WHY DO WE GET FAT?

Why do we get fat?

For decades the common belief about weight gain was that if you ate more calories than you burn on a daily basis you would eventually get fat. Reasonably then, if you eat less calories than you burn you should lose weight. This sounded good, and was loosely based on the law of thermodynamics, unfortunately it completely misses the fact that weight gain in the human body is primarily hormone driven.

How is weight gain hormone driven?

Hormones are chemical messengers, they tell the body what to do. For example, men tend to have larger, stronger muscles than women. The reason for this phenomenon is not because men eat more calories and burn less calories than women, it is because men have much higher levels of a hormone called testosterone than women do.  Testosterone tells the body to build big, strong muscles. A woman could eat massive amounts of food, and lift weights like crazy, and she is still not going to develop equal muscle size and strength as that of a genetically similar man. It is the testosterone that tells the body to add muscle weight. Testosterone’s chemical message to the body is “make more muscle”. Just as adding muscle weight is hormone driven, adding fat weight is also hormone driven.

What hormone is responsible for adding extra fat weight?

The hormone primarily responsible for adding body fat is Insulin. One of insulin’s messages to the body is to take any extra carbohydrate foods not being immediately burned for energy, turn it into fat and then store the fat in the body, hence the term body fat. Insulin’s message to the body is “make more fat”. Generally speaking, the more insulin you have the fatter you will be.

Why is losing weight so difficult?

Besides telling the body to turn extra carbohydrate foods into fat, insulin also tells the body not to burn its stored fat for energy. So basically, insulin’s combined messages tell the body to “get fat and stay fat”. Insulin also interferes with the function of another hormone called Leptin. Leptin is secreted into the bloodstream by the body’s fat cells. It then travels to the brain where it is supposed to tell the brain that you are full and to stop eating. Unfortunately, insulin blocks leptin’s “stop eating” signal, so your brain thinks you haven’t eaten enough and tells you to keep eating. This is why so many people will tell you they are always hungry and cannot stop eating, because insulin is blocking leptin’s “stop eating” message. Essentially, high insulin levels cause us to gain fat, prevent us from losing fat, and make us always hungry.  As you might imagine, this makes weight loss extremely difficult.

Do high insulin levels cause other health problems?

Absolutely, sustained elevated insulin levels can lead to insulin resistance, systemic inflammation, pain, depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Sustained elevated insulin can also lead to continued activation of the intracellular signalling pathway known as Mammalian Target of Rapamycin (MTOR) leading to Cancer, and Autoimmune Diseases like Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohns disease. Reducing insulin levels will not only help you lose weight, it could save your life.

Is insulin as bad as it sounds?

Insulin, and the other hormones in the body are there for a reason, they all serve vital functions. It is the amounts of hormones like insulin that is important, too much, or too little of a hormone can have severe consequences. Appropriate levels of insulin is healthy, it is high levels of insulin that is obviously cause for concern.

What causes high insulin levels?

There are 4 primary causes of high insulin levels listed below. Each cause will be discussed individually.

1. Eating too much “starch based” carbohydrate foods

2. Eating too much “sugar based” carbohydrate foods

3. Eating too much “combined” (starch + sugar) carbohydrate foods

4. Stress

High insulin cause (#1) – Eating too much “starch based” carbohydrate foods

“Starch based” carbohydrate foods are basically made up of numerous Glucose (sugar) molecules linked together to form more complex molecules known as complex carbohydrates. However, don’t be fooled by the fancy sounding name, “starch based” carbohydrate foods break down in the digestive system and enter the bloodstream very quickly. This drastic rise in blood carbohydrate levels is called a “blood sugar spike”. The body does not like high blood sugar at all. Unless this sugar in the bloodstream is burned up immediately for energy, the body has no choice but to respond quickly and secrete large amounts of insulin into the bloodstream.  The purpose of the insulin would be to clear the sugar out of the bloodstream and into the cells. Unfortunately, one of insulin’s messages to the body is to turn all extra carbohydrate into fat and store in the fat cells as body fat.

What are some “starch based” carbohydrate foods?

Most starch based carbohydrate foods are processed foods like; bread, rolls, bagels, pasta, cereal, crackers, pretzels, corn chips, potato chips, etc.. There are also naturally occurring “starch based” carbohydrate foods like; rice, potatoes, corn, oatmeal, and beans.

High insulin cause (#2) – Eating too much “sugar based” carbohydrate foods

Most of the “sugar based” carbohydrates we would eat on a daily basis contain high amounts of a molecule called Fructose. The previously mentioned “starch based” carbohydrates do not contain high amounts of fructose. Fructose doesn’t cause the “spike” in blood carbohydrate and insulin levels that the “starch based” carbohydrates do. However, fructose has a unique chemical structure that makes it particularly damaging. Most of the fructose we eat is taken up by the liver and almost immediately turned into fat. This fat can either be sent out into the bloodstream to be stored in fat cells as body fat, or it can be stored in the liver creating a fatty liver, and leading to a disease known as Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). We have seen numerous young patients under 15 years of age with fatty liver disease from drinking sports drinks, fruit juices and soda, with high fructose content.

What are some “sugar based” carbohydrate foods?

With some exceptions, most “sugar based” carbohydrate foods are added to other foods to sweeten them. Examples of sugar based carbohydrate foods that would be eaten alone or added to other foods would be; table sugar, honey, high fructose corn syrup, corn sugar, maple syrup, agave, brown sugar, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, cane juice, and coconut sugar. Today there are countless names used by food manufacturers attempting to make sugar sound better or more natural, but in the end, sugar is sugar. Some of the common foods that “sugar based” carbohydrate foods are added to for sweetening purposes are: candy, soda, sports drinks, fruit juice, etc..

High insulin cause (#3) – Eating too much “combined” (starch + sugar) carbohydrate foods

When a “sugar based” carbohydrate food is added to a “starch based” carbohydrate food the result is a “combination sugar and starch based carbohydrate food”. These foods are particularly problematic because they combine the immediate insulin raising effect of “starch based” carbohydrates, and the immediate liver fat and body fat producing effects of “sugar based” carbohydrates. You essentially get the worst of both worlds. Examples of combination foods are; cake, donuts, muffins, pastries, pies, brownies, cookies, sweet cereals, sweet oatmeal, pancakes with syrup, waffles with syrup, etc..

High insulin cause (#4) – Stress

Stress causes the Adrenal gland to release the hormone Cortisol into the bloodstream. Cortisol then tells the liver to release stored carbohydrate into the bloodstream. The reason this occurs is that the body thinks you are either going to run away from the stress inducing situation, or stand and fight for your life. These were basically the two options open to our ancestors when a stressful situation presented itself. The extra carbohydrate in the bloodstream could be used as a fast burning energy source for your muscles while you are either fighting or running away. Unfortunately, most modern humans don’t run around the block a few times when they feel stressed, so the extra carbohydrate released from the liver just sits there in the bloodstream. The body is then forced to produce more insulin to clear the extra carbohydrate out of the bloodstream. Insulin then tells the body to convert some of the extra carbohydrate into fat and store it in the fat cells. This is how stress makes you fat.

What should an effective weight loss and weight maintenance program include?

Most people can exert willpower and remain dedicated to a dietary, or exercise strategy for a limited period of time. We could join a gym, use a trendy diet, take a magic pill, or buy a piece of exercise equipment from an infomercial on TV, but how come these things never last? We could starve ourselves so the scale shows a loss of weight, but how much water, muscle mass, and bone density, have we lost? Unless a weight loss program addresses the 4 primary causes of high insulin levels, it is doomed to fail. Utilizing our 27 years of clinical experience with thousands of patients, as well as the latest peer reviewed published scientific research on human metabolism and nutrition, we have developed a comprehensive weight loss/weight maintenance program to decrease insulin levels for rapid and sustained weight loss. The program is called “Science Based Weight Loss”.