Healthy Blood Sugar Kisses

You discipline yourself to a calorie-restricted diet to lose a few pounds.  You have some success, though after a few weeks you have a weight loss slow down that comes paired with growing, gnawing hunger.

You end up craving and caving. Your drive to eat overcomes your better judgement and deepest dietary resolve, and eventually you plow through enough food – forbidden or otherwise – and pile all the weight lost back on.  And then some.

It’s not your fault.  The good news is that there is a way to nudge those numbers on the downward without hooking a reactive rise in appetite and rebound weight gain.

Leptin & ghrelin basics

Leptin:

• is made by your fat cells
• the name leptin comes from the Greek ‘leptos’, which means ‘thin‘ – interesting!
• is released into the blood when there are sufficient calories coming in, to: 1)  signal the brain to reduce appetite 2)  boost metabolic rate by encouraging your body to combust calories more quickly

Ghrelin:

• is secreted by the stomach
• seems to function as a meal-initiation signal
• apparently changes in response to low calorie dieting in order to help maintain body weight.

Leptin and ghrelin in English

Not to oversimplify, but here’s what all of this means to you.  Calorie restriction in your attempt to lose weight can backfire by lowering leptin levels and raising ghrelin, which to you means a boost in appetite and whiter knuckles as you attempt to kick in you will power to control your appetite.  And you know how long that lasts.

You know that a calorie deficit is necessary in order for your body to reduce its fat stores.

So, what are you supposed to do?  If calorie restriction sets of a hormonal cascade that drives you hunger up and keeps you prowling for food, is the cause for hopeless?

Not at all.  And you don’t need to go all psycho-Leptin Diet about it either.  As a matter of fact, that’s one thing I want to warn you against.  In our magic-bullet thinking, we tend to hook onto these factors that play a role to make them the holy grail.  Don’t.

The secret to creating a calorie deficit without hooking the leptin and ghrelin response that backfires in roaring appetite and easy regain of weight is to:

reduce caloric load but not too much find a way of eating that allows you to have satiety and avoid hunger while reducing the caloric load.

3 secrets for mastering leptin and ghrelin so you can successfully lose weight and keep it off

1)  Follow the ‘rule of 10’:  There seems to be a point beyond which lowering calories creates problems with leptin and ghrelin.  Here’s how you find that number.