
Reversing Insulin Resistance
Written by Dr. Amy Reidhead on . Posted in Boulder Holistic Blog.
What is insulin resistance?

Insulin is a hormone released by your endocrine system that helps shuttle sugar consumed in the diet into your cells to be used as fuel. Insulin is also the main fat storage hormone in the body. It tells fat cells to store all calories as fat and elevated insulin levels also prevent fat from being used as fuel.
Insulin resistance really means insulin excess and it is just one step on the path to developing long-term issues with your metabolism. So when your insulin levels are high, your body goes into fat storage mode… making weight loss nearly impossible.

If you want to work on reversing insulin resistance, it requires a dedication to eating a whole foods diet and modifying your lifestyle and exercise behaviors—for life.

- Exercise. In order to change your metabolism, you have to exercise. The best exercise for changing metabolism is brisk walking 30+ minutes at least 5 out of 7 days.
- Stress control. Cortisol is our stress hormone, and elevated cortisol levels also contribute to greater fat storage, especially abdominal fat. You can read about cortisol here. Read about how mindfulness, meditation, tapping and breath work can all help to rewire our stress response here.
- Low carb and high fat diet. A whole foods diet that eliminates processed foods and simple carbs and sugar and includes healthy fats is recommended for reversing insulin resistance. Check out the Mito-Food plan from IFM.
- Ketosis. Ketosis simply means that your body has adapted to burning fat for fuel rather than glucose. The Mito-Keto food plan can help you figure out what to eat to start exploring ketosis.
- Fasting. Intermittent or prolonged fasting. Fasting is an advanced way to profoundly change your metabolism. Fasting can be explored under medical supervision, as long as you have made all the above changes to your diet and lifestyle.
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