Obesity Facts - Insulin
Many
of us have heard of the word insulin, but like me you probably never
realised its significance in your efforts to lose weight, but I can assure
you it is the least understood but most important of obesity facts.
If you've never succeeded with your diet and exercise regime, and you always
tend to put back all the weight, you're not alone. In fact, you're among the
80% of the population who has not been controlling it's insulin levels.
Understand and control your insulin and you will lose weight. I am living proof!! So what is insulin and and what role does it play in our daily diet? - let me try to explain its function and why it is vital that we control it in order to lose weight.
Obesity Facts - Insulin Explained
In simple terms insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas which regulates the level of glucose in the blood. In other words it governs the energy levels in the body by increasing or decreasing the sugar ( or glucose ) every minute of every day. Our bodies require a steady amount of sugar throughout the day and that comes from the food we eat. Now one way to provide a continuous supply would be to eat all day which is clearly not practical. In our evolution, catching and eating our food was hard enough at the best of times, without having to continue non stop 24 hours a day. Apart from anything else we wouldn't have time to sleep. Our bodies have therefore devised a simple mechanism for the release of energy stored in our bodies. This is the role that insulin plays. In essence it manages the process much like a reservoir manages water in periods of drought and flood. When sugar levels in the blood are low, the "valve" opens and sugar is released. Conversely when sugar levels are high in the blood, then the "valve" closes and the sugar is stored for use later. A simplistic explanation perhaps, but I hope it provides a mental picture of the role that insulin plays in our obesity facts.
Obesity Facts - Insulin & Weight Loss
Now, let me write something which at this stage you will find strange as you read it, but it is simply this - weight loss is a by-product of understanding and managing our insulin levels. Am I saying that in order to lose weight you need to control your insulin levels? In very simple terms the answer is yes, and here are the reasons why.
As we have just seen, insulin is responsible for the storage of all the foods we eat whether they are carbohydrates, proteins or fats ( which I will explain later) and the storage and release of sugar ( or energy, if you like). Now some foods cause blood sugars to rise very rapidly and to use our simple analogy again, it is now raining hard! Our insulin reservoir is working overtime to collect the sugar for use later. Now this creates two problems. Firstly in some people the delicate insulin 'mechanism' has been damaged through years of abuse eating high sugar foods, and the fine control is no longer available. The valve has become worn out, in much the same way a tap starts to leak after many years and too much insulin is released into the bloodstream. This can trigger a series of significant health issues. The second problem is that since the blood sugars have risen so quickly, the insulin tries to bring the levels back down just as fast, causing the sugars to be stored in every cell, including the fat cells, rather than the blood cells where the energy is actually required. In our reservoir analogy we are now using an overflow tank which is our fat. In other words we are storing sugar in our fat cells, simply because we are eating high sugar foods.
When we eat low sugar foods, then the insulin is released slowly and our blood sugar levels also rises slowly. Our body then uses the energy it needs in a regulated environment and the remainder is stored. If you can control your insulin and hence your blood sugar levels, then you will lose weight. It is the change in our diets from hunter gatherers predominantly eating meat, vegetables and berries, to our current diet of cereal based foods that is the essential problem. Our insulin mechanism has remained the same, whilst our diet has changed dramatically. In order to lose weight we need to regulate our insulin valve so that it becomes balanced with our diet once again. It is a sad fact that obesity is escalating alarmingly throughout the western world, and yet by simply eating the correct foods, which in turn regulate our insulin, we can lose weight very easily. As I said earlier, losing weight is a by-product of being much healthier and avoiding many of the serious and complex health issues caused by mismanaging our insulin levels. Insulin is the key that opens the gates to the fat cells, and allows excess glucose in the blood to go into the fat cells. So if you never eat anything that raises your blood sugar levels beyond normal, your body will not release insulin, and you will not get bigger fat cells.
So in summary, if we manage our insulin levels correctly, not only do we avoid serious and life threatening health issues, but in addition we lose weight, which is what obesity facts is all about - to help you lose weight. In our cases the by- product is to live longer which can't be bad!! Now let's look at why low fat diets don't work.