For some of us this may unfortunately be a very distant memory. Today is seems that so many of us are plagued with aches and pains, fatigue, digestive complaints, obesity, diabetes and confusion about what to eat.

Now I’m sure you have all heard of Type 2 Diabetes and insulin resistance. I’ll even bet you probably know someone that has it or you have it yourself. I might even go out on a limb here and say that there is a good chance that you yourself are insulin resistant! 

If you have persistent weight issues even though you feel like you do ‘all the right things’, a ever growing mid section, and ever mounting health complaints, chances are you are in the early stages.

Combine this with the stress that we put ourselves under, a diet high in carbs and sugars, and we have a recipe of dysregulated blood sugar, and unbalanced hormones. Diabetes is a slow moving disease and often 13 years has gone by of over consuming carbs and sugars before your liver and pancreas can no longer take it and your blood glucose raises to the point that you get a diagnosis.

Next step your Doctor will medicate you to bring down the high blood sugar – but how you got here in the first place is also the key to making things right again.

Insulin resistance is what happens when your liver is FULL OF FAT. How did that happen? Well glucose and fructose (sugar) are metabolised in the liver, the liver turns it to fat. That’s right, I said glucose and fructose – NOT dietary fat! 

Insulin is the key that unlocks the cell to let the glucose in, but if the cell is already full it doesn’t matter how much insulin you have, you have run out of space. You now have glucose in your blood. This is when your blood sugar is elevated, if this continues you literally start to rot from sugar.

You’ve all seen the pictures of rotten teeth or ulcerated limbs from diabetes. Well, sorry if its graphic but that is what happens to your body when you are literally full of sugar. Your liver and the pancreas have run out of options. It is not the insulin that is the problem, there is nowhere left to store the glucose and fructose.

What happens if you don’t eat or you consume significantly less carbs and more healthy fats? Well then the body finally gets a chance to use some of the excess glucose that is in the blood and has been stored in the liver. Blood sugar and insulin levels begin to normalise.

When the blood sugar comes down and the insulin is decreased many wonderful things start to happen. Hormones can balance, weight starts to shift, energy returns, your mood improves. Your pancreas begins to recover, it wasn’t burnt out after all, just clogged with fat!

From healthy dietary fat, your liver produces ketones as a fuel source, this is the preferred fuel for the body.

Becoming effective fat burners is the basis behind the growing interest in Ketogenic or Low Carb High Fat diets and intermittent fasting that is becoming a mainstream approach to addressing chronic disease. Why? Because returning to our evolutionary diet of healthy fat, protein and whole food plants leads to fat adaption and ultimately your best self yet.