How to Treat Insulin Resistance With Diet

Insulin resistance is also known as “prediabetes” because it is what causes type 2 diabetes. It’s at epidemic proportions in the USA, with almost four out of ten adults between the ages of 18-44 having this condition. Many people either don’t have symptoms or don’t recognize the symptoms, just thinking the symptoms they experience are because they turned a certain age.

The good news is that insulin resistance is a highly treatable condition, especially since it’s not only a precursor for diabetes but also for potentially fatal cardiovascular illnesses like heart disease and strokes. This article will equip you with the basics of how to address this condition through diet.

What Is Insulin?

Your body can produce energy from all three macronutrients: fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Proteins are used mostly to rebuild tissues or create new ones, but they can also be used for energy in the form of amino acids. Fats break down into fatty acids, which are then either stored, burned for fuel, or converted into ketone bodies for fuel.

Fats and proteins do not promote insulin resistance; only carbohydrates do. Since the average person consumes about 50-60% of their fuel as carbohydrates, it might be easy to see why so many people have insulin resistance.

Carbohydrates are broken down in your body to form glucose, which is a simple sugar. Whether it’s a bowl of pasta, a piece of bread, or an apple, it all becomes glucose in the end. Your body can’t just leave this glucose in the bloodstream, so it starts to store it.

When you eat carbohydrates, your pancreas must produce insulin, which makes the sugar go into your cells or into your liver to be stored. The extra is stored as body fat. The term “insulin sensitivity” means how well your body’s cells respond to insulin.

Over time and with too many carbohydrates, the body’s cells are exposed to so much insulin that they stop responding to it sufficiently to reduce the blood sugar level. The growth of fat cells, which store the extra fuel, also contributes to a reduction in insulin response. The result is insulin resistance; it now takes more and more insulin to store the sugars.

Signs of Insulin Resistance

Warning signs of developing insulin resistance can include:

• Sugar and carbohydrate cravings
• Acne
• Enlarged abdomen (visceral fat, the least healthy kind)
• Skin tags
• Trouble concentrating
• Anxiety and moodiness
• Waist to height ratio greater than about .5

Diet

Since carbohydrates are what drive insulin levels, cutting out most of your carbohydrates is one of the simplest steps. Start with the sweetest items, because simple sugars have a more abrupt effect on insulin than do complex carbs.

Your Revero plan involves reducing your net carbs (not total) to 30 grams per day. This will help improve your insulin response. Nuts, cheese, and some low-glycemic index fruits like blueberries, are available for snacks.

Adopting a low-carb diet by replacing insulin-spiking carbohydrates with highly nutritious protein-rich and fatty animal foods helps treat insulin sensitivity.

Protein and saturated fats also help by increasing satiety and fullness, which reduces overeating or carb cravings.

Reducing Inflammation

Your Revero nutrition therapy requires the elimination of grains, sweets, and processed foods. This change alone can go a long way toward reducing your systemic inflammation. When the body is inflamed, cells don’t respond to insulin effectively, and this is a factor that contributes to insulin resistance.

Inflamed fat cells also participate in the hormonal conversation that determines appetite and satiety. When your fat cells are inflamed, they promote more appetite by suppressing the hormone leptin, which is the hormone that ends appetite and provides satiety. Inflamed fat cells will instead stimulate more ghrelin, which, you guessed it, promotes appetite.

Lifestyle

Sleep is when our body and mind go through a period of restoration and repair to prepare us for the day. Regardless of the quality of your sleep, your blood sugar levels increase throughout the day and night as part of our natural human circadian rhythm cycle.

Science has shown that just one night of interrupted sleep can decrease insulin sensitivity since the disruption impairs the fat cells' ability to respond to insulin. Even in healthy individuals, poor sleep can increase the risk of developing insulin resistance. This is why it’s important to get 7-9 hours of sleep each night in a completely dark, cool room.