Zane Griggs

Most people think metabolic dysfunction starts with blood sugar. I don't.

Blood sugar is often where we notice the problem, but it's rarely where the problem begins.
At the center of metabolism is one simple question: Can your cells produce enough energy?

Every cell in your body relies on mitochondria to convert the food you eat into ATP—the energy currency that powers everything from muscle contraction and hormone production to brain function and recovery. When your cells produce energy efficiently, your body operates the way it was designed to.

But when ATP production begins to decline, your body doesn't simply accept having less energy. It adapts.

To compensate, it increases stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and glucagon. In the short term, that's a normal survival response. These hormones help maintain blood sugar and keep you functioning when energy production is under pressure.

The problem is when that response becomes chronic.

Over time, elevated stress hormones can interfere with healthy insulin signaling, reduce thyroid activity, impair recovery, and make it harder for your body to regulate energy efficiently. Eventually, those adaptations can show up as fatigue, brain fog, stubborn body fat, poor recovery, low body temperature, or abnormal lab markers.

This is why I don't believe metabolic health is simply about lowering blood sugar or eating fewer calories. Those strategies may influence the symptoms, but they don't always explain why your metabolism is struggling in the first place.

Instead of asking, "How do I lower my blood sugar?" I think the better question is, "Why is my body relying so heavily on stress hormones just to maintain normal function?"
That shift changes everything.

Rather than chasing symptoms, we start looking upstream at energy production, stress adaptation, thyroid function, recovery, and the physiology driving the problem.
That's why I don't start with diet trends or assumptions.

I start with labs.

Comment GUIDE and I'll send you my free Metabolic Stress Marker Guide, where I break down the lab markers I use with myself and my clients to better understand what's actually driving metabolic dysfunction.

Or comment LABS if you're ready to stop guessing and find out what's really going on inside your body.



If carbohydrates are the primary cause of metabolic disease…

How do we explain populations that have eaten high-carbohydrate diets for generations while maintaining remarkably low rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease?

Take the Tsimane of Bolivia.

Researchers studying more than 700 adults found some of the healthiest arteries ever documented. Their diet is centered around foods like plantains, rice, manioc, and corn—roughly 64% of their calories come from carbohydrates.
Or the Kitavans of Papua New Guinea.

Their traditional diet is also high in carbohydrates from tubers and fruit, yet obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease have historically been exceptionally rare.

Then there’s the Tukisenta of Papua New Guinea, whose traditional diet is made up largely of sweet potatoes—one of the highest carbohydrate intakes ever recorded in a population.

Different cultures.
Different environments.
Different foods.

But one thing they all have in common...
They weren’t eating the modern industrialized diet that most of us eat today.

Does that prove carbohydrates are “healthy?”

No.

Does it prove seed oils are solely responsible for metabolic disease?

No.

What it does show is that the story is far more complicated than blaming “carbs”.

When I look at modern metabolic disease, I don’t just ask how many carbohydrates someone eats.

I look at the entire picture:

• Food quality
• Degree of processing
• Activity levels
• Sleep
• Stress
• Recovery
• Body composition
• And what’s happening inside their metabolism

Because physiology is rarely explained by one ingredient.

That’s why I don’t coach nutrition around fear.

I coach it around data.

Comment GUIDE and I’ll send you my free Metabolic Stress Marker Guide so you can learn the lab markers I use with myself and my clients.

Or comment LABS if you’re ready to stop guessing and understand what’s actually happening inside your body.

There's a common belief on social media right now that the science has changed...

That we've somehow "re-evaluated" fat as a better fuel source than carbohydrates for high-intensity exercise.

We haven't.

Despite what some influencers claim, there isn't compelling evidence showing that fat outperforms carbohydrates when it comes to producing high levels of power, speed, or athletic performance.

In fact, the evidence supporting carbohydrate-based fueling is stronger than ever.

Here's why.

ATP is the energy currency your muscles use to contract. The faster you can regenerate ATP, the more work your body can perform.

Carbohydrates simply produce ATP faster than fat.

Not only that, glucose requires less oxygen to generate energy than fat does, making it the more efficient fuel when performance matters. That's basic physiology—not opinion.

Can your body burn fat?

Absolutely.

Your body is incredibly adaptable.

But adaptation doesn't automatically equal optimization.

When carbohydrates become scarce, your body increases stress hormones like glucagon, cortisol and adrenaline to keep blood sugar stable and maintain energy production. That's an incredible survival mechanism, but it's still a survival mechanism.

The goal shouldn't be asking, "Can my body survive on this?"

The goal should be asking, "What allows my body to produce the most energy with the least amount of stress?"

That's a very different conversation.

This is one of the biggest reasons I don't believe everyone should be chasing low-carb or ketogenic diets simply because they're trending online.

If your goal is to become leaner, stronger, recover better, train harder, and support a healthy metabolism, your body needs the ability to efficiently produce energy—not constantly compensate for a lack of it.

The best athletes in the world haven't abandoned carbohydrates.

If anything, elite sports nutrition continues moving toward more strategic carbohydrate fueling because performance consistently follows physiology.

Your body doesn't win by proving it can survive.

It wins by having the resources to thrive.

If you've been struggling with stubborn fat loss, poor recovery, low energy, or declining performance, the answer usually isn't more restriction.

It's understanding what's actually happening inside your metabolism first.

Comment GUIDE and I'll send you my free Metabolic Stress Marker Guide so you can learn the lab markers I use to evaluate metabolic health instead of guessing.

Most people think metabolism is about calories. I think it's about energy.
Here's something almost nobody talks about.

The fats you eat don't just get burned for fuel—they become part of your cells. More specifically, they become part of the membranes surrounding your mitochondria, the tiny power plants responsible for producing ATP, the energy that powers every process in your body.

Your brain runs on ATP.
Your muscles run on ATP.
Your hormones, immune system, thyroid, recovery, and metabolism all depend on ATP.

If your cells can't produce energy efficiently, nothing else works the way it should.

This is where seed oils enter the conversation.

The dominant fat found in industrial seed oils is linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA). Because PUFAs contain multiple double bonds, they're inherently unstable and much more vulnerable to oxidation than saturated fats.

When these fats oxidize, they create compounds like 4-HNE, a byproduct capable of damaging the electron transport chain—the machinery inside your mitochondria responsible for producing ATP.

Less ATP means more cellular stress.

More cellular stress means your body compensates by increasing stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline just to keep you functioning.

That's why I don't believe metabolic dysfunction begins with blood sugar.

I think it begins much earlier—with the body's ability to produce energy.

When energy production declines, your body shifts into survival mode.

Recovery slows, thyroid function becomes less efficient, stress hormones stay elevated, and eventually the symptoms begin to appear.

Fatigue.
Brain fog.
Poor recovery.
Stubborn body fat.
Hormone dysfunction.
Blood sugar issues.

Those aren't random problems.

They're signals that your metabolism is under stress.

This is why I spend far less time obsessing over calories and far more time thinking about mitochondrial health, nutrient density, and removing the foods that interfere with efficient energy production.

Because if you protect the engine, the entire system works better.

That's why I always start with physiology instead of assumptions.

Comment GUIDE and I'll send you my free Metabolic Stress Marker Guide, where I walk through the lab markers I use to better understand metabolic stress before symptoms become disease.

Or comment LABS if you're ready to stop guessing and find out what's really going on inside your body.

Reference:

"Life and Death: Metabolic Rate, Membrane Composition, and Life Span of Animals" Hulbert AJ, Pamplona R, Buffenstein R, Buttemer WA (2007)

"Plasticity of Oxidative Metabolism in Variable Climates: Molecular Mechanisms" Seebacher F, Brand MD, Else PL, Guderley H, Hulbert AJ, Moyes CD (2010)

"Role of Cardiolipin Peroxidation and Ca²⁺ in Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Disease" Paradies G, Petrosillo G, Paradies V, Ruggiero FM (2009)

One of the biggest mistakes we’ve made in nutrition is turning foods into moral categories.

Good foods.
Bad foods.
Clean foods.
Cheat meals.

The reality?

Your metabolism doesn’t think that way.

I’ve watched people become healthier while eating foods someone else would call “off limits.”

I’ve also watched people eat a perfectly “clean” diet and still struggle with fatigue, stubborn body fat, poor recovery, brain fog, and hormone issues.

Why?

Because context matters.

The best nutrition plan isn’t the one that gets the most likes on Instagram.

It’s the one that supports your physiology.

That means asking questions like:

• Are you eating enough to support recovery?
• Is your blood sugar staying stable?
• Are you relying on stress hormones to get through the day?
• Is your metabolism producing energy efficiently?

Those questions tell me far more than whether you ate rice, fruit, potatoes, or oatmeal.

This is why I don’t believe in one universal diet.

I believe in understanding what’s actually happening inside your body first.

That’s exactly why I start with labs instead of assumptions.

Comment GUIDE and I’ll send you my free Metabolic Stress Marker Guide so you can learn the lab markers I use with myself and my clients.

Or comment LABS if you’re ready to stop guessing and find out what’s really going on inside your body.