Last week we talked about how our beliefs can hold us back from living a healthy lifestyle.    Our belief, or lack of belief  in ourselves and our mindset in what it takes to get healthy are a huge part of WHY we fail to make a lifestyle change.  

While our emotions play a significant role, so does our physical body.  How frustrating it can be to break through limiting beliefs, making massive efforts to eat well and exercise regularly, but still have little or no reward! 

Imagine being able to sleep well through the night, waking up refreshed.  Imagine eating good, whole  food throughout the day, not  counting calories or skipping meals, only to inhale anything in sight that evening.  Imagine no longer judging yourself by that magical number on the scale.  Imagine a healthy life of abundance!

The biochemistry of our body is a driving force behind how so many of us have found ourselves holding on to more pounds that we desire.   As a biologist I appreciate understanding why our bodies work as they do.  One aspect of why we hold onto weight depends on natural hormones, leptin and ghrelin.

The Role of Leptin and Ghrelin

Leptin and ghrelin are two hormones that have been recognized to have a major influence on energy balance and weight. 

 Leptin is primarily secreted from fat. The more fat you have, the more leptin is secreted. When you lose weight, leptin levels goes down and signals the hypothalamus to increase appetite and decrease metabolic rate.  

Ghrelin is a hormone secreted by the gastrointestinal tract.  It stimulates appetite, and levels depend on your intake of nutrients and water. 

Historically both hormones were important survival mechanisms for our ancestors.  The gathering, hunting, and even the farming of food was intense work.   Our bodies needed the regulation of these hormones to hold onto body fat when it was needed, and to provide the energy needed to continue to live and grow. 

The problem is in today’s world, there is food available all the time. Packaged convenience foods, fast foods, vending machines:  you can’t go anywhere that food is not out there calling your name.   Half of the time we don’t even need to use energy to cook it ourselves! 

Constantly overeating sugar rich, high calorie junk food messes with our hormones.  The signals to our brain gets disrupted even though the levels of leptin are high.  Similar to insulin insensitivity, our cells develop a leptin resistance.  When we are not eating food high in nutrients, the brain gets a “false” message that the body has not eaten enough, and tells it to store more fat and stimulates the release of ghrelin. 

evil gremlin

Ghrelin makes you hungry.  Very hungry.  When you are go on a diet that only restricts calories, your body just naturally increases levels of ghrelin. It’s one reason why people tend to feel like they are on a weight induced roller-coaster. It kind of makes sense to me that the name of this hormone reminds me of an evil gremlin. 

Wouldn’t you love to find a way to release leptin but at the same time reduce the evil gremlins of ghrelin?

USANA’s 5 day RESET program helps lower your insulin levels to a steady state.  Keeping your body fed through both supplementation and eating densely nutritious foods evenly throughout the day, as well as drinking plenty of water helps keep the ghrelin gremlins away.  So does having a good night’s sleep. 

Change your Beliefs and change your Life.  You CAN release weight and live a healthy lifestyle.    Let me know how you are fighting the ghrelin gremlins by commenting below. 

 Live Well!

Robin

references:

The role of leptin and ghrelin in the regulation of food intake and body weight in humans: a review