Twenty years ago weight loss was all about the calories.
Those evil little things that hide in your favourite foods and jump onto your waistline 😉
Several years ago the role of hormones (and other similar things) in the weight gain and loss process became more well known.
In some cases to the point where we can start to forget calories are still relevant.
Much like with calories, hormones are easy things to misunderstand.
A calorie is just a unit of energy.
And it’s an essential thing.
Without any energy in our food we’d die pretty quickly.
And hormones are essential things.
They’re all there for a reason.
They’re neither good or bad.
No emotion attached.
They’re just things in our body that do certain things that help keep us alive an functioning.
Insulin particularly gets a bad rep.
If you talk to some FitPros it’s the cause of all obesity.
And there is a seemingly logical thought process there.
Insulin is involved in the process of storing energy as fat.
And, when it is elevated you will be more prone to storing fat and less able to release it.
With no insulin you would struggle to get fat.
All true.
But insulin is essential.
It’s there for a reason.
We need to be able to put energy in and out of fat stores.
And we need it to use protein and dietary fats as well.
It helps manage blood sugar levels, which we’d struggle without.
As with most things, the key is amounts.
The old expression is “The dose makes the poison”.
Insulin too low for too much time and we have problems.
Too high for too much time and we have different problems.
High processed carb and sugar diets with little time between ‘feeds’ will cause chronically elevated insulin levels and make fat storage very easy and fat release difficult.
That’s why cereal and toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and a pasta based meal for tea………..
With several ‘low fat’ biscuits, cakes, chocolate coated sugar bars, brownies, sugared hot drinks, etc in between……..
Can make losing weight really hard.
If the last time we have something insulin spiking is at, say 11pm……..
Then breakfast at 7am…….
We don’t have much time in that 24 hours where the body is going to feel like releasing fat stores.
3 ‘square meals’ with time between, particularly over night………
With a good mix of protein, fat AND carbs (they’re not bad remember)……….
Gives our body a fighting chance to release fat.
Insulin isn’t a bad guy.
We just need to know how to work with him, rather than against him 🙂
Much love,
Jon ‘Razor Ramon’ Hall and Matt ‘Say hello to my little friend’ Nicholson
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RISE Macclesfield –Â myrise.co.uk
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