The other day I saw that Nina Teicholz, who I am a huge fan of, said on Twitter that the single greatest tool for improving metabolic health is the continuous glucose monitor. I’m sorry Nina, but I have to disagree.
There’s definitely utility in lowering excess carbohydrate intake. Most people eat too many carbs for the amount of hard physical activity they do. For someone who has 50 or 60 pounds to lose and wants to normalize all their metabolic health markers, drop the rice, the sweets, the cakes, the cookies, the cereal, and all the other sources of refined carbohydrates, which are usually pretty high in industrial seed oils as well.
That works, but you don’t need a glucose monitor tracking every little fluctuation in blood glucose for it work. Do you really need to know if jasmine rice is gonna boost your glucose levels a little more than brown rice and a little less than sticky rice, or purple sweet potatoes a little less than orange sweet potatoes? These are the little details that don’t matter in the long run. If you are worried about your glucose levels, just reduce your carbs.
If I had to name a single tool for improving metabolic health, I’d have to say a gym membership. Going to a gym 3 to 4 times a week and lifting heavy things, moving a lot at a slow pace, and running really fast once in a while is going to move the needle more than anything. If you’re looking to improve your lipid numbers, lower waist circumference, improve insulin sensitivity, lower fasting insulin, and do all the other things that indicate improved metabolic health, physical activity is the most basic answer.
Ultimately, poor metabolic health means that you have an excess of energy that you are unable to use. Metabolism is the consumption and generation of energy. Physical activity kickstarts the utilization of energy and the demand for energy. It interrupts the ugly cycle of entropy and creates a healthy one. When you are just sitting around doing nothing, demanding nothing from your body, metabolic systems fall apart. It makes no sense for things to run smoothly when you are doing nothing with all that energy coming in. It makes perfect sense for metabolic dysfunction to occur in the sedentary body—just like a car falls apart if it's never driven.
What about you, folks? What do you think is the single greatest tool for improving metabolic health? Let me know here or here. 
