Metabolic Health
Make the Body Leptin-Sensitive to Lose Visceral Fat With a Simple Metabolic Shift
Leptin sensitivity might be improved by decreasing insulin spikes and increasing fat consumption for energy.
The Role of Leptin in Fat Loss, Healthy Weight Management, and Metabolic Health
Fat loss and lean muscle gain revolve around balancing hormones.
This article aims to introduce a behavioral shift related to nutrition that could benefit our fat loss, sustainable weight management, augmented fitness with lean muscles, and health improvement goals. The approach is practical and customizable for our nutritional needs.
Even though scientists have known this simple trick for a long time, the idea is still controversial. Consequently, the successful implementation of this shift might have economic and political implications that I choose not to explain, as economy and politics are not my forte. However, astute readers can deduct from the critical health-related message of the article.
People still unknowingly focus on calories for fat loss. However, we cannot achieve a sustainable weight and desired body composition without fixing hormonal issues, even if we reduce calories to a starvation point.
Convincingly, hormones are complex, enigmatic, and interrelated.
However, through my decades of sensible experiments and concentrated literature review of metabolism research, fortunately, we can balance metabolic hormones with a single nutritional shift by smartly playing with two energy-producing macronutrients: carbohydrates and fats. Effective use of proteins is a bonus.
In this article, I avoid going into scientific details. Instead, I focus on two interrelated hormones (insulin and leptin) to improve metabolic health, thus allowing us to lose visceral fat and maintain a healthy weight in practical terms.
Even though leptin and insulin are two different hormones, their effects on the body are related and dependent on each other. Therefore, if one of them fails, the other ones fail too.
First, let me give a brief background on the leptin hormone focusing on why it matters in fat loss and the healthy weight management process. One of my previous articles introduced six hormones that play a critical role in fat metabolism. They are insulin, cortisol, leptin, ghrelin, growth hormones, and sex hormones.
Leptin is unique as it signals the brain we are full. Therefore, if this hormone does not function properly, we will continue eating and consuming excess calories, causing fat gain. When leptin works well, we stop eating naturally. It does not require willpower or expensive supplementation to suppress appetite caused by another hormone called ghrelin.
However, there is a well-known health condition called leptin resistance. This condition prevents the brain from receiving satiety signals causing emotional food consumption of more than what we need, also known as binge eating. When the body is leptin resistant, the ghrelin hormone makes us feel hungry and even starving causing us to eat emotionally.
Even though its effects are high, ghrelin is not as complex as leptin and insulin. Two macronutrients (carbohydrates and fats) are critical in balancing two metabolic hormones, insulin and leptin.
While carbs mainly affect insulin, fats affect leptin. But they are interrelated. For example, like many people reducing carbs and increasing healthy fats helped my body become more insulin and leptin sensitive.
Consuming excessive carbs, especially refined ones, quickly increases blood sugar, causing insulin resistance.
However, fats have minimal impact on insulin. I cannot provide a prescriptive message for balancing carbs and fats as we are all individuals needing them in different amounts for various reasons and lifestyle factors.
Nevertheless, the principle is to reduce carbs and increase healthy fats to optimize blood sugar levels when providing the body’s energy.
Both carbs and fats produce calories turning into energy. However, fats are denser, meaning a gram of fat includes two times more calories than a gram of sugar. Regardless, fat has significantly less impact on insulin spikes and a more positive impact on leptin sensitivity due to the roles of molecules on these two hormones.
Therefore, my preferred energy source is healthy fats. After reducing carbs by following a ketogenic diet with time-restricted eating, I made my body more insulin and leptin sensitive.
I explain the simple behavioral shift to improve leptin sensitivity and prevent leptin resistance under the following two closely related headings.
1 — Increase Healthy Fats for Satiety
What have fats got to do with leptin? There are two critical factors determining the relationships between fats and leptin.
First of all, the leptin hormone is made up of fat molecules. Second, leptin informs satiety to the brain when we consume enough food containing fat each mealtime serving as the body’s signaling hormone. Leptin, specifically, sends messages to the hypothalamus (controllers of hormones in the brain).
Leptin also relates to the overall body fat percentage. As pointed out in this scientific paper in the Journal of Obesity,
“Serum leptin concentrations are well correlated with total body fat mass in healthy subjects. Differences in abdominal fat distribution do not appear to be related to a difference in the in vivo leptin production from adipose tissue.”
This finding means that those with higher fat might have more leptin, which sounds good, but it is not until we understand the issue of leptin resistance in obese people.
What do I mean by leptin resistance? Leptin resistance means that the body and brain become unable to respond to this critical hormone. Understanding the role of this crucial signal is vital because we keep eating more than we need when we experience leptin resistance.
Why does leptin resistance occur? Even though it is complex when I reviewed the literature, it boils down to two culprits: 1-) consuming excessive refined carbs with too little healthy fat in the diet, and 2-) sleep deprivation leading to chronic stress.
Fixing the first problem requires us to reduce the consumption of refined carbs and increase healthy fats with an adequate amount of protein our body needs.
Despite common beliefs and assumptions, let’s keep in mind that carbs are not essential, meaning that the body can survive without them through the gluconeogenesis process. However, some fats and amino acids forming protein are imperative as the body cannot produce them.
Fixing the second problem causing leptin resistance is improving sleep quality, having adequate rest, and enjoying life with fun activities. So, this point indicates that leptin is also related to another critical hormone, cortisol, managing our stress.
Elevated cortisol in the bloodstream frequently and for a long time suggests chronic stress. So reducing high cortisol levels might contribute to increasing leptin sensitivity. I believe that fat loss remains a dream unless we manage cortisol properly.
2 — Optimize Blood Sugar Preventing Insulin Spikes
The critical questions are, “why do blood sugar and insulin spike, why do they matter for fat loss or gain, and how do they relate to leptin resistance?”
Our bloodstream certainly needs glucose to cater to the energy requirements of several organs, especially the brain. However, it can handle only a specific amount of glucose, such as around one teaspoon of sugar at a time.
So, if it passes the threshold, our body perceives the glucose as toxic and quickly acts to eliminate it. It uses the function of the insulin hormone secreted by the pancreas to distribute blood glucose to various cells, such as muscles and adipose tissue.
The first preference is muscles, as they are critical for our survival. If muscles don’t need glucose, the body sends the excess glucose to fat cells by converting glucose to fat molecules. Consequently, our fat cells grow by accumulating visceral fat, especially in the abdominal area.
When muscles and other organ cells stop responding to insulin signals to utilize glucose, a condition called “insulin resistance” occurs. When we experience this undesirable condition, the pancreas creates more insulin to deal with elevated glucose.
So one of the causes of insulin resistance is hyperinsulinemia meaning that the bloodstream has a higher than average amount of insulin.
What does cause excess blood glucose and insulin spikes? The simple answer is consuming refined carbs that turn into sugar too quickly. Therefore, reducing fast-digesting carbs and replacing them with healthy fats is a proven strategy to lower blood sugar and prevent insulin spikes.
The more nutritious fat I consumed, the more belly fat I burned. My insulin and leptin sensitivity significantly increased when I made my body fat-adapted. I never felt hunger pangs again, even though I eat only one nutritious meal a day with enough fat.
Adequate fat consumption in my diet allows me to fast for five to seven days. In addition, with a high-fat diet and time-restricted eating making me fat-adapted, my body gained more brown fat giving me sustainable energy.
Consuming too many carbs might lead to insulin resistance. On the other hand, consuming adequate amounts of healthy fats for energy production may lead to insulin sensitivity desired for fat loss and healthy weight maintenance.
When we make our body insulin sensitive, with little insulin signaling, the muscle cells accept the blood glucose. I introduced three tips to make our body insulin sensitive and prevent insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance and leptin resistance are two metabolic conditions leading to metabolic syndrome, an underlying risk factor for type II diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, neurodegenerative diseases, and some cancers.
When we experience insulin and leptin resistance, it is impossible to melt belly fat effectively, even if we reduce calories. If we attempt to reduce calories in these undesirables states, we might lose weight, but it would be more muscles and less visceral fat, which unfortunately happened to me in my younger years due to a lack of knowledge.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Improving our leptin profile can help us manage the risks of high blood glucose and hyperinsulinemia.
For example, as indicated in this scientific paper, “Leptin has beneficial effects on glucose-insulin metabolism by decreasing glycemia, insulinemia, and insulin resistance.”
Understanding the effects of leptin on glucose-insulin homeostasis will lead to the development of leptin-based therapies against diabetes and other insulin resistance syndromes.”
Even though some of us desire fat loss quickly, the ultimate goal is to keep our metabolism functional and prevent metabolic diseases such as type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases.
The body and brain connect through hormones and neurotransmitters. Leptin is one of these molecules to maintain essential communication. Related to fat metabolism, we need to understand the role of carnitine.
I was experiencing leptin and insulin resistance at younger ages putting me in a pre-diabetic situation. After solving these two critical issues, I improved my health by reducing visceral fat and increasing lean muscle mass.
I also shared stories of several friends. For example, fixing insulin and leptin resistance helped Rosalia reduce visceral fat and solve mental health issues like brain fog, anxiety, and mild depression.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
I also wrote about another hormone called adiponectin, which is similar to leptin.
Adiponectin Matters for Fat Loss and Inflammatory Health Conditions
I documented my perspectives on hormones.
Hormonal Intelligence: Sharpen It to Achieve Optimal Health
Sugar Paradox: Key to Solve Metabolic and Mental Health Disorders
If you find this article valuable, you might check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of sensible experiments.
Besides aiming to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and writing about neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine, one of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.
I aim to educate, create awareness, and empower my readers to take control of their health and well-being.
To raise awareness about health issues, I have written several articles that present my holistic health findings from research, personal observations, and unique experiences. Below are links to these articles for easy access.
Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Heart Disease, Strokes, Obesity, Liver Cancer, Autoimmune Disorders, Homocysteine, Lungs Health, Pancreas Health, Kidneys Health, NCDs, Infectious Diseases, Brain Health, Dementia, Depression, Brain Atrophy, Neonatal Disorders, Skin Health, Dental Health, Bone Health, Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain, Brain Fog, Chronic Inflammation, Insulin Resistance, Elevated Cortisol, Leptin Resistance, Anabolic Resistance, Cholesterol, High Triglycerides, Metabolic Disorders, Gastrointestinal Disorders, and Major Diseases.
I also wrote about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Lutein/Zeaxanthin, Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, PQQ, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, zinc, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, N-Acetyl L-Tyrosine, and other nutrients to improve metabolism and mental health.
Disclaimer: Please note that my posts do not include professional or health advice. I document my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
If you enjoy writing and storytelling, you can join Medium, NewsBreak, and Vocal as a creator to find your voice, reach out to a broad audience, and monetize your content.
You may also check my blog posts about my articles and articles of other writers contributing to my publications on Medium. I share them on my website digitalmehmet.com. Here is my professional bio. You can contact me via weblink.
As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
Finally, After Burning Her House, Georgia Found Enlightenment
Hilarious Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Keep the Gray Matter Giggling
8 Psychological Points I Had to Unlearn and Relearn the Opposite
Based on my writing experience and observations, I documented findings and strategies that might help you amplify your voice, engage your audience, and achieve your desired outcomes in your writing journey.
You might join my six publications on Medium as a writer by sending a request via this link. 25K+ writers contribute to my publications. You might find more information about my professional background.
