Jamie Meloni
Dr. Berg Certified Keto and Fasting Coach
What is Insulin?
Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas. It lowers your blood sugar whenever you eat and is known as the storage hormone. Insulin acts as a key to open up cells which allows nutrients as well as fat to enter the cell. You cannot lose weight when insulin is in the body and every time you eat, insulin is released. This is why intermittent and extended fasting works so well, it reduces the body's exposure to insulin.
Insulin is a root cause of many major diseases and disorders:
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• Acne
• Stroke (because of its effects upon the brain)
• Affects the arteries of the heart
• Cancer (cancer feeds on sugar)
• Creates fibroids (sugars is catabolic, so it makes things bigger. Estrogen is also catabolic (this is why both of them cause cancers)
• Memory – doctors are recognizing a new type of diabetes called Diabetes III. It is created by a loss of oxygen to the brain which causes memory impairments
• High Blood Pressure
All of our major diseases come from high insulin. Once you get insulin out of your body, you will begin losing significant amounts of weight and see significant overall health improvements.
Diabetes Type 1 &2
Diabetes is a condition where the body does not properly process food for energy. Every time we eat, insulin is released which directs sugar and other nutrients into the cells. Over time, a poor quality diet causes the body to become resistant to the intended effects of insulin resulting in a condition known as Insulin Resistance or more commonly known as diabetes type 2.
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Type 1 - Oftentimes is referred to as juvenile diabetes because people are born with this condition. It is a situation where the pancreas produces little or no insulin and requires the patient to rely on injections of insulin. Type 2 diabetes can progress into Type 1.
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Type 2 - This is developed over time due to over eating and poor quality food choices which causes the body to build up a resistance to insulin and its intended affects.
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With Type 2 diabetes (aka Insulin Resistance or IR), your receptors for insulin in the liver begin resisting all this insulin. The liver is saying “Stop flooding me with sugar.” When the insulin receptors are full and stop working, sugar accumulates in the blood and you get HIGH BLOOD SUGAR because there is nothing left to bring it back down.
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This is why people take drugs like Metformin. They make the receptors for insulin more receptive and sensitive again but take a toll on the body as well.
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Combatting Insulin Resistance Naturally
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Intermittent and extended fasting works to give your body time to build back up its sensitivity to insulin. This is free and no medications needed!
To lower blood sugar by up to 80 points in 30 minutes, Dr. Berg recommends acupressure applied to the liver, pancreas, and adrenal glands – all hormone producing organs that you can help to heal with acupressure and lower your blood sugar naturally.
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One vitamin that helps regulate insulin and lower blood sugar is B1. You can find this naturally in nutritional yeast.
What is crucial though is potassium. You need a whopping 4,700 mgs. each day which is extremely hard to get into the typical American diet. A banana for instance only has 300 mg. So how will you get enough? Eat 7 to 10 cups of vegetables like beet greens or kale.
More on Insulin Resistance
Insulin is a hormone that lowers sugar in the blood and when we get a situation of insulin resistance, the insulin receptors in the liver and the receptors in all of our cells are no longer absorbing insulin or storing it effectively. So we have more insulin in the blood.
One odd thing is we often have high insulin in one area of the body and low insulin in another, which yields symptoms of hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia at the same time.
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Having a fatty liver or fat in the gut can worsen insulin resistance. If you have too much insulin in the body for too long, the cells begin protecting themselves, saying “I don’t want any more of this, I am going to reject this substance!” At this point, sugar has become a poison that your body is trying to reject.
Then this process signals the pancreas to produce more insulin creating a never-ending loop effect.
Finding Out If You Have Insulin Resistance
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There are tests that are very expensive that you can take to find out if you have insulin resistance, or you can simply look at your symptoms.
â–ª Can you not go very long without eating?
â–ª Do you crave sugar after a meal?
This could be insulin resistance or a gall bladder issue –that is the only two things that will produce these two symptoms together.
The problem with insulin resistance is it keeps you fat and it destroys your weight set point. If you are at 170 and you cannot get below it, no matter what your efforts, you have insulin resistance to some degree.
More on Insulin Resistance Part 2
Most people know about the Glycemic Index but they do not know about the Insulin Index. The Glycemic Index tells you how fast carbohydrate foods will convert into sugar (glucose). Fibrous foods, like celery, are of course, low on the Glycemic Index and jelly beans, full of sugar, are very high.
It turns out though, there are a number of foods that are very low on the Glycemic Index that actually spike insulin such as low fat proteins, egg whites and whey protein, whereas whole eggs do not.
You will see when you look at the foods on the Insulin Index, low fat proteins are high on the Insulin Index while higher fat proteins, like butter and heavy cream, are not.
This is why people filling their cart with low fat items are getting fatter, not thinner.
In general, the more refined a food is, the more weight it will make you gain.
Now let’s talk about Gastrointestinal Hormones
These hormones release insulin every time you eat. Since triggering insulin all day is what leads to insulin resistance, we want to try to reverse this by limiting insulin spikes.
That is why you want to do - 2 meals no snacks, and add fat plus protein at the first meal. You will be amazed at how much two slices of bacon will curb your cravings for food altogether until dinner.
We want to limit those insulin peaks to two. And if you have your first meal early, you will stay in fat burning mode more throughout the day.
Exercise and Eating
I want to address another misconception too; you do not have to eat before a workout. Studies show working out in a fasted state burns more fat and calories. If you eat before exercise you are nullifying the purpose of exercise.
What Else Causes Insulin to Increase?
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Estrogen increases insulin in the body and this leads to PCOS, and a greater release of androgen hormones in the body that lead to hair loss, a deeper voice, and other symptoms.
Insulin resistance also increases estrogen and can be a vicious cycle. When estrogen is high, insulin is high, and this causes weight gain just as it does during a woman’s time of the month, when taking birth control pills, or pregnancy.
High insulin and estrogen also make you pee often during the night and we can fix this by fixing insulin resistance.
Nutrients that can lower insulin:
1. Potassium
2. Vitamin B1
3. Magnesium
4. Vitamin D
5. Chromium
6. Fiber
7. Apple Cider Vinegar