in today's video we are talking about insulin resistance and
signs and symptoms to look out for insulin resistance
is thought to affect over half of the u.s population
with a lot of these cases being undiagnosed being insulin resistant is a
problem because it can make it very difficult to lose
weight it increases your disease risk and it often leads to type 2 diabetes so
this is not something to take lightly the good
news is that insulin resistance is not a life
sentence and it can be reversed in today's video i'm going to give you 9
signs of insulin resistance to watch out for
and what you can do if you are insulin
resistant
hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is kait i'm a
health coach and i post videos on a high fat nutrient dense way of eating
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as i mentioned at the start of this video insulin resistance is not
something to take lightly and although it is entirely
preventable it is also extremely common but before
we get ahead of ourselves let's quickly recap what insulin
resistance is insulin is a hormone that is responsible
for blood sugar management when we eat a meal containing carbohydrates
these carbohydrates are broken down into glucose and your blood sugar rises
as a result of this rise the pancreas releases insulin into the bloodstream
to shut all the excess sugar to cells throughout the body
and bringing your blood sugar level back to baseline
but sometimes the cells stop responding to insulin
and do not accept it this leads to blood sugar levels remaining high
and more insulin being secreted as a result so
now you're in a situation where your blood sugar is high
and your insulin is high now insulin is also known as the fat
storage hormone when insulin is high this means you have a surplus
of glucose in your blood which is energy because you have this energy
there is no need to use your stored body fat for energy
and because your insulin is always elevated when you have insulin
resistance this can make it very hard to lose
weight but anyways let's get into the nine signs
that you might be insulin resistant number one
abdominal fat if you carry a lot of weight in your midsection
this can be a sign of insulin resistance when you're insulin resistant
fat gets stored in places that it typically wouldn't
such as around our organs in our abdomen this is called
visceral fat and it is directly related to insulin resistance
number two swollen ankles one of the other rules of insulin
is telling our kidneys to retain water and sodium
if insulin is not being responded to properly
as is the case with insulin resistance fluid can be retained
unnecessarily causing ankles to become swollen
number three hunger after eating are you one of those people who can eat a meal
and still feel hungry afterwards unfortunately
this is a pretty big indicator that you are insulin resistant
insulin resistance means your body is not regulating blood sugar levels
properly the cells in your body are not able to
absorb the glucose and use it for energy so you are eating
and the energy is there but your body can't use it number four
sugar cravings this one ties in with the last point
if your body is not able to use your blood sugar efficiently
this essentially leaves your cells starving
and this can lead to cravings for carbohydrates and sugar
even if you have just eaten number four dark skin patches high levels of insulin
in the blood can trigger the appearance of dark
dry patches of skin usually these will appear on skin
folds so your armpits neck and groin number five frequent urination if you
always have to pee this can be another sign
because insulin is not regulating blood sugar correctly
the kidneys have to make more urine to pass the sugar
from your blood and this also ties in with the next symptom
number six extreme thirst of course if you are flushing
all of the water out of your body you're gonna be more thirsty
number seven a regular menstrual cycle this one obviously only applies to women
high insulin can cause the ovaries to make more male
hormones this imbalance of hormones can cause your period to become irregular
if your period is inconsistent if it's very long
or if you do not have a period at all these can all be signs you are insulin
resistant usually this hormonal imbalance is
characterized as polycystic ovarian syndrome or pcos
pcos and insulin resistance go hand in hand
and many women find that when they address their insulin resistance issues
their pcos symptoms improve number eight skin tags tags of skin on your neck or
armpit can also be an indicator of insulin resistance
number nine elevated blood sugar if you have a blood sugar
meter measuring your blood sugar around meals
can be a good way to test your insulin sensitivity
of course you can use it to measure your fasting blood sugar in the morning
usually around an hour after you wake up and
see where you're at but you need to remember that this is just a snapshot in
time and there are several factors outside of
diet that can impact your blood sugar
exercise for example can cause a rise in your blood sugar
taking a hot shower that can do it as well and diet of
course what you really want to test is your
blood sugar response when you eat measure your blood sugar before you eat
and then 30 minutes after you eat and again two hours later two hours post
meal your blood sugar levels should have
returned to baseline if they haven't this can be a sign of
insulin resistance and those are nine signs you might be
insulin resistant now as i said at the start of this video
insulin resistance is not a life sentence and it can be reversed
so we know that insulin resistance is characterized by our cells not
responding to insulin correctly but what causes this insulin resistance
is a vicious cycle we start by eating foods that have a
high insulin response and then we eat more of these same foods
before our insulin levels have a chance to come back down
and it is this overproduction of insulin that originally causes our cells to
become resistant there's just too much for our cells to
accept and once this happens your blood sugar
remains high even more insulin gets pumped out and
the problem worsens like i said it's a vicious cycle
so what's the solution there are two main things you can do to increase
insulin sensitivity number one eat less foods that have a
high insulin response and number two eat less frequently out
of the three macronutrients fat protein and carbohydrates fat has
the lowest insulin response barely triggering its release at all
protein is slightly higher and carbs are the highest most foods
have a combination of these macros but if you're insulin
resistant as much as you can you want to be
limiting carbohydrates several studies have shown a very low
carb or keto diet to be effective in reversing insulin
resistance for this reason generally if you can stick to under 50
grams of total carbs per day this will make a huge difference i have
a whole video on the top foods you can eat to reverse insulin resistance
so if you want to know what you can eat exactly you can
check this video out after and the second part to this
is to eat less frequently stick to your meals
and don't snack in between snacks are what cause our insulin to remain
elevated throughout the day and we want to give our insulin a chance
to come back down intermittent fasting is also something
you can incorporate which has been shown to be extremely
effective at improving insulin sensitivity
as well now one last thing i want to add before we wrap this video up
is that there are other factors besides diet
that can contribute to insulin resistance just
one night of poor sleep has been shown to make you temporarily insulin
resistant the following day and this is one of the
reasons why i prioritize my sleep so much sure a poor night's sleep here
and there that's not going to affect you too much
in the long term but if you are chronically
sleep deprived that will definitely have a greater effect
if you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep i
highly recommend blue blox's sleep plus glasses
these glasses block 100 of the blue and green light that has been shown to
negatively impact our sleep i put these on at sunset and wear them
until i go to bed they really help not only my sleep
duration but also my sleep quality anyways guys that is
all i have for you today let me know in the comment section down
below if you have been diagnosed with insulin resistance
and the steps you are taking to reverse it if you like this video you might also
like my video on the top foods you can eat to reverse insulin resistance
you can check it out here you can catch up on my
most recent upload right here and if you want to check out my keto and carnivore
diet coaching programs you can click here thanks again guys
i'll see you next time bye