Bayou Health | Swap Calorie Counting for Temperature and Heart Rate Tracking
BY SHANNON DAHLUM, FDN-P

The urge to go into calorie deprivation mode and hit the gym hard on January 1st is real. If you’re like most Americans, you enjoyed plenty of holiday splurges and now feel like your body has paid the price. It’s easy to believe that if you just force yourself to go a little hungry and expend more energy than you consume, you’ll undo all the ‘damage’ those holiday indulgences caused. Before you start counting calories and avoiding all carbs like the plague, allow me to try and convince you to attempt a different approach this year. First, we need to dive into what controls fat storage and utilization in your body- your metabolism.
Metabolism refers to the chemical process that happens in your cells to create energy from various nutrients (glucose, fatty acids, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and oxygen) and use that energy for sustaining life. When energy production is lower than the body’s needs, the body enters a state of stress, inflammation increases, and the thyroid “tells” the metabolism to slow down to conserve energy. Since energy fuels every single process in the body, some of those processes must be sacrificed in order to maintain energy for survival. Not only is maintaining a healthy weight challenging in this state, but it also makes it impossible to maintain optimal health.
Since metabolism controls how your body makes and stores energy, it makes sense that optimizing its function would be more helpful than focusing on cutting calories, skipping meals, or running farther to achieve a healthy body composition. Forcing your body into a calorie deficit when metabolic function is low will only exacerbate this fat storage survival response.
However, in a healthy metabolic state, brief periods of calorie deprivation (between meals or overnight) will easily shift your body into utilizing fat for energy. The ability to effortlessly move back and forth between utilizing glucose and fat for energy production is called metabolic flexibility, and it’s a hallmark of healthy metabolic function that enables the body to maintain balance.
Being aware of the signs of both healthy and poor metabolic function is important for understanding how to best support your body. A body weight scale will tell you about the impact gravity has on your body, but it says absolutely nothing about your metabolic function or fat storage state. Your body gives you constant feedback about how it’s functioning and it’s ability to create and burn energy efficiently. Let’s look at what these signs are and get you away from relying on an arbitrary number on the scale for gauging your progress.
Signs of a Healthy Metabolism
• Warm hands, feet and nose.
• Steady energy all day long without crashes between meals. Strong, healthy hair, skin and nails.
•Good digestion, without bloating or other discomfort.
• Ability to maintain a healthy weight easily, without deprivation or intense exercise.
• Strong immune system.
• Healthy appetite, consistently eat three meals daily with no intense cravings.
• Fall asleep easily and sleep soundly without interruptions for 7-9 hours per night. Strong libido.
• 1-3 satisfying bowel movements daily. Positive, happy mood.
• For menstruating women, regular periods and ovulation with very little to no PMS symptoms.
Signs of a Sluggish Metabolism
• Fatigue, even after adequate rest.
• Energy dips throughout the day.
• Cold sensitivity and cold extremities.
• Difficulty losing weight or unexplained weight gain, regardless of healthy nutrition habits.
• Hormonal imbalances and/or low libido in either men or women.
• Menstrual irregularities and/or signs of estrogen dominance in women.
• Feeling overwhelmed or anxious in response to minor stressors.
• Hair loss or thinning hair, dry skin, brittle nails. Trouble falling and/or staying asleep.
• Intense cravings.
• Moodiness.
• Blood sugar dysregulation or an inability to fast between meals without getting hangry, experiencing headaches, shakiness, extreme fatigue, etc.
Along with an awareness of the signs and symptoms of a healthy metabolism, it’s very helpful to utilize tools for measuring your energy output as well, and it’s easier than you may think!
Basal Body Temperature (BBT) and resting pulse together can tell you a lot about your body’s stress state and energy expenditure, and can provide concrete feedback about how your nutrition and lifestyle strategies are affecting you.
BBT is the temperature of your body at rest, and it is usually the lowest body temperature you will experience throughout the day. Since your body temperature is closely tied to your metabolism, you can think of BBT as a measure of your baseline metabolism, or how efficiently your body converts nutrients from food into energy and heat in your body.
Your BBT occurs right when you wake up in the morning, and then your body temperature increases throughout the day from there. You need to measure it with a basal body thermometer (easily found at local drug stores), which measures to the nearest 100th of a degree (98.62°F, versus 98.6°F, for example). For cycling women, the most telling time to track BBT is during menstruation, when hormones and body temperature are at their lowest point during the month. It’s important to take it consistently, though, to establish your baseline and track any shifts over time.
To properly measure and track BBT, you need to take your first reading (either orally or under your arm) immediately upon waking after at least three hours of uninterrupted sleep. Keep your thermometer on your bedside table and reach for it right after waking, before your get up to use the bathroom. If you’ve gotten up at all within three hours prior to waking for the day, your reading won’t be accurate. Note this measurement down on a BBT chart (which you can easily find online and print out), in a cycle tracking app that includes BBT charting (like Kindara) or just note it anywhere that’s easiest for you. Optimal morning BBT should be between 97.8°F and 98.2°F, with daytime temperatures rising to 98.6°F or above. For cycling women, you will see shifts throughout the month. For example, during the follicular phase before ovulation, BBT should fall between 97.2- 97.8°F. After ovulation and before menstruation, during the luteal phase, it should rise to 98.4°F.
Along with temperature, tracking your resting heart rate can give you clues about whether increases in body temperature are related to improving metabolic function or if they’re a result of stress. It’s important to track both vital signs when you’re trying to determine if food choices and exercise are working for or against your metabolism.
To track your pulse, you’ll want to get your first reading upon waking, when you take your first BBT measurement. You can either watch a timer and count your beats for a full minute, or pick up a pulse oximeter from a local drug store and slide it on your finger. An ideal resting pulse that reflects optimal energy expenditure is 75-90 beats per minute. Lower than that can indicate that the body is conserving energy and higher can indicate an active state of stress.
Record your morning pulse alongside your BBT so you can track these over time.
These morning measurements, along with the signs and symptoms of healthy metabolic function, provide valuable awareness about your metabolic state. If your symptoms and measurements are consistently indicating slow metabolic function, you should be focusing on increasing energy and decreasing stress. Encourage blood sugar balance and adequate nutrition by incorporating three consistent nutrient dense meals daily, and avoiding highly processed foods, excess caffeine or alcohol. Don’t skip meals, include breakfast within the first hour of waking, and finish your final meal 3-4 hours before bed to give your body a healthy fasting window overnight. Incorporate regular movement throughout the day but avoid intense exercise or extremes. Spend time outside at least several times each day to expose your eyes and skin to the sun’s rays, which is your body’s most important signal for properly regulating hormones and cellular energy production. A simple approach for ensuring all these needs are being met is to get outside after each of your three meals for a 10-20 minute walk. When possible, eat your meals outside, as well.
You can also utilize BBT and pulse measurements around meal times to track how your body is responding to your food choices. Tuning in to how your body responds to the food you eat is so much more useful than knowing the calorie content of that food! To do this, keep a food journal to record what you eat, the time you eat, and both your BBT and pulse before you eat and 20- 30 minutes after your meal.
Here’s what various changes in temperature and pulse in response to meals can tell you and how to adjust meals to be more supportive:
• If your temperature is healthy prior to a meal but falls after eating, this could signal that you are normally running off of stress hormones (which can raise core body temp but extremities feel cold). In most cases, food lowers stress hormones (especially salt and carbohydrates), so eating may make temperature from stress drop. This indicates a need to continue focusing on stress reduction as a whole and prioritizing healthy blood sugar regulation.
• If temperature stays the same after eating, you may not have eaten enough calories, or the macro ratios were insufficient. Try increasing the protein and/or carbohydrate content in your next meal, which can be more stimulating to the metabolism.
• If your pulse is elevated prior to your meal and raises even more afterward, your meal may have spiked your insulin and caused a release of adrenaline. When this happens, you can try to decrease those stimulating carbohydrates and/ or proteins at your next meal, and increase healthy fats. Also keep in mind that walking or getting another form of movement after eating will diminish the blood sugar and insulin response, so taking a post meal walk can be incredibly helpful for this.
• If you have a low pulse before eating and it rises to a healthy range (75-90) after your meal, this is a great sign that your food was metabolically supportive.
• If you have a high pulse prior to eating but a low temperature, and pulse decreases while temperature rises after eating, this indicates that your meal was supportive because it diminished stress (pulse) and increased metabolism (heat).
• If you have a low pulse and a low temperature prior to eating and both rise after, this also indicates a metabolically supportive meal.
Instead of counting calories consumed at the table and burned at the gym, then stepping on the scale to gauge your progress, pay attention to your metabolic function. Tuning into the signs and symptoms of metabolic function, along with tracking tools like basal body temperature and pulse, can much more effectively guide targeted lifestyle changes, help you monitor progress, and support your body’s innate energy-producing systems. Attempting to fight against your survival system with willpower will always be a losing battle, but working with and optimizing it will allow you to achieve and maintain a healthy weight with ease.
Remember, metabolic health is not just about numbers and body fat storage—it’s about feeling vibrant, resilient, and being free of chronic symptoms. Commit to nourishing your metabolism rather than depriving and pushing your body, and you’ll be able to maintain a healthier relationship with food and won’t have the need to hop back into the diet bandwagon every January.
Quick Daily Reference Guides
Temperature and Pulse
Ideal BBT (upon waking)= 97.8°F- 98.2°F Ideal daytime temperature = 98.6°F
Ideal resting pulse= 75-90 beats per minute
• Low temperature + low pulse = overall slow metabolic function
• Normal temperature + low pulse = overall slow metabolism and the body is relying on stress for energy
• Normal temperature + high pulse = active stress and metabolism will be suppressed if this remains chronic
• Low temperature + high pulse = metabolism is being suppressed by high stress
• Low temperature overall indicates impaired hormone function and slow metabolism
Healthy Metabolism Checklist
• Warm hands, feet and nose
• Fall asleep easily and stay asleep
• Steady energy all day long
• Sleep soundly without interruptions for 7-9 hours per night
• Strong, healthy hair, skin and nails
• Strong libido
• Good digestion, no bloating
• 1-3 satisfying bowel movements daily
• Maintain healthy weight easily, without deprivation or intense exercise
• Positive, happy mood
• Strong immune system
• Regular periods and ovulation with very little to no PMS symptoms
• Healthy appetite, eat 3 meals daily with no intense cravings