5 Ways to Lower Insulin Levels (naturally) for Weight Loss

so we know that one of the key drivers of weight gain is raised insulin levels in this video I'm gonna give you five ways to naturally help lower your insulin levels that will help you lose weight [Applause] [Music] hey carb Dodgers my name is dr. dan Maggs I hope people have been struggling to lose weight achieve their goal of a long-term sustainable weight loss I had a lifelong battle with my weight until about three years ago when I managed to find the solution it's now my passion to share what I have learned from my own weight loss journey and from helping others through my medical practice with you now I release new videos every Tuesday so be sure to hit the subscribe button and hit that bell to get notified whenever I release a new video so last week we talked about the important shift from thinking about weight loss in terms of calories to in terms of hormones and if you didn't see that video I'll link to it in the description below and up here in that video I focused in on the role of raised insulin in weight gain and the importance of maintaining low insulin levels in achieving long-term sustainable weight loss and in this video I'm going to give you five ways to achieve and maintain lower insulin levels completely naturally no medications or anything like that let's dive straight in with a big one number one a well-formulated low carbohydrate diet so when we look at the overall scientific studies about weight loss low carbohydrate diets consistently outperform low fat diets and that's not a surprise carbohydrates are the main nutrient that promotes the release of insulin in our bodies if you eat carbs your blood sugar level rises your pancreas produces insulin in order to drive glucose into the cells and bring the blood glucose levels back down to normal again now carbs can be found in the form of things like sugar high fructose corn syrup added into drinks or into foods during the manufacturing process but carbohydrates are also found in high quantities in foods like potatoes rice pasta bread basically lots of white or beige colored foods now starch is just long chains of glucose molecules strung together and whenever you consume starch your body just breaks down this diet into glucose which in turn raises your blood glucose levels now not as quickly as sugar does but it raises them all the same the good news is that carbohydrates are not an essential nutrient for life in fact we are designed to survive without taking in any carbohydrate in our diet we can make all the glucose we need within our bodies but we can also get a small amount of glucose from non starchy vegetables things like broccoli cauliflower and there's loads of different vegetables like that and I'm not advocating a no carb diet just one that is low and low means different things to different people everyone has a different tolerance to the amount of carbohydrate they can consume your tolerance will be different from mine but it must be a well-formulated low carbohydrate diet there is definitely a right and a wrong way to approach low carb diets particularly if you want to make them sustainable for the longer term see when done correctly a low carb diet will lead to low insulin levels which will allow you to use your own fat for energy this in turn will lead to decreased hunger meaning you naturally want to take in less food and I'm an advocate of low carb diets that are predominantly real food which means unprocessed foods with an adequate amount of protein supplemented with healthy fats and this is what I teach here on this channel and over at my website which is carb dodging comm but all foods stimulate the production of insulin to a certain extent and whilst a well formulated low carb diet will keep insulin levels to a minimum the second way to keep your insulin levels naturally low is to introduce fasting into your diet now fasting is the opposite feeding insulin levels will naturally be low when you're fasting and we all do it every night for at least ten hours and then break that fast in the morning hence break fast breakfast and fasting has also been a part of many cultures throughout human history whilst fasting days have largely disappeared from Western culture many people around the world still observe fasting days for religious reasons extending the time we spend in the fasting state low insulin levels these two longer periods where our bodies are able to access our own stored fat for energy it doesn't mean we're simply starving ourselves for example I don't eat breakfast in fact as I record this it's about 11 o'clock in the morning and I haven't eaten since 7:00 last night when I had my last low-carb meal I'm really only just starting to get hungry so rather than having a high carb breakfast cereal my insulin levels are currently low and my body is just running on its own fat stores now some of you watching this will be thinking yeah I could do that I'm not really hungry in the mornings and others will be going hurt no I cannot do that with you you let me know in the comments down below this video if you're a breakfast person or not just type love breakfast or hate breakfast and I know we've all been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day but is that really true or is it just something that we've been told by the food industry to get us to eat breakfast cereal fasting can sound pretty scary but there is a lot we can do to make it much easier I like many people quite naturally fell into a pattern of fasting after being on a low-carb diet simply because I didn't feel hungry in the mornings anymore so the third way in which we can keep our insulin levels naturally low is through exercise now exercise is fantastic in so many ways but when it comes to weight loss there is some effects of exercise that I think are far more important than just burning calories on that note think about it have you ever been hungry after exercise of course you burn more energy and your hunger increases to compensate hunger is just your body's way of trying to correct the imbalance that you've created and it might not be immediate it might be days or weeks over which it corrects that imbalance but as I discussed in my last video this idea of burning calories has been oversold I could probably talk to you all day about the positive effects of exercise on our metabolism but there are two key things I want to mention here firstly exercise increases the sensitivity of muscles to the actions of insulin you need less insulin to take up the same amount of glucose and secondly exercise allows our muscles to use glucose without the need for insulin it's amazing you'll often find me talking about insulin allowing glucose to enter into cells such as in this video where you can see the star shaped insulin molecule interacting with the surface of the cell in order to open up that channel where glucose can pass through but one of the effects of exercise is to open up these channels without the need for insulin so after exercised glucose just gets taken up by the muscle tissue without the need for insulin to ever be produced resistance training lifting heavy weights and short bursts of a high-intensity exercise are particularly good for acting activating these important metabolic effects of exercise much better than going out and running a marathon or a 4-hour bike ride in order to burn off calories now the fourth way to naturally lower insulin levels is to reduce stress now a little bit of stress can be a good thing it prepares our body for action by doing things like raising blood glucose levels in short bursts at the right time that is normal but being stressed for long periods of time will cause persistently raised blood glucose which will mean that your body needs to produce more insulin in order to respond now we're not designed to live in a constant state of stress and if you are then this could seriously undermine your weight loss efforts now I can't give you a one-size-fits-all method to reduce stress the causes of stress are different for everyone but it is an important piece of the weight loss puzzle that's often overlooked and can prevent weight loss even when you're doing all the other stuff correctly now the fifth and final way to lower your insulin its sleep well there's a reason for people who work night shifts are significantly more likely to be obese than people who don't sleep deprivation causes excess glucose levels you're putting your body under stress and your body will produce more insulin in response to this it also affects other hormonal systems it reduces the amount of leptin one of the hormones that controls our hunger we're just more hungry after a poor night's sleep and we just make better decisions about nutrition when we're not tired I remember as a junior doctor doing long shift at the hospital I used to make terrible decisions about food mainly cuz I was exhausted now if you're serious about weight loss then you must make getting enough sleep a priority now we often say eight hours some need more some need less really you need what you need now you might be able to get away with sleep deprivation in the short term but longer-term it will catch up with you so there you have it my top five ways for reducing insulin number one low carb diet number two intermittent fasting number three do some exercise particularly strength and high intensity exercise number four stress reduction and number five get enough sleep now these are not only my five tips for reducing insulin levels for weight loss these are really five foundational principles that I think are the most important lifestyle factors you can influence for enduring health these are the five key areas I work on with my one-on-one coaching clients now if you're interested in learning more then I'd love it if you'd subscribe to this channel new videos come out every Tuesday if you enjoyed this video I'd really appreciate it giving it a like come and say hi to me in the comments let me know which of the five areas that you feel you need to work on I do try to respond to every comment have a great day and I'll see you next Tuesday when I'm going to be talking about some of the medical reasons which might prevent you from losing weight see ya

Channel: Dr Dan Maggs

Views: 1,016,492

Rating: 4.911088 out of 5

Keywords: how to lower insulin levels naturally for weight loss, how to lower insulin levels, how to lower insulin levels for weight loss, lower insulin levels, how to decrease insulin levels, how to reduce insulin levels for weight loss, how to reduce insulin levels, how to lower insulin, reduce insulin levels, lower insulin, how to control insulin levels, lower insulin levels to lose weight, how to keep insulin low, how to keep insulin levels low, how to reduce insulin levels naturally

Id: Q2PBDLF_2lQ

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 05 2019