What is insulin?
Insulin is an anabolic hormone that promotes metabolic processes within the body. It is secreted by the beta cells in the pancreas and maintains normal blood glucose levels, as well as regulating carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism and promoting cell division and growth.
The standard (failed) weight loss advice is to restrict a few calories every day by reducing dietary fat and eating a carb-heavy diet multiple times per day.
This does not lower insulin at all (quite the reverse in fact) because dietary fat has ZERO insulin effect and eating frequently constantly will continually stimulate insulin secretion. This ‘caloric reduction as primary’ advice has an estimated failure rate of 99.5%. So, if you have tried calorie restriction to lose weight and failed, understand this. You were expected to fail.
Most natural foods contain varying combinations of the three macronutrients (carbs, fats and protein) and therefore raise insulin to varying degrees. For example, refined carbohydrate-rich foods like cookies have the greatest effect on raising insulin and glucose. Fat-rich foods like salmon have little effect on insulin. This differing ability to stimulate insulin means that foods also differ in their fattening effect. This is only common sense. 100 calories of cookies, is far more fattening than 100 calories of salmon.
We often obsess about the foods we should or should not eat, the question of ‘what to eat’. If you would like some more information on what foods you should avoid and (more importantly) which foods to enjoy while maintaining good health, click here to join our Wellness with ProLongevity group https://www.facebook.com/groups/278916313071738/