Insulin Resistance 101- Belly Fat, Carb Cravings & Fatigue

Belly fat, sugar/carb cravings, and low energy - these are three symptoms I commonly hear from patients in my Integrative & Functional Medicine practice - and all three are often related to a common root cause:

Blood sugar dysregulation.

🤔 Most people think that if they don’t have diabetes, they don’t have to worry about their blood sugar.

That’s not actually true.

Research shows that over 1/2 of American adults are insulin resistant - even scarier - many are unaware they have insulin resistance or even what that means.

Not only does untreated insulin resistance often progress to type 2 diabetes, it also increases your risk of:

• Cardiovascular Disease/Heart Attack

• Obesity

• Many Cancers

• Dementia

INSULIN RESISTANCE 101

The cells in your body need blood sugar to function and make energy.

Blood sugar cannot get into your cells by itself - it requires a helper - insulin is this helper.

Insulin helps blood sugar enter your cells (think of insulin as the gas pump that gets the gas into your fuel tank).

Long before a person would meet the medical criteria for a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, invisible changes are going on in the body - causing cells in your muscles, fat, and liver to not respond to insulin.

That means sugar cannot effectively enter the cells to be burned for energy. Which means…

• Insulin levels begin to rise as your body makes more insulin to try to “push” blood sugar into your cells.

• Blood sugar levels become erratic - creeping higher, especially after eating carbohydrates or sweets - then “crashing” within hours of eating.

• Weight begins to creep up, especially around your waist (although a person does not have to be overweight to have insulin resistance).

• Hunger and sugar/carb cravings increase.

Ready for the good news?

Insulin resistance is reversible 🎉

👀 Watch for my upcoming blogs, where I’ll be taking a deep dive into insulin resistance, including lifestyle changes to help reverse it, and supplements to support healthy blood sugar levels.

Do you have signs of insulin resistance? Are you ready to learn more about which factors may be making your insulin resistance worse and what to do about it? Contact us to schedule an appointment - and we can put together a personalized plan based on your history, your symptoms, and your laboratory values.