Low Insulin Linked to Fat Burning

The Claim: Low insulin levels are correlated with a shift to a high percentage of fat burning

Answer: FACT

Although insulin level is correlated to fat loss, it’s not the only hormone responsible for controlling fat storage and burning.

Growth hormone is also essential to cause fat to be released from stores and burned.

In other words, the COMBINATION of low insulin and high growth hormone is the key to releasing and burning fat. Low insulin alone cannot do this by itself.

But none of this is anything you have to worry about because growth hormone will naturally be high when insulin is low (assuming you’re a healthy adult without any diagnosed insulin or growth hormone disorder)

So although this is technically a fact, it’s irrelevant and useless information and focusing on manipulating insulin through weird diets like low carb has caused more harm than good for most people.

John

Posted by johnbarban in Fat Loss, metabolism
Tags: Fat Loss, insulin |6 Comments

6 Responses to “Low Insulin Linked to Fat Burning”

  1. Wood Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 9:26 am

    OK, but its not true that you can keep your insulin level low if you eat low carb diet? I can read everywhere, that sugar and other carbs skyrocket the insulin level but protein and fat dont.
    So its logical eating food that dont raise the insulin level..

  2. johnbarban Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 10:07 am

    Wood, protein causes a similar insulin response as carbs, this is well documented.

    “skyrocket insulin” <– unscientific term that means nothing and is used by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

    Excess dietary fat will be stored as body fat regardless of carb or protein intake.

    JB

  3. John Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    Can you explain the process of fat storage through excess consumption of fat while keeping carbs below 30g per day.
    The reason I ask is becuase I once was on a low carb diet and ate well above maintanance for 3 days to see for myself if I would gain much weight yet my weight stayed the same, I only ate double cream, olive oils, butter, cheeses and meets. I ate above 5000 kcals for 3 days and my weight stayed the same, how could that happen. If i eat like that with carbs my weight would most definatly go up not counting the water I’d hold.

    For a leyman like me someone saying carbs raise insulin which in turn promotes fat storage is nice and simple to understand. I know it has something to do with acylation stimulating protein
    but can you put the process of fat storage while carbs are so low into a esay to understand paragraph.

    One problem with the low carbs for me was the rebound binging it’s had on me so I wont be doing it again.

  4. johnbarban Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 6:35 pm

    John,

    The metabolism and storage of dietary fat is initiated and controlled by lipase enzymes (not insulin). It follows a different absorption route than carbs or protein. Fat is broken down and absorbed through lymph capillaries first, and then the blood stream. From there it gets stored as very dense tissue that requires very little water to be stored effecitve. The storage form of carbohydrates (glycogen) require almost twice as much water to be stored effective. In other words a gram of glycogen requires two grams of water to be effectively stored. This is why you can store way more calories as fat without gaining as much weight as storing glycogen, and could easily explain your experiment you did eating more fat.

    In other words the energy stored in 1 pound of fat would be the same as 6 pounds of hydrated glycogen.

    Make sense?

    JB

  5. Jay Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 10:20 pm

    Does eating a high protein/low carb diet improve satiety though? Therefore making you eat less calories?

    Thought of another fact/factoid- the G-flux effect, read about it on tmuscle.com by John Berardi. His claim is that a calorie deficit of 500 calories is different for someone who is eating 1500 calories a day and burning 2000, versus someone who is exercising a lot and eating 2500 calories but burning 3000.

  6. John Says:
    February 23rd, 2010 at 3:36 am

    Yes, thanks for clearing that up John. I was stuck in the low carb is best mindset for a long time and I’m now experimenting with intermittent fasting and eating foods I enjoy. The only thing I miss about low carb is the satiety effect it had on me, when I allow myself a wider variety of foods I’m more likely to eat too much. When I eat lower carbs of the foods I dont enjoy so much I can stick with eating that way for a long time.
    Wether I eat low carbs or not I can definatly say I’ll stick with intermittent fasting for the future.

    Thanks John

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