Insulin resistance if you don’t know what that means, it refers to that point where your body can’t properly manage your blood sugar without changes or medical intervention. This is because the body has been exposed to too much sugar too often and the body’s sugar metabolism mechanisms get tired or regulated to adapt. When this goes too far, it is diagnosed as type II diabetes. But long before we get to this point there are very clear warning signs that we can watch out for.
- Do you have multiple tags or cysts on your skin?
- Do you have thick calluses on your feet?
- Do you feel dissatisfied if you don’t have a dessert after a meal?
- Do you feel very tired between an hour and an hour and a half after lunch?
- Do you often feel brain fog?
- Are you experiencing mood swings?
- Do you have memory problems?
- If you skip meals, do you tremble and feel hungry?
- Do your limbs get very numb or do you need a needle?
- Do you often wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble sleeping?
- Do you suffer from sleep apnea?
- Do you have a cupcake cap on your pants?
- Do you carry belly fat?
- Have you been diagnosed with PCOS or PCBS?
- Are you greedy and need snacks between meals?
- Do you find it hard to eat just a few cookies or a small bowl of chips?
- Do you have chronic inflammation in any part of your body?
- Have you been diagnosed with dementia?
- Have you been diagnosed with fatty liver disease?
- Do you drink alcohol often? (more than two drinks / three times a week)
- Do you have adult acne?
- Do you want carbs?
- Do you have to get up to urinate a lot at night?
- Does your urine smell sweet?
- Have you been diagnosed with low testosterone?
- Have you been diagnosed with high cholesterol?
- Have you been diagnosed with high blood pressure?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, chances are you are developing insulin resistance, because all of these health conditions are related. It really is so prevalent. Many functional doctors and nutritionists consider it the health problem of our time. The good news, though, is that it’s easily reversible and manageable with simple dietary interventions. I give regular classes on this.
Why is it so prevalent
The reasons why insulin resistance is so common today are complex. This is partly due to the availability of processed, calorically dense and nutritionally deficient foods. They’re ubiquitous and we really can’t get away from them.
In part, this is also likely to be due to decades of misinformation. Canada’s official food standards, initially developed in 1942, included fatty dairy products, one serving of fruit, one serving of potatoes and two other vegetables, one serving of whole grains, and four or six servings of Canadian-approved bread, one serving of meat and fish. or poultry every day with heart, kidney, or liver at least once a week, and eggs at least three or four a week. Vitamin D is recommended in the form of fish liver oils.
However, in 1949 the margarine had been placed and in 1977 the fruits and vegetables were placed together without any differentiation. At some point, vegetable oils replaced the more natural ones with “healthier ones.”
In 1982, the Food Guide of Canada emerged with recommendations for limiting fats, sugar, salt, and alcohol. Margarine was promoted as heart-healthy, as were vegetable oils, and organ meat was a thing of the past. In 1992, the recommendations included five to 12 servings of cereal, five to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables (including juices), and two to three servings of meat or meat substitutes. Vitamin D was not mentioned, as it appears that the dairy is enriched with it.
For an in-depth look at the documents over the years and the rationale used to develop them, go here.
Given what we now know about the role of modern hybrid grains and fruits and their impact on insulin, it is no wonder that not everyone in Canada is insulin resistant. To make matters worse, as the amount of food that caused insulin increased in our recommendations, the amount of daily exercise decreased.
Even if an adult is able to exercise with 12 servings of grains a day, he will be seriously full of inflammation without proper fat-soluble vitamins, which are provided by organ meats and natural fatty dairy products. It really looks like we’ve gone back in our recommendations over the years!
Ancestral food
One solution is to go back to a less processed way of eating. This model promotes eating more in line with how our ancestors ate during most of human evolution. This would mean relying more on natural foods and eliminating the elements that are processed and those crops that are grown unsustainably or that need to be heavily manipulated to turn them into food or to be digested. This includes wheat and corn as they currently exist.
The idea of ancestral food is not new. By definition, it is actually very old! Those who think it is restrictive do not understand it. 90 percent of processed foods today consist mainly of wheat, corn, rice, salt, sugar, and oil. This is very restrictive! Ancestral food, on the other hand, included forage food, a variety of dairy products when available, a variety of insects and sprouts and shoots, mushrooms, seafood, land animals, poultry and fruit, all of which were grown and sustainably hunted / harvested. . There are thousands and thousands of varieties of food in every region where people have lived for any length of time. The reason they chose to stay anywhere for a long time was directly related to the abundance of food that was found naturally in the area. But the diets were varied. And eating ancestrally today can be just as varied and interesting. What it lacks are processed foods and modern grains and salt / sugar that we currently use as commodities.
Going back to this way of eating should not be boring or restrictive. There are wonderful recipes all over the internet. And it doesn’t take much time or effort. After learning 10 new recipes for any lifestyle you choose, you can generally move on. It is to master these top 10 and understand why this is the big challenge. A little support at first goes a long way.
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