Episode Notes
Good morning all!! Today we are exploring the wonderful world of inflammation... alright before you tune me out, turn me off or move on to another form of entertainment, hear me out. This is an important topic to address on our health journey together. Becuase many of us deal with it at some point in time and I believe it is important to understand at least on a surface level.
Here are the key takeaways from the podcast:
Diet is the food we subsist on, and it is commonly broken into carbohydrates, protein, and fat.
There are essential proteins and fats that we need but do not make.
9 types of essential amino acids, which are found in protein
2 types of essential fatty acids, or fats.
These essential fats and proteins are found in meats, dairy, nuts, produce and so on.
Carbohydrates do not contain any essential components.
The ingredient in our food that makes us fat is actually excess carbohydrates and sugar. This can happen when we fill our body with more fuel than it actually needs. When the livers’ sugar storages are maxed out the excess is turned into storage for a rainy day.
This stored energy is better known as a triglyceride. These triglycerides can lead to an increased risk for heart disease, not fat that you eat.
Triglycerides also tend to be stored in adipose fat cells, which are normally around the stomach, hips, butt, and breasts.
Excess sugar leads to increased inflammation. Inflammation seems to be part of the root causes of things like: heart disease, type 2 diabetes, neurological diseases, and arthritis just to name a few. It is also important to note that chronic inflammation that seems to be an underlying factor in things like autoimmune disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and even in some autism cases.
To reiterate, the fat we eat is not harmful to us, as long as it comes from fish, meat, including red meat, fruit or fruit oils such as coconut, avocado, and quality olive oil, butter and full-fat dairy or nuts if you can tolerate them.
Quality sources of fat are safe to eat as long as it is not coupled with a high carb or sugar meal.
If we want to break this vicious cycle we should limit our carb and sugar intake so our body can use fat instead of store it. This is called fat or keto-adaptation.
Our body can either burn sugar or fat for energy. If we use carbs, we have to refuel more often, like eating frequent small meals all day; if we use fat for energy we can go longer times between refueling.
Many people equate these two energy sources to a wood burning stove, grill or campfire. Carbs would be like paper or twigs, they burn hot and fast; fat would be the coals or logs, they burn consistent and last a long time.
Another common analogy would be to look at this food energy as a bank account. Glucose energy is your change, you always have a little floating around, and you use it as soon as you can. The fat energy are like dollar bills, you have a reserve that you keep refilling as you get low, for example, I like to keep between 50-100 bucks in my wallet. Your bank account is the triglycerides and excess fat you are storing. When we limit carbs to our individual carb tolerance we become more successful and losing and keeping weight off.
So. what is insulin? Insulin is a hormone that helps us regulate blood sugar levels because too much blood sugar can be toxic to our system. (Aside from being a master hormone regulator)
Ideally, we make a small amount of insulin to deal with a given amount of carbs so our blood sugar stays normalized. However, if we become insulin resistant our blood sugar tends to r
