We all want to get healthy and fit. Hopefully we can look better by reducing body fat. More and more research are showing that carrying extra body fat can lead to so many health issues. Even with recent COVID-19, people who have negative impact from the virus are those who are obese or has underlying health conditions. Media is panicked about finding of new variants but looks to me that it isn’t anything unusual. Just like flue and other viruses, Coronavirus is here to stay and as such, its mutation and finding of new variant will be normal. More importantly though, we need to learn how can our body fight back or not getting caught by any of these viruses and stay healthy as much as possible.
Calorie Counting, 5-6 Meals a Day Causing More Problem
Some of the common advice are somewhere along the line of eating less and move more. Although it is not entirely wrong, however, it has not been worked well in the last 50 years. Counting calories, eating small amount but more frequently can only work for those who are fit and healthy already. Have you ever noticed that all the nutritional advice that you see on media are using very fit people? If you are already insulin resistance, you can count all the calories you want and manage your hunger by minimizing your portion size into 5-6 meals per day, you will most likely not lose much weight. in fact you will get frustrated because you are following the instruction but somehow it is not working for you and it should not be.
Just like anything else, you need to find the underlying condition and habits that created that condition and fix them first. Underlying condition for majority of health issues usually are insulin resistance. Whether, it is diabetes, obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, thyroid dysfunction, infertility for both genders, dementia are all correlated with insulin resistance.
Habits that created insulin resistance are over consumption and frequent consumption of carbohydrates, mainly sugar and flour. In activity also can be included since loss of muscle mass plays significant role in insulin resistance.
Basics of Insulin Resistance
Insulin, as you might already know, is a hormone that is secreted by pancreas. As carbohydrate, or glucose enters our body, insulin enters the blood stream, bind with glucose, and enter from insulin receptors into our cells. This process does not just happen in specific cells, insulin receptors can be found in all our cells, which means brain, muscles, blood vessels can have impact (positive or negative) by insulin.
Insulin resistance is by product of chronically elevated insulin. When carbohydrate is consumed heavily or frequently insulin will be spike either high or more frequent that body has no down time with insulin production. Eventually, insulin will be flooded in out blood stream more than what our cells can handle. This condition is called insulin resistance.
When insulin resistance occurs, it doesn’t just happen in one specific part of our body. As mentioned earlier, insulin receptors are in all our cells, which also means that insulin resistance happens in our entire body. This includes, brain, muscles, blood vessels may not be able to receive proper nutrients that can lead to heart disease, dementia, stroke, and other major illnesses.
Healthy First, Fat Loss Second
It is very hard and almost impossible to lose fat if there is an underlying metabolic condition. Majority of times, as mentioned earlier, insulin resistance correlate with all the other metabolic illnesses. Therefore, starting out by improving the insulin sensitivity by practicing the dietary habit along with exercising should be a starting point.
Keep in mind that it is possible to have insulin resistance even when someone is not overweight or obese. We kind of saw this during the COVID-19 where person who looks fit, muscular and workout on regular basis got interviewed because of severe impact from the virus. Being muscular and able to lift heavy weight does not equal to that person being healthy. Being muscular can have better health compared to those who are obese, however, someone with big muscles can have insulin resistance.
How to Reverse Insulin Resistance
To reverse the insulin resistance, it is vital to understand what habits that caused it. Although I’ve mentioned carbohydrate elevates insulin, there are other factors that can elevate insulin. Common factor is stress or cortisol elevation. Stress could be, work, relationship, too much screen time, poor sleeping habits, environmental, medication and so on. Many of the stress factors may not be able to eliminate due to its importance in our lives. However, adjusting eating habits can be simpler though may not be easy.
First dietary habit change to improve insulin sensitivity is to minimize carbohydrate intake. Challenging part is those healthier food, like fruits may be healthy but does pack with sugar. There is nothing wrong with eating fruits but to lowering the insulin level to reverse the insulin resistance, fruits are not suitable. Of course, there are obvious ones like bread, pasta, rice, candies, ice cream and so on. Some of carbohydrate source must be remove from the diet temporarily until the insulin sensitivity improves.
Second dietary habit change is to manage the meal frequency. Healthy meal or not, more frequent you eat insulin spike will also be frequent and the body has no down time from insulin in a blood stream. While insulin is floating around the body can only utilize sugar as energy source and cannot use fat as energy source. Average US population consume 6 meals a day, which means from morning to evening, insulin is floating in the body. Snacking also count as meals, so little snacking here and there will also contribute to the insulin spike. 2-3 meals per day will be a good place to start.
Third dietary habit change is to eliminate fullness addiction. People get petrified and go crazy when body sends hunger signal and majority of time it is not energetic hunger but gastric hunger, which means stomach just got empty and not the energy. Think about it. How can we be energy depleted when we’ve got over 10% of body fat which can be used for energy? It is ok to be hungry. Letting the hunger run for few hours is health from both physiological and mental perspective.
Fourth dietary habit is to be mindful about the protein intake. Protein does not have value to our body unless we are in starvation and requires more energy to digest and absorb. Especially as we age, we do need more protein to maintain our muscle mass. Consequences of losing muscle mass is lower metabolic rate, suppressing immune system, cognitive dysfunctions and so on. Maintain the protein in take to 1g per 1lb of body weight. If you are in obese category you may want to use ideal body weight instead of your current body weight.
Become Metabolically Flexible
Metabolic flexibility is capability of our body to utilize carbohydrate and fat as energy source. Majority of population (not just U.S.) are metabolically inflexible where they can only burn energy from food and not stored body fat. This is a result of frequent food intake which causing body to not have a chance to switch into fat metabolism. Insulin sensitivity will be negatively affected by metabolic inflexibility, which will lead to insulin resistance in no time.
We are so spoiled to have food readily available when we feel hungry to the point, we are addicted to be full and fear of being hungry all the time, which lead to people eating 6-11 meals, including snack and latte, per day. This is an easy recipe for metabolic inflexibility and insulin resistance.
To improve on metabolic flexibility, one must practice and appreciate fasting between each meal. It is good practice to keep 3 meals per day, including snacking, and each meal should be low in carbohydrates. Easiest way to do that is to replace carbohydrates, such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, to leafy and cruciferous vegetables.
Initially, reducing frequency of food intake may followed by frequent hunger response and may cause discomfort. This frequent hunger signal is because of the habit that has been created and need about 2 weeks to get adjusted to the new habit.
One another important feature to attain metabolic flexibility is exercising. Exercising, especially strength training, will allow us to use food energy and stored fat energy more efficiently. It is very important to make sure that the exercises are challenging enough for you to feel the muscle fatigue at the end of the session. Working only with light weight is not enough to stimulate muscles to use more energy.
Protein smoothies with high in sugar, like adding fruits, after the workout for those who are wanting to lose fat is not a very smart idea. If you have high insulin sensitivity, this can help with recovery, however, those who are wanting to lose fat, the objective is to keep the insulin level low to bring up the insulin sensitivity.
Fat loss is byproduct of properly regulating your hormones. Luckily enough we can manipulate insulin as long as we understand how and put it into practice. Science portion of insulin resistance and metabolic flexibility is somewhat complicated, however, practical application is simple. Get your health straightened out and you will be able to observe your fat loss.
Kota Shimada
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