In previous posts, Leptin: The Master Fat Switch, Leptin and Meal Timing, and Meal Timing and Intermittent Fasting, I told the story of how I first heard of leptin, and learned that addressing leptin resistance directly with my Low Carb nutritional approach combined with modified meal timing and Intermittent Fasting (IFing) may be able to reduce Insulin Resistance and return my high Blood Glucose Level (BGL) back to normal.
Just about the time I was enjoying some really great success lowering my BGL by IFing, the Six-Week Cure
Today, I read a great post that explains how leptin regulates hunger, so I thought I’d take a break from my Six-Week Cure posts, to share this information about leptin.
More About Leptin
Quotes from: Leptin, Low Carb and Hunger (from the blog of Dr. Michael Eades)
So, What is leptin?
Leptin is a hormone made by fat cells. When there are a lot of fat cells they secrete a lot of leptin.
And, what does leptin do?
It seems that every day a new function for leptin is postulated, but for our purposes now, let’s stick with what most scientists consider the primary function of leptin: regulation of the fat mass by regulating hunger.
The big problem I see is that the default message seems to be YOU’RE HUNGRY, EAT, STORE FAT! As you eat and start storing fat, the fat secretes leptin to signal your brain to reduce your feeling of hunger.
So, if you fail to secrete leptin, or if your brain fails to receive the leptin, you will not stop feeling hungry and you will not stop storing fat.
So, if obese people have more leptin than thin people,
why aren’t our brains getting the message to burn fat?
Most obese people find themselves in this very situation: high blood levels of leptin but still hungry. And eating makes more fat, which makes more leptin, which should shut off the hunger response, but it doesn’t because the ever increasing levels of leptin telling the brain to tell the obese person to quit eating don’t get to the brain to do their job.
Obese people make a large amount of leptin, way more than non-obese people in fact, but they are resistant to the effects of their own leptin in much the same way they’re resistant to the effects of their own insulin.
Apparently, the reason that leptin cannot get through to the brain is because of triglycerides (fat) circulating in the blood. Triglycerides in the blood block the leptin from getting to the brain.
And guess what causes high triglyceride levels? Carbohydrates.
So, the clear advantage of the Low Carb diet in this scenario is that a drastically-reduced carbohydrate intake causes a drastic reduction of triglyceride levels. The reduction in triglycerides then allows the leptin that is already circulating get through to the brain where it can reduce hunger.
ABC News Story on the Effects of a Big Meal
Check out this video from ABC News, in which two reporters eat a super huge meal (over 5,000 calories), high in both carbs and saturated fat, have some medical tests done, and then blame all the negative results on the FAT they ate but not the CARBS.
Quoted from ABCs Big Meal Propaganda (from the blog of Dr. Michael Eades):
It’s pretty impressive when the lab tech holds up the tube of blood taken after the meal and compares it to the one taken before the meal. There is a lot of fat swimming in the serum, that’s for sure.
Problem is, that’s what blood samples look like after almost any meal, especially one that contains carbohydrates. The fat you see isn’t the fat the two reporters ate; it is the fat the liver has made from the carbohydrate. It’s the same picture a tube of blood would show after either of the two doctors had eaten a high-carb, low-fat lunch.
The blood samples were taken two hours after the meal. Dietary carbohydrate is absorbed directly into the blood and makes a pass through the liver where it stimulates the production of triglycerides, the fat you see in the blood. Fat, especially long-chain saturated fat digests very slowly, and doesn’t reach the blood until much later than the two hour mark.
So, does that sound like the final nail in the coffin, or what?
A high-carb snack or meal adds triglycerides to the bloodstream almost immediately, thereby blocking leptin from its normal ability to reduce your hunger.
Now add to that the common advice that eating more frequent meals and snacks per day is preferrable to eating 2-3 appropriately-sized (larger) meals, and it looks like we could all have a constant stream of triglycerides being deposited into our bloodstream dll day long!
Meal Timing and Intermittent Fasting
This is one way we can get such a drastic improvement in leptin sensitivity by making simple changes in meal timing or practicing intermittent fasting.
According to leptin experts, such as Dr. Rosedale and Byron Richards, it takes 4-6 hours for your body to fully recover from eating a meal, deal with these triglycerides, and reset its hormonal signals.
If you eat another meal before your body recovers from the last, new triglycerides will join the ones remaining from your last meal, further block your leptin signals from getting to your brain, and you will never stop being hungry and you will never stop storing fat.
By allowing at least 4-6 hours to pass between meals, you could be giving your body the chance it needs to open up the vital channel of communication that will enable your brain to hear leptin telling it: Hey, that’s enough food for now. We’ve got all the fat we need… uh, could you burn off a little, now?
Putting it All Together:
IFing, The Six-Week Cure, Blood Glucose Levels, and Weight Loss
The rapid loss of weight and inches that many people are enjoying as they do the new Six Week Cure program has not yet been my experience. However, my fasting Blood Glucose Level is going down quite steadily on this program. I think my lowered BGL is a good enough indication that the liver cleanse part of the program is really working.
Even though I am not seeing huge results on the scale and the measuring tape, I can tell that my body composition is changing! My skin is looser. My clothes are looser. Overall, I am feeling better than ever. More energetic. I am sleeping better. And breathing easier. My eyesight is improving. And probably other things I am just not thinking of at the moment.
If normalized blood sugar is the ONLY BENEFIT I get from doing the Six Week Cure, that would still feel like a miracle to me!! In the last few years, especially with the onset of menopause, blood sugar control and weight loss became things of the past. Distant Memories.
It looks like I am well on my way to restoring my insulin sensitivity and normal blood sugars, with no dangerous medical interventions or drugs. After these are closer to normal, I have every confidence that the scale and measuring tape will start cooperating too.
As soon as my brain really gets the message to burn fat… well, if you’ve read this far, you already know. I wouldn’t be able to stop the weight loss any more than I’ve been able to start it up, by mere willpower. (Though I guess I could by eating CARBS!) Leptin and Insulin have to do their part. Right now, my job is to open the door so they can!
I have the right tools in my box. A Low Carb diet, The Six Week Cure, IFing, some good nutritional supplements, a healthy supply of determination, and a nice dose of momentum. Let’s see how well I’ve learned to use them.
Stay tuned. You’ll be the second to know what happens next.
Lovin’ It Low Carb
Ramona Denton
Suggestions for Further Reading
The books and resources listed are suggestions. Their presence on this list is not necessarily an endorsement.
The Leptin Diet
The Leptin Diet Website
Mastering Leptin: Your Guide to Permanent Weight Loss
and Optimum Health (Third Edition)
by Byron J. Richards and Mary Guignon Richards
The Leptin Diet: How Fit Is Your Fat?
by Byron J. Richards
Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent Fasting Archive of Dr. Michael Eades’ Blog
coauthor of The 6-Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle
Mark’s Daily Apple Blog, by Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint
Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease
by Joel Fuhrman M.D.
The Alternate-Day Diet
by James B. Johnson M.D.
The QOD Diet: Eating Well Every Other Day
by John T. Daugirdas
Fasting
This is one of my all-time favorite books about (traditional) fasting:
Fasting Can Save Your Life
The opinions expressed on this blog are not intended to be medical advice and should not be taken as advice of any kind. Always consult your doctor or healthcare professional if you have health concerns or want to alter medications or treatments.
Always consult your doctor or healthcare professional
before intiating a program that involves fasting
or severe calorie restriction.
~ : o : ~
when you think about it, most folks walk around with constant insulin/trigl. circulating in their blood. a recipe for disaster!
i often wondered why my breakfast/snack/lunch/snack/dinner/snack, low fat, low calorie plan always left me super hungry, super tired, super foggy brained.
but if i ate the same calories in a window at night, i lost weight, and felt great.
this post goes a long way to explain all those mysterious happenings in the failures of the current diet trends. thanks for this post ramona!
Thanks, Rachel!! I was so happy to find this great post on Dr. Eades’ site about leptin and hunger. It really clicked for me, the same way you describe. I felt like I could eat about a million calories a day and still be hungry. I’m glad it rings true to you, too.