Staying Healthy Physically, Mentally, and Energetically In Your Youth

by Deborah Maragopoulos FNP | Dec 27, 2023 | Hypothalamus, Mind/Body | 0 comments

What can you do to stay healthy in your youth?

Let's talk about it.

Every stage of your life holds a different potential for health as well as healing. Each stage of your life is a little bit different. What health issues you may be facing, as well as what mindset best serves your most optimal state of wellness differs throughout life.

YOUTH (15-25)

Between 15 and 25 you’re setting the stage for a lifetime of physical, mental, and emotional health. In your youth, you're busy developing your identity. You’re metabolically active and probably healthy. Running a fast metabolism, you get over illnesses and injuries fairly quickly.

You may be taking advantage of your high metabolism and eating whatever you'd like.
Sleeping whenever you feel like it.
Exercising if you feel like it.
Not really thinking much about your mindset.

And perhaps you haven't even explored how to support optimal hypothalamic function.

Because until you start to have any kind of health issues, do you start really looking into how the body works and what it needs to be supported for optimal health and well-being.

Yet when you're young, it's really the best time to start taking the best care of yourself. Hopefully you’ve had a healthy childhood with good nutrition, enough activity, good sleep habits, and a healthy emotional upbringing to develop a healthy mindset. If not, by the time you’re in your late teens to mid-twenties, you best get your act together or you're going to start to get sick.

Why wait until you get sick before you start choosing healthier habits?

Your youth is the best time to plant the seeds of healthy habits.

Here are five tips to stay healthy in your youth:

1. Nutrition

Nourishing your body with nutritious foods - eating a plant based diet with adequate protein and healthy fat - will help you reach your highest potential physically and mentally. You’ll be stronger, do better in school, be more productive, have more energy, clearer skin, healthy hair when you feed your body well.

Occasional fast food won’t hurt you, but eat well now and you’re setting yourself up for good health the rest of your life.

2. Sleep

Getting enough sleep, at least seven to nine hours a night, will help you have the energy you need to accomplish your goals. Plus you won’t get sick as often since your immune system works best when you sleep.

Turn off your digital products so you can actually fall asleep after dark.

I know it’s hard and many youth wind down by playing games on their devices at night. But the light from the screens mess with your nocturnal hormones resulting in poor sleep quality and diminishing your immunity.

3. Exercise

Getting enough activity will help you manage your weight, improve your immunity, and your brain function.

Make sure you're getting aerobic exercise at least a few times a week, some kind of strengthening exercise a couple times a week and stretch regularly.

Exercise helps lift your moods.

4. Mindset

Adopting a healthy mindset will help you manage your stress and stay healthy.

Learn stress reduction techniques. Speaking positively about yourself and to yourself helps your body to heal. Even something as simple as a sprained ankle - those strained ligaments respond to positive affirmations.

Your body will slow down the healing process if you're not being your own best cheerleader.

5. Hypothalamus Support

I believe in nutraceutical support at all ages because we cannot get enough nutrition from our diet alone especially for optimal hypothalamic functioning. Genesis Gold® will help you maintain optimal health physically, mentally, spiritually, and energetically.

Choose wisely in your youth because it will affect your health for the rest of your life.

I consciously chose not to drink alcohol until I was in my mid-twenties. I intuitively knew that chemicals would affect my brain development. Research shows that alcohol and recreational drug use before the age of 24 diminishes potential brain size and capacity throughout adulthood. So be careful.

What you put in your body when you're younger, may affect you for the rest of your life.

If you have any questions about how to stay healthy in your youth and want access to my best diets, exercise routines, and stress-reducing meditation, please join us in our Hormone Reboot Training.

You can also learn more in my newest book The Hypothalamus Handbook.

Resources:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnana.2015.00047/full

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can your hypothalamus cause weight gain?

Yes. The hypothalamus is the master regulator of metabolism, controlling how your body stores and burns energy through its signaling to the thyroid, adrenals, and pancreas. When the hypothalamus becomes dysregulated by chronic stress, poor sleep, inflammation, or blood sugar instability, it defends a higher weight "set point" — causing the body to hold onto fat regardless of diet or exercise. This makes hypothalamic dysfunction an upstream root cause of stubborn weight gain.

What is a weight set point and why won't mine move?

A weight set point is the body weight your hypothalamus works to defend, calibrated over time by stress, sleep, hormones, and inflammation. When you diet, the hypothalamus perceives scarcity and responds by slowing metabolism, increasing hunger hormones, and suppressing satiety signals to return you to that set point. This is why most people regain lost weight within two to five years of conventional dieting — the set point itself was never recalibrated, only temporarily overridden.

Why do I gain weight under stress even when I'm not eating more?

Chronic stress raises cortisol, which disrupts blood sugar regulation, promotes abdominal fat storage, and signals the hypothalamus that the body is under threat. In survival mode, the hypothalamus defends fat stores and slows metabolism — so weight can increase even without any change in calorie intake. The stress chemistry, not the food, is driving the weight gain, which is why stress reduction is essential to any lasting metabolic reset.

Why do I regain weight after stopping GLP-1 medications?

GLP-1 medications work peripherally on appetite and gastric signaling, but they do not address the underlying hypothalamic dysregulation that sets your defended weight. Because the hypothalamic set point is never recalibrated, the body resumes defending its original weight once the medication stops — leading to significant regain. Long-term success requires restoring hypothalamic regulation so the set point itself lowers, rather than relying on appetite suppression alone.

How long does it take to reset your metabolism?

Genuine metabolic recalibration takes a minimum of 90 days, because the hypothalamus needs consistent signals of safety and sufficiency before it will lower its defended set point. This differs from a diet, which produces temporary suppression the body quickly corrects. A 90-day reset typically moves through three phases: stabilizing stress chemistry (days 1–30), rebuilding metabolic efficiency (days 31–60), and lowering the weight set point (days 61–90).

Why does my thyroid feel slow even though my labs are "normal"?

Under chronic stress, the body converts thyroid hormone into reverse T3, which blocks active thyroid receptors and slows metabolism at the cellular level — even when standard lab values appear normal. This means you can experience genuine symptoms of slow metabolism, such as fatigue, cold intolerance, and brain fog, while your thyroid panel looks unremarkable. Addressing the upstream hypothalamic and stress signaling often improves thyroid conversion and symptoms.

Is stubborn weight gain a willpower problem?

No. Stubborn weight gain is a signaling problem, not a willpower problem. The hypothalamus governs weight through survival mechanisms that operate below conscious control — defending its set point by slowing metabolism and increasing hunger when it perceives threat. No amount of discipline can override this system; lasting change comes from restoring hypothalamic regulation through reduced stress, balanced blood sugar, restorative sleep, and targeted nutritional support.

About the Author - Deborah Maragopoulos FNP

Known as the Hormone Queen®️, I’ve made it my mission to help everyone - no matter their age - balance their hormones, and live the energy and joy their DNA and true destiny desires. See more about me my story here...

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Last Updated: January 24, 2024