If your cells are taking in less sugar because they’re resisting insulin knocking at their door to let in sugar, then the cells have less energy to work with. 

That sugar is there, and insulin is happily converting it to fat, but your cells aren’t getting it so of course they’re hungry and will keep telling you to eat more until they finally get some. 

Especially as they get older, women can find it easier and easier to gain weight and harder and harder to lose it. 

But more and more this is happening with younger women as well — and there is an exact reason for this. 

It has to do with hormones, the messenger chemicals in our body that tell our cells how to use the foods we eat, whether to store fat or lose it, increase or decrease energy. They even affect our moods. 

And when they get out of control, it can become harder and harder to climb back out of the hole.

So let’s take a look at exactly what’s happening here. First, we’ll define a couple of things.

Testosterone, like Growth Hormone, plays a large role in muscle bulk and strength, as well as fat-burning. 

It also helps regulate sex drive, bone mass, fat distribution (as in where the fat is stored), body composition, and the production of red blood cells and sperm.

As it’s the “male” hormone, we see much higher numbers in men than in women, though women still need this just as men still need some estrogen, the “female” hormone. 

Sleep is when our body regenerates and rebalances. And without it, or without good, refreshing, restorative sleep, all sorts of problems, both short and long term, can crop up.

It affects our mood, our ability to think, our energy levels, our hormones, our ability to heal, burn fat, and much more.

So let’s go over how lack of good sleep affects us, what may be causing this, and what we can do about it!

If you’ve ever had a shock and felt the adrenaline surge in your body then you’ve felt cortisol. It’s a wake-you-up, get-you–ready-for-action hormone.

It really is. It hits its lowest point around midnight, so you can go to sleep, and then peaks again about an hour after you’ve gotten up in the morning, getting you to wake up and get ready for the day. 

It’s nick-named the “stress hormone” because it’s released in moments of stress. So in a dangerous situation, or if you get scared suddenly, you’ll feel it. 

But… when we have too-high levels of cortisol for too long, it can make us feel stressed… even if we have no reason to be.

Alright, so we know that when sugar comes into the body Insulin is released to shuttle that sugar into the cell. And if the cell is full, then it connects the sugars in chains and stores them as something called Glycogen in your muscle and liver cells for use later on. And if those are full then it connects the sugar to fatty acids and stores it as body fat. And, while Insulin is in the blood stream, fat burning is prevented.

We also know that, given too much sugar for too long, the cells start resisting it and refusing to let it in when Insulin tells them too, causing them to have less sugar to make energy with as well as causing more of it to be converted to body fat.

This is the second article in a series on Insulin, Insulin Resistance, Sugar and Body Fat, as a well as an overall series on hormones, so stay tuned!

Alright, if you read the first article in this series (Link this to first article) then you understand that when sugar is in the blood stream the hormone Insulin is released to send it into the cells for energy, or to store it as energy in the muscles as something called Glycogen, or to convert it into fats known as Triglycerides — body fat.

And that while insulin is in the bloodstream almost no fat burning can take plac

Yes, about 90% of what most of us consider as body fat is made by and from sugar. 

But probably not how you think. 

And it has a lot more to do with the type of sugar it is and, more specifically, how it affects your hormones (messenger chemicals that tell your body how to use the food you put into it). 

Because it’s your hormones that will determine what will ultimately happen with this sugar and whether or not it will be used to make new body fat.

Let me assure you, this is not another low carb rant! 

 

Obesity rates have quadrupled in America since these changes in our food sources took place, along with Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, Energy Levels, Eating & Mood Disorders, and a host of other issues.

Our diets have changed drastically in the last fifty years, from the types of foods we eat, but much more from the amount of processing these foods now undergo, changing them on a molecular level into something our bodies barely recognize.

And they can be fixed. Continue reading to learn how...

We’re seeing fat loss with muscle gain, faster muscle gain while continuing to lose fat, lower resting heart rate and blood pressure increased energy, lowered inflammation, bettered mood, significantly decreased cravings, and much more.

Some people say calorie counting is the only thing that works to gain muscle and lose fat. And then some just say calories have nothing to do with it at all. But what is it? Does calorie counting work or not?

Weight-loss diets are a big industry – especially when you consider that two out of three Americans are either overweight or clinically obese.

No, seriously, two out of every three Americans.

But with hundreds of popular diets, special diet foods, and health companies out there, why does the obesity problem continue to worsen?

Today we are going to provide you with some simple basics that can help you (and anyone) discover your optimal diet and help you on the road to improved wellness.