Read Online It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways by Melissa Hartwig, Dallas Hartwig - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Melissa Hartwig, Dallas Hartwig
Ads: Link
glucose in the blood. To make matters worse, cortisol also inhibits insulin secretion from the pancreas.
Translation?
Chronically elevated cortisol levels increase blood sugar levels, which may contribute to insulin resistance.
Elevated cortisol also contributes to weight gain by inducing stress-related overeating. (Remember this from the last chapter?) Cortisol stimulates the drive to eat supernormally stimulating, nutrient-poor, carbohydrate-dense foods, which may reduce your stress … but increases your girth.
Elevated cortisol levels preferentially direct body fat to the abdominal region (instead of, say, the buttocks or thighs). Excessive abdominal fat (also called central obesity ) is part of metabolic syndrome , a collection of highly correlated symptoms: obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance/hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, elevated triglycerides, and low HDL (“good”) cholesterol. Increased central obesity is also a direct risk factor for conditions like heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, and kidney disease.
Finally, as a weight-gain triple-whammy, elevated cortisol messes with normal thyroid function, leading to a metabolic slowdown that makes it that much easier for you to pack on the pounds.
So if you have an intimate relationship with food-with-no-brakes, and you’re leptin resistant, and you’re insulin resistant, and you’re chronically stressed …
Is it any wonder you can’t lose weight, even on your low-fat, calorie-restricted diet?
We think we can summarize our case right here:
It’s all about hormones.
In real life, these hormones ebb and flow in reaction to various external stimuli: eating, physical activity, sleeping, reacting to stressful situations, and other more subtle influences. There are not enough pages in this book to examine all those influences in detail, but since our book is called It Starts With Food , we are going to explore the effects of eating —the right stuff, the wrong stuff, not enough, and too much—by outlining a few real-life scenarios. These examples will show you why it’s vitally important that the foods you eat provoke a healthy hormonal response—and what can happen when they don’t.
Ready?
First, let’s talk about a prototypical good day.
HEALTHY HORMONES: A GOOD DAY
You are relatively lean and have a healthy diet and lifestyle, and good sleep habits. You don’t overconsume highly rewarding, nutrient-poor foods and your hormones are all in a good, healthy balance. For you, nearly every day is a good day.
Around 6 a.m., cortisol levels (which were very low throughout the night) rise dramatically, helping you wake up a half-hour later feeling like one of those “morning people.”
Thanks in part to appropriately low leptin levels, you also wake up hungry. By 7, you’re sitting down to a simple meal—three eggs scrambled with onion, peppers, and spinach, half an avocado, some fresh blueberries, and a cup of coffee.
There’s not a lot of carbohydrate in this meal, so your blood sugar rises modestly. Your pancreas secretes a proportional amount of insulin in response to the rise in blood sugar, which sends a gentle message to your liver and muscles to take up the circulating blood glucose and store it as glycogen. Because you exercise regularly, there’s some room in your glycogen “tanks,” and because you’re insulin sensitive, the glucose, amino acids, and fats are efficiently transported into cells to start doing their respective jobs.
Over the next few hours, your blood glucose gradually declines, which triggers your pancreas to secrete some glucagon. Glucagon tells your liver to release some glucose back into the blood, keeping your blood sugar in a normal, healthy range. This give-and-take balance is constantly monitored and adjusted, helping to keep your energy levels and mental focus consistent throughout the day.
Around noon, your declining blood sugar and rising “hunger hormones” remind you it’s time for
Translation?
Chronically elevated cortisol levels increase blood sugar levels, which may contribute to insulin resistance.
Elevated cortisol also contributes to weight gain by inducing stress-related overeating. (Remember this from the last chapter?) Cortisol stimulates the drive to eat supernormally stimulating, nutrient-poor, carbohydrate-dense foods, which may reduce your stress … but increases your girth.
Elevated cortisol levels preferentially direct body fat to the abdominal region (instead of, say, the buttocks or thighs). Excessive abdominal fat (also called central obesity ) is part of metabolic syndrome , a collection of highly correlated symptoms: obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance/hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, elevated triglycerides, and low HDL (“good”) cholesterol. Increased central obesity is also a direct risk factor for conditions like heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, and kidney disease.
Finally, as a weight-gain triple-whammy, elevated cortisol messes with normal thyroid function, leading to a metabolic slowdown that makes it that much easier for you to pack on the pounds.
So if you have an intimate relationship with food-with-no-brakes, and you’re leptin resistant, and you’re insulin resistant, and you’re chronically stressed …
Is it any wonder you can’t lose weight, even on your low-fat, calorie-restricted diet?
We think we can summarize our case right here:
It’s all about hormones.
In real life, these hormones ebb and flow in reaction to various external stimuli: eating, physical activity, sleeping, reacting to stressful situations, and other more subtle influences. There are not enough pages in this book to examine all those influences in detail, but since our book is called It Starts With Food , we are going to explore the effects of eating —the right stuff, the wrong stuff, not enough, and too much—by outlining a few real-life scenarios. These examples will show you why it’s vitally important that the foods you eat provoke a healthy hormonal response—and what can happen when they don’t.
Ready?
First, let’s talk about a prototypical good day.
HEALTHY HORMONES: A GOOD DAY
You are relatively lean and have a healthy diet and lifestyle, and good sleep habits. You don’t overconsume highly rewarding, nutrient-poor foods and your hormones are all in a good, healthy balance. For you, nearly every day is a good day.
Around 6 a.m., cortisol levels (which were very low throughout the night) rise dramatically, helping you wake up a half-hour later feeling like one of those “morning people.”
Thanks in part to appropriately low leptin levels, you also wake up hungry. By 7, you’re sitting down to a simple meal—three eggs scrambled with onion, peppers, and spinach, half an avocado, some fresh blueberries, and a cup of coffee.
There’s not a lot of carbohydrate in this meal, so your blood sugar rises modestly. Your pancreas secretes a proportional amount of insulin in response to the rise in blood sugar, which sends a gentle message to your liver and muscles to take up the circulating blood glucose and store it as glycogen. Because you exercise regularly, there’s some room in your glycogen “tanks,” and because you’re insulin sensitive, the glucose, amino acids, and fats are efficiently transported into cells to start doing their respective jobs.
Over the next few hours, your blood glucose gradually declines, which triggers your pancreas to secrete some glucagon. Glucagon tells your liver to release some glucose back into the blood, keeping your blood sugar in a normal, healthy range. This give-and-take balance is constantly monitored and adjusted, helping to keep your energy levels and mental focus consistent throughout the day.
Around noon, your declining blood sugar and rising “hunger hormones” remind you it’s time for
Similar Books
