08/04/2026
You guys. š© Iām home from Italy and Iāve noticed something interesting about my own physiology. While I was away, I was eating foods I donāt normally have on a daily basis (cornetti, sandwiches, pasta, pizza). I know. My one post was probably enough of a whinge but this is a slightly different observation.
I was eating a much higher refined carbohydrate diet than my usual way of eating. I couldnāt help but think these types of foods - or the Australian equivalent - is how many of my clients are eating when they first come to see me.
Since getting back, I wake up hungry and nauseated even though I could previously quite comfortably fast until mid-morning. If I donāt eat soon after waking, I feel shaky, as though my ability to regulate my blood sugar has changed in that short time. š It feels like, in just two weeks, my metabolic flexibility has moved away from the state Iām accustomed to.
I just read something Rhonda Patrick posted. That just five days of overeating ultra-processed food has been shown to impair brain insulin sensitivity and increase visceral fat accumulation, even without significant weight gain. The mechanism described is that the brain becomes less responsive to insulin, satiety signalling is less efficient, and we become more prone to storing incoming energy rather than regulating it efficiently.
While my experience is anecdotal and short-term (god, I hope so š©), it does raise an interesting question about how quickly our bodies can shift between metabolic states, and how sensitive some of us may be to dietary patterns that differ from our norm. Iāll be focusing on getting back to my usual WOE and observing how long that recalibration takes. Wish me luck. š
