Insulin Resistance and Ketosis

Insulin Resistance and Ketosis

Do you find it difficult to lose weight? Are you Struggling with Insulin Resistance?
Do you want to understand how a Ketogenic Lifestyle can help you?

Normal Cell Function and Metabolism

Okay, imagine a normal metabolism, where you eat carbohydrates, which gets converted into glucose. Glucose gets transported by insulin into cells, where it finally gets converted into energy.

Now imagine, that you get one day of binge eating. An entire day of eating processed carbohydrates like pizza, burger, ice cream, and all the other junk food you could dream of. It would not be hard to guess that such an increased intake of carbohydrates would need more insulin for proper utilisation and energy production by the cells. Simply put, a lot of carbs will need a lot of insulin to produce energy from the same number of cells.

What if I asked you to now imagine a life where you could binge-eat junk food everyday for the rest of eternity. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?

Well, then let me wake you up from this dream.

Insulin Resistance

An increased intake of complex carbohydrates increases the stress on your pancreas to increase the production of insulin. A repetitive cycle like this, over a long period of time, creates burden on the cells to the point of exhaustion. An exhausted, overworked body cell will now resist insulin, utilise lesser glucose and produce very little energy.

This is called Insulin Resistance in medical terms – An impaired response of the cells of the body to insulin, resulting in elevated levels of glucose in blood.

One of the major and – quite often overlooked – symptom of Insulin Resistance is difficulty in losing weight. All those love handles that wouldn’t budge even after eating boiled vegetables for months together, all that stubborn fat around your thighs that wouldn’t go even after spending hours at the gym, all those hours of fasting that wouldn’t show results – combined with lethargy, constant bloating, brain fog, chronic pain, mood swings – are red flags for Insulin Resistance.

Insulin Resistance and Ketosis

How does Ketosis help reverse insulin resistance?

A Ketogenic lifestyle, with high fats, low carbs and adequate intake of protein is an anti-inflammatory diet that entirely shifts your body from a glucose based metabolism to a ketone based metabolism.

By definition, ketones are molecules utilised by body cells to produce energy when there is very low levels of glucose present in the body. These ketone molecules reduce the demand of insulin as well as help in effective and increased production of energy by the cells.
Ketones further reduce inflammation in the body by reducing oxidative stress and regulate the hormone Leptin, which reduces those 2 a.m. hunger pangs. The most interesting part however, is that ketone molecules increase the utilisation of stored fats in the body to produce energy, which basically means it causes fat loss.
It’s like beating fat with fat, pun-intended.

To summarise, a Ketogenic Lifestyle
– Reverses insulin resistance
– Increases utilisation of stored fats
– Improves hormonal regulation
– Reduces inflammation in the body
– Makes those love handles gradually disappear

So, now imagine, a lifestyle where you can eat cheese and still lose weight, a discipline that’s fun to follow, a lifestyle that is holistic as well as sustainable.

A win-win situation?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

Written by
Dr. Shambhavi Chaurasia
MBBS, KetoDoc

You can check out posts about insulin resistance on Insta:
Link 1: Insulin Resistance
Link 2: Insulin Resistance behind the science

You can also check out blood reports before and after keto of Reversed Insulin Resistance
Link: Reversed Insulin Resistance