The reason it is so hard to definitively say what is the best possible human diet is because we are so adaptable. We can make so many things work and survive in all kinds of food environments. That’s the good news.
“All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.”
– Paracelsus
The bad news is once we have taken things too far and spent decades eating more refined carbohydrates than our bodies were designed to handle, then we need to overcorrect. We can’t just be like, “oh, that level of carbohydrates was causing me to become insulin resistant? My bad. I’ll eat the amount I could have eaten all along and not had a problem.”
It’s too late for that.
Okay, that’s dramatic. It’s a good start and I highly encourage you do go back to a healthy amount of carbs. That is definitely a step in the right direction, but it is unlikely you will be able to remove the extra weight with just that step.
It’s kind of like credit card debt. If you spend years overspending and run up the credit card and then one day start spending within your means, you can’t expect the credit card debt to just go away. You have to spend even less than within your means so you can also pay back your debt.
The body is not that cut and dry, of course, but thinking about it that way helps conceptualize what you are doing when you are trying to lose weight. I’m not eating cookies right now because I’ve got decades worth of too many cookies wrapped around my vital organs by way of visceral fat. I’m going to use those stored cookies for fuel instead of eating new ones. That’s what we want, right?
More to the point when it comes to insulin resistance, though, it’s not just about using those old cookies (fat) for fuel, it is also about lowering your insulin so that your body will allow you to tap into your fat reserves easily. It’s not just about the calories or amount of energy you are eating, so much as how that fuel source (food) is affecting your hormones — namely insulin.
Because of that, how many carbs you eat matters. If you are trying to get your insulin to come down, the less refined carbs you eat, the better. Which is why if you do have a cookie, it is way better to stop at one than to just say, “man, I blew my diet, screw it,” and eat ten. The dose makes the poison.
The whole point is that the dose mattered this whole time. It is possible to be healthy and have occasional cookies. Those of use who became obese overdid it. It may not have been cookies, of course. It was likely some combination of bread, pasta, rice, cookies, candies, cakes, crackers, chips, soda, juice, whatever. We had more than our bodies could handle.
We overdosed.
The key is to now undo that damage by eating substantially less refined carbs. Not only less than you were, but less than someone who does not have insulin resistance can have and still be healthy. You might be able to get back to a higher level after you’ve healed, but for now, focus on undoing the damage that’s been done. To do that you will need to take a break from refined carbs. That means, if you want to reverse insulin resistance and lose body fat, don’t eat sugar or refined grains (things made with flour, ground corn, white rice) most of the time.
Leave a Reply