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Health & Fitness

Stubborn Weight Loss…When Nothing Seems to Change

How the types of foods you eat, not just the total calories you consume, can be holding you back.

There is no magic pill.  Yes, you can take fish oil omega-3 for cardiovascular health and to enhance metabolism but it won’t reduce release that weight and belly fat. Omega-3 can affect insulin sensitivity a little.   Insulin plays a huge part in why the weight may not be coming off despite all the exercise and calorie counting you may be doing.

There are several reasons why weight doesn’t budge. Overeating and lack of exercise are usually blamed, yet these are not the #1 and #2 reasons.

What you eat is more important than how much you eat.  Reducing your insulin level is key to releasing body fat. Reducing or eliminating sugar and processed, refined carbohydrates and starches is important.  They all get converted to the same things in the body – sugar.

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Since the body is not capable of storing large volumes of sugar, you need to either burn it or store it as fat.

Your pancreas releases insulin to start the process of packing away sugar and starches as fat. This makes your fat cells bigger.  You have to crank out a lot of insulin to keep you from going into hyperglycemia. If you’re a teenager, your body can handle this (teens today have much higher insulin levels than a generation ago, no surprise).  If you’re not a teenager, more sugar gets stored as fat and you gain weight. The more fat storage, the more your body becomes less sensitive to insulin. In other words, your cells become deaf to the insulin trying to store fat. So the pancreas has to crank out even more insulin to get the cells to listen.

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This is called insulin resistance.

Insulin does two things that affect your weight:

1.           It helps pack away calories (as fat)

2.           It keeps your stored fat from being burned. It keeps fat 

              cells in 'lock mode'.         

                

This basically means that even if you’re starving, your stored fat reserves won’t be tapped for energy if your insulin level is high.

If you want to burn fat, you need to unlock your fat cells so its contents can be burned. If you have high blood insulin levels, that fat isn’t going anywhere. Fat cells remain locked and you will have a very hard time losing weight.

Cut out sugar, cut out refined and processed grains or try to cut out grains altogether, especially wheat. Wheat raises your blood sugar and subsequently insulin.

How can you determine your blood sugar?

Typically this is from a blood test. But there is an easy way to predict what it’s going to be. Measure the blood sugar that is going to trigger insulin release.

Measuring blood sugar is easy. Go to the pharmacy and ask the pharmacist to help you choose a blood sugar test kit. A little pinprick and you measure the sugar level in your blood an hour and two hours after each meal or after that 100-calorie light snack.  If your blood sugar is higher than 120 after 1 to 2 hours, then chances are your insulin levels are high. If it is over 140, talk to your doctor, you may be diabetic or pre-diabetic.  This is an easy way to find out where you stand and what foods you may need to cut out of your diet and what you may need to add more of.

By tuning into this and changing what you eat, your fat cells become ‘unlocked’ and fat that you’ve been storing for a long time will finally be able to be released and burned for energy.

This is where adding more vegetables, protein, fruits nuts and seeds and juicing can have a tremendous impact. Doing a 7-Day Whole Food Cleanse  (click to learn more) is a great way to reboot your system, cleansing the cells and embarking on a new way of eating to change your body from the inside out.

Blood sugar is linked to all of these health conditions; it is not just about weight loss:

  • Accelerated Aging
  • Alzheimer's
  • Diabetes
  • Cancer. Many cancers are insulin dependent.
  • Cataracts
  • Heart Disease
  • Inflammation

To learn more about what foods to eat and how to change your diet to effectively reach your health and fitness goals, visit my website or click here to schedule a 30-minute consultation. Starting on a program to systematically begin this process and have the support and accountability to stick with it, is a great first step to reaching your goals.

Karen Phillips of ViaNutrition is a Holistic Health and Nutrition Coach in Westfield who works with clients to gain energy, break the "cycle," lose weight and reach their goals. Check out her Health Coaching Programs on her website.

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