Share The Podcast And Why

Metabolic Syndrome Hides In Plain Sight

The Five Markers Explained

Why Shift Work Accelerates Risk

Sleep And Glucose Control

Eating At Night And Fasting

Hunger Hormones And Cortisol

The Perfect Storm For Metabolic Syndrome

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Shift work can be brutal, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to a healthy shift. My name is Roger Sutherland, certified nutritionist, veteran law enforcement officer, and 24-7 shift worker for almost four decades. Through this podcast, I aim to educate shift workers using evidence-based methods to not only survive the rigors of shift work, but thrive. My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and well-being so they have more energy to do the things they love. Enjoy today's show. And welcome back to another episode of a Healthy Shift Podcast. I am your host, Roger Sutherland, and I'm also your guide on your shift working journey. And today's topic is an extremely important topic because it hides within us. And I want people to be aware so that you understand exactly what metabolic syndrome is. To start off with today, I want to talk about the fact that I need people to really share these podcasts out so that other people can benefit from evidence-based information that I'm putting out. I love this platform. I think it gives me an opportunity to explain things so much better instead of trying to engage an algorithm on social media for a few minutes, uh, for a few seconds, and then losing people as they scroll on past because the engagement's so poor. This platform gives me an opportunity to actually talk to you while you're out walking or driving along, um, meal prepping, right? Right. Meal prepping, or even while you've got your head, your earbuds in while you are moving around the house, doing whatever you do around the house. It's a really important platform for me. It gives me a lot of pleasure, and it's getting to the stage where I'm focusing a lot more on it and purely because I'm losing interest in the other aspects of social media because it's just got far too hard. But with social media, while it's it's a matter of um help getting people to you know push it out there to others. The podcast is something that has a really interesting algorithm. And the more people that actually rate or review it, then the better it gets pushed out to other people so that they can find it. I think my last four clients have actually come out of the podcast, um, which has been great. They didn't even know I had a social media presence, and they've actually literally reached out as a result of the podcast. And this is because you, the listener, are rating and reviewing it and helping other people to find it. So let's let's just go and take a moment and go back and just rate it. On Apple, it's super easy, right? If you're listening to it on your iPhone, all you got to do is just go in there and just hit those five stars. On Spotify, if you're listening on Spotify, just go back to the main page and I think the three dots there, you can actually click that and rate it through there. Just drop those five stars. I really sincerely appreciate it. It's a free service, it's a lot of information, and I would really appreciate it if you would actually get that out there. Right now, we've done that. Please, I just asked you to do that for me. Okay, so most shift workers don't realize this, and this is one of the things that I really want to talk about in this one today, and that is that you can actually look fine on the outside. You can be the sort of person that's training, you're showing up to work, but what you don't realize is shift work manifests under the covers. Under the surface, your health can be drifting in completely the wrong direction. And one of the biggest drivers of that is something that we call metabolic syndrome. And I wanted to break that down today what metabolic syndrome actually is, why shift workers get hit with it so often and are most diagnosed with it, and what you can actually do to stop it before it becomes a real problem for you, because it will. So let's start really simply. Metabolic syndrome is not a single disease. So if you get diagnosed with metabolic syndrome by your doctor, then you've got an issue. All right. It's a cluster of conditions that tends to all show up together. Now you're diagnosed with it when you have at least three of the following things. One, increased weight circumference, two, high blood pressure, three, elevated blood sugar, four, hydroglycerides, which is fat in your bloodstream, and low HDL cholesterol. Now, on their own, each one of these is a concern. I can guarantee to you that there will be a number of people that are listening to this that would fit the category of increased weight circumference, high blood pressure, and elevated blood sugar alone. And that in itself gives you the diagnosis of having metabolic syndrome. Now, when they show up together, your risk of serious disease jumps really hard, right? We're talking type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, early mortality. And this is the reality, and this is what I want people to understand. And here is the part that most people actually miss in relation to this. This doesn't happen overnight, it actually builds slowly and quietly, very quietly, over the years. And shift work accelerates this process in a big way. So, why are shift workers so heavily represented in this area? And let's answer that question. It literally comes down to biology. Your body is running on a circadian rhythm, and you've heard me talk about this over and over again. And this is your internal clock. It is controlling when we sleep, it controls hormone release, it's controlling our metabolism, our digestion. It literally controls every single function in our body. And shift work desynchronizes that system. And when that system is out, your metabol metabetabolism takes a big hit. So let me just break that down. First, we get sleep disruption. When you when your sleep is inconsistent or shortened, your insulin sensitivity drops. Now, what this means is that your body no longer handles glucose well at all. So any carbohydrates or anything like that that you're eating, your body is not handling it well. What do we crave on night shift, people? Carbohydrates, glucose, chips, chocolates, lollies, and you know what? Damn Jenny and that cake, right? Some food, same food, same calories, worse outcome. Over time, that blood sugar creeps up. It doesn't drop, right? And it gets worse, and then we become pre-diabetic. Second is our circadian misalignment. Eating at night when your body is biologically programmed to be asleep leads to poorer glucose control. Again, your body is not designed to process food efficiently at 2 a.m. in the morning. And that is the facts. But shift workers do this all the time, not by choice, but by necessity. But they also do it because they haven't been taught how to go about it. And you wouldn't believe it, but I actually have a resource that can help you with this. And if you go to ahealthyshift.com, the link is down the bottom in the show notes, ahealthyshift.com, and scroll down the page, you will see a link there to my circadian fast ebook, which teaches you how to fast overnight so that we're not eating during this poor glucose control period of time overnight. It will really help you enormously. So just go to ahealthyshift.com, scroll down, you'll see it there. All right. It's free too, by the way. It's just a free resource that you can download. The third thing that actually occurs is our hormone disruption and it's a problem. There's two key hormones that play a major role in us with our hunger and satiety. And one of them's called leptin, and the other one is called ghrelin. And these are our hunger and satiety hormones. Now, when you are fatigued, hello shift workers, your ghrelin goes up, that hunger hormone. And when that goes up, you feel hungrier, much hungrier, to the stage where you just will eat anything, all right? And that is a big issue for us because leptin goes down. You crave a lot more energy-dense foods. This is why you want those chocolates and lollies and chips overnight and damn Jenny and her cake, right? It's not a lack of discipline. What it is, it's actually physiology, all right? Really, really important that you understand this. Now, the fourth one that causes us problems is cortisol. Now, I want you to remember and keep this in mind. Cortisol is important in the morning to wake us up and get us going. We don't just demonize cortisol, but chronic stress, poor sleep, and irregular routines keeps that cortisol elevated, and this is not good. And what that does is it actually promotes fat storage, especially around our abdomen, which is one of the key markers of metabolic syndrome. All right, let's be quite clear on that, okay? So there's two hormones. One of them, which is cortisol, wakes us up and gets us actually going in the morning. And it does, it wakes us up. Cortisol starts elevating around 5, 6 a.m., wakes us up, gets us going. Melatonin is the hormone that signals darkness to the body and tells it it's time to wind down. Two extremely important hormones, all right? And finally, the last thing that I want to mention is behavior. When you're tired, everything gets harder. Your training drops off, your food choices slide, convenience starts to win out. Again, this is not a character flaw. It's actually a predictable pattern in people that we see. This is where the weight gain comes from. There is a whole range of contributing factors to this and why we start to have elevated blood sugar, why we end up with this elevated waist circumference, why we have high blood pressure, all these things go hand in hand with shift work because of the very impact of it, of how it is impacting on us biologically because of our own behaviors. So when you stack all that together, as in disrupted sleep, that poor nutrient timing or timing of food, hormonal imbalance, chronic stress, what you do is you get the perfect storm, the perfect environment for metabolic syndrome to develop. That's why shift workers are so chronically overpresented in this area. Now, here's the important part. This is not inevitable, but you can't fix it with just some random effort. You need structure, you need systems, you need habits, and you need to work with your biology and not against it. So let's talk about some of those strategies. And this is what I hope clients with. You've got to anchor that sleep. You won't always control how long you sleep, but you can control its consistency. Even on rotating shifts, anchor at least one part of your sleep routine. Same window, same environment, same cues. Dark room, cool temperatures, no light exposure. Protect sleep like it matters. Let me tell you why. Because it does, and it needs to be your number one priority. Don't wear poor sleep as a badge of honor and slam down caffeine drinks because it's going to catch up with you. The second thing you need to do is to control this eating window. Shift workers are grazing almost 24 hours a day, and that is a problem. You want a defined eating window. And more importantly, you want the most of your calories when your body can handle them best. And what this usually means is prioritizing the intake early in the day and then just eating at normal day walker times and not outside of that. This cues our circadian rhythm and it keeps our circadian rhythm in sync. Now you don't need to be perfect with this, but you do need intent with it and to get it right. And the third one, protein becomes a non-negotiable because protein supports our muscle mass, it supports us maintaining lean muscle, it supports our blood sugar control, it supports our satiety, which stops us from craving all of those uh calorically dense glucose-type foods. All right. Most shift workers chronically under-eat protein, and then they chase energy with sugar and caffeine. And that's the cycle that you, as the shift worker, need to break. The fourth thing is we need to train with purpose. Now, you don't need to destroy yourself in the gym, but you do need consistency. Resistance training improves insulin sensitivity. Let me repeat how important resistance training is for people. Now, you don't have to hit the gym five or six days a week. Some people do, and kudos to you, well done. But three times a week, two to three times a week is enough just to improve that insulin sensitivity, just to allow that glucose to get shuffled into the muscle and get burnt off. What it does is this helps to manage your body composition and it gives your metabolism a nice buffer. Even two to three sessions a week done properly literally will move the needle. Fifth, we need to manage our light exposure. Now, light is one of the strongest signals for your body clock. If you're finishing night shift and walking into bright daylight, you are literally telling your body to wake up. You can't in your brain think, no, no, I'm going to sleep. Your body is responding to signals and you need to remember that that's what it's doing. And that makes sleep harder. Use blue light blockers or sunglasses on the way home, particularly blue light blockers. They are taking out the blue light. And when your body can't see blue, it thinks it's dark. Right? Keep your sleep environment dark. And when you wake, get light exposure, ASAP to reset. And the six, I want you to be really, really smart with caffeine. Caffeine is a tool, but most shift workers chronically misuse it. Now, if you're still using caffeine late into your shift, what you're doing is you might think you can go to sleep, but you're not getting that good, solid, restorative sleep that you need. I have a rule cut caffeine at 12 o'clock. Either midday or midnight. When you do that, you will find that your reliance on caffeine becomes even less. And the less caffeine that you have in your system, the better you'll sleep all round. It's not about, oh, I've got to go to bed in a few hours, so I won't have a caffeine. Cut it out many, many hours before so that there is no caffeine or very limited caffeine left in your system so that you get that good, solid, restorative sleep. Protect the next sleep opportunity. It's really important. And caffeine impacts on that. Now, here's where most people get it wrong. They try to do all of this randomly. No structure, no plan. Oh, Roger said, so I've got to try and do it all. No adjustment for your shift pattern, and that's why it doesn't stick for you. And let's be brutally honest, this is the situation. But what I do in my coaching is very different to this. We don't guess. What I do is I build a system around your roster, your lifestyle, and your physiology because your sleep is mapped. Your nutrition is structured around those shifts. Your training fits your energy. It doesn't fight against it. There is no insistence on anything. And most importantly, it's repeatable day in, day out. And that is the key. Because metabolic syndrome doesn't come from one bad week. But it doesn't disappear from one good week either. It comes from years of misalignment. So I fix the misalignment. This is how I coach my clients. I fix the alignment because if you have listened to this closely, you will realize that everything that we do as a shift worker comes, or all the impacts of shift work comes from circadian misalignment. And I fix that because when you get that right, number one, your energy improves, your body composition shifts, and your blood markers actually improve. And I have the evidence of this from many, many clients. And what you do then is you actually start to move away from the risk and not towards it. How much longer do you want to go the way you're going at the moment? It's silently eating away at you. Now I've worked with hundreds of shift workers, nurses, cops, firefighters, flying in, flying out. I love it. Same patterns, same problems. And when we fix the structure, the results actually follow. They're not perfect, but they are consistent. So if you're listening to this and thinking, my sleep is all over the place. I can't sleep. My energy is low and I'm gaining weight even though I'm really trying. I beg you, don't ignore it. Invest because this is how metabolic syndrome starts. If you don't make time and invest in it now, you will be making time and investing in your health later to recover. I can tell you. Or you'll be at the bottom of the barrel and it will seem like such a hard trip to get back. Slow, quiet, easy to dismiss until it finally isn't anymore. That's the problem. If you want help fixing this properly, go to the link in the show notes. I offer a free assessment call. 15 minutes, no obligation. It's obligation free. You and I will meet up. We will discuss what you what you've tried, what you do, how you go about it, and what we will do is I'll show you how I can support you and help you with this. Clients, the latest clients that I've had have been phenomenal, and they have benefited so much out of simple things. And every single one of them at the end has said, I cannot believe how such simple changes have made such a massive difference to my life. There's no guesswork. There is no generic plan with me, just clear direction based on your shift work reality. Because you can't remove shift work. You don't want to remove shift work. It works really well for you. But what you can do is you can remove the damage that it causes. And I help you with that. So go to the link in the show notes. I'm looking forward to meeting you. It's 15 minutes. I'll catch you on the next one. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released. It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on. If you want to know more about me or work with me, you can go to ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.