Your Last Diet

By Ronald C. Wichin, DC

Lifelong Health & Weight Loss

. http://www.herndon-reston-chiropractor.com/

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Your Last Diet

A 2005 Gallup poll revealed that the average woman has tried to lose weight 10 times. So why is it so difficult? We all know that to lose weight you have to eat less calories than you burn during the day. But for some people not all calories are equal.

Depending on your body type and the state of health of your hormone system, your body may react to certain types of foods and calories differently. We all know people that can eat anything and not gain weight and we also all know people that can just look at food and seem to gain weight. The difference may be in how your body handles blood sugar.

Insulin is the hormone in your body that has the responsibility of not letting too much blood sugar stay in your blood.

For those people that “can eat anything” their insulin is very efficient at moving the blood sugar into the muscles to be used for energy.

However, if your body is resistant to the movement of sugar into your muscles (this is termed insulin resistance) then your body uses a secondary pathway and transports the sugar to the liver where it is turned into fat and stored. So, in many cases we get fat because we eat too much sugar (carbohydrates) and not always too much fat.

A good way to tell if you may have insulin resistance is to look at your body, (I know not the most fun thing). If you have central weight gain (a.k.a. belly or hip fat) then you may very well have insulin resistance. A good diet history (what has worked and what has not worked) can also give insight. Finally, lab work, specifically fasting insulin level, (not to be confused with glucose), can confirm the diagnosis.

Why is all this important? If you tend towards insulin resistance you will need a different kind of eating plan than someone who is not and you may also need a different kind of exercise program.

There isn’t enough time to discuss the different exercise regimens, but the point is that you have to match diet and exercise to the individual and you have to adapt and change it as the individual progresses.

So, your last diet will be one that has been specifically matched to you.

The program should be matched for quantity of food, the ratio of protein to fat to carbohydrate, and type of exercise program.