Insulin, leptin and ghrelin are three metabolic hormones that have a massive impact on your ability to lose weight and keep it off. By understanding the functions and actions of these 3 hormones in your body you will have a much greater chance of controlling them and accelerating the fat-burning process in your body and/or keeping your weight from creeping up.
Insulin
Insulin stops fat-burning and causes fat storage. People on insulin therapy typically gain 8-20 pounds in the first year alone. What, you're not a diabetic? That doesn't matter, insulin is still the major reason you have weight to lose.
Insulin is produced by the beta cells in the pancreas. It gets produced primarily in response to a rise in blood glucose and to a lesser extent blood amino acids. Insulin is a storage hormone. Its function is to take nutrients from the blood stream and store them in the body's cells.
Insulin has the ability to increase the uptake of glucose into the liver and muscles for storage as glycogen (storage carbohydrate); it can also increase the uptake of glucose by fat cells where it can then be stored as body fat; it also increases the uptake of amino acids into muscle tissue where it can be used to build muscle.
So, we need insulin. But not too much.
Since insulin is a storage hormone (rather than a mobilising hormone), it also stops the body from mobilising and utilising fat as a fuel source; so it stops fat burning immediately!
Therefore, if your goal is to burn off body fat as quickly as possible, your goal should be to keep insulin as low as possible. By doing so your body will then be able to access as burn fat all day long.
So, how do you do that? There are several ways you can keep insulin low:
-Have three satisfying meals -at mealtimes- and two snacks at snacktime.
This is one of my biggest challenges! Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and a snack between each meal. It really is this simple and yet I find it very difficult. But when you eat throughout the day, you can avoid extremes in hunger levels. Larger meals cause a greater insulin response, and the hungrier you are, the more 'out of whack' your metabolic hormones become. You want to keep these levels as level as possible.
-Keep carbohydrates very low.
Carbs cause insulin to surge through the blood stream. Insulin surges mean weight gain.
-Eat complex carbs and eat less-or-avoid simple carbs.
Complex carbs (like broccoli, cauliflower, green beens, asparagus, baby spinach, quinoa, beans, lentils, etc.) have more fiber and less carbohydrate in them whereas the simple carbs (bread, pasta, rice, cereals, sweets, etc.) have more carbohydrate and less fiber.
-Completely avoid sugar. No sweets. And no soda pop. And no juice.
Sugary drinks are possibly the worst. And that new ad campaign that says that high fructose corn syrup is just sugar? It's a lie. High fructose is handled by the body in a different way than table sugar, mostly by the liver. Shame on them.
-Eat fruit in extremely small amounts.
Eat 1/4 of an apple with peanut butter or a cheese stick. Save the rest of the apple for your second snack. Try and only eat 1/2 an apple per day, or half an orange. Avoid grapes or just eat 3-5. Always eat fruit with a protein. It slows the insulin in the bloodstream and possibly avoids a surge, depending on how sugary the fruit.
Body builders avoid fruit entirely, relying on supplements to get their vitamins, because they know the fructose in fruit causes fat storage. Period. Even on a reduced calorie diet, fruit sends insulin levels skyward, and high insulin means you are in fat-storage mode.
-Replace sugar with stevia.
Stevia is a naturally sweet herb with no glycemic index. This means it is safe for diabetics and anyone who likes the taste of sweet, without the weight gain of sugar or the cancer risks of artificial sugars. That stuff is garbage and you are not a garbage can. Treat yourself well and get yourself some stevia. I buy mine at Trader Joe's, or Whole Foods, also Target carries a brand called 'Truvia' and any health food store will stock it as well.
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Does the above sound overly harsh? Well, I can promise you this: you will lose your taste for sweets once you have cleaned up your act while following protocol. Your insulin surges are what cause cravings for sweets. Level out your insulin levels and your cravings disapear.
It's completely true but I did not believe it either - until it happened to ME.
