers were like, we were talking about the sun, of course.

1:15:10 And the guys like, Oh yeah, funny that. It's like some of the sun is good and then some of it is bad. And it's like, no, like if the sun was so bad, we would not be here. If everyone, if our ancestors were dropping dead of skin cancer because they were out in the sun and there was no such thing as sunscreen, we wouldn't be here. So I, I just think that we have been misusing the sun so drastically and we have to call out the fact that in the past we all lived in an environment that was, and this is obviously based on theory because I wasn't there.

1:15:47 But it's said that, you know, people who had really dark skin, they live by the equator. Why did they have dark skin? Because it was filled with melanin, which is natural sunscreen to protect them. People in Ireland had almost no melanin. Why? Because there's not a lot of sunlight there, if they had a lot of melanin, they wouldn't be able to get enough vitamin D because that melanin would have blocked it. So we were all living at this match for our skin type and the sun strength and now we're all mixed up all over the globe.

1:16:21 So we do know that that is going to cause an impact. So if you have light skin and you moved closer to the equator, you are going to be at a mismatch where you're more prone to having skin damage and sunburn. But the more dangerous way of a mismatch is when you have darker skin and you move further away from the equator and that's where you have, you run the risk of having severe vitamin D deficiency. And that cannot be replaced with a pill, sorry. And it really can damage our health in a big way.

1:16:59 So we can see a lot of autoimmunity and diabetes and inflammation and all cancer and all sorts of problems. There are maps that they show that the, the further you are away from the sun, from the equator, the more melanomas people are getting. So we've just been so misled in this area. And so vitamin D from the sun is so much more than just the 1 little colocalciferol molecule. There's tons of metabolites and all these different things that are anti cancer, anti metastasis. They are they help the body utilize fats and burn fats and like vitamin D from the sun is so essential for optimal blood sugar and insulin sensitivity and immune function.

1:17:49 Of course. But I have clients who my client Bailey, she had chronically elevated fasting glucose in the morning around like one O 5 to one O 8. I she lives here in Austin, TX and I told her spend the weekend at the pool. So she she did that. She got her morning light, she got the UVA built the melatonin protected her skin, then was able to be in a lot of UVB light. She went into the shade when, you know, she was had enough, was overexposed and spent the weekend at the pool and her blood, her fasting blood sugar on Monday was 85 S this like, and, and I just want to contrast this with what I see.

1:18:32 95% of the people who come to see me are taking a vitamin D supplement. So if they're signing up to work with me, a blood sugar specialist, they have metabolic dysfunction and blood sugar dysfunction and they're taking vitamin DI. Don't think that that D is not helping. I'm not saying don't take it, but I'm saying I don't think it's helping. And I got a lot of my clients off of vitamin D and we do a lot by, you know, a lot about going in the sun. So there's sunlight is anti cancer because of how powerful it is for regulating the immune system.

1:19:11 The sun is anti cancer, especially when you use it in a way where you're not frying yourself, you're not getting burnt, you're not eating seed oils and just baking under the sun. And also you're not rubbing petroleum based chemical laden sunscreens on your body and then roasting in the sun. So the average sunscreen is derived, many of the ingredients are derived from petroleum. Don't believe what I say, look it up for yourself. And like we're putting that on our skin and being like the, the sun gave me skin cancer.

1:19:44 It's like the sun is giving life to all life on earth. It's not trying to kill you. We have to respect it. We have to honor it. We have to know how to use it appropriately because again, our ancestors were very likely living outside. And so they got the morning sunlight. They conditioned their skin for the for the sun. And they were outside in the spring when the sun was coming back and just starting to get a little bit stronger. So they were. Building what we call like a solar callus. And they were building this base tan to.

1:20:18 So then when the sun came, they didn't have to use sunscreen. So I grew up in New York and I spent my entire summer going to the beach and being in the pool. And my mom always wanted me to get tan. Thank goodness, because I always say that's the only reason why I don't have an autoimmune condition. So my mom always wanted me to get tan. So like from the time I was little, as soon as we could get out in the sun, we'd be in the sun. And I never ever, ever use sunscreen my whole life. And I never remember getting sunburn ever, ever.

1:20:53 So, and I mean, for those people who really want to hear more benefits, UVB light also reduces your appetite and increases fat burning and regulates leptin and improves insulin sensitivity. So I mean, the sun makes you tan and thinner. So I mean, sign me up. And then I think what's really, really important to remember is that yes, we want to precondition our skin to the sun. We want to get a smart amount of sun exposure during the day. We want to avoid burns. You can certainly, you know, if you want to cover your face a little bit, like you can certainly do that if you are in the sun, can't seek shade, let's say you're on a boat, Mineral based sunscreen, clothing when appropriate.

1:21:34 Certainly, you know, we don't have to be, you know, purists about this. Then in the evening, getting in front of the sunset, which is like a giant red light therapy panel, which is going to reduce the burn. It's going to pull inflammation out, like, well, neutralize the inflammation and heal the skin. And importantly, importantly, what people miss is darkness. We need to have the sunlight followed by darkness to promote the melatonin release, to drive the repair processes in the skin. So if we consume the sun in its full glory and the darkness, I believe that that's how the sun was meant to be consumed or experienced.

1:22:18 And that will lead to amazing results. Instead of this fear that the sun is going to kill us because it's just so far from the truth. Without the sun, that's going to be way, way worse for us. And there are many studies to back that up. Absolutely. It's our convenience. There's actually killing us, you know, our indoor living, our disconnect from nature. And this entire discussion was literally centered around the issues that we are facing today in our modern world and literally our disconnect to nature, right If we.

1:22:50 Were to just. All of a sudden ditch our houses and move on a beach with a tent and live in alignment with the light and dark cycles. Tell me how sleepy you would feel as soon as the sunsets and you had no lights around you and you had no, you wouldn't be able to see to walk around or anything like that. You just go in your tent, you fall asleep and you say OK, Oh well. I'm just going to wake up the next day and live my life again, you know, and go and find some food and eat when the sun is up and stop eating when the sun is down.

1:23:15 And basically all the things that we just mentioned today is simply remembering, reawakening who you truly are, right? And it's what you said, that spiritual connection, you know, returning to nature and remembering who we truly are. It automatically comes when you are in connection with nature and you respect nature and a respect to yourself is actually respecting nature as well. There is this bite directional relationships. So thank you so much, Daniel. This has been like an enlightening discussion.

1:23:43 I really enjoyed it. Work on people actually find you and connect with you and work with you if they wish to do so. Sure. I hang out a lot on Instagram. My handle is Danielle Hamilton Health That's also my website and my podcast is light up your metabolism and my right now it's called my signature program is called blood sugar mastery. It's an 8 week program and we work on all of the things that I talked about today. So thank you so much for having me on. This was such a great conversation. You asked phenomenal questions and I love you know our our synergy and, and the commentary that that you shared as well.

1:24:19 Thank you so much for having me on today. Oh, thank you so much, Danielle and I absolutely love to have you again. And in the future, I'm sure you're going to like put out some great content on social media. Everybody make sure you go and follow her. I will put links in the description below so people can find you directly there and they should dig your content because you share some incredible like free insights as well. If people just want to see you know what you're about and get to know you even better.

1:24:43 So thank you so much. Thank you. Have a great one. If you guys enjoy the topics and guests I bring on the show, I would really appreciate if you left me a five star review on Spotify and subscribe to Fitness Wisdom Podcast on YouTube as well. This helps us spread the knowledge and wisdom with the world. Until next time.