Losing Weight #7

Food Sensitivities and Dietary Adjustments

I have a condition called Insulin Resistance. No, it is not Pre-Diabetes. While Insulin is involved in the disease of Diabetes, Insulin Resistance is a completely separate issue. It isn't caused by being overweight, but it does contribute to being overweight. All it means is that my cells don't respond to insulin and sugar the way they are supposed to.

To combat this, I have to be careful about how much a food impacts my blood sugar. There are a lot of different dietary problems like this that can impact your weight. Many of them go unnoticed until an unrelated problem arises. For example, did you know that certain sensitivities can cause Excema, Psoriasis, or Hormone Imbalances? It seems common sense to cut out the foods that have a negative impact on your body, right?

I found out about the insulin resistance when I was trying to get pregnant, and struggling. I knew I was overweight. I was bigger than "Fat Monica" on friends. I weighed 280 at my Dr's office, and cried because I wasn't eating bad food. I was doing like they told us, grains, lean meats, salads, lots of fruit, etc. I don't deny that I probably ate portions that were too big. But, when I worked to keep my calories down, and my exercise up, it had almost no impact. My mom and I were going to the gym and lifting, playing tennis, running on the track, taking yoga classes, and doing circuits. I still wasn't losing the weight. I learned so much about my body in the years that followed. This "sensitivity", if you will, impacted my hormones to such a degree that it made it almost impossible for my body to get pregnant.

I was told to start KETO. I did loads of reading and got a bunch of cook books. Keto isn't just low carb, it's high fat. It's designed to train your body to use fat, almost exclusively, for energy. This definitely works for some people. It stopped working for me. I lost 20lbs right at first, and then it just stopped coming off. Looking back, I think it had more to do with the complexity of the food I was choosing than anything else. I don't think it was that KETO didn't work, but that I had too much sauce and different ingredients. Well, you all know I'm now on PALEO.

I have pushed certain foods out of my diet. My GP told me when I started KETO to check a food's Glycemic Index. This is a really fancy word to say Blood Sugar Impact. We have probably all heard about blood sugar. It's the amount of sugar in your blood, right? Well, they've put a number on every food to tell us how much each food raises our blood sugar. Candy, for example realy raises your blood sugar. He told me to only eat food with a LOW Glycemic Index (55 and under). This takes out ALL of the typical grains, most fruits, and some vegetables. I have been paying very close attention to this. I recently had a blood test that showed completely normal glucose and insulin levels!!! I'm not cured. I will always have to be conscious of my food intake, but I am not currently showing any signs of Insulin Resistance.