I have really interesting information today that relates to your weight, your energy, and your risk for disease, but first, a little info on where I’ve been the past week.
See my lead picture? That’s me, with Mark, 2 of my sisters, 1 brother in law, and my parents. My dad threw a big – super fun – party for my mom down in Florida, where they live half the year. Pretty weather, fun in the sun, lots of dancing – it just messed up my writing schedule! It didn’t however, mess up my learning schedule, as I’m obsessed with reading and listening to anything and everything about health.
Then, I spent 2 days in Hampton, Va at a Joyce Meyers convention with Mark. Wow. That woman’s amazing and inspiring, check her out.
Weight Loss Resistance: This past week there’s been a Diabetes Summit on line, and if you haven’t been listening and you have diabetes, high blood sugar or just can’t lose weight, you should buy this summit. Why? The docs on this summit have a LOT of new info, holy smoly – tons, seriously it’s the best summit I’ve heard in a while.
In light of how many people actually have diabetes, and how many are predicted to develop diabetes, this is a condition that will literally touch ALL OF US in one way or another. CDC predicts that by 2020 – 6 years from now – half of all Americans will be either diabetic or pre-diabetic. MOMS, OUR KIDS ARE AT RISK HERE.
The good news? DIABETES TYPE 2 IS BOTH PREVENTABLE AND REVERSIBLE. You don’t have diabetes because of genetics. Sorry. Diabetes rarely affected our grandparents when they were young, and our great-grand parents (in their younger years) possibly never even heard of it. Type 2 diabetes is a LIFESTYLE disease of High Blood Sugar, and Insulin Resistance.
It’s fixable; and we want to fix it, because high blood sugar and insulin resistance lead to many many disease states other than diabetes.
Weight Loss Resistance is one of them; here’s why it happens. When we have high blood sugar, insulin is released to the blood stream. Insulin’s job is to lower blood sugar, because high blood sugar wrecks havoc on our arteries (high blood pressure, ED, etc), our skin (wrinkles, age spots), our nerve endings (hello neuropathy), our brain – Alzheimer’s is being called Diabetes Type 3, and I could go on and on. The weight connection: when excess Insulin is in the blood, FAT BURNING AIN’T HAPPENING. PERIOD PERIOD PERIOD.
If you eat a breakfast of “healthy whole grain” oatmeal and a banana and go to the gym to “burn fat”, you won’t; you’ll just burn the sugar/glucose in your blood stream. It’s science: when insulin’s in the blood stream, our “fuel burners” aka mitochondria, burn glucose, not fat. It’s a rule, and we can’t change it.
What about Weight Loss Resistance? I’d never heard that term before I heard one of the summit’s docs coin it, but I sure do know people who have it, including some of my clients who literally do everything right and still can’t lose weight. This explains it!
First, a review of what “Insulin Resistance” is, and how that leads to “Weight Loss Resistance”. The hormone Insulin can be Caustic and Irritating. In NORMAL amounts insulin is wonderful and necessary. In EXCESSIVE amounts, say, the amounts required to store all the excess blood sugar consumed today, Insulin is DANGEROUS. Our cells and our body, knows this; so the little doors-receptors on the cells that happily open for NORMAL amounts of insulin, close and say NO WAY to excessive amounts of insulin; they’re self-preservating. When receptor doors close, there’s inflammation, there’s a shut down of cell function, and **** other hormones, like Thyroid, Sex, and Leptin (which tells our brain we’re full) are prevented from entering and delivering their messages.
A whole bunch of dysfunction is happening, right?
Two more points about Insulin Resistance: 1) if you have this, you’ve become a Fat Making and Storing Machine. Long chemistry explanation, but true. 2) Insulin Resistance begets MORE insulin resistance; the lack of insulin in the cells sends a signal to the pancreas to spit out more insulin. It does, but the insulin has no where to go, because the doors are shut. So the pancreas makes even more, which irritates more doors to shut. It’s a vicious cycle.
What about Weight Loss Resistance? What if you just quit eating refined grains and sugars, everything should go back to normal, right?
Sometimes; most of the time. Sometimes not.
Here’s a great point brought to light via the summit’s speakers: Insulin Resistance isn’t only caused by excess insulin. The cells doors/receptors are bothered and irritated to closing by TOXINS also. What toxins? Crap in our water, foods, cigarettes, personal care products, cleaning products, pesticides, herbicides, etc. We have tens of thousands of irritating chemicals in our life every day, and they’re so completely hidden from view that they’re mostly invisible.
Removal of toxins and refined sugar and grains are the first step to healing Insulin Resistance. Healing the cell so that the doors/receptors open normally to insulin and all our other hormones, is the next step.
This is trickier, and it involves both correct nutrients, and great digestion.
The exterior of our cells is made from Fats and Cholesterol, and believe it or not, SATURATED FAT, is WAY preferred over POLY-UNSATURATED fats, or even mono-unsaturated fats, for building the cell wall. ( Hmmmm. NOT THE MESSAGE WE HEAR FROM OUR DOCS OR THE GOVERNMENT.) Why? Sat fats are structurally neat and tidy, like a brick wall. Nutrients get in easily, and trash gets out easily, like it’s supposed to. Saturated fats are the most stable and durable in the face of Free Radicals, Heat, and Oxygen of all the fats.
Remember I said that we burn sugar instead of fat if Insulin’s in the blood stream, it’s a rule? Well, the fact that saturated fats and cholesterol make the best cell walls is another Rule like that one. It’s just science. What happens if you don’t eat saturated fat or cholesterol, but like me, you went years eating vegetable oils and hydrogenated oils, like margarine or Crisco?
Your body will use those weak, damage prone fats to build your cells. Nutrients won’t get in well, and trash won’t get out well. Not only that, but those cells are now prone to inflammation and dysfunction; think: INSULIN RESISTANCE.
One more fact about saturated fat and cholesterol: it doesn’t make your blood sugar rise AT ALL. ZERO insulin is released to take care of it, zero.
Cells need to be healed if Insulin Resistance is going to be reversed. Obviously, we need good fatty acids to do that, and to breakdown and absorb and use those fatty acids, we need good digestion. If you bloat, belch, fart, have reflux, or GERD, you don’t have good digestion. That has to be fixed using supps like DGL, aloe vera, digestive enzymes and more. There’s specific nutrients that target the cell receptors, like Berberine and ALA, and there’s spices and herbs that repair cells and reduce or reverse inflammation, like turmeric and garlic.
Food Is Medicine or Food Is Poison, right?
Exercise helps reduce Insulin Resistance, because it makes muscle cells have more mitochondria, so the cells have the capacity to accept more sugar/glucose. Burst training/HITT/intervals/plyometrics and weight training have the most positive effects on Insulin Resistance, much more than long cardio, which can actually make things worse. (long explanation)
If the term Weight Loss Resistance caught your eye, because you think that applies to you, get in touch with me. We can come up with a plan to get you Burning Fat instead of Storing Fat. Our bodies want to be healthy and normal, we all have the capacity to change and heal and feel great. Take control of your life today; eat Real Whole Foods, prioritize sleep and stress management, schedule exercise into your week. This is doable, and you’re fixable. I promise.
I’m ending with a picture of my mom and dad at the party, you can see where I get my bent for health from!
To check out the Diabetes summit, go here.
