Thread by @meditationstuff

Weight loss brain fog etc. thread 0/

(1) Once fuel released into circulation, it actually gets into cells via insulin.
(2) If no insulin, cells starve.
(3) If cells can't respond to insulin, cells starve.

1/

(4) Cells downregulate response to insulin for two reasons:
(4a) when they are stuffed full of fuel or
(4b) when they are overwhelmed by too much insulin. 2/

(5) Eating processed food, most especially refined sugar, but anything engineered, will spike insulin.
(6) Fuel rushes into cells, including fat cells, which begets more fat cells, and people get fat. 3/

(7) Eventually, people's cells are stuffed with fuel. There's no room for more. (So why not stop eating to use up that fuel? More on this in a second.) 4/

(8) Two things happen simultaneously:
(8a) Cells stop responding as much to insulin, in order to not take in too much fuel.
(8b) Insulin goes higher to try to get fuel out of circulation, because it's not healthy for too much fuel to just be circulating in the bloodstream. 5/

(9) So there's a vicious cycle of the system trying harder and harder to get fuel into cells and cells resisting this. 6/

(10) Ok, so why not eat less? High insulin also means that the main *fuel tank* cells (as opposed to consumers: brain, muscles, etc.) refuse to *release* fuel from the fuel tanks. High insulin: fuel goes into cells, fuel tank or otherwise, not out. Low insulin: Fuel tank release.

(11) So, with high insulin, you are sitting on tons of fuel (and likely to be overweight) and also STARVING and EXHAUSTED. You can't exercise, you can't do intellectual work, and you can't even sleep. 8/

(12) Eating means eating something sugary, to spike insulin, to overcome insulin resistance, to get sugar/fuel from bloodstream (not fuel tanks) into brain. There are also supercycles of carb/food coma, here. 9/

(12) If you fast or eat less processed foods, there is a delay of days before chronic insulin resistance starts to resolve. 10/

(13) So, during that time, eating healthier means being STARVING and EXHAUSTED because refined foods are no longer doing necessary insulin spiking to overcome resistance. 11/

(14) A better way is to do a graded step-down of insulin resistance. First, stop eating refined sugar. Wait days. Then stop eating refined flour. Wait days. The whole time, eat, say, whole grain white rice and like raisins. Also, supplement with collagen for serotonin, to sleep12

(15) You'll need to eat more fat, e.g. fatty meat, olive oil, butter, MCT oil, etc. to replace calories.
(16) Exercise encourages lower insulin via fuel consumption and fuel release. 13/

(17) So many body systems will work better ins. resistance:
You'll lose weight. You'll have stable mental energy. Exercise won't be torture. If serotonin is managed, you'll sleep more deeply. You'll retain potassium more effectively. You'll have to pee less. It goes on and on. 14

(18) Inappropriate fasting and cold-turkey throwing out sugar will freak out the system, causing it to skip the normal fuel tanks and start eating muscle and other structural tissue. Also, you won't be able to think and so won't be able to work. It's not sustainable. 15/

(19) [As a sidenote, sometimes gaining a ton of muscle can work instead of the graded step-down thing. Having a ton of muscle mass protects against insulin resistance, because baseline fuel use is higher and there's more hungry cells to accept access fuel. It buffers the system.]

(20) Anyway, I strongly suspect most people will lose weight eating steak, butter, and white rice (and optionally some beans) + greens/vitamins/nuts. As long as they move around a bit, one step above walking, and they stop eating sugar, baked goods, and chips. 17/

(21) And salt! You'll lose salt faster. So salt to taste, and even add a little more. If you eat salt, complex and varied fat, butter, etc. (including e.g. flax seed and non-mercury fist for Omega-3 + 6), and spices, then you won't crave junk food. 18/

(22) Again, the key to all of this is to back off on processed sugar in stages (with some serotonin management, e.g. with collagen supplementation). First sugar, then processed flour and corn/potato chips, & then you're pretty much done. Most people should eat rice &maybe beans.

(23) Ok, that's it! The noise and misinformation out there drives me crazy. 20/20