I never gave insulin much thought. I wasn’t diabetic; my blood sugar levels were within the normal range so I never imagined that I might have a problem with insulin. I think most of us probably think the same way – insulin is really only something you need to worry about if you’re diabetic. Here’s the truth: if you want to burn fat and get healthy, you need to understand and control insulin. If you’re carrying extra weight and having a hard time getting it off, you MUST pay attention to insulin. It’s not optional. Fortunately, it’s not hard to do if you make the right choices at mealtime.
Insulin became a problem for me (without me knowing it) because I spent years in the carbohydrate cycle. Maybe you recognize it? I’d wake up in the morning and have a bowl of cereal and some juice. Having not eaten since dinner the night before, my body would react to the rapid influx of carbohydrates in that meal, sending my blood sugar through the roof and giving me a burst of needed energy. Insulin arrives in response to my elevated blood sugar, as it’s job is to clear the sugar from the blood and take it to it’s storage place. As fast as my blood sugar rose, it plummets as there was nothing in my meal to keep it steady (like fat or protein). That energy I experienced? It’s gone. Not only that, low blood sugar tells the body that we need more fuel. That triggers hunger as well as cravings for carbohydrates, as your body knows that’s the fasted way to get that blood sugar back up. So now, only an hour or two after eating, I’m hungry again, I’m tired, and I’m craving more carbohydrates. That low blood sugar has also trigged a stress response from my body so now there’s this uneasy sense of urgency – “I gotta have sugar NOW!”. So, I’m human. I’d go get a sugary granola bar or snack out of a box of crackers. Annnnnnd we’re right back in the damn cycle! As if being hungry, tired, moody and craving sweets weren’t bad enough, we’re storing fat all the while! If you feel hungry shortly after eating, if you struggle with energy swings throughout the day and regularly crave carbohydrates, you might be stuck in the carb cycle, too!
Our body’s capacity to store glucose/sugar is limited to about 400 grams (not each day – in total). After this low threshold is met, excess glucose not needed for immediate energy is converted to triglycerides (fat) and sent to be stored or continues to circulate in the blood. Your high insulin levels also signal your cells to hold onto the fat and not release it for energy.
You are either in fat-storing mode or in fat-burning mode. You’re always in one or the other and you cannot be in both. The determining factor? Insulin. Carbohydrates control insulin and insulin controls fat storage. Your dietary choices determine whether or not you’re allowing insulin to work for you. You’re either eating to trigger fat storage, accelerated aging and inflammation or you’re eating to allow insulin to help you burn through your fat stores.
Here’s a quick run down of how high blood sugar and excess insulin are impacting your health.
Chronic high insulin levels cause your cells become resistant to it. It’s always around, so they stop responding. You know how after listening to loud music for a while it doesn’t seem so loud? The same thing is happening to your cells. Insulin is always around sending these loud signals and your body just gets used to it and begins to ignore it. When your cells stop responding to insulin, not only does your blood sugar remain high, but your body perceives that it needs more insulin and keeps producing more and more, creating a cycle of increased fat storage, impaired fat burning and excess insulin production.
When insulin resistance prevents glucose from getting into your cells, your cells think there isn’t enough glucose in your body and so they initiate a process called gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogensis is the process of generating more glucose and dumping it into the blood stream for energy. Of course this energy isn’t needed and likely gets stored as fat.
Your blood sugar stays elevated for longer than normal since insulin can’t efficiently clear it – this leads to the formation of Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs. This process accelerates aging (they’re appropriately named, huh?) by triggering inflammation, neuropathy, fine lines and wrinkles and much more.
Chronically elevated blood sugar is bad news, but so is the chronically elevated insulin that comes along with it! This can lead to systemic inflammation, heart disease and impaired blood flow.
Your pancreas will eventually get tired of over-producing insulin. When this happens, you may become “insulin dependent” – requiring injections of insulin to help control blood sugar.
Excess insulin wreaks havoc on your hormones. It can decrease your body’s production of growth hormone, which is essential for energy, repair, metabolism, immunity, libido and much more.
Insulin resistance decreases certain thyroid hormones slowing your metabolism while increasing fat storage and decreasing your energy levels.
Elevated insulin decreases sex hormone synthesis, which negatively impacts your menstrual cycle, fertility, mood, sex drive and more.
Chronically elevated insulin encourages fat storage. The more fat you have, the more of the hormone leptin you produce. Just like you can become insulin resistant, you are likely to become leptin resistant. Leptin is responsible for signaling the brain that you’ve had enough to eat. When you’re leptin resistant, your brain has a hard time receiving those signals and don’t experience that “I’m full” feeling.
Elevated insulin prevents glucagon from doing it’s job. Glucagon is a hormone that is required for fat to be allowed to leave fat cells and travel to be burned as energy. Glucagon will not operate in the presence of elevated insulin.
Scary stuff, huh? The reality is that this is what’s happening to your body when you eat a high carbohydrate diet rich in processed foods or you don’t move your body regularly. It’s compounded if you’re eating poorly AND not exercising.
The GREAT news here is that most of us have the power to control our blood sugar, moderate our insulin release, make our bodies highly sensitive to insulin and become a fat-burning machine!
When your body is highly sensitive to insulin, it signals your genes to create more receptor sites for insulin making you even MORE sensitive to insulin! When you exercise regularly, you repeatedly deplete the glucose stored there, allowing your next meal to refill those stores instead of being stored as fat. Your body becomes highly efficient at utilizing nutrients and drawing on fat stores for additional energy needs.
So, the take away? Your diet and lifestyle choices tell your body to get fat and stay fat, or get lean and stay lean. Whatever choice you make, your body is going to compound it. So where to start?
Eat to control your blood sugar. This means avoiding processed foods and grains. Build your meals around healthy fats, protein and vegetables.
Aim to get at least 3 high intensity workouts in each week. This will work to deplete your glycogen stores and teach your body how to be energy efficient
Take it one meal, one day at a time. You’ll feel the difference. We cannot deny the link between hormones and fat loss. If you want to achieve fat loss, you MUST eat to optimize your hormones.
A few weeks ago I wrote an overview of Metabolic Effect’s concept of buffers and triggers. It’s a powerful tool that genuinely redefined the way I look at food choices for fat loss. To read my overview of buffers and triggers click here. To check out my buffers and how I use them, click here.
Today we’re going to take a deep dive into triggers. Triggers sabotaged my weight loss success for years before I even learned what they were. I would be truckin’ along on my latest diet and BAM! I’d be totally derailed by something seemingly innocent like a mini pack of M&Ms on a coworker’s desk. That tiny little indulgence turned into a cascade of sweets, snacks, extra bites and all out binges.
Metabolic Effect defines a trigger as a food that causes negative changes in hunger, energy or cravings. I’ll take that a little further to say that for me, it’s a food that negatively impacts my self-control and goal-focus. Introducing a trigger food pushes me over the thin line from “I’ve got this” to “I’m out of control”. The extent of damage a trigger can do depends on the day, my mood, my hormone balance and my environment but one thing is for sure: I’m much more successful when I avoid my triggers.
Before you can avoid your triggers you’ll need to identify what they are and how they impact you. When I hear people talk about their triggers they’ll often use phrases like “One I start, I just can’t stop” or “every time I allow myself a taste of that, a spoonful turns into dipping into the jar every hour for the rest of the day!” or “I can’t keep that in my house, I have no control when it comes to that!”.
What are the foods that make you feel that way? I shared last week that common triggers include nuts or nut butters, salty/crunchy snacks, alcohol, dairy products and pretty much any processed snack food. My triggers have changed throughout my weight loss journey but at this point, my triggers include (but certainly aren’t limited to!):
Nuts or trail mix
Nut butters
Protein bars
You might look at that list and roll your eyes. You might be thinking, oh come on, those are totally harmless! Don’t get me wrong – eating Oreos or ice cream or Pringles would certainly open Pandora’s box for me. But triggers are often things that you think would be OK and help you to your fat loss goals but actually derail you. For me, if I have a box of protein bars in my house I might feel like one is an acceptable snack until all of a sudden I’ve eaten 4 and I feel like crap. Or a handful of almonds is a great fat loss snack but I’m almost never able to stop at a handful. I’ve found that triggers are most dangerous when they’re fat loss foods to most but a hand grenade to you.
(TRIGGGGGER!!!! My husband’s snack drawer of trail mix! Ugh. STAY AWAY!)
Remember, triggers can change over time and you might find that as you get further along in your fat loss journey a trigger may not longer set you off and you can in fact start incorporating it regularly or even using it as a buffer. On the flip side, a food that was safe harbor might become a trigger. The key here is to pay attention and most importantly, be honest with yourself. I love nuts. I love trail mix. I could convince myself to eat them every day because sure, they aren’t “unhealthy” but I’d only be fooling myself and keeping my fat loss goals at bay.
When I first got out of college I worked in nutrition education. It was my job to help people understand the impact of their food choices on their health and their weight. I found that a lot of people, regardless of their weight, felt confident that they were making good choices at the grocery store and didn’t need to worry too much about food quality for themselves or their children. In general, I think we trust that if we can buy it at the grocery store, it’s fairly safe.
As I did research for my job, I was overwhelmed by how much the landscape of food has changed over the last 100 years or so. I was shocked by how different our food is now than it was then – and I’m not referring to the abundance of processed foods but to changes in whole foods like chicken, eggs and milk.
I’m not an alarmist but I do think it’s important that everyone understand the realities of our food supply so they can make the best decisions possible.
Animal Products
It’s become imperative to consider organic, free-range proteins and dairy options versus conventionally raised. As recently as 100 years ago, there weren’t any factory-farmed animals at all. Animals were raised naturally, allowed to graze and mature naturally. They were not treated with growth hormones and antibiotics. They were not fed genetically modified grain products. They ate grass.
Now, it can be a challenge to find natural, hormone-free meat. Ninety percent of what you’ll find in the grocery store has been significantly manipulated. These animals (and their eggs and dairy products) grew in dark, confined spaces where disease spread easily. They were injected with growth hormones to speed development. These hormones decreased their ability to absorb nutrients from their feed. They were treated with powerful antibiotics throughout their life to try to prevent bacterial overgrowth. Their diets were primarily commercially produced, genetically modified grain also loaded with chemicals, pesticides and antibiotics.
The frightening result? Meat, eggs and dairy that have lower vitamin and mineral content than that of 100 years ago. Meat, eggs and dairy that are laced with growth hormones, antibiotics and pesticides. Meat, eggs and dairy with artificially higher content of pro-inflammatory omega 6 fatty acids. Food we can’t trust. Food, quite frankly, that can make us very sick.
Fruits and vegetables
Fruits and vegetables used to be naturally grown by local producers. They weren’t shipped all over the country and the world. They were only seasonally available and they weren’t genetically modified for size and speed of development.
Now, chemical fertilizers are used to accelerate growth. These chemical fertilizers strip valuable nutrients from the soil. Fruits and vegetables are harvested before they’re ripe and allowed to ripen in crates on trucks so they aren’t rotten by the time they get across the country to your grocery store shelf. The combination of reduced soil quality and less time in the ground to absorb nutrients results in fruits and vegetables with significantly lower amounts of essential vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients than that produced 50 years ago or more.
Fruit and vegetable seeds are genetically modified to produce larger crops so they have more commercial appeal. One might think that means more nutritive value but the opposite is actually true. They are bred to have more carbohydrate and water content, making them less nutrient dense.
Some fascinating studies have been conducted on changes in the nutrient profile of our fruits and vegetables. One of the most notable studies, conducted by Donald Davis from the University of Texas at Austin, evaluated changes in the nutrient profile of fruits and vegetables from 1950 vs 1999. He concluded that breeding fruits and vegetables for size and pest resistance significantly reduced the nutrient content by as much as 50%.
So how can we make better choices? It’s not easy but it’s definitely possible and doesn’t need to be more expensive! Buying local produce at a farmer’s market can actually be less expensive than traditional items you’d buy at a grocery store chain!
Good: Buy free-range organic proteins and wild-caught seafood. Buy organic fruits and vegetables.
Better: Find a local farmer’s market. You can stock up on local, seasonal fruits and vegetable and also get meat and eggs from local producers! I also like to buy meat online from reputable farmers. Here are a couple I’ve purchased from before. (I don’t have any affiliate relationship with these companies, just sharing ones I love!) Massa Natural Meats SizzleFish Broken Arrow Ranch
Best: Grow your own! Start with a small herb garden or tomato plant. I’ve started to do that this year and I hope to one day have a few chickens so I can enjoy their eggs.
This isn’t meant to scare you but to help empower you to make better choices for yourself and your family. I know you won’t always have the highest quality options available but it’s important to do the best we can.
I used to be very, very fat. I felt isolated, I was ashamed of myself and I beat myself up daily for being so weak. None of those feelings helped me get fit. In fact, I’m pretty sure they were keeping me fat.
I never understood why the guilt and shame never were enough to motivate me to change. Not understanding made me even angrier with myself.
It wasn’t until I radically changed my mind that I was able to transform my body. I sometimes wonder if someone had shared these insights with me years ago if I would have been ready to receive them. But, since we can’t go backwards I figured I’d share them with you. I’d love for you to let me know if any or all of them resonate with you!
You’re not weak – your body is fighting against you
I really felt like my inability to follow through or succeed (long term) on a “diet” was because I was weak. I just wasn’t strong enough to fight off the cravings, temptations and laziness. Here’s what I didn’t understand: my body was fighting to keep me fat. Literally. I’ve got a lot more to say on this subject – I really didn’t understand that my food choices were signaling my body to store fat and eat more!
Guilt is not serving you
I wasted a lot of time feeling guilty. I tried to guilt myself into “diet compliance”. When I finally stepped back and realized “uh, so this guilt thing not only feels TERRIBLE, it’s also flat out not working!” it was so freeing. It’s not an effective strategy, stop wasting energy and MOVE ON.
Perfection is not required
If I strive for perfection I’ll fail before noon. I’d wake up and give myself the “I’m gonna be so disciplined today” pep talk and inevitably I’d let myself down in the first few hours of the day. At that point, the towel would get thrown in. Day wasted. It wasn’t until I asked myself “what is it that you want?” and answered “progress” that I realized perfection has NOTHING to do with what I’m after. If I can make progress without perfection then striving for perfection is a total waste of energy!!
It’s OK to go to slow
Oh man this was a tough one! I used to (often) sit down with a calendar and figure out how much I’d weigh by a certain date if I could just be strict enough to lose 3 lbs per week. I’d get all excited, I’d write out a plan and I’d be so frustrated and disappointed when that date came and the number on the scale wasn’t what it was supposed to be. For years I approached the journey as a race with success marked by how quickly the number on the scale would go down. That philosophy held me back, no doubt. It wasn’t until I learned (and embraced) that changing my life was about a forever process and the pace of my success was totally irrelevant that I found success.
You’re misinformed
This is such a big one. You cannot severely restrict your calories, cut food groups, exercise daily and expect to maintain your results. Sure, sometimes I managed it for a month or two and saw really great results but inevitably, I ran out of willpower, compensatory eating went into overdrive and I gained allllll the weight right back. (And then some.) I put in the time to do my homework. I searched for a way of eating that I could not only maintain for life but that supported my need to eat and feel satisfied and the hormonal balance I needed. This meant getting rid of all misconceptions about low calorie, low fat, low anything, really.
You don’t have to be hungry
Though fat, I swear I spent years being hungry. I’d restrict for days and then totally snap, eating my way through a grocery store. I dreaded the thought of starting a new diet because I hated to feel hungry. Who can focus on ANYTHING when you’re hungry? Not this girl. I can honestly say that throughout my weight loss journey if I was hungry, I ate. I didn’t suffer through hunger ONCE. For me, getting (and staying) hungry leads to compensatory overeating. Instead, I eat for quality AND quantity. My portions are pretty freaking huge but the foods I eat are clean and wholesome so there’s no guilt when it comes to eating to satisfaction. I do NOT do hunger. (And you don’t want me to!)
Everyone has excuses
I always had a million reasons to eat junk. A stressful day at work, a weight loss plateau, a special occasion, convenience, emotion….the position of the moon. I had as many reasons to sleep in, not workout, wait until Monday, etc. There will always be excuses. My ability to succeed depends on my ability to ignore all of them and make things work.
Exercise is optional
At this point, I really enjoy working out. It makes me feel strong and vibrant. But I can promise you that wasn’t always the case. In fact, I didn’t set foot in a gym for the first 50 lbs. I didn’t pressure myself to workout, I just focused on eating clean. The majority of your results are going to come from what you eat (and what you don’t eat) so if you’re feeling like you can only reach your goals if you are exercising, you’re wrong! Take the pressure off, get your food right, and revisit exercise when you’re ready.
You can sleep your way to weight loss
I never gave enough credit to sleep. I didn’t realize how much sleep could accelerate my progress, help me make healthy choices and allow my body to do what it needs to do. When I started making sleep a priority I found that I made healthier choices and my body was MUCH more responsive to my cleaner diet. When my results started to slow one of the first things I’d look at was my sleep patterns. More sleep = more success.
There is a biochemical component to eating (and overeating)
This is such a big one. Cravings aren’t all in your head. Yes, they certainly have a behavioral component but they also have a very strong biochemical component. There are actually chemicals in your body triggering you to have a burning desire for sweets or salty, fatty foods. It’s real. There’s nothing wrong with you. Recognizing that your body is asking for these things and it’s not just that you’re obsessed with Cheetos is a great tool. I started to listen to the cues I was getting from my body and learned how to work with them. I adopted strategies for dealing with cravings and I learned to outsmart my body.
If you are someone who has a desire to lose weight but finds yourself cycling through the same behaviors and emotions without making progress towards your goals you really need to look at the beliefs you hold. If you aren’t making progress then you NEED to change your approach. More than likely, you need to change your mind. It’s not a matter of needing to hear the same thing you’ve been telling yourself for years – whatever you’ve been telling yourself for years is the WRONG MESSAGE. If it was the right message, it would work. Stop. Just stop. It’s time for something new.
Cravings are powerful sensations, aren’t they? I had one the other day for s’mores. I wasn’t hungry at all, in fact, I had just finished dinner a few minutes earlier. I was watching TV and there were s’mores on some (evil) commercial and while I’m sure I had seen the commercial before without the cravings trigger, as soon as I saw them they were all I could think about. I played it through in my mind “Well, I don’t have anything to make them but I could totally run out to the store and be back within 10 minutes. I could roast the marshmellows on the grill. Or hell, I could keep it simple and pop them in the microwave. Oh man, that melty chocolate and the gooey marshmellow with the crispy sweet graham cracker! And girl, you’ve been working hard. Taking a night off from discipline might actually help you….”
I wasn’t hungry but I was battling my mind over a craving. Cravings are a strong desire or urge which arise from the pleasure center of our brain. While they are largely emotional and psychological, there is also a strong biochemical component. When you experience a craving (or any strong feeling of desire) dopamine surges through your brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (think signaling molecule) that influences the pleasure/reward cetner of your brain, making you feel feelings of pleasure and excitement. At the same time, stress hormones are released. This combination explains the strong desire plus sense of urgency and immediacy that you experience with cravings. It’s not just that we lovvvvve s’mores (though I do!) – that overwhelming urge, desire and need is largely biochemical.
Many people (myself included) lose the battle of will against cravings because they don’t understand how to fight back intelligently. I first started to understand this concept a few years back when I read Metabolic Effect’s book The Metabolic Effect Diet. It’s an amazing resource for this kind of stuff!
Here are some strategies you can use to beat the cravings without losing your mind (or increasing your pants size!):
Make sure you’re eating enough protein. Cravings are associated with deficiencies of several amino acids (building blocks of proteins) so consuming adequate protein will help prevent those cravings. If your cravings are still out of control with consistent protein intake, considering supplementing with tyrosine, tryptophan and/or glutamine.
Notice behavioral patterns around cravings. Do most of your cravings come at night when you’re watching TV? Maybe you experience them most when you’re bored in the middle of the afternoon. Once you’ve identified the pattern, insert a new activity in that time period. Instead of watching TV, take a walk or a bath. When you feel that mid-afternoon boredom, do a crossword puzzle or a quick blitz workout of 20 squats, 20 pushups and 20 sit-ups. Cravings are largely habitual so put the work in and figure out a new habit.
Get enough sleep. You will see that with just about every fat loss struggle there is, sleep will help. Sleep is incredibly restorative. It balances our hormones, including cortisol (a stress hormone) and this hormonal balance helps keep cravings at bay.
You’re gonna love me for this one! Eat chocolate. Not just any chocolate! This is not a case for the Hershey bar in a s’more (oh girl, if it was, I’d be alllll over it!). We’re talking about rich, high quality dark chocolate that is 65% cocoa or higher. Without going crazy over the science (you can read more here) the bottom line is that small amounts of this rich chocolate releases feel-good chemicals called endorphins. This gives us that same blissful sensation we can get from indulging a craving without the stress response, guilt or added calories. You can either mix up a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder with hot water and stevia for a cocoa drink, add the cocoa powder to a protein shake or enjoy a small square or two of dark chocolate.
The next time you get a powerful craving take a minute to reflect on what’s going on. Make note of your hunger and energy. Make note of the time of day and what you’re doing. Make note of what the craving is for and how intense it is. Identifying patterns is going to be a critical part of making progress along your fat loss journey. Evaluate if your protein intake was high enough over the past couple of days. Did you get enough sleep? Go for a relaxing walk to help lower those stress hormones and fix yourself a warm cocoa drink when you get back.
