Insulin resistance is a condition I’m very familiar with because it’s a battle I fight every day. Insulin resistance is where the body produces insulin, but it doesn’t use it properly. Your body will break down the food you eat, into glucose, which is then moved through the bloodstream to the hungry cells. Insulin is the hormone that is produced to help the body’s cells use that glucose (sugar) for energy.

credit: gabrielsaldana

When you eat, the glucose (blood sugar) rises and the body produces insulin to handle it. That insulin does two things.

• Allows the glucose to go through the cell walls and be used by the cells.
• Tells your body to store the excess glucose, not needed at that moment, as fat.
  When you become insulin resistant, your body gets the second message – to store fat – but malfunctions and doesn’t use the glucose to feed the cells. So your cells are screaming they are hungry, while your glucose levels continue to go up and up and your body produces more insulin which tells your body to store fat.

Insulin Resistance Symptoms Are

• Obesity around the waist (central or abdominal obesity)
• Type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Abnormal cholesterol levels
• Heart disease

And you don’t necessarily have to have all of them. For me, my cholesterol levels were fine, but my blood pressure was high. The obesity around the waist was an obvious problem ☺ and even though my doctor had never mentioned diabetes, I knew that if I were to grabbed a handful of chocolate kisses and ate them I had all the symptoms of diabetes (excess thirst, weakness, fatigue, and if I had a big enough handful of those kisses, even blurry vision).

Insulin Resistance Treatment

So the treatment of Insulin Resistance is fairly obvious. You want to lower your blood sugar, and thus your insulin levels. You don’t want to take insulin (like type 1 diabetics) because your body already has too much.

You want to reduce your carbohydrate intake and then gradually your insulin level will go down. Unfortunately, your insulin levels go down more slowly than your blood sugar so in the beginning you may have some pretty intense food cravings. But this too will pass. This is one of those times where you just have to grin and bear it.

Insulin Resistance Diet Plan

Here are 5 simple things you can change in your diet that, coupled with exercise*, will help you turn your diet plan into an insulin resistance diet plan and reverse your insulin resistance.

• Add Healthy Oils
• Get Adequate protein
• Eat Often
• Get Plenty of Fiber
• Lower Your Carbohydrate Intake

Good Healthy Oil

So, why is it so important to get “good oil” and for that matter what would be considered good? Good oil is oil high in omega-3 content. You get good omega-3 from certain fatty fish and flax among other places. And why is this important? Good fat in the diet is essential because the cell membranes are made up of these oils and the higher the quality of oil the less likely it is your cells will become or remain resistant to insulin.

There are a lot of advantages to getting enough omega-3. Oddly enough getting adequate omega-3 will not only make your cell walls more permeable by insulin it also makes those walls stronger and more resistant to damage.

Get Plenty of Protein

Protein is one of the essential components of the human body. In fact over 15% of our total body weight is protein. Our muscles, hair, and skin are mostly made of protein. Even our hormones, neurotransmitter, and even our digestive juices are at least partially made up of protein. So it stands to reason our body needs an adequate supply.

But how much is enough? Well that’s easy enough to figure. Just multiply your weight in pounds by .3 (in kilograms by .65) and you’ll get the total grams you need to consume each day. If you consume less, your body will start breaking down your muscles to use their protein as needed (not good).

Keep Blood Sugars At A Healthy Level By Eating Often

You’ve probably heard it before; eat smaller meals every 2 to 3 hours. This sounds difficult and the temptation is to eat twice as much food. But there really is good reason for this advice. Let’s start by determining the best way of doing this and then we’ll discuss why. You don’t want to eat more than you did before; you just want to eat more often.

By determining what you want to eat at a meal in advance, you can simply eat half and then eat the other half a few hours later. In this way you haven’t increased the amount you eat, you’ve simply spread it out. So if you were going to have a bagel (not a really good choice I might add, but an easy example to use ☺ ) you would eat half at breakfast and the other half for a snack 2 to 3 hours later.

By doing so, you have reduced the spike in your blood sugar. By the time you eat the other half, your blood sugar will have dropped again. You get the same amount of food without the huge spikes in blood sugar and insulin. This is very important. It is the large spikes in blood sugar that fuel our cravings for more carbohydrates later in the day and perpetuate our insulin resistance.

Remember, when you are insulin resistant no matter how many carbohydrates you eat, your body is going to produce more insulin than it needs. So 2 or 3 hours after you eat, you’re still going to have too much insulin in your system and you’ll be suffering from food cravings. If you ate the whole bagel, you’re going to be hungry and want to find something more to eat. If you only ate half, you may be hungry, but you’ll still have that other half to eat.

Fill Up On Fiber

Eating foods high in fiber fills you up and slows down your body’s absorption of the carbohydrates you have eaten. If you fill up on fiber you will eat less (because you feel full) and that is always a good thing for lowering your blood sugar. And because the fiber slows the rate your body absorbs carbohydrates, you will keep your blood sugar from spiking . . . which lowers your insulin level, which keeps you from having food cravings.

You can get your fiber naturally in your food by eating complex carbohydrate – such as vegetables and fruits, or you can supplement your fiber intake by taken psyllium (think Metamucil or Citrucel, etc.) Follow the link to a list of food fiber and calorie content. You should try to get 30 grams of fiber each day.

I shoot for 10 grams of fiber with breakfast, lunch, and supper. If a particular meal is less than 10 grams, I’ll take enough Metamucil to bring it up to 10 grams about 30 minutes before the meal. (That also keeps me from being so hungry when I sit down to eat so I eat less.)

Lower Your Carbohydrate Intake

Now up until this point the things you have been asked to do have been fairly simple. Most of them involve eating more food. More food is fun. But this last one is a bit of a doozy. Lowering your carbohydrate intake is hard. But if you have followed all the previous suggestion you’ll find it is not as difficult as you might think.

The easiest way to start is to simply cut your carbohydrate intake in half. If you’re going to have a sandwich, eat it open face (with only one slice of bread ☺). If you were planning to have a baked potato, only eat half. In this way you can still eat the foods you like, but without having the blood sugar spike you would normally have.

Another way to keep these carbohydrates from wreaking havoc with you system would be to find the highest fiber version available. For instance, eat all the potato skin from baked potato (the skin has the most fiber & vitamins) but carve out most of the inside which is not as nutritional. If you are going to have a piece of bread, make sure the bread has 5 grams of fiber per slice. (You may have to read quite a few labels to find bread with the highest fiber count.)

Cutting your carbohydrate intake is hard at first, but after the first few days and weeks it gets easier because as your blood sugar goes down and your insulin levels go down you stop craving food. Once you get your levels down you’ll find this is one of the easiest diet plans you’ve ever tried.

By following these 5 suggestions, along with at least 30 minutes of exercise 5-7 days a week, you should be able to positively impact your blood sugar levels and with consistent improvement you could completely reverse your insulin resistance condition.

Sample Insulin Resistance Diet Menu

Start today. Don’t wait. Here is a sample menu you can use to get started. But remember, if you are insulin resistant it will take a couple of weeks (or even up to a month) before your insulin level begins to stabilize. The first 3 days are the absolute worst, but by the time you reach your tenth day you will see this is not only doable, it gets easier with every passing day. By the time you pass the 2 week mark you may find yourself saying this is the easiest diet you’ve ever been on.

Breakfast (the most important meal of the day)

Getting enough protein at breakfast isn’t too difficult. I either have bacon and eggs or a protein shake. If you’ve been used to having cereal for breakfast this will be quite a change. I’ve shopped quite a bit and as of September of 2011 I have yet to find a low carb cereal to eat. There are a lot of them that say they are low carb, but either their idea of low carb and mine are much different or they are just big fat liars ☺ ).

Bacon and eggs are easy. I either boil or scramble my egg and then I use precooked bacon I buy at Sam’s and keep in the freezer. Because this meal is low in fiber I usually supplement with Metamucil before breakfast.

If I don’t eat eggs, I have a protein shake instead. I only use whey protein – (soy protein is not only more difficult for your body to absorb, it is lower in protein, and soy will slow down your metabolism. Most insulin resistant people don’t want their metabolism any slower). You’ll want to experiment to find a shake you like. I usually mix 4ozs of skim milk and 4 ozs ice water with a handful of berries for flavor. I also mix my psyllium husk in with my shake to thicken so that takes care of my fiber.

Lunch

There are lots of choices for lunch. You can have a sandwich, but you need to have it open face (or a bend over) using only one slice of 5 gram fiber bread. You can also use low carb high fiber wraps. READ THE LABELS! Fiber One has a great wrap that has 9 grams of fiber and only 3 grams of carbohydrates. You can have a whole wrap. Fill with the protein you need each meal and top with some at least 1 gram of fibers worth of veggies and you have a great meal.

You can also have a Cobb Salad. I love Cobb salads. Almost every restaurant anywhere serves their version of these salads and so you never really have an excuse to eat poorly. Do be careful of sweet salad dressings with lots of sugar and leave the crackers alone. A good Cobb salad will have all the protein and fiber you need for your meal.

Cottage cheese and tomatoes or some other vegetable is a great lunch. A little over a half a cup of cottage cheese will meet your protein requirement and your vegetable and fiber supplement will provide adequate fiber.

You can also have soup or chili. We love chili and I usually make huge batches of chili and freeze the extra. It’s not difficult to freeze small single serving portions to carry to work. And I usually keep several low carb soups on hand for quick lunches or suppers. See below for some great insulin resistance diet recipes.

Supper

Once again a Cobb Salad is always a great choice. They a good when you eat out but are also quite easy to make so you can toss one together fairly easy.

As mentioned above soup and chili are favorites at our house for dinner. During the colder weather sitting down to a bowl of chili or soup is very comforting.

Every meal plan for supper at our house begins with the choice of protein. Lean chicken, pork, fish, or on occasion beef has certain side dishes that go well. Lean pork with coleslaw and ranch style beans are a great combination and low in carbs. Chicken, a salad, and seasoned black beans go well together. Experiment and decide what you like best.

(Helpful Hint: One healthy thing you should do whether you are insulin resistant or not is to give yourself a last bite deadline every day. Your body needs at least 12 hours every day when you are not eating anything. Your body needs this to complete the digestion process. So if you normally eat breakfast at 7AM, you should make sure you don’t eat anything after 7Pm the night before. This gives your body a full 12 hours to process the food from the day before, and truly makes breakfast a “break-fast”.)

Insulin Resistance Diet Recipes

I’m not a great gourmet chefs that go into the kitchen and whip up these ridiculously difficult meals presented beautifully on the plate. I just make plain ole food for plain ole folks who value how good the food tastes and not how highbrow the recipe or ingredients. With that said here are a few of our favorite recipes:

German Salad Dressing

• ¼ cup Balsamic Vinegar
• ½ cup Olive Oil
• 1 Tbls Honey Mustard
• ½ cup Water
• ½ Tbls Crushed Garlic
• ½ tsp Minced Tarragon
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Put all ingredients in a seal-able bottle and mix well.

Favorite Meatloaf

• 1 ½ lb. Ground Beef
• 1 cup Cracker Crumbs (approximately 20 crackers)
• 2 Beaten Eggs
• 1 (8oz.)can seasoned tomato sauce
• ½ to 1 cup Finely Chopped Onions
• ¾ tsp. Salt

Combine all ingredients; mix well. Shape mixture in a loaf in a shallow baking dish. Bake about 1 hour at 350º. Makes 6-8 servings.

Favorite Spicy Chili

• 1 Box Carroll Shelby’s Chili Spices
• 2 pounds Very Lean Ground Beef or Ground Turkey
• 2 cans Del Monte Diced Tomatoes with Zesty Mild Green Chiles
• 1 can Rotel Tomatoes
• 1 8oz can of Tomato Sauce

Brown the meat and drain the fat. Dump in the spices from the Carroll Shelby Chili Spice package, throw out the maze flour and save the salt to be used elsewhere. Add in tomatoes and sauce and simmer for at least a half hour and serve hot. (We like a little grated cheddar cheese as garnish.)

Hamburger Soup

• 2 cans Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic and Oregano
• 1 lb Ground Beef or Turkey
• 2 cans of Tomato Sauce
• 16 oz Beef or Chicken Broth
• 1 Chopped Onion
• 1 package Chopped Frozen Spinach
• 1 can Cut Green Beans - drained
• 1 Garlic Cloves - minced
• 1 Green Pepper - chopped (you can half this if you'd like)
• 1 Celery Stalk - chopped
• 1 Bay Leaf
• 1 Tbls Chopped Parsley
• ¼ tsp Italian Spices
• ½ tsp Pepper
• 1 tsp Salt

Brown meat, drain the fat and then dump all ingredients in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour.

There are a number of things you can do to lose weight that will lower your weight without lowering your bank balance or compromising your health.

For any of us who need to lose weight, we know we didn't gain the weight overnight and we won't lose it overnight either. It will take time. And we can't keep eating the same things we've been eating or we'll keep weighing what we weigh. Right?

So here are a few weight loss home remedies:

1. Drink a cup of Warm water and juice from one half lemon every morning as soon as you get up. Not only will this help curb your appetite, is will help reduce allergies, and will improve digestion.
2. Reduce your carbohydrate intake. I call it the no white diet. Avoid anything that is white, ie. Rice, potatoes, flour, sugar and milk and dairy products. By simply avoiding things that are white you are able to reduce your carbohydrate intake and lose weight.
3. Fill your diet with negative calorie foods. A negative calorie food is any food you eat that burns more calories to digest than you take in when you eat them. An example would be broccoli, which contains fewer calories than your body burns as it digests it. And while technically there are no negative calorie foods, you would be hard pressed to not lose weight eating these foods exclusively. Click the link for a list of negative calorie foods.
4. Do not eat any food after 7PM. Your body needs approximately 12 hours to complete a full digestive cycle. If you don't allow your body this time to digest you will develop acid reflux, a potentially serious condition as well as annoying, and will pack on the pounds. As you age, your body completes this cycle more slowly. So the older you are the more necessary completing this cycle becomes.
5. Jump start your diet with a reduced carbohydrate and reduced fat diet. One of my favorite diet 'beginnings' is The 3 Day Diet. This diet must be followed very carefully and is rather strict, but is easy and doesn't require any sort of special equipment or difficult calculating. (In other words, the diet plan is free
6. Eat a diet of at least 35 grams of fiber every day. The idea behind this diet is that if you fill up on fiber, you won't feel hungry (and so wont fill up on empty calories) and because fibrous foods expand once eaten because the fiber absorbs liquid, you will feel fuller than you would if you had just eaten the same amount of food or calories but without the fiber. (Having a chart of both high fiber foods and a food fiber and calorie chart will be helpful on this diet.)
7. And last but not least, drink 10 8oz glasses of water each day. If drinking 10 glasses of water seems a daunting task, you can always drink 8 10oz glasses of water

Any one of the above seven remedies will help you shed those excess pounds. However for an unstoppable plan of attack, as much as you are able, combine all seven of these ideas. And for more quick and easy ideas to help you drop the weight, sign up for the 'Top 10 Diet Guide' and receive '33 Simple Things You Can Do To Lose Weight!' in the upper right hand corner of this page.

Thousands of women suffer every year wondering why they are unable to conceive when the problem is not in their reproductive organs but in their diet.

Did you further know it was also one of the leading causes of infertility in men?

If you are trying to conceive, particularly if you are over the age of 40, insulin resistance may play a part in your problem. Modifying what you eat and the vitamin and mineral supplements you take each day could solve your infertility problems without resorting to expensive procedures, harmful and expensive drugs, and before having to wait years to be diagnosed.

To learn more about insulin resistance and fertility, visit the Infertility Treatment Blog.

The results, after two years were that people in both groups lost the same amount of weight.

(But now read the really interesting part.)

The group on the low-carb diet enjoyed a significant decrease in blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides and had an increased in HDL (good cholesterol) of more than 20%.  And this is not the first study of this type.  In 2003, an almost identical study was performed and the results then were equally impressive and very much the same.

In the Temple study, participants on the diet low in carbohydrates were limited only as to their consumption of carbohydrates. There were no restrictions on the type of protein they ate or the amount of animal fat they consumed. They could eat all the animal fats they wanted.

So the real question is, would you rather lose weight and improve your health or simply lose weight?

For a diet low in carbohydrates that will fit your lifestyle take a look at these plans:  the G.I. Diet (Glycemic Index Diet), The Diet Solution, the Idiot Proof Diet, South Beach Diet, The Mediterranean Diet and the Zone Diet.

Excess Cortisol May Be the Underlying Cause

Cortisol is your body's stress hormone.  The more stress your body is under the higher your cortisol levels will go.  Often you can tell by looking at a person just how high their cortisol level is.  People with high cortisol levels will typically have significant belly fat, and often have a puffy face, hands and feet or thinning hair.

When your cortisol levels are high your body keeps sugar (energy) circulating in the blood so just in case you need a sudden burst of energy it will be there ready to be use.  (That's part of the fight or flight in a human's makeup.)  It does this by making your cells less able to absorb insulin.

The problem is, when the cells become less able to absorb insulin they often have trouble absorbing T3 thyroid, as well as a whole host of other things.  When your cortisol level goes up, you begin to suffer from insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes) and often have the symptoms of hypothyroidism – even though your thyroid levels are within the normal range.

How to Naturally Lower Your Cortisol and Raise Your Thyroid Levels

There are a number of things you can do to lower your cortisol levels, optimize and balance your thyroid production, and increase your cells' ability to absorb:

If you care about how you look – at all – you don’t want a fat belly. Though often no matter how much you diet there it is. You may lose weight in your arms and legs, but your belly is right out there in front, begging to be seen. What are you doing wrong? Why can’t you seem to lose that belly?

Well, insulin resistance and cortisol may be giving you a fat belly you don't really want. The reason for this visceral or belly fat, may be cortisol. The more elevate the cortisol levels, the bigger the belly. That’s because high levels of cortisol stimulate the storage of fat around the belly and abdomen.

And while there are a number of reasons your cortisol levels may be high, one of the biggest is insulin. It seems cortisol and insulin are fast friends. The more insulin you have in your bloodstream, the more cortisol you have. As your insulin goes up, so does your cortisol.

OK, So What is Insulin Resistance Anyway?

Insulin resistance is where your body has produced adequate amounts of insulin to handle the foods you eat, but is unable to absorb the insulin into cells in order to use sugar (carbohydrates) as fuel.

It's a rather dastardly problem.  You have all this muscle fuel available, but rather than using that fuel, it continues circulating around your body in your bloodstream - doing damage to your arteries - while your muscles must now cannibalize themselves to keep going.

You see, the cortisol, has prevented your body from absorbing the insulin, and instead is breaking down the muscle protein into amino acids which can be converted into glucose (fuel) by the liver.  You are now left with less fat burning muscle, and more cortisol that gives you a fat belly.

So, What Can You Do To Reduce That Fat Belly?

• Make sure you avoid and include all the items listed in the article Insulin Resistance And The Cortisol Connection.
• Begin supplementing your diet with at least an extra 1000 mg ascorbic acid vitamin C and 1 Tablespoon of a Omega 3 Fatty Acid like Carlson's Cod Liver Oil.  The ascorbic acid should be taken 500 mg at a time, 2 to 3 times daily.
• Overall dietary carbohydrate reduction.

For the best deal and $5 off your 1st order of vitamin C and Carlson's Cod Liver Oil, follow the link to iHerb.com.

Related Posts Insulin Resistance And The Cortisol Connection Thyroid and Weight Gain Get Rid Of Belly Fat And Get Rid Of Love Handles Which Is The Healthiest Diet To Follow

OK, first I'm going to admit this is a rather subjective issue. The Caffeine Free Drinks I think tastes best may not be the one you think tastes best but . . . We're gonna give it a go anyway. I actually like the taste of water myself.

But first lets look at some reason why you'd want to give up caffeine in the first place. There are a lot of reasons to give up caffeine. The original question that had me thinking about giving up caffeine was from a young woman who had recently found out she was pregnant.

Most doctors recommend you do away with caffeine while you're pregnant for the safety of your unborn child. One of the reasons is because caffeine crosses the placenta to your baby. So when you have caffeine, your baby has caffeine.

But that caffeine we love so much is a stimulant - it increases blood pressure and heart rate. It also works as a diuretic, increasing the frequency of urination and dehydrating the body. So for starters, if you're drinking soda because you're thirsty, you're going to get even more thirsty - rather than less.

Notice how all the diets you find tell you to give up caffeine? Your body needs fluid to burn that fat and to remove the toxins you build up when you burn the fat. If you are dehydrated, you can't lose weight very well.

But sometimes you just want a soda. Sometimes you just need something that makes you feel like you're not completely deprived of all the things you once loved. So which one tastes best?

My first choice would be a soda that never had caffeine in it in the first place. Like a Sprite or 7-Up. I like Fresca, which is a diet drink so it would be unsuitable for anyone who is pregnant, but these drinks all taste good for the very occasional soda. Sparkling (carbonated) flavored water is also a great choice. The brand La Croix is a favorite of many - and there are a ton of flavors.

Both Coke and Pepsi have caffeine free choices, though I'll have to admit without the caffeine these two giants lose their punch. To me, I'd rather have water than either of these. But that's just my opinion. There may be others out there who love these two as caffeine free.

There are also caffeine free Root Beers. Many have said these are quite good and if you like Root Beer, this might be an option as well. And of course decaffeinated coffee is a good choice too. Naturally decaffeinated coffee would be best but remember, decaffeinated coffees still have a little residual caffeine in them.

Ok, sometimes no matter how well you plan or how dedicated you are to your diet, you've just got to have a little something sweet. Now I'm not advocating eating these type things all the time, but sometimes it's a case of "I'm GONNA have a treat or SOMEBODY is gonna pay!"

For times like these, there are the Atkins Endulge Bars. They're sweet but without spiking your blood sugar. (That means even though you've endulged, you won't have to pay over and over again over the next few days with monster food cravings.) Here are some great prices on Atkins Endulge Bars:

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