If you have been dieting and exercising religiously and have had very little results- you are not alone! I will remind you that 98% of diets fail, because usually dieters regain more weight than they ever lost.
This is because we've been using the calories in/calories out model... and it is not completely accurate.
We've all heard we need to keep our blood sugar stable, therefore 6 small meals a day is ideal... right?
Magazines like Shape love this advice, they love making meal plans and advising you to graze your way to a size 4.
If you want to feel ravenous, hangry and become a fat storing machine, then yes, its great advice.
For a normal person, this information is possibly the worst advice for staying slim, full of energy and burning your own body fat for fuel (AKA losing weight).
Keeping blood sugar "stable" means keeping insulin HIGH. Insulin is what helps glucose get into your cells and store it as fat.
Of course, this is an incredibly simplified version of what happens, because our hormones are always a symphony, never a one-instrument solo... but in this case we are specifically talking about the action that doctors have know for decades....
Insulin makes you gain weight and store it indefinitely. Insulin resistance, which is a complicated mechanism to explain, means you have high levels of insulin circulating all the time because your cells are signaling for more of it.
Your cells are unable to receive the glucose due to lifestyle factors such as a chronic low level inflammation, sedentary lifestyle and excess weight from eating too many carbohydrates that have been stored. And the pancrease is unable to constantly produce more insulin, then our blood sugar begins to be chronically high and we develop prediabetes.
Insulin production is 1% of what your pancreas actually does. 1%!!! This is why it gets exhausted having to constantly make more insulin. As we look back over our evolution, we just don't have sugar readily available to us, in nature only fruits provided any sugar to us.
I'd like to point out these events are not all linear, there isn't just one way that insulin and blood sugar problems arise, there are many and it is complicated. It can even be genetic.
One thing we do know, is that people are reversing insulin resistance and chronically high blood glucose through diet alone. Something that doctors said could not be done for decades.
When blood glucose falls and insulin is low, that's when our body can begin using its own body fat for energy!
(Extra important- if you are on medication you must have medical supervision as you lower your blood sugar through diet!!)
If you don't think this information applies to you- I'm going to ask you to rethink that. If you are eating a standard American diet and over 30 or 30 pounds overweight I can assure you that you need to pay attention.
Americans get 70% of their sugar through liquid forms!!! Especially young Americans.
This is just plain crazy.
And artificial sweeteners cause just as many problems, like low level chronic inflammation.
Step #1- begin to phase out liquid sugars, stop drinking sweet beverages! All of them!
The one exception is stevia, which does not raise blood sugar. Drink tea, coffee and water.
More to come on this important topic!