Creating More Energy: Something We Could All Use More Of!

Insulin is a wonderful thing. It is a wonderful thing when we eat some carbohydrates, and to a much lesser extent protein, because our cells are able to take up the sugar in our blood stream and use it for fuel. It is a wonderful thing to have energy. This system usually works pretty well.

Until it doesn’t.

You see we live in a time and place where food and calories, good calories, bad calories, and ugly calories, are readily available. I mean 24/7, 365 available. In addition we hardly need to expend any energy to acquire calories. (Much to my horror, I saw an advertisement during the World Cup that simply said “McDelivery”. I could not bring myself to investigate!) We live in a perpetually well fed state. This causes a problem with insulin and our ability to metabolize carbohydrates for energy.

What problem does it cause?

Insulin resistance.

A quick refresher on how insulin works should help us understand insulin resistance better:

1) Cells open up in the presence of insulin and let carbs that have been broken down into simple sugars, gain entrance. The cells use sugar for fuel.

2) After the cells have all they want, glycogen, a form of sugar, gets stored in the muscles and the liver for use later.

3) After the cells are happy, and the muscles and liver are happy, the body does a remarkable thing. ALL THE EXCESS SUGAR IS CONVERTED TO FAT. Yep, you read that right. And once the sugar becomes fat, it never becomes sugar again. (That is why it is so crucial to build the ability to burn fat, a subject for a later post.)

That being said, our cells will begin to resent all the force feeding that insulin encourages. To defend themselves, they simply tell insulin to take a hike. And what does the body do to win this war? Yes, produce more insulin! Think of a kid sitting at dinner unwilling to clean his plate. Mom gets cranky and she calls in more pressure, Dad, and food gets eaten. When you think of insulin, think of parents putting pressure on their kids to clean their plates. Over time the kid will develop a strategy to be out of compliance, like spitting food into a napkin! Our cells don’t want to clean their plate. Eventually our pancreas, where insulin is produced, goes on strike and diabetes typically results.

So read this blog as the second part of last week’s on fasting. (You can find it here: Can Fasting Truly Be Healthy? )

When we fast, not only is the autophagic response activated, but our cells actually become more sensitive to insulin, requiring much less to accomplish its purposes. Think of our parents again. If they would send the kid to bed hungry, the next morning he will likely be more amiable to cleaning his plate, no pressure required (and needing to “clean your plate” may be another topic to explore).

This is a fantastic outcome of fasting. Your body gets a chance to clean and repair itself, and get more insulin sensitive in the process.

If you are still unsure of how to make this process of intermittent fasting apply to your daily life, you can
contact the office, and we will walk you through it.

Happy Fasting!

ks

PS-if you read clear through this, be sure to come get a limited time offer of a unique Swaim Chiropractic mug