Eat right AND move!

Let's take a look at just one hormone in your body – insulin – and how it affects so many other things.

 

First, let's define two important words – insulin and glucose.

• Insulin is a hormone produced naturally by your pancreas. Insulin regulates carbohydrate and fat metabolism in your body.
• Glucose is produced when you eat food. Chronic, elevated blood glucose levels create a haphazard process within your body. It upsets the process that your body naturally undergoes in creating insulin.  The healthier the food you eat, the less blood glucose levels will elevate.  Eating vegetables does not raise blood glucose levels as much as processed/sugary foods will.

Insulin’s job is to allow the liver, muscle, and fat cells to use glucose from the blood. Those cells then use that glucose to make fuel for the body, and finally that fuel is stored as glycogen and tryglceride in the liver, muscle and fat tissue.

Insulin opens the gate to transport glucose. However, if you are inactive that gate cannot work properly. When this happens, glucose remains in the blood. The good news is that movement can re-open the gate to take more glucose out of the blood and allow the muscle to use glucose as energy.  Extra glucose is stored in the liver and fat cells.

When there is not enough insulin, sugar stays in the blood stream, which raises blood sugar levels, causing hyperglycemia.  Hyperglycemia damages nerves, eyesight and kidneys. You probably know this as diabetes.

When a person is diabetic, either he or she does not have enough insulin in the body to control blood sugar level, or there is more glucose in the blood than what the body’s natural production of insulin can handle.

When there is too much insulin in the body because of sudden spike in blood sugar level (poor food choice) and muscles are not being worked well (lack of movement), this is also a problem.

Chronic increase of insulin levels affect the chemicals that run the heart. Increased insulin also results in the kidneys retaining water, which in turn produces greater blood volume and higher blood pressure.

WE DO NOT WANT GLUCOSE TO STAY IN THE BLOOD.  At the risk of being redundant… when muscle cells are active glucose does not stay in the blood, it instead converts into energy.

In conclusion, to keep insulin in check – not too little or too much – you can eat healthy foods and participate in regular movement to allow your body to produce enough insulin naturally, and move glucose out of the blood, to BEcome the WHOLE healthy YOU!