Understanding Heart Rate Variability

A type 2 diabetes diagnosis feels sudden, but it’s closer to the last chapter than the first. Insulin resistance can smolder for 10 years or more while your blood sugar and HbA1c look perfectly normal. For Diabetes Awareness Month, I explain why blood sugar is the late alarm and which tests catch the early ones. I also cover why being slender doesn’t mean you’re safe, and what you can do now while it’s still reversible. 

You swore off brownies for dessert after how rotten you felt the next day, and then the brownies showed up and all of your good intentions went out the window. In this episode, I explain why that vow disappears when you need it most. We look at the hot–cold empathy gap, the difference between “wanting” and “liking,” and why the post-sugar backlash is too delayed and vague for your brain to learn from it. Then I share simple ways to turn up the volume on the memory and turn down the volume on the cue. You’re not weak, you’re normally wired.

You don’t have to understand the emotional baggage behind overeating to stop overeating. High insulin, habit loops, and engineered food are often the real drivers, and all three can be worked on no matter what your “why” turns out to be.  

Your gut, liver, immune system, and brain share one wire: the vagus nerve. Learn how it ties together insulin resistance, inflammation, and the cravings you can’t seem to control, and what you can do about it.  

My dad was a physicist, my uncle is one too — and he's coming to visit tomorrow, fresh off reading my book. So I'd better have my science straight."A calorie is a calorie" feels like settled physics. Energy in, energy out, end of story. But the first law of thermodynamics tells you the math has to balance — not whether your body burns that energy or locks it away as fat. That decision is made by insulin, not by a number on a label.In this episode: why two people can eat the same 500 calories and get opposite results, why a flat CGM doesn't mean your insulin is low, and why the tool most of us have been using was never the right one for the job.

I ordered my BBQ ribs with no sauce. Turns out they were glazed in sugar anyway, and my blood sugar briefly hit 219! But the blood sugar spike isn't the real story. It's what insulin keeps doing for hours after your blood sugar looks "normal" again.. 

This podcast episode is by special request from someone who wanted one place to hear the basics about the physiology of metabolic health, about how food interacts with the body, and about how to work on reversing metabolic ill health. It's all here in just about 30 minutes!

Your smart ring flashes green and you seize the day. It flashes red and you brace for the worst. But that heart rate variability score you're chasing (or dreading) is one of the most misunderstood numbers in wearable tech. In this episode, I break down what HRV actually measures why more variability is the healthier sign, and the loop I care about most: how low HRV and insulin resistance quietly feed each other.

A friend refused to believe metabolic health was "real science" until someone could tell him exactly what a bowl of rice would do to his blood sugar. It's a reasonable-sounding demand — except almost nothing in biology can meet it.In this episode, I unpack why that number doesn't exist! You can't get the universal answer. But you absolutely can get yours.

I spoke with a grandmother the other day whose 8 year old granddaughter was recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The advice that was given to the family left a lot of things out....and I'd like to add a bit more solid advice to what they heard from their provider.