Original | Hibiscus nutritionist
Recently, several sisters have shown me the physical examination reports, insulin resistance, blood indicators are also various abnormalities, high uric acid, high cholesterol, hypothyroidism and so on. To be honest, in the cases I have come into contact with, many sisters are not overeating, or eating too much staple food caused by insulin resistance, it is precisely low-carbon, long-term fasting exercise, insulin resistance detected after polycystic amenorrhea, and long-term binge eating.
Why do these seemingly self-disciplined behaviors also lead to insulin resistance (don't be self-disciplined, people who are not self-disciplined will not develop to the point of binge eating at all)? Insulin resistance has been detected, and the average person is even more afraid to eat staple foods, and as a result, the overeating is more serious and the indicators are worse.
What to do? Eating staple foods is afraid that blood sugar will get out of control, and if you don't eat it, you will have all kinds of cravings, and often lose control.
1. How can I tell if I have insulin resistance?
Referring to the figure below, if there are already four or five body signals related to insulin resistance, it is recommended to go to the endocrinology department to check blood sugar and insulin, not just fasting insulin, 1 hour, 2 hours, and 3 hours after meals. Many sisters are normal on an empty stomach, but not normal after a meal.
2. Low carbon and crazy exercise trigger insulin resistance?
In order to save life, the smart body will let the adrenal glands secrete a large amount of cortisol hormone, and the liver will raise blood sugar through gluconeogenesis (turning amino acids and fatty acids into the blood sugar we need).
The problem is that long-term high cortisol levels in the blood will make the cells appear insulin resistance, blood sugar cannot enter the cells, and the cells lack the ability to crave food, especially carbohydrates, but in fact, the blood sugar is already high.
Why does cortisol engage in such a wave of operations? In fact, it is also a good heart, so that you can maintain high blood sugar levels in your blood, and support sudden survival situations at any time, such as encountering a tiger, you will face a fight or escape.
But if emergency stress doesn't arise, and only long-term chronic stress, then cortisol immediately packs the energy and stores it in the form of fat, which it actually wants to use to support long-term stress.
Cortisol is different from other hormones, the half-life of general hormones is only a few minutes, while the half-life of cortisol hormones is as long as 70-120 minutes, which means that excess cortisol hormones will circulate in the bloodstream for several hours, that is, after a long period of stressful high-intensity exercise, no matter what you eat, cortisol will be packed into fat and stored on its own.
It is conceivable that if you live in a difficult mode so "self-disciplined" every day, your weight loss is actually half the effort, and the body does not appreciate it at all.
What's worse is that if a person not only exercises excessively, but also has an unbalanced diet, the daily blood sugar roller coaster, the long-term excessive secretion of insulin and cortisol in the blood, our pancreas and adrenal glands will cause irreversible and accelerated damage.
Low-carb diets are also a factor in insulin resistance. If you're not only exercising like crazy, but you're also low-carbon, your body's stress hormones are exponentially increasing.
People on a low-carb diet generally have low glycogen stores, and the adrenal glands need to secrete cortisol frequently to initiate gluconeogenesis in the liver, converting fats or proteins into glucose or ketones for energy.
When cortisol is elevated, it inhibits the brain's production of progesterone and follicle-stimulating hormone. These two hormones are responsible for signaling the ovaries to produce sex hormones and a normal menstrual cycle. Therefore, excessive stress or overactive adrenal glands can interfere with the normal menstrual cycle.
This should be easy to understand: when a person is chased by a tiger (under pressure), the matter of breeding offspring (ovulation) will be talked about later!
In the adrenal glands, cortisol and sex hormones are produced using the same starting material, pregnenolone, and if cortisol is too active, it will take up this initial material, which may lead to insufficient sex hormone secretion and amenorrhea.
This is the sister paper of many low-carbon and crazy exercises, and in the end, not only amenorrhea and polycystic, but also insulin resistance and even diabetes need to take medication for life.
2. How to eat if you are already insulin resistant?
So the question is, how to eat if you are insulin resistant? Can you still eat fine grains? Is it necessary to strictly control the staple food? In the past, I was afraid to eat for weight loss, but now I am afraid to eat for fear of developing diabetes.
The truth is that even for diabetic patients, the latest version of the dietary guidelines does not allow them to skip staple foods, but it is only about 10% lower than the carbohydrate energy supply ratio of ordinary people. There are three specific ones (weight loss recipes can also be referenced)
1. Diverse food: that is, eat more mixed foods, and should consume cereals and potatoes, vegetables and fruits, livestock, poultry, fish, eggs, milk and legumes every day. That is to say: "There are coarse grains in rice, chowder in vegetables, meat, fish, eggs and milk, tofu and fungi and algae."
2. Grain-based: Compared with ordinary people, the daily carbohydrate ratio of sugar friends to energy is slightly lower (55%-65% for ordinary people, and 45%-60% for diabetics), but it is still necessary to adhere to grain-based.
3. Thickness matching: whole grains, potatoes, and miscellaneous beans account for 1/3 of the staple food.
Do you see it? If you have insulin resistance, you still have to eat staple foods, and the proportion is not small. It's not about eating a belly of white and meat to fill your stomach, and because you don't feel satisfied, you can't help but overeat snacks and sweets.
Insulin resistance reduces the ability of your cells to use blood sugar. If you still control the staple food, then you will be hungry all day, your willpower will soon run out, and the easiest thing to gain weight when you lose control is your stomach.
You need to keep your staple food intake, but you need to control fruits, fructose is most closely related to insulin resistance, and trans fats in cheap sweet bread should also be avoided, which will increase insulin resistance.
You need to increase the intake of good fats and increase the intake of fats in your diet, your blood sugar will be more stable, and your insulin secretion will be less. Omega-3 fats, in particular, can also improve insulin sensitivity.
You don't have to worry too much about coarse grains and fine grains, because you don't just eat staple foods at a meal, and it doesn't mean much to talk about which food has a separate GI value, but the overall GI value of the meal, mixed GI value.
There is also the order of eating, and if you put the staple food in the back position, your blood sugar will be more stable.
In terms of exercise, of course, strength training is preferred, and increasing muscle ratio is the basis for improving insulin resistance. And don't just run aerobic to brush the fat, then your muscles will fall out, insulin resistance and even blood sugar will be worse.
As for the exercise of walking, it is better to relax, and a good mood also indirectly improves insulin resistance. Pilates is helpful for improving body shape, but the effect is not mediocre for muscle gain. Vinyasa is recommended in yoga, which is more powerful.
That's pretty much it, good luck!