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Change Your Thinking and Lose Weight
Are you a ‘look-and-lose’ dieter? Have you studied every diet ever created, read a zillion diet books, and yet are still unhappy with your weight? Has your quest for the holy grail of dieting become a substitute for actually making changes...
How To Choose Good Fats And Avoid Heart Disease
For years we heard that a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet would keep us healthy and help us lose weight. Many of us jumped on the bandwagon, eliminating fat and high-cholesterol foods from our diets.
Well, unfortunately, we were misinformed to...
Is Your Health Optimal?
Is Your Focus on Disease, or Wellness? Both Western and Chinese medicine could be accused of focusing too much on disease treatment, rather than wellness. Practitioners from both medicines are taught to be problem-solvers and disease-curers...
Penis-health Tips
Good penis-care will get you far greater, harder erection strength and stamina, as well as general sexual satisfaction. A healthy penis provides endless joy of a healthy sex life! Testosterone is a hormone that helps maintain sperm production, sex...
Soothing The Itch - Natural Remedies For Itchy Skin
Has your scalp or skin ever been uncomfortably itchy? Do you know someone who has an itchy scalp or itchy skin? Itching can cause extreme misery for the sufferer, however many causes of itchiness can be solved with simple remedies. There are many...
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Low-Carb: The Role of Insulin
There are three basic units the body uses for energy:
1. Fats
2. Proteins
3. Carbohydrates
All three can be converted to blood glucose. However, while fats and proteins are converted slowly, carbohydrates are converted quickly causing quick spikes in the body’s blood sugar levels. These spikes in blood sugar levels cause the pancreas to create and release insulin until the blood sugar level returns to normal.
Meanwhile, insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas that lowers our blood’s glucose levels is released into the blood as soon as the body detects that blood sugar levels have risen above its optimal level.
Insulin is a very efficient hormone that runs the body’s fuel storage systems. If there is excess sugar or fat in the blood insulin will signal the body to store it in the body’s fat cells. Insulin also tells these cells not to release their stored fat, making that fat unavailable for use by the body as energy.
Since this stored fat cannot be released for use as energy, insulin very effectively prevents weight loss. The higher the body’s insulin levels, the more effectively it prevents fat cells from releasing their stores, and the harder it becomes to lose weight. According to many authorities, over the long term, high insulin levels can lead to insulin resistance and cause serious
health problems like the ones listed below:
1. Raised insulin levels and insulin resistance
2. Lower metabolism leading to weight gain
3. An increase in fatty tissue and reduction in muscle tissue
4. Accelerated aging
5. Increased food allergies and intolerances
6. Overworked immune system
7. Increased risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and cancer
Carbohydrates, especially simple carbs like sugar and starch, are quickly turned into sucrose by the body entering the blood stream quicker thereby causing the release of large amounts of insulin. The fewer carbs are eaten, the less insulin is produced by the body, and the fewer calories are stored as fat. Less fat storage equals less weight gain and fewer carbs eaten equals less insulin in the blood and the body using its fat stores for fuel.
The premise behind every low-carb diet plan is that a body that produces less insulin burns more fat than a body that produces lots of insulin. Some plans encourage a period of extremely low carbohydrate intake so that the body will enter a state of ketosis and more quickly burn fat stores - These are usually called induction periods.
About the Author
Beverley Brooke, Editor of Health & Finesse - Free health, diet and fitness articles and weekly newsletter
http://www.healthandfinesse.com
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