Why Cant I Lose Weight And Belly Fat
Does this sound like you?
After 6 months to 2 years of ketogenic diet and Intermittent Fasting do you struggle to lose weight or keep your blood sugar consistently down?
Do you ever think, “I have a very healthy lifestyle and my weight or numbers just don’t reflect it?”
There’s a reason…. Most people will not like this at all. Please relax and remember, it’s just information.
Metabolic Memory. (1) That’s what the process is called and why even with strict changes and plenty of time sticking to them, things still aren’t right.
Certain cells and workings within the cells of our most important metabolic tissues have been damaged. The energy production and energy storing cells of our muscles and fat simply are not working properly. Energy production is not only low in these cases, but very inefficient causing free radical damage inside the cells and to our mRNA that expresses and copies our genes. (1)
I think this potentially irreversible damage occurs from being chronically in the fed state coupled by high levels of sugar and processed food in our diets as children.
Kids eat so often their insulin exposure is constant throughout the day keeping them in the fed metabolic state. They also eat WAY too much added sugar in all forms making up 17% of their daily food. Processed foods like bread, pancakes, and mass-produced snacks make up 45-50% of their diets. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommend a limit 25 grams per day of added sugar, a number that is about 5 times too high.
The fed state reduces the natural repair state and the consequent detoxification, recycling, and upkeep of our energy machinery. This especially impacts the Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum where a lot of this would take place and where glucose transport molecules are made (GLUT-4). (4)
The constant burning of sugar all day long wears on our energy factories down and makes them less efficient. The lack of repair being expressed decreases and recycling keeping old and inefficient cells on the job long after their retirement age which prohibits new healthy factories from being made and introduced. (3)
In Insulin Resistance there is up to an 86% reduction in those glucose transport molecules that bring glucose from the blood and into storage as glycogen and body fat. This breaks down the natural metabolism flow and we see all the complications of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and systemic inflammation develop. (1)
Therefore, attempts to lower blood sugar by medications, natural supplements, and keto/paleo/carnivore/vegan diets do not stop the disease complications from occurring. (3) You may have better blood sugar numbers, but you also have 3 times the rate of heart attacks (ADA), 10 times more women dying from a heart attack than breast cancer (AHA), retinopathy, limb amputations, blindness, impotence, and a 9–12-year reduction in life expectancy.
This is a lot to take in.
The good news is you can change that physiology, it doesn’t have to be permanent. It takes very specific work done in cycles in relatively close proximity over time to change. Then once changed it will take a lifetime of upkeep. But hey, we know exactly what happens if we do nothing…… Not acceptable.
There is hope and I will go through what has been shown to take people off the road to chronic diseases and life ending complications.
Just know, that 80% of this damage is done before any symptoms show up. Before blood sugar is out of range, before blood pressure rises or we gain the extra weight. If these things have already happened to you then you are probably somewhere on this road we don’t want to go down.
We can do better!
Dr. Don
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References
1. Ihnat, M., Thorpe, J., & Ceriello, A. (2007). Hypothesis: the ‘metabolic memory’, the new challenge of diabetes. Diabetic Medicine, 24(6)
2. Reddy, M., Zhang, E., & Natarajan, R. (2015). Epigenetic mechanisms in diabetic complications and metabolic memory. Diabetologia, 58(3), 443-455.
3. Misra, A., & Bloomgarden, Z. (2018). Metabolic memory: Evolving concepts. Journal of Diabetes, 10(3), 186-187.
4. Garvey WT, Maianu L, Huecksteadt TP, Birnbaum MJ, Molina JM, Ciaraldi TP. Pretranslational suppression of a glucose transporter protein causes insulin resistance in adipocytes from patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and obesity. J Clin Invest. 1991 Mar;87(3):1072-81. doi: 10.1172/JCI115068. PMID: 1999488; PMCID: PMC329903.