What Really Causes Insulin Resistance?
Insulin resistance has become one of the biggest health problems of modern life. Millions of people likely experience it without even realising it, and it’s the root cause of many metabolic conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and heart disease.
What is insulin resistance?
Insulin is a hormone that helps move glucose from your bloodstream into your cells where it can be used for energy.
Insulin resistance isn’t a disease, rather it’s a protective cellular response. Your cells are smart. Their job is to thrive. And when there’s more glucose than what they need they’re going to ignore insulin and shut the door. Nothing else is coming in, which leaves all that glucose in your bloodstream, and that’s what leads to metabolic health conditions.
So you can see why fixing insulin resistance should be a top priority. That’s one reason we practice fasting, because giving the body longer breaks from eating can help lower insulin levels and improve metabolic health.
And we’re told that what we eat isn’t as important as when we eat. Right? But the truth is, what we eat still matters when it comes to insulin resistance.
Yes, fasting helps
Fasting can be effective because it gives insulin levels time to fall. Instead of eating from early morning to late at night, longer periods without food allow your body to switch from storing energy to burning energy you already have stored, in other words, fat.
It’s not just about meal timing
Meal timing is really only half the equation. What you eat when you do eat matters, too.
Some popular Fasting experts claim that you can eat whatever you want to eat during eating windows, as long as you get your fasting in. That might work for a while, but it also might catch up with you.
Modern diets are filled with ultra-processed carbohydrates that digest quickly and send blood sugar soaring. White bread, breakfast cereals, chips, candy, and most packaged snacks have been stripped of fibre and nutrients while becoming incredibly easy to overeat.
Your body responds by releasing large amounts of insulin over and over again. When this cycle repeats for years, it may contribute to insulin resistance and poor metabolic health. In other words, simply fasting while continuing to eat highly processed foods during eating windows might not be doing your body any favours.
The food industry’s role
Large food manufacturers have become extremely good at creating products that are inexpensive, convenient, and difficult to stop eating. Refined flour, sugar, seed oils, salt, and flavour enhancers are combined in just the right formula to keep customers coming back for more.
And what’s worse is the false propaganda claiming that fat and cholesterol are bad for you. Instead, they want you to eat their “low-fat” products that have replaced fat with sugar and seed oils. Make no mistake about it, it’s a money game, and the loser is the consumer, because replacing healthy fats and whole foods with ultra-processed products drives blood sugars up, makes insulin’s job harder, and creates metabolic disease over time.
Plus, when you eat those kinds of foods it makes it almost impossible to have a good fast without crazy cravings and hunger.
What should you do instead?
Focus as much as you can on whole foods. Meats, eggs, and low-carbohydrate vegetables. Choose berries, or fruits that are lower on the glycemic index.
Include some form of fasting in your daily life. You can do some Extended Fasts, with carefully planned refeeds in between, or find an Intermittent Fasting plan that works for you, such as 19/5 or OMAD (One Meal a Day). The important thing is to give your body regular breaks from eating.
Get in some physical activity every day. Even a gentle walk is perfect.
Stay hydrated, take your electrolytes, and get your sleep.
Final thoughts
Eating around the clock contributes to insulin resistance, but that’s only part of the picture. The foods you choose to eat matter just as much. Improving metabolic health isn’t just about eating less often, it’s also about eating smart.
