Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Insulin Response & Weight Gain



Whether or not you are diabetic, you need to understand your body's insulin response to the foods you consume, and how this contributes to weight gain.

Carbohydrates - it doesn't matter whether they are from sugar, bread, pasta, fruit or vegetables - are all the same as far as your body is concerned and they are all ultimately converted into the blood sugar, glucose.

Carbohydrates are digested very quickly - within a few minutes.
This means that within a very short time after a carb-rich 'healthy' meal, the level of glucose in your bloodstream will rise rapidly.

High glucose levels are dangerous and as levels of blood glucose rise, your pancreas will produce a large amount of insulin to take the excess glucose out of your bloodstream.

This is important as insulin is the hormone ultimately responsible for body fat storage. As fats do not elicit an insulin response, they cannot be stored as body fat; it's usually the highly processed wheat for example, that surrounds the saturated fats (eg. a doughnut) that is converted to fat within the body.

Insulin takes the glucose out of the bloodstream. It is converted first into a form of starch called glycogen which is stored in the liver and muscles. The body can only store a limited amount of glycogen in this way, all other excess glucose is stored as body fat. This is the process of putting on weight.

If you are overweight, simply losing "weight" is not the answer; it's not as silly as it first sounds, you can lose weight by lopping off a leg; what you really want to lose is fat.

Reducing your caloric intake to less than your lean body mass requires, essentially starving, encourages your body to hang on to stored fat, as it thinks there is a famine, and this is counter-productive to your fat-loss goals.

To lose fat, your body must use that fat as a fuel, and the best way to force your body to use stored body fat as fuel is to remove your present supply of fuel - the blood sugar, glucose - so that it has no choice in the matter.

Reducing the starches and sugars from which glucose is made means avoiding all processed carbohydrates and replacing them with natural, whole foods - they're called fresh vegetables, people!

Eating protein with each meal will help you feel fuller for longer and including good fats like avocado, olive & flaxseed oils and oily fish in your daily diet will add nutritional value without stimulating an insulin response; your body will stop trying to find glucose and naturally change over to using its own stored fat.

When making your food choices, think about how processed the food is, how much it has been altered from it's natural state and reconsider your options.
It's the little changes over time that bring the big rewards.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.