Understanding insulin resistance, why and how it happened and then moving forward towards regaining your oxygen for life.
This is an important topic for all, not just for people living with diabetes. It is taught as an early lesson because if we can assist our body to utilise its energy sources effectively then we are well and truly on our way to regaining our oxygen for life.
After suffering from insulin resistance for years without knowing, this is a subject close to my heart. As our bodies all have incredible memories, it is a relatively simple thing for us to slip back into. Regardless of whether or not you believe this to be applicable to you right now, understanding insulin resistance and applying the principles will allow you to understand others and ensure you don’t fall into the trap yourself.
What is insulin resistance?
Insulin is a hormone made by our pancreas. It assists the glucose (sugar) in our blood to turn into usable energy by entering the cells throughout our body. The amount of glucose in our bloodstream rises after eating a meal or a snack. The pancreas responds to this by releasing insulin into the bloodstream to help the glucose get to the required cells. This balances the sugar levels in our bloodstream to a more normal range. Insulin resistance happens when the body doesn’t respond well to the insulin, resulting in the glucose being less able to enter the cells. Because the glucose is struggling to enter the cells, the pancreas pumps out more insulin to help, however, this doesn’t make the glucose entering the cells any easier. The overall result being a rise in blood sugar levels.
If no lifestyle action is taken to slow or stop this, the abnormal glucose levels will continue to rise higher and higher, progressing the disease we know as diabetes. Abnormally high levels of glucose associated with diabetes has the potential to damage blood vessels and endanger organs.
Insulin resistance isn’t only related to diabetes. It has also been linked to high risks of cancer and heart disease, high blood pressure, weight gain, high cholesterol, inflammation, altered liver function and perhaps even dementia. An insulin resistance result in prediabetics or other health conditions could take years as it is a slow process. This means we have the ability to slow down or even reverse insulin resistance.
Our body decides through its own reasons what it considers to be a stressor (emotional, disease, vaccination, divorce, obesity, anorexia, exercise, abuse, sedentary lifestyle etc) and when it needs to save us. The intrinsic mechanisms involved in this process within us, decides when to save our energy for us. With this viewpoint, you can see insulin resistance being ‘switched on’ like a light bulb. Meaning it needs to be ‘switched off’ too. If the switch is on it means the liver produces too much insulin, signalling to the blood to save all the glucose for later. The glucose from our foods (mainly carbohydrates) is then carried through the blood into the liver. The liver has been signalled to store energy to save us – so it does by putting all the glucose into our fat storage. For most people this is in the upper abdominal area. If you are expending more energy than the fat stored daily, you may not notice the weight gain, however, this does not mean you are not still insulin resistant. Craving carbohydrates is a common symptom as you feel depleted of energy, your organs also become starved of energy.
When we bring ourselves back to being sensitive to insulin, the liver does not produce an abundance of insulin and therefore when glucose arrives in the liver, it uses it for energy easily. This energy is sent to the organs meaning they are no longer starved and have regained their oxygen for life.
If you are interested in learning more, diving in further into insulin resistance and finding out how you can best support yourself, your body and your overall health, Charmaine D has the answers for you. Her newly created online program is a five part program, covering topics of the utmost importance for us to be living our best lives at our healthiest. The second week of this online program is centred solely around insulin resistance. Here you will receive an in-depth video by Charmaine herself, and a written summary with all you need to know about insulin and the tools to implement essential changes into your life. Following this you will be provided with a questionnaire to fill out to help you better understand what you may be going through. This questionnaire will also assist Charmaine in understanding your past, patterns of behaviour and where things might have gone wrong for you in your health journey. You are then eligible for a virtual consultation with Charmaine to discuss your direction and options moving forward.
For more information on this online program, contact us and we’ll let you know all the details, or book in for a free 30 minute consultation.
Charmaine D is here for you and is committed to helping you move through your ailments and forward into the rest of your life.
Book in and see how she can help you!