The problem this solves
Metabolic health quietly predicts most lifestyle disease risk — diabetes, cardiovascular events, cognitive decline, fertility, energy. Yet most adults don't know their fasting glucose, their HbA1c, their triglyceride-to-HDL ratio, or their waist-to-height ratio. Those are not exotic markers. They're the basic dashboard.
This micro-course teaches you to read the dashboard, what each marker means, what lifestyle inputs move it, and what conversations to have with your clinician. It does not prescribe diets, supplements, or medications. It builds metabolic literacy.
A taste of the exercise
The preview lesson walks you through populating a one-page metabolic dashboard with whatever data you have today and identifying the one number to ask your clinician about at the next appointment.
Key concepts
- Insulin sensitivity
- How well your cells respond to insulin. The earliest dial to move; deteriorates years before glucose does.
- Fasting glucose
- Morning, food-free blood glucose. Above 100 mg/dL (5.6 mmol/L) suggests pre-diabetic territory.
- HbA1c
- Average glycaemic exposure over ~3 months. Single most useful long-term metabolic snapshot.
- Triglyceride/HDL ratio
- Strong proxy for insulin resistance. Aim <2 (mg/dL) or <0.87 (mmol/L).
- Waist-to-height ratio
- Cheap, sensitive marker of visceral fat. Aim <0.5.
- Visceral fat
- Fat around the organs. Metabolically active and the variety that matters most for risk.
Common mistakes
- Chasing weight while the metabolic dashboard worsens.
- Tracking HbA1c without checking fasting glucose or insulin.
- Treating ‘normal’ lab ranges as ‘optimal’ ranges — they're not the same.
- Optimising one marker while ignoring sleep and movement.
- Buying supplements before fixing food quality.