A topic that has really captured my interest lately is leptin and leptin resistance. Leptin is a hormone that was discovered in 1994. If you have never heard of leptin, or don’t really know what it is, you’re in good company. I heard of leptin for the first time just recently, in July (2009).
When I googled leptin, I found a few books and websites that looked like good starting places. Bookwise, I started with The Rosedale Diet
Dr. Rosedale advocates a lower-fat diet than I do, but the information about leptin was informative. I felt it was a pretty good introduction to leptin. I could not tell from the book, if Dr. Rosedale’s admonitions against overconsumption of fat was just the normal dietary taboo, or if there was actually something specific he knew about saturated fat and coconut oil that should cause me to remove it from my diet in order to restore leptin sensitivity. One final dissappointment for me was when I went back to the internet to check out Dr. Rosedale’s website, and found it to be a disconnect.
As a nonscientist, the first thing to learn about leptin is that leptin, like insulin, is known to act as an adiposity signal. Isn’t that a great 50-cent word? I like it, but I’m going to use the more common version: FAT SWITCH. Leptin is the Master Fat Switch. Circulating leptin levels signal the brain to regulate appetite and metabolism. So: leptin levels turn our Master Fat Switch to STORE or BURN. If leptin levels remain elevated for a long time, your cells can become resistant, similar to the way a Type 2 Diabetic suffers from Insulin Resistance. Furthermore, leptin regulates insulin.
Significant weight loss for the obese is about controlling insulin and leptin. We have known for a long time that insulin senstivity is critical for weight loss. Now we know that leptin sensitivity is critical for improving insulin sensitivity. If you are obese, especially if you have significant abdominal or visceral fat, you are likely dealing with both insulin and leptin resistance. Your body will not give up the fat deposits as long as it cannot get the fat burning message from your leptin and insulin! Turn on the switch; burn off the fat!
Thus, the main goal of a Leptin Diet is to decrease your resistance to leptin, which in turn will turn your body’s Fat Switch from a position that makes you store fat, to a position that makes you burn fat.
The most relevant technique I learned to accomplish this from The Rosedale Diet, is a new rationale for meal timing. Common advice for people with insulin resistance is to eat more frequent, smaller meals to avoid the high blood sugar spikes that can be experienced after large meals, which I had been practicing for the past 3-5 years. I hated that program, for several reasons (which I might address in a future post…), but I kept it up in hopes of controlling my blood sugar, which – to tell the truth – was not cooperating at all!
Dr. Rosedale recommends only 3 meals a day, with no snacking in between. This flies in the face of everything I have heard, read or tried on a diet in the last 20 years! I haven’t heard any admonitions against “healthy snacking” for a long time. However, for the leptin resistant (and the insulin resistant, if I understood correctly), our bodies need 4-5 hours to digest a meal and then adjust hormonal secretions that “reset” our fat switch (your leptin and insulin levels). So, one of the main principles of the Rosedale diet is to allow this 4-5 hours to pass between meals. There is an additional requirement not to eat after dinner, and to try to get a good 10 hours or more between dinner and breakfast.
I rescheduled my meals immediately, and stopped all between-meal snacking. I increased my fat intake to keep my blood sugar stable throughout the increased time between meals. I do not cook or eat alone, so the best I could do was meals at 7 and 11 a.m. and after 5 p.m. I felt really lousy for the first few days, but my indigestion and headaches cleared up in only a few days. I’m not very good at gradual change. I’m a radical, so I just tough out the side effects of the sudden changes. I’m not suggesting this method for you. Numerous experts on change management recommend the opposite, but this works better for me. Usually.
I should probably also mention that Rosedale also addresses exercise as a means to improve leptin sensitivity. Exercise is well known to be one of the most effective means to improve insulin sensitivity. That’s not really where I’m headed with this post, so I’m not going to comment further on that right now. I’ll comment more about exercise after I read a book I just bought: The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution
While I continued my leptin research, I continued to eat my normal Low Carb diet, with plenty of fat, but limiting my meals to 3 per day, spaced as far apart as I could manage, while continuing in fellowship with my usual mealtime companions.
I regret now that I did not monitor my blood sugar more closely. It would have made this story much more exciting to know the actual levels! (sorry about that!!) But I hardly expected this to work so well or so quickly. I can say that my overt symptoms of high blood sugar all improved significantly by the end of the first week of spaced out meals. You know what I mean, right?? I wasn’t as thirsty, and didn’t have to get up as much to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I slept better and felt more rested in the morning. Stuff like that. So, I am certain that my blood sugar had started coming down a little. However, since I pay full price for my test strips, I didn’t want to use enough of them to really monitor my first week on this program.
Just how high was my blood sugar??? It was high. Too high. The last few times I had checked it, it was about 250-300. But I am unwilling to go on the terminal meds unless I absolutely have to, and I do not believe I have to!!
Studying leptin resistance and trying the 3 meal plan got me on the path I’m on now, and it’s really starting to work. Tune in for my next post, Leptin and Meal Timing, to see what happened next!
To be continued …
Lovin’ It Low Carb
Ramona Denton
Hi Ramona,
Found this interesting but did I miss something? You limited your meals to 3 space out a day. You feel better but your blood sugar is way up?? How is this good?
Maureen
Thanks for the comment!! I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I was guessing that my blood sugar was actually DOWN, from the improvement in symptoms. But I also know it was still too high. I edited the post to try to clarify. I hope it makes more sense now.
Hi Ramona,
great to see that you’re researching leptin! You’ve definitely found the key to long term success. Dr. Rosedale has actually teamed up with Max International and their breakthrough that reduces leptin resistance. Worth looking at! Contact me if you need more info. I have been researching leptin for about a year now.
All the best,
Adrian
Adrian,
Thank you for the encouragement and the offer! I have really been feeling great since I have tried Dr. Rosedale’s suggestions. I checked out your website only briefly, but I’ll definitely go back. thanks again.
I found your experience with following 3 meals a day interesting. I have also had success sticking with 3 meals a day: – I have more energy and faster weight loss. I follow the rules set out by Byron Richards. I have looked at Dr. Rosedale’s information on the Mercola site and I did not find any reference to meal timing – I thought he advocated 3 meals and 2 snacks.
Hi Violet! It was a while ago that I read Rosedale’s book. I got most of my leptin education from him initially, along with reading everything by Byron Richards I found online. So, maybe I misquoted his book. Personally, I feel a lot better and lose weight faster, and keep more stable blood sugar if I don’t eat between meals. So, for me that is the way to go.