Healing Metabolism
Let’s set the record straight: slow metabolism isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something that breaks down—gradually, and often silently—through years of stress, under-eating, overtraining, low-carb diets, and toxic exposures that chip away at your thyroid and your cells' ability to make energy.
The good news? You can repair it. But not through crash diets, fasted cardio, or metabolism supplements from the checkout aisle. True metabolic healing takes strategy, structure, and bioindividual support. It’s not a quick fix—but it’s the only fix that works long-term.
What Happens When Your Metabolism Slows Down?
When your body senses a lack of fuel—especially carbohydrates—it downshifts into survival mode. Your thyroid, which is your metabolic thermostat, responds by decreasing output. And often, so does your liver, gut, ovaries, and even brain.
You might notice cold hands and feet, hair shedding, constipation or slow digestion, and weight gain or a stubborn plateau even in a calorie deficit. You may experience low mood, low energy, or anxiety, along with hormonal symptoms like PMS, painful periods, peri-menopause, or missing cycles. Poor sleep, low libido, and feeling "tired but wired" are common, as are mental health shifts like depression or anxiety. Gut issues often show up due to decreased organ tissue and downregulated digestion. Other symptoms include headaches, insomnia, fatigue, muscle cramping, cravings for sugar and salty snacks, constipation and/or diarrhea, cold intolerance, and flaky, dry skin.
Common Lab Markers in Metabolic Dysfunction
And here’s what we often find on labs (even if you’ve been told they’re “normal”):
Low T3 – the active thyroid hormone that fuels your cells
High TSH – your brain shouting for help
Elevated thyroid antibodies – signaling immune stress or autoimmunity
Elevated cholesterol – from excess fat intake and because low-carb diets suppress T3 which is required to convert cholesterol into hormones
Low vitamin D despite sun exposure – because your body isn’t converting cholesterol properly
Elevated prolactin – often a red flag for thyroid dysfunction or chronic stress
High reverse T3 – from excess inactive thyroid hormone that isn’t being properly converted to active T3
Low basal body temp + low pulse – cells aren't producing enough energy (ATP)
Low ferritin, zinc, selenium, or protein status – needed to make and activate thyroid hormone
Blood sugar instability – often with elevated fasting glucose or insulin, not from overeating but from metabolic downregulation and seed oil toxicity
T3 is the Real Driver of Metabolism
TSH and T4 get all the attention in conventional medicine, but they aren’t the whole picture.
T4 is a prohormone. It has to be converted into T3, which is what actually enters your cells and turns food into energy (ATP). This conversion mostly happens in the liver, intestines, and other organs—and it’s highly dependent on carbohydrates, minerals like selenium and iodine, and overall stress load.
That means your thyroid gland could be making TSH and T4 just fine, and you could still be functionally hypothyroid.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
Clients come to me all the time saying:
“I can't lose weight on 1400 calories.”
“I’m cold and tired all the time, but my doctor says my thyroid labs are fine.”
“If I eat more, I get bloated and gain weight.”
“I don’t even lose weight when I diet anymore.”
“I have high cholesterol, and my doctor wants to put me on a statin.”
Here’s the thing: most of these symptoms are rooted in low cellular energy. Your cells are ATP-deficient. And ATP is made with the help of T3. Without enough of it—or without the ability to use it—you’re essentially running on backup systems like adrenaline and cortisol. You feel wired, anxious, and depleted, and you never actually recover.
What Reverse-Dieting Really Means
The reverse-dieting process is about more than calories. It’s about sending a clear signal to your body that the famine is over and it's safe to thrive again.
In this phase, we:
Increase food strategically (especially carbs)
Focus on pro-metabolic macros to support liver and thyroid function
Encourage muscle building without overstressing the body
Track body temperature, pulse, and symptoms to gauge progress
Prioritize nutrient-dense, digestible food—not just more food
And no—this isn’t just a free-for-all. We’re rebuilding your metabolic infrastructure. That means we look at what your body can handle, not just what it “should” be able to do.
What a Repaired Metabolism Looks Like
When you get this right, your body starts working for you again. Your waking temperatures rise and your pulse steadies. Energy improves, sleep deepens, and mood lifts. Digestion strengthens, bowel movements become regular and effortless, gut infections clear up, and inflammation calms down. Food sensitivities start to fade. Your menstrual cycles smooth out and become more predictable. You build a leaner body composition while eating more food—not less. Lab markers like cholesterol and hormones normalize as your metabolism regains its rhythm.
You go from running on stress to running on energy.
“But I Don’t Want to Gain Weight…”
This is the hardest part for most people—and it’s the one that keeps them stuck.
If you’ve been under-eating or overtraining, your body needs a season of rebuilding. That might mean a few pounds of scale weight—but often, that weight is water, muscle, organ tissue, and glycogen - muscle fuel reserves. Your body is catching up.
Remember, you can’t burn fat from a body that thinks it’s starving. And you can’t make hormones from thin air. Sometimes you need to gain to lose—and to feel human again.
I call it this: Gain 5 pounds to lose 20, and eat more food for the rest of your life.
We may have to gain a few water weight pounds now to retrain your body to handle 50% more food permanently, so you can lose fat later—with a higher metabolic set point and the ability to keep the fat off and eat more food forever.
How Did We Get Here?
Let’s zoom out for a second. Humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years eating real, whole foods from nature—fruit, honey, roots, tubers, meat, raw dairy. We didn’t track macros, skip breakfast, or swap butter for seed oil. Our ancestors moved their bodies, ate to satiety, rested when needed, and passed on resilient metabolic blueprints from generation to generation.
Even just 70 to 100 years ago, our great-grandparents regularly ate 2500–3000 calories per day for women and 3500–4000 for men—without the modern rates of obesity, insulin resistance, infertility, or fatigue. Meals were hearty: meat, milk, cheese, eggs, potatoes, fresh bread, seasonal fruit. Pie after lunch and pie after dinner! Our grandparents ate three meals a day and never needed to “hack” their metabolism. Their body temperatures ran warmer, their pulse was stronger, and they had the metabolic headroom to handle illness, stress, and create lean muscle without sacrificing function.
Then came the industrial revolution. Seed oils replaced animal fats. Processed food replaced traditional meals. Low-fat and low-calorie propaganda flooded our culture. And in the last 60–70 years, we've unintentionally trained our bodies to expect famine—while flooding our systems with fake food and toxins.
Calorie intake dropped. So did protein, saturated fat, healthy carbs, and nutrient density. Over time, body temperatures began to fall. And that’s no small detail: for every 1°F drop in basal body temperature, we burn roughly 1000 fewer calories per day. That’s how powerful metabolism is. You didn’t lose your “willpower.” Your body just adapted.
Now, most women are eating 1200–1600 calories and gaining weight. Men are averaging 2000-2200. The government tells us “based on a 2000 calorie diet”. That’s not a real thing! We’re tired, constipated, anxious, and inflamed—not because we’re broken, but because we’ve drifted so far from the blueprint we evolved for.
The good news? You can return to that baseline. You can teach your body to feel safe again, rebuild metabolic flexibility, and actually thrive on food. And yes—you can be lean, strong, and high-functioning at 2500-3500 calories a day.
What Happens After Metabolism Repair?
Once your metabolism is functioning well again, you’re no longer stuck in survival mode. That means you can actually enter a short fat loss phase—and stay lean—without crashing your hormones or cutting calories to unsustainable levels.
You become someone who can:
Cut strategically (and briefly) without rebound
Reach and maintain your goal body fat percentage
Keep calories high and energy stable after the cut
Stay lean while eating like a healthy, thriving human being
This isn’t new—it’s how our bodies are meant to work. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and even our grandparents just 70 years ago, regularly ate 2500-3500—without obesity, insulin resistance, or chronic fatigue.
Once your metabolic baseline is restored, your body stops fighting you. Instead of resisting fat loss, it participates. It trusts that you’ll feed it again. That’s the goal.
How Do We Know It’s Working?
We track the signs:
Your basal temperature rises toward 97.8–98.6°F
Your pulse steadies around 75–85 bpm
You tolerate carbs again
PMS, bloating, and fatigue begin to fade
Your cravings chill out
Your body feels warmer, stronger, and more stable
These changes often happen before the scale moves. That’s how we know we’re healing—not crashing.
Ready to Get Off the Diet Rollercoaster?
If you’ve been told your thyroid is “normal” but you feel anything but… if you’re eating less and gaining more… if your labs, hormones, and gut are a mess—there’s a reason.
And there’s a strategy.
I don’t share exact macros or calorie plans online because this work is deeply individual. But if you're ready to:
Restore thyroid function
Heal your metabolism at the root
Reclaim your body’s ability to feel warm, energized, and resilient
And finally get results that last—
Then let’s work together.
Ready to Start Your Healing Phase?
If this resonates and you're ready to stop guessing, I’d love to help you reconnect with your metabolic blueprint and build the strong, high-calorie body you were born for.
Click here to schedule your Initial Session with me and let’s map out your custom strategy for sustainable fat loss, thyroid repair, and metabolic resilience.
Spots are limited, and I work closely with each client—so if your body is asking for help, trust it. Let’s rebuild from the root.
