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episode #51

Calories, Insulin and Losing Body Fat

September 3, 2021 in Podcast

Intro

Do calories mean that much? Consider two foods of equal caloric value. On the one hand, you have a sugar cookie, and on the other is a plate of lettuce. Calories are identical. OK. So what? The metabolic effect of those two foods is completely different. Sugar cookie will stimulate insulin and no other satiety hormone Lettuce will not stimulate insulin and you will feel fuller. While the calories in-calories out equation remains true in a literal sense, there are numerous variables that influence the end result in terms of body composition, notably whether your body burns or stores the caloric energy you ingest. To understand weight loss, we need to understand what our body ‘cares’ about. The answer is clearly not ‘calories. The answer is ‘hormones’, predominantly insulin. Hormones run everything in our body. Our body gains or loses fat according to detailed hormonal instructions from our brain. The rise and fall of insulin is the main stimulus to weight gain. So, foods that stimulate insulin are typically more fattening (cookies). Those that do not (broccoli) are typically not fattening at all. Since our body is not likely to learn the language of ‘calories’, we need to learn the language of ‘insulin’, by translating food into insulin effect instead of calories. Insulin. Considered the "master hormone" for its role in facilitating the transport of nutrients and hormones to target organs and storage depots in the body. A healthy level of insulin production allows liver, muscle, and fat cells to repair, regenerate, and store energy for future use. Insulin has many beneficial effects on muscle growth and regeneration, and on the delivery of hormones to target organs in the bloodstream. Since insulin is the major transport and storage hormone in the bloodstream, the function of many other hormones are affected by insulin. Chronically excessive insulin production can interfere with the optimal function of appetite hormones, sleep hormones, thyroid hormones, sex hormones, and stress hormones. A diet promoting hyper-insulinemia (chronically high insulin levels) promotes a vicious cycle of excess calorie consumption, inhibited energy burning, and excess energy storage. When insulin production is chronically excessive, the body is locked into a fat-storage pattern and the dangerous condition of insulin resistance ensues Losing excess body fat involves deriving a certain portion of daily energy requirements from stored body fat. It is a matter of first becoming fat- and keto-adapted, and thus less reliant on ingested carbohydrates and external sources of energy in general. For example, eating a breakfast of bacon and eggs provides readily available fat calories that can be used as energy (in the absence of insulin-producing foods at the meal), while skipping breakfast will compel the body to derive those fat calories from storage depots for use as energy. What's the most powerful way to control your insulin levels? Intermittent Fasting When you don’t eat for a while, your body changes hormone levels to make stored body fat more accessible and initiates important cellular repair processes. Here are some of the changes that occur in your body during fasting: Insulin levels. Blood levels of insulin drop significantly, which facilitates fat burning Human growth hormone (HGH) levels. The blood levels of human growth hormone (HGH) may increase dramatically. Higher levels of this hormone facilitate fat burning and muscle gain, and have numerous other benefits Cellular repair. The body induces important cellular repair processes, such as removing waste material from cells Many of the benefits of intermittent fasting are related to these changes in hormones, and the function of cells. Bottom Line: Start intermittent fasting and eat nutrient dense whole foods that aren't processed! If you love the Get Lean Eat Clean Podcast, we’d love for you to subscribe, rate, and give a review on iTunes. Until next time!

0 (1s): Hello, and welcome to the get lean and eat clean podcast. My name is Brian grin. I'm a certified health coach, trainer and author. And this podcast is for middle-aged men and women looking to optimize their health and get their bodies back to what it once was 10 to 15 years ago. I will give you simple, actionable items to get long-term sustainable results. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. 1 (33s): All right, welcome to the get lean clean podcast. My name is Brian grin, and I hope you're having a great day happy Tuesday if you're listening to this on Tuesday, and I'm excited to talk to you about a topic that's maybe a bit controversial in the health and wellness arena. You have people that have differing opinions about it, and that's counting calories and sort of what, what is the best way to lose excess body fat? Now it's, I wouldn't say this is necessarily a black or white thing, you know, for me, counting calories has never been a part of my life or my clients. I don't, I don't really promote it. I promote eating nutrient dense foods that are satiating and they give you prolonged energy. 1 (1m 16s): Now, some people need to count calories, sort of as a accountability, a check and balance, just to make sure that they're on track calories do play a role, but a more prominent role would be insulin. I know we're going to discuss a little bit about insulin today and the role that it, that it has in helping you lose excess body fat, because that's what it's all about. Well, for most people, for a lot of people listening to this program. And so let's just take an example of two foods that have the equal caloric value. So same calorie, same calorie value on these two foods. 1 (1m 56s): One is a plate of lettuce and the other one is a sugar cookie. Now the metabolic of these foods are completely different yet they have the same caloric value. I mean, a sugar cookie is going to stimulate insulin, and it's not going to really have any effect on any satiety hormone. So it's not going to fill you up lettuce on the other hand is going to fill you up and it's not, and it's not going to really stimulate insulin that much. So that's just a small example, but, you know, while the calorie in calorie out equation does remain true. In some sense, there are numerous other variables that influence the end result in terms of body composition and notably whether your body burns or stores, these caloric energy that you adjust. 1 (2m 49s): So to understand weight loss, we need to understand what our body really cares about. And it's all about hormones, predominantly insulin. I mean, hormones run everything in our body and our body sort of gains and loses fat according to detailed hormonal instructions from our brain. So the rise and fall of insulin is the main stimulus to weight gain. You know, so foods that are, let's just say more fattening would be foods that are going to really stimulate insulin. Like in my example, the sugar cookie and you know, something like broccoli or a piece of lettuce, or, you know, even like if you're talking about breads, you can say the example between a ZTL bread and white bread, one's going to stimulate insulin a lot more than the other is in our body. 1 (3m 43s): You know, it pays attention to calories, but more importantly, you need to understand the language of insulin. If you really want to sort of understand weight loss and body fat percentage and insulin is our master hormone. It's Al it's its role as facilitating the transport of nutrients and hormones to target organs and storage teapots in the body. So a healthy level of insulin production allows the liver muscle and fat cells to repair regenerate and store energy for future use. So insulin has a lot of different roles. It has a beneficial effect on muscle growth regeneration and on the delivery of hormones to different organs in our body. 1 (4m 31s): So insulin's a major transport and storage hormone in the bloodstream. And so the function of many other hormones are affected by insulin. So like for example, chronically excessive insulin production can interfere with the optimal function of appetite, hormones, sleep hormones, thyroid hormones, sex hormones, and stress hormones. So a diet that promotes hyperinsulinemia, which is chronically high insulin levels promotes a vicious cycle of first of all, access calorie consumption, inhibited energy burning and excess energy storage, which we don't want when insulin production is chronically excessive. 1 (5m 16s): The body sort of locked in what's this like fat storage mode. Okay. And this is, this is when the dangerous condition of what's called insulin resistance can ensue. So you're probably asking, well, how do we lose that excess body fat? What does this all mean to me? And losing excess body fat involves having a certain portion of your daily energy requirements from your stored body fat, unless you're 4% body fat or below, we have plenty of stored body fat to use for energy. So a lot of that's becoming you hear, you hear a lot of people talk about becoming fat or keto adapted and becoming less reliant on ingested carbs and external sources of energy. 1 (6m 4s): You're always ingested in high levels of carbs. Your body is never going to be able to tap into your own stores for energy. Now, one way, one example would be, let's just say, you're eating breakfast or you're getting lunch and you have a bacon and eggs, right? So you have good fats and a little bit of protein in there as well. These are fat calories that can be used as energy. Now there's not going to be much insulin produced during this meal, which is good, right? And another way of doing that would be like skipping breakfast, right? This will compel the body to derive fat calories from your storage teapots as energy and skipping meals, right. 1 (6m 53s): Essentially is intermittent fasting, right? And then you've heard me talked about this before, in my opinion, it's the most powerful way to control insulin levels. And not only does it run a fast and help control insulin levels, but human growth hormone can also be increased. There are studies regarding that another benefit would be cell repair, right? The body it's sort of the self-cleaning, you hear it as a topic, the body deuces like the cell repair process and it removes waste material from your cells. So the bottom line is the most powerful way to control insulin levels is through eating whole foods that are satiating and nutrient dense. 1 (7m 37s): And that could be, for example, that could be a ribeye that could be a ribeye. And that could be if you're eating nose to tail, that's great as well. Maybe some Oregon, Oregon meats in there as well. And if you, if you, if salads don't bother you, you know, those aren't going to rise insulin, a piece of broccoli. Won't either, you know, some people don't agree with that. As far as like digestion is concerned. I, I just had a Dr. Judy Choi and, you know, she's pretty much plain meat-based, I'm not saying you have to be meat-based, but there's a lot of nutrients in meat. And if you do that and you combine that with intermittent fasting, you're going to see some really profound results. 1 (8m 24s): So the bottom line is when you fast, your insulin levels will fall. Your growth, human growth hormone can increase. And you're going to sort of start this process of cell repair, which, you know, if you think about it comparing to like taking your car in for a checkup and the wheels and the wheels balanced and, and things like that. So many other benefits, but those are just some of them. So bottom line is, you know, you can count calories, but it's not going to mean as much is unless you understand how foods impact your insulin levels. And one of the main ways to do that is to just eat nutrient dense whole foods and start intermittent fasting. 1 (9m 6s): So, anyways, I hope this helps gives you a little bit idea. Calories do matter, but minimally to the effect of how insulin is being produced in our body, by the foods that we're eating. So hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions, feel free to write a review. I would love it and enjoy the rest of your day. Hey, get lean equally nation. Are you a man between the ages of 40 and 60 years old looking to lose inches around your waist have significantly more energy throughout the day and gain muscle all while minimizing the risk of injuries? Well, I'm looking for three to five people to work one-on-one with in my fat burner blueprint signature program, which I've developed by utilizing my 15 years experience in the health and fitness space. 1 (9m 54s): This program is designed specifically for those committed, to making serious progress towards their health goals. Over the next six months, we will focus on sleep, stress, nutrition, meal, timing, and building lean muscle. If this sounds like a fit for you, email me@brianatbriangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. That's brian@briangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. 0 (10m 24s): Thanks for listening to the get lean eat clean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there, and you've chosen to listen to mine. And I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member who is looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.

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