Welcome to Vanguard Metabolic Nutrition. I’m Franco Lopez III – father, husband, veteran, goat rancher, registered dietitian, and diabetes specialist. I want to share my story and how I came to help others reclaim their health through a proven metabolic reset.
After deploying overseas, I started to suffer from an array of metabolic diseases, including the beginnings of diabetes.
But I decided to make a change because I knew that there was a better solution than taking a cocktail of pills and feeling foggy and exhausted all day.
One day, when I had to pull over to the side of the road to sleep, I woke up and decided that I wanted to live life rather than just go through the motions.
I decided to learn everything I could to improve my health and my metabolism and pursued an education in Nutrition and Exercise. I started applying what I was learning and saw my health begin to improve. I then became a Registered Dietitian and a Diabetes Specialist, learning from renowned providers and specialists, and started helping others achieve remission from Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, restoring their health and lives.
Through understanding my body’s unique response to food and designing a personalized eating strategy for my metabolism, I was able to put my diabetes into remission and restore my metabolic health. This success story is not unique to me. Over the past 13 years, I’ve helped hundreds of patients achieve similar results.
Within those years, I’ve had the privilege of helping hundreds of patients achieve the same success I did in their metabolism and overall health. Now, I’m here to share the skills, tools, and insights that have proven to be effective in restoring metabolic health and optimizing lives.
Now, instead of just trying to survive every day, my life is filled with connecting with people to help them achieve their optimal health and well-being through a comprehensive approach that encompasses brain health and emotional health. I have developed and tested a 5-step protocol to help people achieve and sustain their health and weight goals.
This is a proactive approach from the provider and the participant, a comprehensive one that involves addressing nutritional status (macro and micronutrient analysis), physical health (muscle and fat distribution), mental training and resilience (neuroplasticity), and optimal glycemic glucose control (individualized blood sugar regulation with proper measuring and tracking tools and effective systems).
There are many ways to lose weight quickly, including severe calorie restriction, surgical interventions, or weight loss drugs. Still, all of these come with risks and require permanent lifestyle changes, and most result in a weight rebound and worsening of metabolism. Some of the side effects and risks associated with these treatments and medications can lead to gut paralysis, nutrient malabsorption, pancreatitis, or even death. I believe in the approach of “first, do no harm.” This is the mantra behind the approach of treating children with intractable epilepsy through the application of ketogenic therapies using ketones. I will have more to follow in later posts.
I have had the opportunity to learn from events and training at these esteemed institutions, which are at the forefront of neurological and metabolic health research. We should strive as hard as possible to achieve and, most importantly, sustain our health, weight, and optimal body composition goals.
What does my metabolism have to do with my health and longevity?
Everything!
First, let us understand why our metabolism is so important:
Metabolism is, in the simplest way, how efficiently your body utilizes the energy that you consume. There are many misconceptions about metabolism, and when people refer to a slow metabolism, they often don’t have the whole picture. They may be wondering why weight loss resistance exists within their health, keeping them from their overall health goals. This can be largely related to the health of your metabolism!
Now, through various technologies, we can measure and determine one’s metabolic rate, also known as basal metabolic rate, which indicates the number of calories one burns at rest.
Metabolism can be affected by several factors, but in general, people tend to have similar metabolisms across age ranges and sexes specific to each group. Many of my clients report that their metabolism starts slowing down after having children, regardless of whether they are mothers or fathers. But most people’s metabolism remains pretty constant until the age of 60, when it does start to “slow down” or convert energy and protein less efficiently. This means you burn fewer calories, and your body’s process of converting protein into muscle is decreased. This results in gaining more unwanted fat and losing more sacred muscle.
What can we do about it?
Please don’t wait until next week or tomorrow when the setting is correct and you’re feeling it.
The time starts today; the biological clock has been ticking, and every day and week that you don’t engage your muscles, you lose muscle mass, which we then replace with fat tissue. Muscle loss is one of the primary factors that reduces your metabolism’s efficiency. The more muscle mass you lose, the fewer calories you burn, even if your weight stays unchanged. The same can be true when we are trying to lose weight. We go on a calorie deficit and burn fat. As we lose weight, our body has to work less to move, so it burns fewer calories to continue past the plateau that many people experience. Revisit the previous recommendation to increase your daily steps, and also incorporate a minimum of 2-3 days of consistent strength training.
Consistency is the key.
It can be days of full-body workouts or split workouts, such as push and pull exercises, done twice a week. Activating your muscles is one of the key steps to begin resetting your metabolism, which is essential for optimizing it.
Let’s explore the five Critical Keys to Optimizing Your Metabolic Health.
We know that our metabolic health is, in reality, the fountain of life that nourishes all systems of our body, including our brain and emotions. When we can put this into remission, then we can experience living life without the constant information that becomes a norm, resulting in loss of energy, unwanted fat gain, difficulty completing tasks, and everything else in between.
So these are the five steps. After 30,000 hours of practice and 13 years of helping clients not only restore their health but, in many cases, optimize it and their lives, we have developed a five-step protocol to lay the foundation for optimal metabolic health that you can sustain for a lifetime. Optimal metabolic health is insurance for your golden years your 401(k) or your pension or your Social Security won’t mean anything if in the golden years of your life, you are dealing with one chronic health condition to another Trying to refill medications, get appointments for specialist, deal with insurance and even be entirely dependent on somebody else to help you achieve your daily activities of living.
The time starts now.
Your investment is now.
It is never too late to invest, nor is it too early.
Let’s put forth our maximum effort to ensure a life of high-quality independence and joy, allowing us to contribute to our family and community for as long as possible.
These are the five-step protocol for Vanguard Metabolic Nutrition to optimize your metabolism:
1. First, determine your baseline and understand your current metabolic health.
When starting a health journey with a client, and even with myself, I had to know where I was to understand where I was going. The more detailed information I can gather, the better I can achieve results by developing systems and strategies based on my specific needs and identified deficits.
First off, you want to know if you are at risk for diabetes or if you already have the beginnings of diabetes, which is also known as prediabetes. Hence, the most basic test to have checked is your hemoglobin A1c levels. Your A1c levels represent your average blood sugar level, which is attached to the hemoglobin in your blood cells and has an estimated half-life of three months. Therefore, it reflects your average blood sugars for the past three months.
- To be below the range of risk for diabetes, your hemoglobin A1c should be 5.6% or lower.
- If it is 5.7% or higher but below 6.4%, then you already have prediabetes, which is the beginning of diabetes.
Unfortunately, in many cases, providers mention this casually but do not address it or provide any course of action to reverse or halt the progression. They often wait until it has progressed to blood glucose levels indicating diabetes, which would be a hemoglobin A1c of 6.5% or greater. By this point, you have already used up one-third of your pancreas’s ability to secrete insulin, meaning your body is not responding well to the insulin that it is sending out. This results in more blood sugar not being directed to where it should be—specifically in the muscles and liver—and instead remaining in the bloodstream, causing consistent low-grade inflammation and accumulating in the wrong places, especially around the liver and heart.
To check for your metabolic baseline…
Check these labs:
- Hemoglobin A1c
- Fasting insulin
- Comprehensive metabolic panel
- Lipid panel (cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, HDL, VLDL)
- Waist-to-height ratio
Risk Factors:
- Family history of diabetes or heart disease
- Ethnicity (Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic)
- Born before or raised during the era of Nirvana, Britney Spears, or Dr. Dre
These are just some of the most basic tests to determine your risk factors or to identify if you already have prediabetes without even knowing it. So get these checked. We can also order custom labs for specific clients, so let us know if you’re unable to connect with a provider to get these ordered.
These are just the basics, and we will explore additional metabolic health exams and tests in more detail with each client in later blogs. Now, knowing your current metabolic state is essential, so you can understand where you are going.
2. Find out what your ideal macronutrient distribution is to optimize your metabolism.
You want to determine your ideal goals for protein, carbohydrates, and fat, and decide on the best combinations of these nutrients.
All foods are composed of three macronutrients, either individually or in combination. Some of these nutrients our body can produce and store, while other essential nutrients can only be obtained from food. Of the three macronutrients, protein is the most important and is the most essential nutrient that has been overlooked in recent discussions about fat versus carbs. Protein is a crucial nutrient that the vast majority of Americans are not getting enough of, leading to improper energy distribution and loss of muscle mass. The recommendations for protein intake by specific organizations have often been set and recommended at levels that are less than optimal, sometimes only sufficient for survival for a small percentage of the population.
As a result, many diets that follow these recommendations have inadequate macronutrient distributions, leading to a gradual or sometimes rapid loss of muscle mass or atrophy. This becomes more evident and pronounced after the fourth decade of life. As we age, it is essential to ensure that we meet our optimal protein needs. This amount will depend on various factors, including activity level and body composition goals. However, for most adults, aiming for 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of ideal body weight is generally advisable. This guideline supports optimal performance, weight loss, blood sugar management, and improvement of metabolic health. High-quality protein, which contains all branched-chain amino acids, should be consumed in most meals or snacks for optimal metabolism and overall health.
After prioritizing protein, you can determine how many carbohydrates to consume based on your body’s response. Your carbohydrate tolerance can be measured using a continuous glucose monitor or a glucometer with clients. Most adult men will benefit from consuming 45 grams or less of carbohydrates per meal, and women should aim for 35 grams or less per meal. The amount of carbohydrates that you can consume at different meals can then be tailored according to individual responses to different carbohydrates, their amounts, types, and combinations of foods at the time of consumption. Lastly, fat distribution will make up the remainder of your caloric intake. Depending on how your body performs at lower or higher blood glucose levels, you can determine the type and amount of fat you should consume. Some individuals may benefit from a higher intake of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as olive oil and avocado oil, while also including plenty of omega-3 fatty acids, which you sometimes have to achieve through supplements.
Once we have determined your target caloric intake, you can plan a meal menu accordingly. We then create a realistic and personalized meal plan that works with your body, rather than against it. This plan will include strategies for batch cooking and meal prepping to minimize daily cooking, as well as backup plans for no-cook meals and snacks on the go. To start, write out your five favorite dishes, including one or two breakfast options that you can rotate, as well as some salads or sandwiches. Plan to prepare these meals two days a week, allowing for flexibility and contingencies.
3. Engage in consistent physical activity to improve your cardiovascular health and support your metabolism.
The key here is consistency. How many times in our lives have we experienced the ups and downs of our efforts? For three weeks in a row, you might start going to the gym from Monday through Friday and prep more meals. Initially, you begin to see the scale shift down, and your clothes fit better. However, after the third week, you may have a doctor’s appointment or family visiting, which could lead you to skip a few workouts. Missing a couple of days on a four-day weekend can quickly spiral into missing another set of exercise sessions for the upcoming week, and you may notice the weight shifting back up, with your clothes fitting tighter again, making it feel like you’ve made no progress.
Engaging in consistent movement, especially gaining muscle mass, supports the reduction of weight loss resistance.
We then tend to hit a plateau in movement and not only not see progress, but also lose it. This is a pattern that most of my clients experience, and one that I have also experienced throughout various seasons of my life. The reality is that health and muscle loss are very unforgiving, especially after the fourth decade of life. Not engaging your muscles for 5 to 7 days can result in actual muscle atrophy or loss, even when you consume enough protein. Our muscles are meant to be moved every single day. Besides physical health and metabolic health, they also activate specific immune responses, help regulate hunger and blood glucose levels, improve heart function, and overall enhance quality of life by enabling independent daily activities for as long as possible.
Most people who aren’t reaching their ideal body and exercise goals have not established consistent goals in all domains of physical activity. Perhaps you began working out by going to the gym to lift weights, or maybe you started running more and doing more cardio on the elliptical. After you made that progress, you have seen it plateau. As we increase the amount of exercise we’re doing outside of our daily activities. Our body tends to compensate by moving less so our total number of daily steps, which is part of our non-exercise activity thermogenesis, decreases. Throughout the day, you may find yourself moving a little slower, sitting a little more, and taking a little fewer steps, which adds up every single day.
There’s a significant contributor to decreased energy expenditure for the year: burning fewer calories throughout the day. Some people who start to focus on muscle building and strength building don’t pay enough attention to daily steps or include aerobic exercises. Some people who start doing more cardio and aerobic-type exercises seem to neglect anaerobic exercises, which include strength and power building, as well as muscle building. We establish a minimum standard for the number of days to engage in weight training or strength training. Add in weight training. How many days of strength training? This could involve using only body exercises, utilizing one’s own body for resistance training, or incorporating equipment such as resistance bands, dumbbells, barbells, or machines.
We also establish a goal of 10,000 daily steps or 10 to 15% more than your baseline. So, if your daily average is about 6,000, which is what most people, or average Americans, take per day, then you could increase it to 6,500 or even 7,000 steps per day. If you’re not doing any strength training, focus on the basic movements of pushing, pulling, squatting, and hinging. You can also split your workout routines into full-body workouts or push days and pull days.
4. Track and measure progress to reach your metabolism and, thus, health goals.
It is essential to be able to track and measure your progress in any activity that you want to improve. Now, you can track and measure your progress. You can’t possibly know which direction you’re going unless you have some system that allows you to obtain feedback. To receive feedback, you need input going in. The more detailed input we have, the more detailed feedback we get, and the more tailored activity and eating protocols can be made for optimal results.
Weight is a good place to start tracking your progress. You want to weigh yourself. Our weight fluctuates by 1-5 pounds from day to day, depending on various factors. Objectively, weighing yourself and recording the results on those days will give you a good indicator of where your weight is going when you average it up at the end of the week. The next best thing would be to measure your waist, hip, chest, and arm circumferences so you can also determine changes. However, measurements, unless they are taken accurately, tend not to be accurate when done for the first couple of times.
The subsequent best measurement is determining what your blood glucose levels do in the mornings when you wake up and after meals. This is specifically important for people who already have prediabetes or a high risk for diabetes. This helps you identify which combination of foods or the timing of the day when you ingest them causes your glucose levels to spike more. This way, you can change the nutrients you’re consuming, modify the amount, change the combination, or adjust the timing of when you consume them. Blood glucose levels can be measured using a handheld manual meter, which involves pricking your finger with a small lancet and squeezing out a drop of blood to then place onto a test strip that reads your glucose level at that point. Elevated glucose starting at 30 minutes after meals, which would be over 150 for somebody without pre-diabetes and over 180 with somebody with diabetes.
One of the other tools I’ve started using recently to check my metabolic markers is a metabolic scale. I’m using the one from Hume Health (see link HERE). This has been a significant game-changer for me and my clients, enabling us to witness fundamental changes occur in real time. This machine is 9*% reliable compared to a Dexascan. But you can do it at home. I am no longer as focused on weight; instead, I can see where my skeletal mass is going and where my fat is being stored, both subcutaneously and within my organs. I can see how my BMR is affected by the gain or loss of muscle as well as by changes in total body weight. I can see my muscle and fat distribution throughout my body and how my efforts, or those of my clients, pay off when going in the right direction. However, I can also experience a dip quickly with several days of inactivity and irregular energy intake. After four decades of life, the body has a greater tendency to lose muscle and retain fat.
Our daily habits and systems that we have established are what will make the difference in breaking that plateau or creeping obesity.
5. Examine your micronutrient—vitamin and mineral — needs.
Now that we’ve determined your macronutrient needs, established your eating patterns, and observed how your blood sugar responds to those patterns, we’ve set personalized goals for physical activity (including both a daily minimum and a weekly target). Together, we’ve identified potential barriers and developed strategies with backup plans (B, C, and even D) to keep you on track. We’re actively measuring your progress and making adjustments as needed. Now, let’s shift our focus to your micronutrient needs. Specifically, the essential vitamins and minerals that support your overall health.
For years, I didn’t think supplements were necessary, overrated, and just a sale to be made. Over time, and most recently, I have learned about the long-term effects of endocrine disruptors, including exposure to :
- Toxins
- Plastics
- Pollution
- Disruptions in our gut caused by medications, antibiotics, COVID-19, illnesses, and loss of function in our mitochondria, ultimately leading to a decline in our ability to produce energy effectively.
- The quality of the soil in which most store-bought products are grown is often suboptimal, resulting in lower-quality food with fewer vitamins and minerals available.
Intentional supplementation is key! You may feel overwhelmed by all the supplement options, and you may not know what is right for you. You want support in choosing the right supplements. If this is you, I hear you! I offer access to 3rd-party tested, pharmaceutical-grade supplement options. See more on my essential stack HERE. More information about supplement types and uses will follow in future blogs.
The tricky part is knowing where you are sourcing your supplements from.
You may be buying probiotics from a brand name that you often recognize. Your intentions are good. Multiple studies have shown that close to 50% of the time, supplements either did not contain the labeled dose or varied from one bottle to the next of the same product. This can be very harmful for the risk of toxicity or negative influence on hormones such as melatonin.
Other supplements could contain harmful things such as:
- Toxins
- Heavy metals
- Undeclared ingredients
- Fillers
- Rancid fish oils
Unfortunately, we don’t feel it immediately. It is a low-grade inflammation chipping away at our health, not only failing to improve the nutritional health of our bodies but at times even worsening it.
I am affiliated with a supplement index called Fullscript that provides pharmaceutical-grade supplements, all of which are tested at various stages of development, including packaging, delivery, and multiple protocols for quality measurements and control. These are the supplements that I use, what my family uses, and what I offer for my patients. Everything from multivitamins to high-quality protein supplements, creating potent fish oils and pharmaceutical-grade megaspore technology probiotics that are unmatched by most probiotic supplements. See dispensary HERE.
Clients and members receive special discounts on this line of tested high-quality supplements. Ensure your products have undergone at least one third-party test. Look for articles on those specific product notifications of recalls or findings, and purchase from the source to a dispensary that completes all proper handling, checks, and safety measures.
To Summarize the 5 Keys to Metabolic Health & My Approach in Practice:
In summary, our approach in practice at Vanguard Metabolic Nutrition to support each client’s metabolism aligns with these 5 steps:
- Assess your metabolic baseline – Where are you at with your metabolic health currently?
- Assess your macronutrient intake.
- Keep consistent physical activity, including a range of activity types
- Tracking your progress in your nutrition, weight, lab values, etc.
- Micronutrient needs and intentional supplementation.
This approach has helped me reset my metabolic health after having a second dip of negative health for a different chapter of my life. Since then, I have developed a 5-step protocol that helped me turn my metabolic and overall health around and move towards optimization.
This protocol is designed for individuals who want to improve their energy, manage prediabetes or put diabetes into remission, reduce unwanted belly fat, baby fat, or a notorious beer gut, to achieve their ideal body weight and composition, and sustain these changes.
- No more starting over again
- No more waiting until New Year
- No more waiting until my blood sugars are damaging my nerves
- No more waiting until I suffer a stroke.
The time is now.
Friends, I am taking action and equipping our members with the tools, skills, and knowledge to do the same, not just to sit, aim, and then continue to improve. Do it for you, for your family, your friends, your community, and for all those that you may impact.
To work with me and get ahead of your health for your future self, follow this link. I can get you started on a metabolic health plan, including high-quality supplements perfect for your needs!
Do you have any questions about the protocol or any other issues? Please comment below or contact us. Thank you.
