Metabolism FAQ’s
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ATP is our cellular energy, that fuels all cell functions.
It’s made from carbs, fat, and protein in the mitochondria. Making it requires oxygen, nutrients, and a healthy metabolism.
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the sum of all biochemical processes in the body that convert food and stored energy into cellular energy, ATP, to sustain life.
It includes two main components:
Catabolism: The breakdown of molecules (like fats, carbs, and proteins) to release ATP.
Anabolism: The building and repair of cells, tissues, and molecules using that ATP.
When catabolism produces enough ATP, your body can recover, repair, and make hormones efficiently.
But if ATP is low, anabolic processes slow down—leading to poor repair, low hormone production, and common health issues. -
Small organelles within cells responsible for producing the majority of the cell’s energy, ATP
Healthy mitochondria generate more ATP, which enhance performance and tissue repair.
Unhealthy mitochondria produce less ATP, that weakens cell functions and lead to degeneration in the long run.
Mitochondria are highly dynamic, with their efficiency deeply influenced by how you eat, sleep, move, think, and feel.
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the study of how energy flows through living systems, particularly how cells produce, store, and utilize energy at the molecular level.
It focuses on the biochemical and physiological processes that convert food and oxygen into cellular energy, ATP, and how disruptions in this process affect metabolism, health, and disease.
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Fatigue, low mood, excess weight, cravings, digestive issues, poor sleep, trouble gaining muscle, hormonal imbalances, skin problems, PMS, PCOS, painful periods, anxiety, PTSD, headache, joint pain, inflammation, sick all the time.
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Bioavailability is the degree to which a nutrient is absorbed and used by the body.
Animal based food is generally high, plant based food is generally low.
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PUFA stands for polyunsaturated fatty acids, a type of fat found in foods like seeds, seed oils, margarine, nuts, and fatty fish.
In excess—especially the vegetarian omega-6 PUFA called Linoleic Acid—disrupt metabolism by integrating into our cell membranes, where they are highly prone to oxidation, leading to oxidative stress, promoting inflammation and cellular damage.
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an imbalance between free radicals (unstable molecules) and antioxidants in the body, which can damage cells, proteins, and DNA.
It triggers inflammation and health issues.
Testosterone - More Than Just Muscles
Struggling with low energy, belly fat, brain fog, low libido? Definitely not the vibe you’re after. And It could be low testosterone—and it's not just a guy problem.
Testosterone plays a vital role in human metabolism, muscle maintenance, motivation, and overall health for both men and women. When it drops (naturally with age or from a sluggish metabolism), things like fat gain, mood dips, and hormonal imbalances creep in.
Are you getting enough nutrients, cholesterol, sunlight, and heavy lifting? If not, your testosterone levels might be lower than they should be.
Nose-to-Tail: The Missing Piece?
Would you believe me if I said that just a small piece of liver a day could help rebalance your hormones—and relieve symptoms like fatigue, poor sleep or cycle issues?
Probably not - it’s a very foreign concept these days. But for most of human history, we ate nose-to-tail—muscle, organs, bones, skin—the whole anima - giving a wide range of essential nutrients in forms our bodies actually absorb and use. Our metabolism was built on that kind of variety—and it still depends on it.
It might sound wild, but liver can even correct low iron levels—even when iron supplements have failed.
For example, gram for gram, liver contains:
Over 20x more vitamin A than carrots.
30–40x more B12 than regular beef—and over 200x more than chicken breast.
Highly bioavailable iron, folate and copper, in forms your body absorbs far better than from plant foods.
Those nutrients don’t just feed our cells—they help build hormones and crucial antioxidants like glutathione and CoQ10, protecting the brain and body from stress and damage.
Today, most people eat only muscle meat—or skip animal foods entirely. This shift has drained our nutrient stores and knocked us out of balance. But when you reintroduce the parts we evolved with, your body can start to bounce back—surprisingly fast.
Fuel Up, To Chill Out
Feeling overwhelmed? It’s no surprise. Constant screen time, pressure from work, lack of nature, and big city life keep our nervous systems stuck in high alert.
What we call “normal life” today—endless to-do lists, artificial lighting, noise, notifications—isn’t biologically normal. Your nervous system wasn't designed for this pace or environment.
And most of us are running on low energy to begin with. When energy and nutrient levels are low, the nervous system sees even small stressors as threats—raising cortisol and triggering anxiety, blood sugar spikes, and fat storage.
But with enough fuel and brain energy, your body can handle stress calmly. You think clearer, react better, and feel more in control. Chronic low energy, on the other hand, makes everything harder—leading to brain fog, overwhelm, anxiety and eventually burnout.
So, it’s not just the stress itself—it’s whether your body perceives it has enough energy and nutrients to handle the challenge.
Protein, Regeneration and Cell Turnover
What if I told you your digestive issues, mood problems—or recurring bacterial infections—might be a sign of too little protein?
Your body is constantly rebuilding—skin, gut lining, bones—because of the daily wear and tear it endures. But this process depends on the right nutrients. Without enough protein, energy, and micronutrients, regeneration slows down, inflammation rises, and hormone balance gets disrupted.
Protein is essential for tissue repair, immune defense, hormones, and neurotransmitters. But not just any protein: animal sources are more complete and bioavailable than plant-based ones.
Even the best protein can’t do its job without adequate energy (ATP). If you're under-fueled—whether from stress, under-eating, or a sluggish metabolism—your body can’t regenerate properly.
Bottom line: without high-quality protein and enough energy, your body can’t repair itself fully. To rebuild stronger, you need the right protein, enough calories, and the essential nutrients your body craves.
PMS, Painful Periods, PCOS?
Mood swings, anxiety, bloating, trouble sleeping, sore breasts, heavy bleeding, really bad cramps? Irregular cycles?
It’s common - but actually not normal - or necessary!
Hormonal shifts are natural—but they hit harder when your body’s low on nutrients or energy. Making hormones takes a lot of cellular fuel, especially progesterone, which keeps mood stable, inflammation low, and metabolism running smoothly.
The problem? Many women eat too little, skip meals, or follow plant focused diets that lack key nutrients essential for hormone production.
When progesterone drops and estrogen builds up, symptoms like these can follow.
The good news? Your body wants balance. With enough energy and the right nutrients, your hormones can stabilize faster than you think.
Progesterone - Your Hormonal Best Friend
What if I told you there’s a hormone that could transform how you feel day-to-day—calming your anxiety, stabilizing your mood, helping you sleep and keeping inflammation low, and even slowing down aging?
Progesterone is not just a “female” hormone—it’s crucial for both men and women! By keeping excess estrogen in check, it supports brain function, strengthens bones, and maintains smooth, youthful skin. When your progesterone levels are off, everything from anxiety and PMS, headaches to poor sleep and emotional sensitivity can take a serious hit.
And guess what? Low progesterone is more common than you think, especially due to stress, modern diets (poor nutrient density), lack of recovery, certain medications, and menopause.
But it’s not just a woman’s issue. Men need it too, as it plays a pivotal role in maintaining testosterone levels, brain health, and stress management.
Thing is, your body can’t make it out of thin air—it needs the right nutrients and metabolic conditions to produce it.
Estrogen Dominance = Metabolic Dysfunction
Estrogen isn’t the ultimate “female hormone” it's often made out to be. In fact, it tends to rise in both men and women, especially under stress.
Estrogen dominance occurs when there’s too much estrogen relative to hormones like progesterone and testosterone. And it’s not just a women’s issue.
This imbalance can be driven by normal/modern/western diet, ongoing stress, sluggish liver function, or exposure to estrogen-like compounds in the environment, like plastics, personal care products, pesticides, poorly fed animal foods, excess soy and grains.
This hormonal mismatch throws off metabolism in both sexes—slowing fat-burning, disrupting blood sugar regulation, and draining energy - resulting in fatigue, stubborn weight gain, mood swings, poor sleep, and a body that just isn’t running as it should.
It’s linked to conditions like thyroid dysfunction, PCOS, endometriosis, infertility, low libido, and even increased risk of certain cancers. Addressing this imbalance can make all the difference.
Medications and Sense Of Agency
What if I told you that the medications you’re taking might actually be making things worse?
A dysfunctional metabolism is at the root of many health problems, including mental health issues, yet the healthcare system tends to focus on masking symptoms rather than addressing the real cause. Quick fixes like painkillers, antidepressants, and anti-inflammatory meds seem to help in the short-term—but they don’t fix the metabolic dysfunction driving your problems.
In fact, long-term use of these medications can do more harm than good—creating dependency, hiding the true issue, and even depleting your cells of essential nutrients, making things worse over time.
So why does this happen? It’s all about profit. Treating symptoms with lifelong meds is far more lucrative than actually solving the root cause.
The healthcare system and research field are heavily influenced by pharmaceutical interests, shaping the way medicine is practiced and which treatments get prioritized.
So the reality is, your meds might be keeping you stuck in a cycle of worsening health, and chances are, your doctor might not even realize it.
Problems with nutrition research…
Nutrition science is full of contradictions—one study calls a food healthy, another says it’s harmful.
The problem isn’t just conflicting data, but how these studies are designed.
Most research focuses on short-term effects, ignoring overall diet, lifestyle, and the fact that many people in Western societies are metabolically compromised, making the test results less reliable. These results don’t reflect how a healthy, fully functional metabolism would react to certain foods or nutrients.
Adding any nutrients to a poor diet may show short-term benefits, but what if those "healthy" choices come with long-term downsides?
And what if there are more optimal sources to get those same nutrients?
Health Authority Guidelines vs. Metabolism
Health guidelines aim to prevent deficiencies, but when it comes to optimizing human health and metabolism, they seem to somehow get distracted by environmental goals and industry interests…
Those “healthy staples” might not be as beneficial as we been led to believe. Rather than emphasizing nutrient-dense foods with high bioavailability, guidelines often downplay fresh, animal foods in favor of what's cheaper and easier to mass-produce.
Are you fueling your body - or big industry pockets?
Big, fat lies
Did you know that cholesterol is absolutely crucial for the production of all essential hormones, maintaining cell membrane integrity, and synthesizing vitamin D?
And that the conversion rate of plant-sourced omega-3s from nuts into the usable form your body actually needs is incredibly low—around just 5-10%?
Years of misleading marketing has turned healthy animal fats like butter into villains, while pushing plant fats, processed margarine, and low-fat options that actually harm our bodies.
Fats are super important for our metabolism, but the type we consume can either support or disrupt it.
Healthy on the Outside, Harmful on the Inside
Think you're making the "healthy" choice with oat milk, protein bars, or vegan alternatives? What if I told you these products—often marketed as clean and nutritious—are actually ultra-processed and potentially doing more harm than good?
The production process alters the original food's structure, making it less beneficial or even harmful to human metabolism. Even with clean labels, chemicals like solvents and preservatives used in processing can be disruptive.
So how did we end up here?
Ultra-processed foods are cheaper and easier to produce and store than fresh, whole foods. By marketing these products as healthy, companies can appeal to a broad range of customers, convincing them that they're making a better choice—when in reality, these choices come at the cost of our metabolism.
The Bioavailability Factor
Just because a food is packed with nutrients and comes from nature doesn't mean it's automatically optimal for us.
The real question is: Can your body break it down and absorb those nutrients effectively?
In some cases, even so called superfoods can mess with our metabolism, especially when eaten everyday or in unbalanced amounts. They can also lose their benefits—or worse, become harmful—if they've been stored for too long, oxidized or improperly prepared.
Worried About Blood Sugar Spikes?
Spoiler alert: sugar is not the villan!
When your metabolism is functioning properly, sugars like glucose, fructose, and even sucrose (yep, that’s table sugar!) are actually great fuel for ATP production in your cells.
The issue arises when free radicals from a poor diet, weakened antioxidant defenses, sluggish mitochondria, and lifestyle habits throw your glucose metabolism off course.
So: sugar's not actually the villain—it's about how your body is set up to handle it.
Want to get it back on track?
Less Calories = More Weight?
Eating less and still not losing weight?
Extra weight isn’t always about overeating—it can actually mean you’re not eating enough. When your cells lack the nutrients to turn calories into energy, those calories get stored as fat instead.
Calories are just potential energy—they don't do anything unless your cells can actually use them.
Under-eating also triggers stress, raises cortisol, slows your metabolism, and leads to fat gain and muscle loss.
Sure, cutting calories might work short-term—but it can backfire fast.
Grains And Metabolism
For most of human history, grains were a minor part of our diet—only becoming common with agriculture, and even then, in small, seasonal amounts.
Industrialization changed everything. Mass production, genetic tweaks, and heavy pesticide use have turned grains into a modern staple—cheap, long-lasting, and heavily marketed as essential.
But despite the hype, today’s grains might be doing more harm than good. From gut issues to insulin resistance, they could be quietly throwing off your metabolism. Sure, small amounts aren’t the end of the world—but grains just aren’t that nutrient-dense. They’re not the worst thing you could eat… but they’re far from the best.
The real issue? What you’re not getting when you fill up on them.
So why build your diet around something so average?
Inflammation: When Healing Gets Stuck
The silent driver of (almost) all health issues…
Acute inflammation is your body’s emergency response when it senses damage - essential for healing. t's a well-coordinated, natural process that's essential for recovery.
But when that inflammation keeps firing off or doesn't calm down even though injury is gone? That's when it becomes chronic, and things get messy.
It disrupts your cells' normal metabolism, drains energy, and creates waste instead of ATP, to fuel normal cell functions.
Chronic inflammation can sneak up on you, quietly sabotaging your health over time, leaving you feeling off without even realizing why.
You probably heard about free radicals and oxidative stress? But do you know how it works and how to manage it?
Cell Membrane Permeability
Your cells are like tiny engines, and their membranes—made mostly of fat—control what gets in and out. The fats you eat directly shape these membranes. Poor-quality fats can damage them, making it harder for your cells to absorb nutrients, remove waste, and produce energy.
Even small amounts of the wrong fats can disrupt this process, especially if you’re not getting enough high-quality animal fats.
Metabolism starts at the cell membrane. If they’re not working, nothing else will.
Endogenous antioxidants
You've probably also heard that antioxidants like vitamin C help neutralize free radicals and shield us from oxidative stress, right?
While those dietary antioxidants are great, the real power players are actually the ones your body makes—if has the right nutrients to work with.
These protectors are called endogenous antioxidants, and they outshine anything you can get from food!
The catch? Most modern diets—also the trendy, plant-heavy ones—fall short on the key building blocks needed to support a high production of these absolute super heroes.
When did you eat skin and bones last time?
Mitochondria
Tiny organelles inside all of our cells. When they’re functioning optimally, they produce ATP, clear out metabolic waste and manage oxidative stress.
But when neglected or damaged, they can slow down, break down, and start releasing harmful byproducts that cause inflammation and damage your cells.
Feeling sluggish all the time? It could be your mitochondria calling for help.
3 simple hacks for better metabolism
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1. Ditch seed oils
Avoid seed oils like sunflower, canola, margarine and any processed food containing them (it’s harder than you think - they sneak their ways into everything!)
Use butter, tallow, coconut oil or olive oil instead.
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2. Swap shelf food for fresh food
Change processed carbohydrates like bread, wheat, oats, grains for fresh fruit and root vegetables.
Watch out for long best before dates and ingredient lists.
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3. Include animals, nose-to-tail
Muscle meat, collagenous cuts, skin, marrow, organs, milk, eggs and broth from bones – broad spectrum of bioavailable nutrients and the most reliable way to meet your nutritional needs.
Looking for something special?
Hormones 101
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Hormones 101 *
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The engines of your metabolism. Drive ATP production, regulate temperature, digestion, and mood. Low thyroid = low energy and sluggish everything.
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Your stress hormone. Helpful in emergencies, but chronic high levels break down tissue, slow thyroid, and block healing. Lower it with carbs, rest, and safety signals.
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Not really the female hormone made out to be. In excess (very often, both in men and women!), it slows the thyroid, promotes fat storage, and can increase inflammation. Needs to be balanced with progesterone and properly cleared by liver and gut.
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The calming, anti-stress hormone. Supports thyroid, protects against inflammation, stabilizes mood, and balances estrogen. Often low with stress and low nutrient levels. You want more of this!
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Builds muscle, boosts energy, and sharpens focus. Both women and men need it. Depends on enough protein, calories, zinc, and cholesterol. Low levels can cause low libido. Definetly not the vibe your after.
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Often misunderstood. While it’s known as the “feel good” chemical, excess serotonin can actually slow metabolism, suppress thyroid, and increase inflammation. Balanced serotonin is good—but more isn’t always better. Sunlight, carbs, and thyroid support help regulate it naturally.
Metabolism runs on hormones, and hormones are built from the nutrients we eat—powered by the energy (ATP) our cells produce. When energy or raw materials are lacking, hormone balance gets disrupted. And they’re not just about reproduction— they regulate everything from mood to digestion to immune function.