DAY 36 | Today’s FIRE Map

Fixing your hormones: Insulin-resistance and hormones

In a Matchbox:

We’ve learned that hormones play a crucial role in maintaining balance within our bodies. Insulin and cortisol, known as the “evil twins,” can wreak havoc when consistently high and resistant. Insulin affects nearly every other hormone system, including growth, metabolism, stress, brain function, hunger, and sex hormones. Fixing insulin resistance can bring hormonal imbalances back into alignment. Poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is linked to insulin resistance and intense fructose responses. The FIRE Diabetes in 40 Days journey offers a solution to lower insulin levels and balance hormones. Patience is key as it may take months for hormones to find a new peaceful balance.

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FIXING YOUR HORMONES – Insulin-Resistance And Hormones

Your body is in dynamic balance. This means that, on the surface, things seem the same day after day, but underneath, there are often violent clashes of forces. The beauty of our human design is that we are mostly not aware of these storms, we only see the calm surface.

The body uses all sorts of measures to adapt to its often rapidly changing environment. Hormones represent one of the most intricate balancing mechanisms inside of us. But the function of hormones is not just to adapt to the environment. Hormones want to rule the world… Your hormones also push you to change your environment.

When you fall in love, those hormones make you move heaven and earth to be with your beloved. And when you fall out of love, again, but in the opposite direction. That was just one example.

What few people realise is that innocent ol’ insulin is one of two key hormones that is involved in virtually every hormone system in the body. The other hormone is cortisol. You can call them the “evil twins”, since, as a team, they wreak havoc on your body. Huh? Aren’t insulin and cortisol medicines? Aren’t they good for you? The answer may surprise you. Insulin and cortisol are only good for the body in small doses and for short periods of time. 

Your body was never designed to keep its balance in a world of sugar and stress.

Fixing hormones

Insulin is a hormone, but not just any hormone. Insulin affects almost any other hormone in the body. Chronically high insulin levels and insulin resistance therefor cause havoc with every other hormonal system in your body. Conversely, fixing insulin resistance can bring all your whacky hormone issues back into balance.

Let’s take them one by one. Here’s a list of most major hormone systems in your body:

1. Growth
2. Metabolism
3. Stress
4. Brain
5. Hunger
6. Female Sex Hormones
7. Male Sex Hormones

Growth

Growth is regulated by a number of hormones, but the principal hormone is Human Growth Hormone, or HGH. Insulin boosts the growth effect of HGH, but blocks the fat-mobilising effects of HGH. In other words, children with high insulin levels will grow faster than their peers, but they will also grow sideways, not just upwards. In adults, the effect of insulin on HGH is less visible. 

Metabolism

Metabolism is mostly orchestrated via the thyroid hormones. Thyroid hormones have both activating and opposing effects on the actions of insulin, so the interaction between insulin and the thyroid hormones is not always easy to understand. 

Insulin mimics the actions of the thyroid hormones in some tissues, leading to a down-regulation of the thyroid hormones. As a result, metabolism slows down and more glucose is deposited as fat. This is a partial explanation why there is such an epidemic of hypothyroidism (low thyroid activity) in Western society.

Stress

Cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline are three of the major stress hormones. Cortisol can be seen as insulin’s evil twin. Cortisol makes fat and liver cells resistant to insulin. As such, chronic stress leads to insulin resistance. On the other hand, chronically high insulin triggers more cortisol secretion, leading to higher blood glucose levels and more diabetic damage.

Adrenaline inhibits insulin secretion, which is one reason why exercise is important in reversing insulin resistance. On the other hand, adrenaline causes cells to become more insulin resistant, which is another reason why chronic stress is not good for you.

Brain

There are many hormones involved in the brain’s functions. Insulin itself seems to have an important role in the brain as a neurotransmitter. The problem is, in cases of insulin resistance, the brain also becomes insulin resistant. Under such circumstances, the beneficial effects of insulin on the brain are blocked, and the brain becomes more sluggish.

Hunger

Insulin secretion triggers a satiety response. In other words, rising insulin tells your brain that you’ve had enough food and are feeling full. When insulin levels remain consistently high, this feedback mechanism is blunted. In other words, you feel hungry all the time and you never feel like you’ve had enough food.

Female Sex Hormones

Insulin essentially opposes the actions of oestrogen, the hormone responsible for female fertility. Oestrogen can be called the female fountain of youth, since it boosts all aspects of a more youthful appearance as part of its role in boosting fertility. Insulin, on the other hand, has some testosterone-like effects. These promote hair growth in the wrong places and produce a rougher skin texture, among other things. Too much insulin can cause infertility.

Male Sex Hormones

Since insulin has some testosterone-like effects, one would expect high insulin levels to lead to more masculine expression. However, the chronically high levels of insulin seen in Type 2 diabetes actually have the opposite effect. The reason is that insulin provides a negative feedback on testosterone production, leading to low levels of testosterone and central obesity in men.

How to fix it

The FIRE Diabetes in 40 Days journey offers a sure – FIRE way to drop insulin levels in a short while. This eventually causes the various hormone systems to get back into balance. Note, however, that it can take 6 months of normal insulin sensitivity, or even longer before all the hormone systems will return to their normal state.

What about PCOS?

A fairly common disease among women nowadays is something going by the acronym PCOS, which is short for poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. As the name suggests, it presents with multiple cysts in the ovaries. But focusing on the cysts has caused doctors to mis-treat this condition with all sorts of hormones, and even drastic surgery. The root cause of PCOS is insulin-resistance. In the case of PCOS, the cause of the insulin-resistance is linked to an unusually intense response to fructose.

Ladies on PCOS only need to walk past the kitchen to gain weight. They smell food and pick up a kilo or more. OK, that was a joke, but it’s no joke if you’re suffering from PCOS. The insulin resistance in PCOS leads to massive weight gain, and no amount of dieting will budge a kilo.

Insulin has testosterone-like effects, you see. So, in the presence of high insulin, these ladies present with testosterone-type effects, which triggers the cysts and much of the other symptoms of PCOS.

Using the FIRE Diet, you can beat both the insulin and the cortisol genies back into their respective bottles. The only thing is, it will take months for the lower insulin levels to translate into weight loss. So even if your insulin resistance is fixed, the Titanic will take another three months to turn around.

If you look at the results other people are getting, you may be jealous and feel like a failure. Don’t give up! By now – if you’ve been sticking to the journey – most of your insulin resistance will have been reversed. You have gained the victory. If you don’t believe me, go test your fasting insulin levels. What remains now, is to stick it out until the rest of your hormones get back into balance.

For best results, here are the main pointers to reverse PCOS:

• Stay on a strict ketogenic diet – no carbs, no sugar (one teaspoon of sugar will set you back a whole week!)
• Fast 36 (not 23) hours three times a week (this is better for weight loss than an extended fast)
• Fast 72 hours once a month
• Rinse and repeat for four months

Up to month three, you may not see much weight loss, but during the fourth month, weight loss will eventually begin to accelerate. At that point, it gets easier to motivate yourself to stick in “the zone” until you reach target weight.

After these forty days, you are already healthy. Now wait for those violent hormonal storms inside of you to fight their way to a new, peaceful balance.

Falling in love lasts about 9 months to a year (if you’re lucky). The hormones controlling our weight can also take long to find a “new normal”. The good news is, once they’ve settled into the “new normal”, they’re going to fight like **** to stay there.