Ep. 76 Insulin Resistance and Weight Loss with Emily Cornelius
Caitlin:
Welcome to the Woven Well podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Estes. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master of divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started.
Caitlin:
Welcome back to the Woven Well podcast. I'm excited to introduce you to another friend in the world of nutrition, Emily Cornelius. Emily and I originally connected through Instagram, but I've really enjoyed chatting with her and getting to talk on the phone about the things that are important to both of us: women's health, accurate information for women, and God's presence throughout the journey. Emily is a registered dietician who focuses in on insulin resistance, PCOS, and pre-diabetes, and she specializes in helping women feel full, crush cravings, and increase energy through blood sugar control. So Emily, thanks so much for being with us today.
Emily:
Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to share anything that will help anyone as far as blood sugar control goes.
Caitlin:
Yes, me too. I'm really excited to hear it. I think it's going to be super helpful. And, as I just mentioned over the last few years you've really focused your personal practice in on insulin resistance specifically. So, what inspired you to focus on insulin resistance?
Emily:
I love to tell this story because it's a client of mine that actually inspired me, and I was a macro coach at the time. I had my own macro, just like macro counting. I felt pretty out of alignment in like with myself in what I wanted to teach as a dietician. I had gone through my own weight loss journey in middle school and I did not focus on macros. I was more just, you know, cutting portion sizes and things like that. I always found it hard to track all these numbers and, but that's what I was taught in school. So that's what I carried over into my virtual practice to help people to lose weight. And so it was actually , about 45% of my practice I couldn't help. I was really struggling to help them to lose weight. They weren't doing well on the macro tracking.
Emily:
We were trying all different kinds of calorie deficits and they weren't working. And my one client at the time, she had been with me about, I would say, four months without any weight loss and she got diagnosed with sleep apnea and I was just looking through my medical nutrition therapy books and insulin resistance kept coming up over and over again and I was just like, oh, I'm like, wonder if she's insulin resistant? So we had a call and I said, I think you might have insulin resistance. And she said, I think the same thing. I've been doing all this research. And so we kind of just came into an alignment with that and we said, you know, let's try a diet that's more carb controlled. And so we did it and now I'm excited to say she's down 90 pounds since then, which is just incredible.
Emily:
And, those other clients that I had that were also struggling to lose weight, I said, Hey, why don't you go get a fasting insulin test? Like let's just see. And it just kept coming back, insulin resistant, insulin resistant. And I thought, wow, this is wild. Because as a registered dietician I never would've thought to check for insulin resistance in my own macro tracking practice. And so, I then thought, well I'll go on social media and just talk about it and just like see if this anybody else raises our hand and says like, hi, that sounds like me. So I went on , TikTok and Instagram and at the time I had like 2000 followers and it was after about a year and a half I had 750,000 followers between those two. And it was just so eye-opening like it, this whole like growth has been extremely shocking and hard to adjust to because it wasn't something I really expected.
Emily:
And it wasn't like, oh look, people are talking about insulin resistance, I should be an insulin resistant dietician. It came within the practice of discovery. So I just felt like wow, this is a real issue and the more that I look into it, they say more than one in three people struggle with insulin resistance now. And that number is most likely a lot higher because of unreported cases. So I thought really my original intention was just to get the word out there, tell people, hey, you might want to just get a fasting insulin checked if you've struggled to lose weight for years and and you're really want to lose weight. Like maybe check on your insulin levels and see what's going on.
Caitlin:
Yeah. Now you and I have talked about this, but just for listeners, we realize that there are lots of ladies who have insulin resistance but are not necessarily looking to lose weight. But there are a good number of women who that is a goal for them and they're trying to find ways to lose weight but are struggling with that. So you focus in specifically for that target audience to help them with that. Is that right?
Emily:
Yeah, I specifically help that but I've had others who have come to me for just reversal of insulin resistance and what we find a lot of times is an underlying gut health issue going on. And so it's been very interesting. Sibo, things like that can cause all kinds of issues with blood sugar when eating even healthy foods that are considered healthy and fine for insulin resistance. Hmm. So yeah, there's just so many stress. It can be induced by stress. It's not always like a food issue. yeah. So yeah, I help insulin resistance in general, but I would say like most people come to me wanting to lose a little weight.
Caitlin:
Yeah, we are very complex, all of our systems working together. , I think it's great that you have that perspective. So what's different about nutrition for those managing insulin resistance?
Emily:
Well for someone with insulin resistance, they have, they struggle with glucose disposal. So the pancreas actually secretes more insulin out to take care of this issue. And so what happens is excess insulin and excess glucose in the bloodstream and so that signals the body for fat storage. And so that's where the weight gain can come into play with the insulin resistance. And so what we really focus on is glucose, but you know, carbohydrates is cons. It's just a big macro that people say just carbohydrates, but it's actually a lot of things and I think that's where all the confusion comes in as far as like cut, should I cut carbs? Should I not cut carbs? Like bananas are good, bananas are bad. Like all these sort of labels and stuff like that. It's because you have simple carbs and you have complex carbs and carbs can break in down into sugar, they can break down into starch, they break down into fiber. Starch further breaks down into resistance starch, which is food for your gut and not food for you.
Emily:
And so there's these different types of carbs that are converting into things that are not going to put weight on. And so what we really want to do is hone in on starch and sugar dense carbs and make sure we're not eating those in access, for people with insulin resistance. And so it is carb control without calorie restriction. But I see a lot of people, you know, if you're going the keto route, people that do keto and come to me for help, they may be down to 1200, 800 calories because they continue to restrict that calorie count and then they have nowhere to go, which is the issue with plateauing and gaining things back. So all the calorie restriction is actually not even, you want to be in a deficit but you don't need to eat these really low calorie counts for insulin resistance. We just need to hone in on the carbs and what's right for your body.
Caitlin:
That is an excellent explanation. I especially love hearing how different carbs produce different reactions in the body. And so knowing what those differences are and how they affect your body, like that's so important because you see so many things online that are just like cut all carbs. It's like no, we don't want to cut all carbs, carbs are good for us, we need those in order to survive and have energy.
Emily:
Yeah. And I think even that can be confusing for people. They'll hear like carbs are good for you and then carbs are bad for you. And it's because carbs are so much more complicated than what they're portrayed to be as just carbohydrates all one one pile, which isn't true.
Caitlin:
Yes, great word. So what effect do you see insulin resistance having when it comes to fertility specifically whether that's menstrual cycles or trying to conceive?
Emily:
Well I know that the menstrual cycles aren't regular because when I'm working with clients a lot of times they have PCOS or they're not having regular cycles. And so as we start to flatten their glucose curves and through you know, diet intervention, supplement interventions, then they start to see a more normal cycle. And it may take two months, three months to regulate. It does take some time but it really makes a big difference. Diet and lifestyle is like the number one thing you can do for things like PCOS. And so I think, starting there is a great, is a great place for cycle regulation. And then the other thing too, risk factors for insulin resistance as far as fertility, miscarriages, and difficulty getting pregnant so it can increase testosterone and lower estrogen. And then egg quality is something else they're looking at, like birth defects and things like that. So it's really important and I think for everybody to learn how to balance their blood sugar
Caitlin:
For sure and especially as you think about wanting to conceive, but really anyone, any woman because ovulation is a normal part of the body's function. And so if it's not happening, if you're having irregular cycles, that means that you're not ovulating on a normal basis, regular basis, then there's some cause for that and something is off within the body systems. So as soon as we're able to figure out what that cause is and then treat that as you're describing through diet and lifestyle changes, that's kind of the ideal scenario because you are increasing how often you're having cycles but you're also improving your overall quality of health, which is always the goal for sure. So instead, what are some of the guidelines that you give for those newly diagnosed with insulin resistance? What do you suggest for them?
Emily:
That's a really good question and I hate to say like it depends, because I feel like that it does and I have some generic recommendations but I think as much as you can exploring the ultimate cause of why you have insulin resistance and going back to that story of that initial client that I had, what an eye-opener. Well if she didn't take care of the sleep apnea she wouldn't have slept very well throughout the night and her high cortisol was an issue for the blood sugar balance. So I see people just jumping into diet interventions but they're not really exploring like what's underneath that. Maybe it's not all diet that you need to focus on and a lot of times it's not, it's better sleep, less stress, diet. It's like all these things together that really help improve the blood sugar balance. I had, I like to give the example of a client I have that she's a 911 responder.
Emily:
I have never seen such high blood sugar levels at work. Like while eating healthy balanced meals, she was not overeating carbs or anything like that. She was eating great, not snacking, nothing. We couldn't get her blood sugar under control when she was at work. So she ended up taking early retirement after wearing a continuous glucose monitor. And just seeing this is how we knew because I work with clients and they use continuous glucose monitors and we just saw on the monitor it was really eye-opening to see something like that. And so you know, what you do for a living can really impact your health as well. And so if there's any way to get those levels down as far as stress goes, she would've been spinning her wheels to only focus on the diet aspect of that. So, some other recommendations are, I talked about the carb control and that's more starch and sugar.
Emily:
I think a great place to start is logging food. Most people think that they're more consistent than they actually are. So when they start writing things down you can't really have that like mindless eating going on. And so consistency, you know, is really what's going to help you in the long run. So you want to make sure that you're not consistent for three days and then not consistent for two days and then consistent for three days. I see that a lot of like back and forth type thing. So you want to make sure that you're as consistent as possible while still adding in these foods that you really love in moderation. I definitely recommend the vegetable meal starters are really great. So if you're eating a balanced meal, I like to call it the PFF method protein, fat and fiber. I think it's just easy to remember.
Emily:
So you fill your plate with protein, fat and fiber and then before that, so you have a vegetable in your meal, but even before that, if you start with a vegetable it puts up like a spiderweb basically in your intestines. And so if you eat that veggie fiber first you have a nice spiderweb there and then when you put your protein and your fat in that it actually gets clogged up in the, in the spiderweb. And then when you put the carbs in last, it's going to hit your blood sugar a lot slower than if you had just initially ate a carb first. And so it's almost like sitting in traffic, you know, the way that you're putting food into your body actually matters. And so if you just start with a vegetable meal starter before each meal, it actually really helps to flatten your blood sugar curves.
Emily:
So I think that's a really simple tip and most people need to eat more vegetables and so, and I'm talking like non-starchy vegetables so you know like a green salad would be a great example or maybe some celery with you know, cream cheese. You could do carrots with a little hummus. It doesn't have to be anything you know, big, it can just be simple but snacking on some veggies first can help a lot. Moving your body after meals, so 50 squats or walking for 15 minutes after your meal. If you don't have time to walk, I say like do the dishes, walk around your house, just move for the next like 15 minutes. That really helps to lower blood sugar, exercise lowers blood sugar and in some cases it can raise it, which isn't necessarily bad. Like yoga, sometimes hot yoga I see on the monitors spikes and stuff, but it's called hormetic stress and your body needs a certain amount of that stress actually it helps your body adapt so it's not always bad. But anyways, vegetables and then, yeah those were my main ones I wanted to share was like moving your body, logging your food, start with some vegetable meal starters and then more carb control.
Caitlin:
What I appreciate about that answer is that you are giving general things that can be helpful for people, but none of that was restrictive. None of that was overwhelming. Like that's going to be really difficult to start adding in. And you also talked about how it's important to have it tailored to you specifically. So you know, you said earlier like, I hate to say it depends, but it does kind of depend, and I really appreciate the honesty in that answer because we are all unique individuals and we do all need a unique approach. And so I think that it's a good thing that you acknowledge that and that, that you incorporate that into your work. So that's excellent. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing all those. So if someone would like to get started working with you specifically and have it tailored to their particular body and story, what would be the best way for them to get connected?
Emily:
Um, they can either email me, really the best way is Instagram, but I know not everybody has Instagram. So Emily Cornelius Nutrition, I'm on Instagram. You can send me a DM on there, or you can send me an email. So my email is admin@emilycorneliusnutrition.com.
Caitlin:
That's great. Perfect. And I know you have some programs there that you're starting and so people can join those too. We'll look forward to all that. But thank you so much for being on today and sharing some of your wisdom and experience and passion.
Emily:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Caitlin:
Absolutely. It was a joy to have you on, and Emily shared how to work with her personally, but I also want to mention that her Instagram that she mentioned that is full of fun posts that make insulin resistance switches feel easy and approachable. Like she has these insulin resistant versions of favorite Starbucks drinks for example. And I just think that's really fun. That's a really great approach to it. So her account, as she mentioned, is Emily Cornelius Nutrition and we'll make sure to link that in the show notes. At Woven Well we bring you resources like this on a regular basis. We provide education and a sense of community that empowers women to make informed fertility decisions while honoring the deep connection between fertility and faith. So we invite you to check out our other episodes of Woven Well to get to know us and we'll have a few episodes linked in the show notes to help you do that. If you'd like access to more of our free resources, we email them out each month through our email list, which you can sign up for@wovenfertility.com or the quick link to do so is going to be in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be Woven Well.