Too much of a good thing .

Here’s what happens: Over time, if your blood sugar levels remain consistently too high after meals, you can become what is called “insulin-resistant.” Just like you stop noticing a messy room after a while, your body begins to lose its ability to sense the insulin that your pancreas has released. The insulin in your bloodstream becomes like your nagging mother. It sends signals to “pick up your room,” but your body ignores those signals just like a teenager who tunes out his/her mom. Your body’s receptor sites for insulin are limited, so your cells can no longer “hear” the message that there is sugar in your bloodstream. As a result, the sugar can’t get into the cells and be converted into energy.

Does this mean that eating more than four grams of carbohydrates at a time is toxic? Of course not! Your body’s insulin response to the carbohydrates you eat depends largely on the types and amounts of carbs you eat, as well as the frequency with which you eat them. When you eat a lot of carbohydrates, your body needs to release a lot of insulin to bring your blood sugar back down to non-toxic levels. When you eat a lot of carbohydrates frequently, you release a lot of insulin on a consistent basis. All of these are normal responses, but it puts you in “storage” mode all the time. Here it is in a nutshell:

High blood sugar = high insulin response.

High insulin = storage mode.

Storage mode = not burning fat for fuel.

Know this: You can’t have your bread and burn fat, too! In order to access and release stored body fat for energy, you need to be in “releasing” mode, not “storage” mode.

glucagon is like a teenager: it wants to play with stuff

You can better understand “releasing” mode by learning about the hormone glucagon, which is also produced by your pancreas. Unlike insulin, glucagon is like a teenager who wants to use his/her stuff rather than put it away.

Insulin and glucagon are counter-regulatory hormones. While insulin’s job is to keep putting nutrients away, glucagon’s job is to pull nutrients from their storage sites in your body when they’re needed for fuel. When glucagon is the dominant hormone in your bloodstream, it can signal both glucose and fat to move from storage into your blood for use as fuel. When insulin is dominant, it’s impossible for glucagon’s actions to work. In other words, the dominant hormone dictates whether nutrients are stored or released for use. This is the difference between storage mode and release mode.

Glucagon dominance is what you want because it allows you to burn stored nutrients for fuel rather than store them away. How do you create glucagon dominance? You habitually eat a diet and live a lifestyle that promotes a strong glucagon response.

Glucagon promoter #1: Dense sources of protein. A dense source of protein is one that generally comes from an animal source and is not buried in insulin-demanding carbohydrates. Steak, for example, contains a large amount of protein and no carbohydrate at all. While protein does elicit some insulin response, the glucagon response is much stronger and allows glucagon to be dominant. By contrast, trying to get a glucagon response from beans doesn’t work because insulin responds to the dense carbohydrates in the beans, overpowering glucagon’s efforts. This is why many people who seek protein from strictly vegetarian sources have trouble losing body fat: They never release glucagon while eating carb-dense protein sources.

Glucagon promoter #2: Exercise. When you exercise, your body looks for available fuel sources to power your muscles. The very first, most easily accessible fuel comes directly from your bloodstream. You can’t perform work for very long on the four grams of sugar circulating in your bloodstream, especially if it has been a while since you’ve eaten and insulin has cleared those nutrients away. Glucagon then goes to work to raise your blood sugar levels and power you through. Glucagon also works with cortisol, your fight-or-flight hormone, to signal to your body, “Hey! Work’s happening here! Let’s deliver some fuel to where it’s needed!” This process goes smoothly and comfortably when your body is accustomed to burning fat for energy.

So does this mean that you should have a pre-workout snack? What if you’re used to eating a lot of carbohydrates, especially in small meals every few hours like so many nutritionists and TV doctors have told you to do? Well, that’s when insulin becomes the dominant hormone in your bloodstream all the time, and glucagon can’t do its job properly. Let’s say you’re hungry an hour before you plan to exercise, and you know that within another hour, you’ll be starving. That’s how fast the process happens when you’re burning sugar (carbs) as your primary fuel source. So in response to this hunger, you have a snack, right? Then you go to the gym, hoping to burn off body fat during your workout, but that doesn’t happen. The nutrients from that recent snack are still up for grabs in your body because they haven’t been pulled from your bloodstream into storage. The sugar that’s in your bloodstream from your snack will be used before anything that is stored away. In other words: Eating extra food too close to a workout means you’re burning off that food, not stored body fat. Rather than forcing your body to access what is stored, you’ve given it new fuel to use.

The problem is that your body burns fat as a secondary mechanism for energy, preferring carbs/sugar/glucose if they’re around since they’re easier and quicker to use. If glucose isn’t around, your body will burn fat for energy. Therefore, if your body is well adapted to burning fat for fuel, which is what happens when you stop eating too many carbs, you won’t feel the need for that pre-workout snack.

If losing body fat is your goal, becoming fat-adapted by eating more fats and proteins than carbohydrates will serve you well. Extra food before and after a workout is generally not a good idea for you. Remember: That extra food is what gets burned during your workout, not stored body fat. Extra food before and after a workout is a good idea only if you want to maintain your weight and muscle mass, not if you want to lose any weight.

How do you know if you’re primarily burning sugar or fat for fuel? Can you make it through a workout without a snack right beforehand if it has been a couple of hours since you’ve eaten? Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting you challenge yourself to avoid eating if you’re starving before a workout or feeling lightheaded, especially if you have passed out during a workout before. However, it is important to realize that you’re probably burning sugar for fuel, and your body is not releasing enough glucagon to allow you to access stored nutrients. You are a sugar-burner who will only feel balanced if you add more sugar to the tank … unless and until you become fat-adapted. To get out of this cycle, reduce your overall carb intake (using the chart see here as a guide) and allow your body to realize that it can and should use the fat you eat and the fat in your body’s reserves. Glucagon will send signals to help your body do just that, but it can’t do that job if insulin is always at work.

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Дата добавления: 2015-11-14