Weight loss study (VI)
Today we are going to discuss a concept that may not seem directly related to weight loss: insulin resistance. This series is about weight loss, so many people probably think this is an article for fat people, so they see the title and turn away. In fact, being overweight is just a result of a long deterioration of the body. When we talk about weight loss, we are addressing this result. Then, instead of solving the problem after it appears, it is better to curb it in the nascent state. Likewise, the same methods that can solve the problem in the bud also apply to the problem after it has produced a result, because the principles involved are the same.
In life, we often hear that a person with a standard body type, normal weight, and a healthy lifestyle is found to have fatty liver during an annual physical examination. According to the literature, among Caucasians, Blacks and Yellows, with the same calculated distribution of body fat, Blacks have the lowest percentage of visceral fat, followed by Caucasians, and most severely by Yellows. In other words, yellow people are naturally prone to accumulate fat in their internal organs. Many people appear to have a standard body shape, but in fact are thin and fat. The body has less muscle and more fat. Fat is less under the skin and more in the internal organs. He is a fat person, but in the visual effect makes people feel that the body is just proportional. Therefore, we also often hear in life that these well-built people also suffer from diabetes. When they go to the doctor, they are already confirmed diabetic because they are in good shape.
In medical science, diabetes is classified into diabetes and pre-diabetes according to the blood sugar level measured at different times and states. However, according to the medical opinion that has become popular in recent years, there is a pre-prediabetes before the pre-diabetes. In this stage, the body has a very normal blood glucose count, but insulin resistance has actually occurred? So, what is insulin resistance?
We know that food, especially high carbohydrates, enter the digestive tract and are digested into glucose that enters the bloodstream, causing an increase in blood sugar. The rise in blood glucose stimulates insulin secretion, and the function of insulin is to assist body tissues and cells to absorb blood glucose and obtain energy. The specific function of insulin is complicated, and to use a less precise analogy, insulin is equivalent to a key that opens the cells. When insulin is inserted into a cell, it opens the portal on the cell, allowing blood sugar to enter the cell and allowing the cell to obtain nutrients and energy. However, if the amount of blood sugar is chronically high and insulin opens the door frequently, if you were the cell, you would probably be annoyed and eventually not even bother to open the door.
This is exactly what happens in insulin resistance. Because insulin maintains high levels for a long time, cells become less sensitive and absorb blood sugar less efficiently. As a result, the body feels a lack of nutrients and energy and pushes the pancreas to produce more insulin, which in turn makes insulin resistance increase, creating a vicious cycle. In the early days, when insulin is still able to help a large amount of blood sugar enter the cells, the body looks normal and the blood sugar level is within the normal range, but in fact the insulin in the body is already high and the pancreas is already receiving 996 blessings. When one day, the pancreas is overwhelmed and can no longer produce insulin in excess, then blood sugar will rise and the person will enter pre-diabetes at the same time. When the function of the pancreas is further impaired and it is unable to do half of its normal workload, the blood sugar will completely let go, and by this time, without the help of medication, the blood sugar can no longer maintain its normal value, which is diabetes.
When a person is in a state of insulin resistance, his organism will always feel hungry and need to eat at any time because it always feels low on energy. Because insulin secretion is so high, it hinders the breakdown of fat, and the body is simultaneously carrying out a large number of synthetic reactions, so a lot of fat is formed. The normal location of fat is under the skin, where it is used to nourish the skin and protect against cold temperatures. However, because of too much insulin, fat accumulates outside of the skin, which is called ectopic fat, and it accumulates in the internal organs. The accumulation in the liver will form a fatty liver, reducing the liver’s ability to detoxify, and people will easily feel tired; the accumulation in the pancreas will affect the spleen’s ability to synthesize insulin, resulting in a slow decline in insulin production; the accumulation in the muscles will make the muscles less sensitive to insulin. At the same time, it also causes various chronic inflammation inside the muscle and damages various tissues and organs.
This is the origin of Aura Fat, which also answers the long-standing question of many people: Wasn’t diabetes called thirst in ancient times? Isn’t it said that there are three more and one less? Is it not that you eat more, drink more and urinate more, and lose weight? How come many diabetics are fat? Yes, that is the late stage of the body because insulin resistance is very serious, the cells do not take in enough nutrients.
In retrospect, we naturally want to address insulin resistance as early as possible, even after diabetes, to reduce insulin resistance and improve the body’s sensitivity to insulin is also very helpful. So, where do you start? Definitely think about avoiding as much as possible the rapid rise in blood sugar in a short period of time and the constant work of insulin for a long time. In other words, that means lowering the amount of sugars your body takes in.
One of them is high in carbohydrates, especially refined rice and white flour. They are easily absorbed after entering the body and then converted into glucose, causing a rapid rise in blood sugar. Imagine a person: a large bowl of noodles in the morning, a large bowl of rice at noon, three bowls of rice in the evening to mix the bottom of the bowl of vegetables to eat, and then ham sausage noodles in the middle of the night, four meals in between plus cookies kleenex spicy potpourri. May I ask when his pancreas can rest, how much time his cells from to night insulin does not come knocking at the door? How much insulin does he need to work to keep his blood sugar stable at normal standards?
Another thing is sugar, all kinds of sugar. Carbonated drinks, cakes and desserts, milk tea and coffee, which does not put sugar in it? Moreover, we know that sugar is addictive and makes people feel happy after eating it, especially when a girl is depressed, dessert will make her blood sugar rise and her mood will be happy instantly. In order to achieve addiction, businesses are constantly developing highly concentrated syrups. Use the pleasure formed by sugar to make customers buy repeatedly. Not only brown sugar white sugar icing sugar, but even fructose as well. Agronomists are dedicated to cultivating fruits with higher sugar levels. We can think back to how sweet the apples, watermelons, oranges and pears we eat today are compared to the ones we ate as children. Honestly, the various fruits we ate as children are among the varieties that should be eliminated if we go by today’s sweetness requirements. So some doctors say that the full name of the fruit is actually “the candy that grows on the tree”.
The same person just mentioned, four meals plus small snacks, plus sugary drinks and after-dinner fruit, what level of sugar substances will he consume in 24 hours a day? Would his body be able to consume it all? How much ground would he have to dig and how many problems would he have to calculate? How much insulin would he need to mobilize to balance his blood sugar values? Since his body is a preserves, it is only a matter of time before insulin resistance develops and it is only a matter of time before he gains weight, it does not matter whether it is under the skin or in the gut. He will inevitably go to exhaustion and anxiety, and his body will induce all kinds of strange diseases because of chronic inflammation.
This is the reason why intermittent fasting calls for controlling the duration of the diet and banning sugary drinks and snacks; this is also the reason why the ketogenic diet, low-carb diet, and low-fat diet all call for controlling high carbohydrates and banning and limiting sugary drinks. Likewise, this is the reason why all the various weight reduction methods require a person to exercise, because exercise enhances muscle sensitivity to insulin. They all have the same core mechanism: calorically, they all want to make calorie consumption greater than calorie intake; physiologically, they all want to reduce the body’s insulin resistance by restricting from the type of food and from the time of eating, so that the body can return to normal blood sugar metabolism by reducing insulin secretion and allowing the cells to get energy and nutrients while maintaining the anabolic response.
From the practice process, by monitoring my blood sugar in real time, I also found that high carbohydrates and sugars have quite a big impact on blood sugar. Blood sugar rises rapidly, and insulin is then secreted in large quantities, causing blood sugar to fall back rapidly, so the body feels hungry again and needs to eat some more. In this cycle, blood sugar like a roller coaster up and down, people will eat not long after the desire to eat again, endless. And to get out of this cycle, maintaining the stability of blood sugar is the most effective way. By cutting out the huge peaks and deep valleys of blood sugar, insulin does not have to work like a jerk, and appetite and mood will not fluctuate drastically with it. Unlike before, you are happy when you are full and immediately get angry when you are slightly hungry and live like a pig. Related medical experts also have a saying that blood sugar stability will also bring a benefit that the magnitude of blood sugar changes two hours before and two hours after meals can be controlled to within 2 moles, which can avoid damage to blood vessels.
Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the intake of high carbohydrates and sugars and maintain stable blood sugar in the body, both from the perspective of weight loss and from the perspective of preventing obesity preventing diabetes preventing visceral fat accumulation. Because of this, I have doubts about the low-GI diet that has become popular in recent years. A low GI diet is a low glycemic index diet, which means choosing foods that do not cause a rapid rise in blood sugar after consumption. For example, rice porridge has a very high GI index and raises sugar very quickly, rice is a little lower, but not as low as brown rice. So, choose to eat brown rice, do not touch the rice porridge. But I think this does not make much sense, we actually have to consider the total amount of sugar intake in addition to the rate of glycemic rise. What does it do to raise sugar slowly but without much difference in the total amount of sugar? It’s like having insulin drive at 100 mph for 5 minutes versus driving at 50 mph for 10 minutes - there’s no difference in mileage. What we really need is for insulin to be driven for 5 minutes at 10 km speed, minimizing the total amount and maximizing the rest time.
There are many different arguments about dietary structure for weight loss, and I think that if weight loss is centered around insulin, then we should take full account of insulin resistance. Then it will be naturally clear exactly what to eat, what not to eat, and how much to eat. In general, people today are eating too much rather than too little, so how they eat may be the key to the problem.
(to be continued)
Title photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia
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