Daily Habit Tip #18 Understanding Insulin Resistance and Protein-First Habits
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VARSHA: [00:00:00] Your doctor says everything looks great. Your blood sugar is perfect at 92, but you're still struggling with stubborn belly fat crashing after lunch and feeling like your metabolism is broken and you can't lose weight. Here's the scary truth. You could already have insulin resistance and neither you nor your doctor would know it just by looking at your blood sugar.
We call this metabolic dysfunction. Metabolic dysfunction starts years before diabetes shows up ~on standard test, ~on standard tests. Here's what's happening. Insulin's job is to move sugar from your blood into your cells so they can use it for energy, but something will happen where your cells become less responsive to the insulin signals, and there can be many reasons for this diet.
Stress, weight gain are some of the major causes, but your pancreas compensates by producing two to three to even five times the normal amount of insulin so that your cells can recognize the [00:01:00] signals ~and insulin can do its job to lower its blood sugar, to lower your blood sugars~
~and insulin can do its job to lower your blood sugars to normal where it's supposed to be.~
~And insulin can do its job and lower your blood sugars to normal to where it's supposed to be, since it can make enough insulin to do this. I don't know. Sometimes this thing moves fast. Okay.~
And insulin can do its job and lower blood sugars to where it is normal. Since you can still make it, you may even have low blood sugar episodes because your insulin levels will be much higher, so it will drop your sugars lower. But high insulin levels can come at a cost. It's like having to speak louder and louder to get someone's attention.
Eventually, you exhaust yourself when your pancreas can't keep up anymore and has to keep trying to make more and more insulin so that the cells can hear it. Then it burns out
And you'll start seeing your blood sugars rise to about a hundred and then higher, and you'll be in the pre-diabetic range, and then the diabetic range.
So when your insulin levels are chronically high, it can cause some health issues. It can turn you into a fat storage machine, and especially it likes to store fat around the midsection. That's why a lot of people who are insulin resistant will have waist measurements over 35 inches for women and [00:02:00] over 40 for men.
Or a waist to hip ratio greater than 0.85 for women and greater than 0.9 for men. Insulin can also trigger inflammation in your body, causing disruption in your hormones, causing other chronic diseases such as heart disease. Osteoporosis, dementia, PCOS, and even cancer. Here are some signs of insulin resistance that I see in my practice.
Hypoglycemia where you have low blood sugars, especially one to two hours after eating especially if there are processed carbs in that meal.
Signs of hormone disruption such as PCOS, irregular cycles, fertility struggles. You might have fatty liver. If you have fatty liver, you usually have insulin resistance. I brain fog after meals and skin tags. Your doctor can check a fasting insulin and the lab range is different than what's optimal in the functional medicine [00:03:00] community.
It varies a little bit. Some say under seven. That's what I use. There are some that even say under five, and there are longevity experts that even say under three is preferred.
If your doctor won't order a fasting insulin level, look at your triglyceride to HDL, HDL is your good cholesterol, but you can look at that ratio and if it's over two, then you could be insulin resistant.
~So that leads me to today's daily. ~That leads me to today's daily habit challenge, and that is to eat protein first at your meals. There are two reasons for this. Protein acts like a metabolic break, slowing down your glucose absorption, and keeping your energy steady.
~Number one is protein helps absorb the glucose overload if you are eating some carbs or processed foods that aren't so good for you. So eating protein kind of sets your digestion.~
~Number one is that protein helps absorb any kind of glucose load of carbs that are in your meal, especially if you're eating processed carbs. When you eat protein first, your insulin doesn't spike so high and it gives your body time to absorb the glucose load. So you're s. ~Number one is protein helps absorb the glucose load if you happen to be eating any carbs, especially processed carbs in your meal.
If you eat the protein first, this , ~it kind of ~blunts that huge insulin spike you might get if you eat carbs first. Number two is protein stimulates GLP one, [00:04:00] and you may have heard of GLP ones with. These weight loss medicines, but you can increase it naturally and that helps keep you full at meals, so it can aid in weight loss.
GLP one is a satiety hormone, so it tells your brain that it's full
and curves your appetite.
This is a simple tip that you can do. ~I hope you're enjoying these daily habits. I hope they are helpful.~
~Why I have to go on and on about that. ~Please leave a comment if you are enjoying these daily habits
and let me know what your health habits are. Maybe there's something you're doing that you've found helpful. ~Let's all share and. ~Let's all share so we can help each other. If you're watching the podcast version, please leave a review. That ~helps other people discover the, ~helps other people discover my podcast and they can benefit from these daily habits and functional medicine topics too.
Please follow. Subscribe. ~Thanks for listening and. ~Thanks for listening or watching, and have a fantastic day.
