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Hungry all the time, rarely satiated, a ‘broken’ metabolism?

If you’ve noticed you frequently feel hungry, that your metabolism doesn’t seem to be working as well as it once did, or that you rarely feel satiated after eating, you might like to read on.

Consider this scenario:

  • A person makes a real effort with their food and movement choices and sees no change in how their clothes fit 😩.
  • Feeling frustrated, they wonder if there might be an issue with how their body manages the food they’re eating, so they get their blood glucose tested 💉.
  • Yet, their blood glucose level comes back within the normal range…. ✅.

What could be going on?

The short answer: it could be insulin resistance ❌. And it’s likely their body is having to make excess amounts of insulin to keep their glucose inside the normal range.

Here’s why this is a problem.

Insulin’s main job is to help store glucose (energy) for later use.

When we eat, the carbohydrates are broken down into glucose, protein can be converted into glucose if we don’t eat enough carbs, and fats aren’t broken down into any glucose.

With more glucose now in our blood (either from food we’ve eaten or the glucose stress hormones mobilise), insulin has to move it out of there. The first stop is to store it in our muscles and liver—two places where energy can be easily released when we need it. Yet these both have finite storage limits, and, once they are full, insulin takes the rest of the glucose to our fat cells— because our fat cells have an infinite capacity to expand and store this glucose.

When insulin levels get too high, another hormone called leptin is supposed to jump in and tell our body it’s satiated, and to speed up our metabolism. Yet—here’s the kicker—if you have excess insulin being produced, it blocks the brains ability to “hear” leptin! And so, we rarely feel satiated, our metabolism doesn’t hear the messages it needs, and we can feel the need to eat too much, too often.

This is what is known as insulin resistance.

If your body is in this biochemical state, you will not be able to access your fat stores to use them. Yet, we are led to believe that getting the body to burn fat is as “simple” as changing our food and movement patterns, whereas the reality is it’s often so much more than this!

In my Shake Off Sugar online course, I go into much more detail on insulin, including why insulin resistance happens and the steps you can take to bring your levels within the optimal range—because this is entirely reversible.

If you feel that excess sugar consumption may be contributing to certain symptoms in your body or are curious to experience just how good your body is designed to feel, then I would encourage you to join me for this next intake.

Places are limited as my team and I are committed to supporting each and every one of you through the course. You can find out more about the course and what’s included here.

Digging deep into nutrition

For those of you who are familiar with my work, you’ll know that I am a fan of getting as many nutrients as we can from our food. Unfortunately, though, there are a variety of factors that can contribute to whether or not we obtain enough nutrients from our food, including the quality of the soil the food is grown in and what is used to “treat” it while it grows.

The use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides and insecticides on food became widespread in the 1940s and has only accelerated since. They are therefore relatively new to the food chain when you consider that humans have been on the planet for about 150,000 years. Today, food grown without the use of these pesticides is referred to as ‘organic food’, which 80-odd years ago was simply called ‘food’.

In conventional farming practices, it is common practice for only three nutrients to be fertilised back into the soil: nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. That means there can be 52 (or more) nutrients missing from the foods we eat. As soil becomes increasingly nutrient deficient, so too does our food. Despite all of our technological advances, we owe our existence to the quality of 30cm of topsoil and the fact that it rains. So, how do we ensure that our food contains the nutrients that we need for health?

Biodynamic and organically grown food

Eating biodynamically and organically grown food can play a major role in decreasing the synthetic chemical load taken into the body. Fruit and vegetables can only be called certified organic when grown without the use of synthetic chemicals including antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilisers, insecticides or growth hormones. Certified organic also means the produce has not been genetically modified. Biodynamic farming takes these principles further and utilises livestock manures to support the health of plants – which fosters nutrient recycling – as well as improvement of soil quality, including nutrient density and carbon content. A diversity of plant and animal life is encouraged via crop rotations, cover crops and green manures, to allow for optimum biological activity of the soil and enhance the biological cycles between plants, animals, the soil and the atmosphere. Biodynamics views everything as being interconnected.

These nutrient-supportive practices typically focus on:

  • Applying organic materials such as manure and compost to supply nutrients and maintain soil organic matter
  • Planting cover crops to retain nitrogen and carbon that might otherwise be lost, this helps to hold onto valuable nutrients, protect the soil from erosion and provide a source of fresh organic matter, which increases soil microbial activity
  • Crop rotations to enhance the microbial population and diversity within the soil
  • An intimate connection between nutrient management and environmental health

When to opt for Organic

If solely buying organic or biodynamic produce isn’t viable for you due to cost or accessibility, consider thinking about how you will eat the food you are choosing. For example, you peel a banana to eat it. How much of the insecticide residue gets through to the fruit you will eat? We don’t know.Yet, with an apple, you tend to eat the whole piece of fruit and because the sprays you want to avoid are fat-soluble, they don’t wash off in water. So, for example, you might select conventional bananas and organic apples.

To help remove the sprays from conventional produce, you might like to fill your sink with three parts water to one part vinegar, wash your fruits and vegetables, then rinse them in fresh water and pat them dry before storage.

You may also like to consider growing your own produce at home or connecting with a community garden. There are some wonderful vertical gardens available for those who are short on space.

Please don’t be overwhelmed with these considerations. Reflect on your values and do what is practical for you… and then gradually stretch a little further.

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