THE KEY TO WEIGHT LOSS

Chances are if you’re overweight, you think a lot about (or have been told you need to think about) losing weight. When you start looking into how to go about it, the variety of recommendations can be overwhelming. And some approaches seem to work- for a while, then the weight comes back; and some approaches just don’t seem to work at all. Exercise, diet, the latest superfood, the latest supplement. All promise results, but the fact that we see so many of these offerings come and go tells us that most don’t have any staying power.

So what is the key to weight loss? The answer lies in your insulin levels. We know that insulin is the hormone that takes glucose out of the blood stream and into the cells. Inside the cells the glucose is turned into glycogen or fat, the two main ways our bodies store energy. More glucose in the blood stream results in more insulin secreted from the pancreas. This is why consuming more calories than you can burn for energy results in increased fat gain.

But it’s more than just calories-in/calories-out. Insulin inhibits the utilization of fat that is already stored in the cells. At the risk of oversimplification, high insulin levels promote fat storage, while lower insulin levels allow the stored fat to “come out of the cell” to be burned as fuel. If your way of eating causes your blood sugar to repeatedly spike, stimulating more and more insulin secretion, it’s going to be very difficult to burn the fat you want to lose, even in reduced-calorie diets. The key is to reduce the amount of glucose (carbohydrates) you are consuming. As the amount of glucose going into your blood stream diminishes, so does the corresponding insulin secretion. As your insulin levels decrease, your body gets the signal to tap into your fat stores for energy instead of the previously abundant glucose.

This is the mechanism underlying the successes shown with low carbohydrate ways of eating. They all result in lower levels of circulating insulin that allow the body to access and burn stored fat.

There are many ways to reduce the amount of glucose you consume, ranging from paleo/primal to low-carb, ketogenic, and carnivore diets. Fasting (intermittently or longer term) also achieves lower insulin levels to promote fat loss, with the accompanying improvements in metabolic health. Far from being fads, these approaches have been studied and applied for over a hundred years and shown to radically improve metabolic health.

Reducing glucose/carbohydrate consumption is simple, but it’s not easy. We are constantly surrounded by easily accessible and relatively inexpensive processed carbohydrates that are engineered to be addictive, and these kinds of foods cause significant insulin spikes. One must first understand what different foods do to help or hurt our metabolism, then make a commitment to forgo highly processed sugary and carbohydrate heavy foods and replace them with animal foods and fresh produce as much as possible.

Get started by reducing/eliminating grains and sugar. Things to look at first are breads, snacks, and sugar-sweetened beverages. Drink plenty of filtered water and make sure you have plenty of non-processed, no-sugar-added foods. It’s easier to stop eating a non-supportive food if you have something to eat in place of it.

Remember, this has to be a change in lifestyle to be successful. “Going on a diet” until you lose X pounds, then resuming the old way of eating that made you gain weight before will just make you gain weight again. Learn how to eat better to keep your insulin levels low and keep those pounds from coming back.