Can You Really Prevent Diabesity by Losing Weight?
If you have had a hard time losing weight, you’re not alone. Studies show that the average adult tries four weight-loss diets a year. If they have to make several stabs at this dieting thing, they’re not doing any better than you are.
Prevent diabesity by losing weight
But now, the threat of diabesity is making it more important than ever for people to shed those excess pounds. Doctors say you can prevent diabesity by losing weight, but statistics show many people have failed to do so.
There are more than one billion people worldwide suffering from diabesity, and suffering is an accurate term. Diabesity contributes to many serious medical problems, including:
- Cardiovascular disease
- Neuropathy (nerve damage)
- Feet, hands, and limb amputation
- Blindness
- Kidney disease
- Gallbladder disease
- Stroke
- Sexual problems
Diabesity will ultimately take your life if poorly managed, but first, it will usually make you suffer.
Unfortunately, many experts don’t have any words of wisdom to offer because they don’t know what to do about this problem.
Experts unite: you can prevent diabesity by losing weight
To be sure, there are many theories on how to solve the diabesity problem, which has become a global epidemic. They all hinge on losing weight. Research has shown that losing just 10-15 pounds can reduce your risk of diabetes significantly. So experts know people can prevent diabesity by losing weight. They just don’t know how to develop a plan that will promote safe, long-term weight loss.
Though these experts may be struggling with answers, SANE has the solutions. Yes, there is a SANE way to address this problem, a method that will help you prevent diabesity by losing weight. But before discussing this method, let’s delve into some facts about diabesity.
What is diabesity?
The word, “diabesity” refers to the coexistence of both diabetes and obesity. It speaks to the interconnection between these two diseases.
Obesity is the main risk factor for type 2 diabetes, and an estimated 80 percent of diabetics are also overweight or obese. The connection is so close, it’s like the chicken and the egg story. In this case, which came first — obesity or diabetes?
Doctors have long known about the link between obesity and diabetes. They knew their overweight and obese patients had an increased risk of developing diabetes, but they didn’t know why. Nobody did until metabolic syndrome came to light.
Metabolic syndrome and diabesity
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that increase your risk of developing diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. You must have three of the following metabolic syndrome risk factors to be diagnosed with this condition:
- Abdominal obesity
- High triglyceride level
- Low LDL cholesterol level
- High blood pressure
- High fasting blood sugar
In studying metabolic syndrome, researchers discovered that obesity is a significant risk factor for many medical conditions, including diabetes.
Obesity and diabetes: symptoms with the same cause
Eventually, researchers also discovered that obesity and diabetes are symptoms of the same underlying cause, metabolic dysfunction. They are both hormonal conditions in which the cells either become numb to insulin (insulin resistance), or the pancreas produces an insufficient amount of insulin. The pancreas may even stop producing this necessary hormone.
Causes of obesity
Research has shown that there are three main causes of obesity: hormonal dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and brain inflammation. All of these are linked to eating poor-quality diets of processed foods, sugars, and starches. When you eat a poor-quality diet long enough, obesity will eventually cause type 2 diabetes in the majority of cases. Let’s take them one by one.
Hormonal Dysregulation
Hormonal dysregulation occurs when you have too much or too little of one or several hormones.
Hormones are chemical messengers that regulate every bodily function, including metabolic processes. There are hormones in your brain, gut, and fat stores that communicate with each other constantly. Their main goal is to keep you healthy and alive, and that means making sure you have enough body fat.
Leptin is a peptide hormone produced by your fat cells and released into your bloodstream at levels congruent with the amount of fat you have. This tells the hypothalamus whether you have eaten enough for your level of body fat, or whether you need to eat more.
The main function of the hypothalamus is to keep the body in a state of equilibrium, called homeostasis. It is the control center of the autonomic systems of your body — including the cardiovascular, respiratory, and metabolic systems — and it manages the hormones.
If you aren’t eating enough, the hypothalamus will activate hormones that make you hungry or crave certain foods. If you eat too much one day, you will probably eat less a few days later. That’s your hypothalamus balancing things out.
Eating the wrong types of foods, however, dysregulate these hormones. They send incorrect signals to each other and become confused. They are not sure how much fat you have. But to be on the safe side — remember, their goal is to keep you alive — they tell your metabolism to slow down; they tell it to hold onto your fat stores.
How does insulin play into this picture? Well, it is a prime example of hormonal dysregulation.
What is insulin? Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas. When you eat carbohydrates and sugars, your body turns them into glucose. Your pancreas then releases insulin in proportion to the amount of glucose in your blood, based on signals from other hormones. Insulin’s job is to open the doors of your cells to glucose, which your cells need for energy. Once it opens the cell doors and the glucose enters the cells, its job is done. Your blood glucose levels go down, and all is well. That is the way it’s supposed to work.
But in obesity and type 2 diabetes, insulin is ineffective. The cells are numb to it. The pancreas keeps producing more insulin to push it into the cells, to no effect. Not only does your blood glucose level remain elevated, which can lead to a host of serious health problems, but it also leads to weight gain and makes your efforts at losing weight nearly impossible.
This is because along with glucose, you now have high amounts of insulin circulating in your blood. Insulin tells your other hormones that your cells have energy going to them and that you don’t need to burn fat. It also tells the body to store more fat. This is a result of hormones misreading the situation, all due to certain dietary and lifestyle factors.
Gut dysbiosis
If you are having trouble losing weight, you might want to look at the balance of your gut bacteria. Research has shown that an imbalance of good and bad bacteria, called gut dysbiosis, can result in weight gain, digestive issues, and other conditions.
Your gut bacteria extract calories from the foods you eat, store them for later use, and decide how to best use them. Studies have shown that certain strains of gut bacteria contribute to weight gain and that overweight individuals tend to have an overabundance of those types of bacteria. The research into this area is so compelling that it spurred probiotic research and the supplement market.
Brain Inflammation
Research has shown that eating certain foods inflames the hypothalamus, which then interferes with the proper operation of leptin and insulin. (Both of these hormones regulate appetite and eating patterns.) Do you want to guess which foods have been shown to inflame the hypothalamus? Yep, eating too many calories from inSANE sugary, high-fat foods causes this effect, as does eating a diet high in saturated fat.
This causes people to not only overeat but to overeat the very foods that caused brain inflammation in the first place!
Losing weight permanently is impossible with an elevated setpoint weight
Oh, and one more thing…hormonal dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and brain inflammation raise the setpoint weight, which is the true cause of obesity.
What is setpoint weight?
Setpoint weight is a scientifically validated “theory” that the body tries to maintain one’s body weight within a certain range. Your setpoint is the number on the scale your weight tends to hover around, within approximately 5 to 10 pounds.
Although about 50 percent of your setpoint weight is determined by genetics, the rest is totally under your control. You can manipulate it by making SANE dietary and lifestyle choices that will make losing weight permanently a breeze. In this way, you can prevent diabesity by losing weight.
The setpoint weight is the amount of body fat your body thinks you should have based on the three factors above. Your hormones regulate your calorie intake and expenditure. You don’t have to count calories. When you eat enough food, satiety signals are sent to your brain to tell you to stop eating, for instance.
If your setpoint weight is low, you will automatically burn off any excess calories you consume, without any effort from you. Your hormones simply adjust the calorie burn of several metabolic processes to get rid of calories.
There is even research to suggest that the body will make you fidget more after eating larger meals, simply to burn off those excess calories. This is why thin people can eat whatever they want without gaining weight. Their metabolism is higher than an obese person’s metabolism, but that is because their setpoint weight is lower.
Low-quality foods make it impossible to prevent diabesity by losing weight
If you eat a diet of starchy carbs, processed and fast foods, and foods with added sugars, it creates a clog in your hormonal system. Your hormones can no longer do the job they were designed to do. This raises your setpoint weight, which raises your actual weight, and makes losing weight permanently nearly impossible.
Why? Because every time you try to cut calories by eating the same low-quality “junk,” the body fights against you. It does everything it can to keep you at your setpoint weight. The only way to win this battle is to work with your hormones, rather than against them. You do this by making SANE food and lifestyle choices proven to lower your setpoint weight. You will then prevent diabesity by dropping those excess pounds — the SANE way.
Prevent diabesity by losing weight with SANE
Living a SANE lifestyle involves eating foods that will remove the hormonal clog, enabling your hormones to operate the way they should. It also involves being well hydrated, de-stressing regularly, performing eccentric exercises, and getting enough sleep. These things have been proven to lower your setpoint weight, which will help you prevent diabesity by losing weight.
We’ll cover the dietary principles in this article.
Eat SANE foods
There are three main food groups that will help lower your setpoint weight, especially when eaten at the same meal.
Non-starchy vegetables
To prevent diabesity by losing weight, you’ll need to eat plenty of veggies. Non-starchy vegetables contain loads of antioxidants proven to reduce inflammation, so they will help reduce brain inflammation and clear your hormonal clog. They also fill you up fast and slow the transport of glucose into your bloodstream. This keeps your blood sugar levels stable, which keeps your pancreas from over-producing insulin.
Eat at least 10 servings per day of non-starchy vegetables. Fill half of your plate at each meal with non-starchy veggies. Or, if you don’t like to eat veggies, you can drink them, instead. Having a green smoothie is an excellent way to get the vegetables you need.
Leafy green vegetables, such as spinach, are your best choice. Other great choices are broccoli, cucumber, tomato, zucchini, green peppers, and cauliflower.
Nutrient-dense protein
Eating protein has been proven to send a signal to the short- and long-term satiety hormones. It fills you up fast and keeps you full longer. It also takes your body more calories to digest protein than any other macronutrient, meaning that eating protein boosts your metabolism.
Try to have 3-5 servings of protein a day, about 30-50 grams each meal. Some excellent choices include lean meat, grass-fed beef, egg whites, salmon, non-fat plain Greek yogurt, and cottage cheese.
Whole-food fats
Eating whole-food fats is highly satiating and will not make you fat. Research has shown that when you replace starchy carbs and sugar with whole-food fats, your body starts to prefer fat as an energy source. So, when it needs some energy, it will take it from your fat stores.
You can also enjoy up to 3 servings of low-fructose fruits a day. Some good examples include grapefruit, acai berries, lemon, and strawberries.
Baby steps to SANEity
If you’re freaking out right now, having inSANE thoughts about how overwhelming it will be to completely change your diet, calm down. You don’t have to make all these changes at once. Start by making a few substitutions here and there. For instance, vow to have a green smoothie with breakfast one day this week. Then extend the smoothies to three days a week. Or, decide to add protein to every meal this week. Once you see how that goes, then add vegetables. Every baby step you make toward SANEity lowers your setpoint weight, which will help you prevent diabesity by losing weight. And you’ll love every minute of it!
Next: prevent diabesity by losing weight with SANE
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Dr. Matthew Olesiak continues to make a significant impact in the medical field through his work at SANESolution and his dedication to evidence-based practices.