Bam! One day it just punches you in the face. And you might be asking, "how the hell did I gain this weight". It can happen even if you think you're the healthiest nut out there. Beyond the basic dieting and exercise cliché people promote to lose weight or gain muscle, reaching your goals goes deeper than that. Hidden weight gain claims many victims nowadays. Many people follow all the steps needed to reach their goals, but never succeed. Why? Well, there might be one glaring weight loss obstacle which you've overlooked. And the worst part is, people think 'it's genetics', 'out of your control', or 'there's nothing you can do about it'. Far to often these are common phrases used by people who can't get that tight ass, slender legs, 6 pack abs, slim physique, or muscular chest. Well, fortunately it's all just a bunch of excuses lazy people come up with.
So what's the source of this hidden weight gain? It's the imbalance of hormones within your own body. The main mechanism I want to look into today is blood sugar balance. Don't worry, I'm not here to overwhelm you with technical jargon or complicated terms. I'm going to break this down to the bare bone so anyone can understand why your fitness efforts might be in vain; plus give you 1 simple step to avoid this problem and re-balance your hormones.
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In basic terms, this is how your blood glucose equilibrium works. You ingest carbohydrates which are converted to glucose within your body. This causes your blood sugar (glucose) levels to increase. This is what fuels your body, plain and simple. However, it doesn't do your body much good to have this glucose floating around your bloodstream, it needs to enter your s to promote any development. Once your body receives word that your blood glucose levels are high, your pancreas secretes a hormone ed Insulin. You'll soon find out Insulin is responsible for hundreds of bodily responses and functions, unfortunately some responses associated with hidden weight gain. But for now, the one thing you need to concern yourself with is Insulin chugs on over to your s and attached itself to a receptor outside of the . This gives the the 'go ahead' to start absorbing the high amounts of glucose in your bloodstream. WhaLa! Blood glucose turns into ular glucose which will create energy inside your .
OK. To summarize. When you eat something your blood glucose levels rise. This triggers a response to release the hormone Insulin. Insulin binds to receptors on the which causes the s to absorb glucose. Simple enough.
Now we have to talk about the 2 common problems associated with our blood glucose levels. Ideally, your blood glucose levels should be between a certain range (70 - 120 mg/dL). The first condition is ed reactive hypoglycemia. We know from above that when you ingest food (carbohydrates), your blood sugar goes up. It goes past what our ideal range is, our body combats this by sending word to our little hormone buddy, Insulin. But with reactive hypoglycemia, our bodies way overshoot the production of Insulin. This causes our blood glucose levels to go from being above our ideal range, to way below our ideal range. This happens all day whenever we ingest carbohydrates.
The second condition in insulin resistance. This is a process of when those receptors I mentioned above, don't react to our hormone Insulin. Again, caused by our bodies producing way more Insulin than needed over a long period of time. Basiy, our s begin to think Insulin is on crack because it seems to be in overdrive lately so it stops reacting to it and doesn't absorb any blood glucose. This can pose quite a big problem to people and is often a source of hidden weight gain. Why? Because Insulin levels chroniy stay high because it's being overproduced. Also, your blood glucose levels stay high because glucose isn't being absorbed by the . What you need to know from insulin resistance is one thing: your blood glucose levels are constantly high and this has major consequences: you're definitely not getting healthy, and you're definitely not losing any weight.
So how do you know if you have reactive hypoglycemia or insulin resistance? Well I'm definitely no doctor. So don't take my word for gospel, but here are some common side effects related to both. For reactive hypoglycemia, you have sugar cravings before meals which become satisfied after meals. As well, you might have difficulty staying asleep. With this condition, while you sleep your blood glucose levels drop extremely low because of the excessive amounts of insulin produced. This put your body into 'freak out mode' and it releases the hormone Cortisol - this hormone helps the body deal with stress. This is what will cause you to wake from sleep. For insulin resistance, you feel tired after meals in addition to having sugar cravings as well. Instead of waking up during sleep, you might have difficulty getting to sleep. But, these are only common symptoms, check with your doctor to see if you have one of them before you go about diagnosing yourself.
Yes, these 2 conditions above are both related to the hormone Insulin; but Insulin itself isn't the problem. Your body needs it to function properly and creates a homeostatic (balanced) environment for your metabolism - excessive Insulin is the problem. Excessive Insulin is a common source of hidden weight gain for many people. And here's why.
First off, let's talk about sex. Sex hormones. Excessive Insulin causes your body to overproduce a hormone ed Aromatase. Guys this is for you. This hormone is responsible for converting testosterone into estrogen. If you're a guy looking to lose weight or gain muscle, and your bodies producing excessive estrogen....you ain't losing no weight or gaining no muscle. Women, excessive Insulin in your bodies increases an enzyme that causes your ovaries to produce more testosterone. Again, if you're a lady looking to lose weight - testosterone has the opposite effect. You won't be losing no weight, but gaining those beloved pounds instead.
Onto another matter, excessive Insulin causes your body to overproduce inflammatory chemicals. Your body responds to this as stress, and like I mentioned before, the hormone Cortisol is released to deal with stress. Cortisol triggers a bodily response to increase the blood glucose levels from the bodies reserves. As we know, increase in your blood glucose levels causes Insulin to be secreted. This brings us back to the main problem in the first place, excessive insulin. It creates a viscous cycle that perpetuates itself.
This next point is going to demonstrate how excessive Insulin is a direct source for hidden weight gain which you might wave off as being natural. To much Insulin causes an increase in the hormone Leptin. Leptin is produced by fat s to tell the brain, "Hey, we're full. Stop eating." But that's good right. The more Leptin you have, the less you eat, that should help you lose weight in no time right? Well, it's actually the opposite of that. Your body develops a resistance to the hormone Leptin, similar to what happens in Insulin resistance. Otherwise, you'd never eat. Your body simply ignores the overproduction of the hormone Leptin, and instead of the message, "I'm full, stop eating," getting relayed to your brain, you constantly feel hungry instead. As you can probably guess, if you've always been constantly hungry than you would think that 'it's genetics', 'it's just natural, or any other excuse you can think of. When in reality, this is could be a main source of your unknown weight gain.
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Quickly, there's one last issue I want to touch on. Excessive Insulin causes the liver to slow down. Essentially, it clogs it. The liver is responsible for detoxifying or cleaning out your system. Any excessive hormones you might have, the liver deals with. But, if it's not operating properly, this poses another problem to your body. Relating this specifiy to sources of hidden weight gain; men, your body can't release the excess estrogen that increased Insulin causes. And women, your body can't release the excess testosterone that your bodies produce. Like we touched on earlier, an increase for estrogen in men and testosterone in women will make it ridiculously hard to lose any weight at all.
OK, we've outlined the major issues. I hope you have a far better understanding of why excessive Insulin can be so detrimental to your health as well as a source of hidden weight gain. But, being informed is only part of the solution. We need to take action as well. So where does an average Joe or Jane start to decrease excessive Insulin production? It all stems from our diet, so that's what we need to look at.
Remember how I said our blood glucose levels increase mainly when we ingest carbs? Well, that's normal. Carbs should be part of our daily diets, and Insulin balance is a natural cycle. However, specific carbs that are highly processed and sugar loaded is what causes excessive Insulin responses and create an Insulin imbalance within our bodies. You need to cut out these processed carbs to bring your body back to a homeostatic equilibrium. The hard part is these processed carbs are found almost everywhere. From simple carbs that are loaded with sugar to refined flour in our grain, pasta, and wheat products. Replace them with more natural organic substitutes. You need to be able to identify these processed carbs and high sugar foods to stop this hidden weight gain.