Insulin Resistance - Why some people gain weight more quickly than others

Weight loss is both physical and psychological. While the psychological aspects are extremely significant, there are very important physical aspects that many of us may not think about. Understanding the physiological processes in our body can help us to understand how food really affects our body and our body's ability to lose fat.

The complex relationship between food, blood sugar, insulin and fat in our body is important to be aware of. Insulin helps the body transform food into energy. It helps to regulate blood sugar levels. It also helps to store fat.

Carbohydrates include all sugars and honey, all fruits, and all starchy foods like bread, cereals, pasta, grains, rice, potatoes, and corn. All carbohydrates are broken down during digestion into sugars. Glucose is the simplest sugar and the one that your body can use for energy.

The hormone insulin is the important regulator of your blood glucose levels. After you eat, digest, and absorb carbohydrate foods, your blood glucose (blood sugar) level normally rises. The pancreas responds by releasing insulin, which then transports glucose into your body cells where it can be used as energy.

If you have more glucose in your body than your cells need, insulin takes the extra blood glucose and transports it into fat storage. Blood sugar then returns to normal. This is an important step because having abnormally high levels of blood glucose is called diabetes which is damaging to the body.

So, insulin's main job is to regulate blood glucose.

People have different baseline levels of insulin because of individual genetic makeup. That is, some people just have normally higher levels of insulin than others. People with this condition overreact to carbohydrates with higher-than-normal insulin spikes, so fat storing occurs faster for them. The medical name for this overly high insulin state is called hyperinsulinemia. The more common name for this condition is insulin resistance.
The more overweight you are, the more resistant to insulin you tend to become. This happens because extra adipose tissue (fat) causes a hormone reaction (a rise in body resistin & cortisol) that closes the cells' doors to incoming glucose. The "shunned” glucose has no alternative but to go on to become fat. The good news is that as you lose body fat, the insulin resistance improves, too.

While the above information may seem quite scientific, it's important to understand exactly how different types of foods affect our body. Knowing this, weight loss becomes much more than simply restricting calories – it's getting a balance of the right types of foods to promote fat loss and prevent fat storage. We can push against insulin resistance by limiting high-carbohydrate foods and increasing our intake of protein & good fat – these foods prevent insulin spikes and thus prevent fat storage.

Adapted from: The Insulin-Resistance Diet By: Cheryle R. Hart, M.D. & Mary Kay Grossman, R.D.