Metabolic Health

Here’s Why I Got Insulin Resistance in My Early 20s and How I Fixed It in 7 Steps.

Fixing my metabolic syndrome with healthy lifestyle choices gave me a defined body and a clear mind after my 50s.

The Paradox of Sugar and Insulin for Metabolism

Wouldn’t you think that a 23-year-old body functions better than a 60-year-old one? But I had just the opposite in my life. In my 20s, I was overweight with a foggy brain, but I had six-pack abs after my 50s with a sharp mind and joyful mood.

Ironically a person in his 20s must have a well-functioning metabolism. However, paradoxically, my body after the 50s became more metabolically flexible and insulin-sensitive thanks to healthy lifestyle choices, which are less spoken of and sometimes undermined by mainstream practitioners out of college with no real-life experience.

I had no clue about the importance of insulin in my 20s, just like those young nutritionists who try to treat diabetic patients with high-carb meals. Therefore, nowadays, I keep highlighting the importance and critical role of this master hormone in our metabolic and mental health.

Fixing insulin resistance can fix metabolic issues and significantly lower the rate of obesity, type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, some cancers, and neurodegenerative disorders. Therefore, I call insulin resistance the elephant in the room. Fortunately, scientific studies back this up.

Obesity became an epidemic due to mainly insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. I don’t feel any guilt or shame in emphasizing this problem and offering viable solutions, as it looks impossible to overcommunicate the effects of insulin resistance, considering the dire situation globally.

For example, 442 million people live with diabetes leading to cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative disorders, causing morbidity and mortality to millions of innocent people. I wish we could talk about it more and take corrective actions.

As I provided practical tips on fixing insulin resistance, I will not delve into those details in this story. Interested readers might start with this story titled Three Tips to Eliminate Insulin Resistance and Shrink Waistline. I also introduced the paradox of sugar.

The purpose of this story is to reveal the critical points as lessons learned from my decades of experience and observations of others in the field without going into detail. As each heading is extensive, I link relevant stories for those interested in more information.

Here’s a summary of my protocol to make my body insulin sensitive and get rid of metabolic syndrome in my younger years.

1 — I replaced carbs with healthy fats and solved nutritional deficiencies.

Changing the fuel source for my body significantly impacted getting rid of insulin resistance, improving energy utilization, and making my body insulin sensitive. This protocol initiated ketosis and enabled my body to get fat adapted.

My problem was misinformation about carbs and healthy fats. I thought that fats were unnecessary and would cause fat gain. And I believed that carbs were essential and would help me lose fat.

It was just the opposite. Some healthy fat was essential and would not make us fat. And carbs were not essential as the body can create sugar from amino acids and fat molecules through gluconeogenesis on demand. Unfortunately, millions of people still live with this misinformation, which ruins their metabolism like mine.

This robust information enabled me to design a customized diet following the rules of a ketogenic eating regimen, such as high fat, moderate protein from bioavailable sources, and low carbs, preferably from complex ones and plants.

Nutritional deficiencies cause imbalances in the body, increasing stress and causing severe health conditions. Lack of healthy fats caused deficiencies of the vitamins that required fat to be absorbed.

Practicing the keto-carnivore diet addressed all nutritional deficiencies, including Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Magnesium, and choline which were problems in my low-fat and high-carb diets.

High-carb and low-fat diets also led me to consume excessive food, as sugary food never allowed me to feel satiety. I became an emotional eater, craving food constantly, as I documented in my nightmares.

Overconsuming food can cause numerous metabolic disorders. Balancing macronutrients (proteins, healthy fats, and carbohydrates) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are critical to reducing metabolic health risks.

Refraining from empty calories and focusing on nutrient-dense food for energy and recovery was a wise lifestyle choice for me. I documented my improvement in a story titled Here’s What Happened When I Replaced Carbs with Healthy Fats for Two Decades.

However, we don’t have to cut carbs entirely. For example, a friend, Amy, entered ketosis and made her body insulin-sensitive without following a ketogenic diet.

2 — I skipped meals and practiced intermittent fasting.

In addition to overconsumption of carbs, frequent eating was the primary cause of my metabolic disorders. I used to eat three meals and three snacks, thinking it was necessary to boost my metabolism.

The thermic effect of the food consumption slightly boosted the metabolism, but excessive calories from carbs quickly turned into visceral fat, growing my midsection and making me prediabetic.

So the thermic effect of the food was so minor that other metabolic changes due to excessive and frequent eating created havoc in my body. It was the major cause of insulin resistance leading to metabolic syndrome.

When I cut snacks and later skipped breakfast, I felt fantastic. My energy levels increased, and I started losing actual fat, not muscle or just fluids, as opposed to unsustainable weight loss in previous diets.

And finally, when I adopted OMAD (one meal a day) eating regimen, my body became insulin sensitive and leptin signaling sustainably. So I never experienced any metabolic disorder after this radical shift.

3 — I moved the same amount but performed more resistance training and HIIT.

I always enjoyed exercise as it made me happy. However, previously I used to overdo cardio such as long-distance running and perform very little weight training as I did not want to gain too much muscle mass with the fear of cancer.

Again, it was wrong information that resistance training like weight lifting and calisthenics would cause excessive muscle mass. By experimenting, I learned that the body controlled muscle growth tightly. There was nothing to be feared in resistance training, including moderate weight lifting.

Unless we have underlying health issues or we abuse illegal body-building substances like injecting synthetic testosterone, insulin, or growth hormone in order of magnitude and consume too much protein and carbs, releasing excessive insulin, it is impossible to gain excessive muscle mass.

My high-fat and moderate protein diet gave me abundant energy to exercise. In addition to daily calisthenics and barefoot walk, I started lifting weights every third day. This approach helped me gain lean muscle and keep them. It also helped me burn visceral fat as an energy source. Therefore, I didn’t gain unnecessary fat.

4 — I fixed sleep issues and lowered stress.

Sleep deprivation and excessive stress were severe problems leading to insulin resistance. The root cause was elevated cortisol for a prolonged time.

When cortisol was too high, I couldn’t lose any visceral fat even though I ate less and exercised more. I only lost previous muscles. So I had a skinny body with a bulging belly.

In addition, excessive stress caused by too much cardio caused my body to get inflamed and led to chronic inflammation. Stress and inflammation are contributors to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.

Excessive inflammation is toxic to the body, adversely affecting hormones, neurotransmitters, and cell health.

In addition to stress and inflammation, the wrong food choices made me bloated and even caused a leaky gut.

When I solved the sleep issues, lowered caffeine, recovered timely after intense exercises, and addressed nutritional issues, my cortisol levels dropped, and I started burning visceral fat and building lean muscles. When my cortisol levels optimized, my bulging belly magically disappeared.

5 — I meditated regularly and worked in a flow state intentionally.

Another contributor to lowering accumulated stress and optimizing cortisol levels was practicing mindfulness, meditating, slowing down, and working in a flow state. Chronic stress, mainly due to work pressure and ambition, was ruing my life.

I used various mindfulness practices such as living in the moment, observing my thoughts and feelings, visualizations, expressive writing, self-conversations, gardening, laughter yoga, and self-initiated cognitive behavioral therapy.

Mindfulness practices indirectly contributed to making my body become insulin-sensitive because they helped me optimize stress hormones such as cortisol and boost my mood for better mental health.

6 — I leveraged the power of thermogenesis.

I was very naive about the cold. For example, I thought cold weather or water would cause me to catch a cold or flu and would lead to infectious diseases. I also thought that heat would cause heart disease.

I had no idea they could improve my health if used properly. They were just the opposite of my belief, similar to misinformation on nutrition.

The literature on thermogenesis was fragmented, but there was significant evidence of its value for physical and mental health. Thus, I investigated it intensely and experimented sensibly. Cold showers, ice baths, and dry saunas gave me a new life.

I documented my decades of experience, summarizing it in an article titled Here Is What Happened When I Experimented with Thermogenesis for Decades.

In summary, cold exposure helped me lower visceral fat and turn it into brown fat, making my mitochondria denser. In addition, the heat therapy through dry saunas helped me perspire, eliminate toxins, and initiate SIRT2 genes, giving me a younger look.

7 — I initiated autophagy and mitophagy.

I had no idea of the body’s self-healing system in my younger years. Instead, my focus was on external entities, such as medication, to address my chronic conditions.

Apart from supporting and keeping my defense system active, I also leveraged the power of self-healing of cells through autophagy and mitophagy processes.

These approaches lowered the risks of numerous disorders as toxins, pathogens, and mutated proteins cause imbalances in the body.

I use three approaches to activate the self-healing process of the body and mind. The process is initiated with energy deficiency in the body. So, I used three fundamental mechanisms to create a balanced deficit without causing starvation. They are time-restricted eating, a ketogenic diet, and intense exercise.

I wrote a comprehensive article titled Activate Self-Healing with Self-Love. I wrote many articles related to these topics. I don’t want to repeat them here.

In summary, autophagy is the self-healing process in specific systems in the body. The body uses the autophagy process by consuming useless cells, damaged proteins, pathogens, and bacterial toxins as an energy source.

The process leads to self-healing at the cellular level. Therefore, autophagy contributed to my cellular, metabolic, hormonal, mental, immune, and skin health. Interested readers can find the details in this article titled Here Is What Happened When I Experimentally Initiated Autophagy Decades Ago.

What Happened After Making the Body Insulin Sensitive

In this short section, I’d like to briefly summarize the key benefits of making the body insulin sensitive.

First, you might wonder how a single hormone and glucose impairment can make such an enormous difference in one’s life. Insulin is the master hormone running the metabolic show of the body. The body sees the excess sugar as toxic. Insulin failure is the start of metabolic diseases.

Growing metabolic health concerns is another reason I characterize insulin resistance as the elephant in the room.

In my case, I had no clue about this hormone in my 20s. Therefore, I had so many problems in those days. Due to its effects on the body, I keep highlighting the importance and critical role of this master hormone in our metabolic and mental health.

Like many scientists and health professionals, I also believe that fixing insulin resistance can fix metabolic syndrome and significantly lower the rate of obesity, type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, some cancers, and neurodegenerative disorders.

When my body became insulin sensitive, all symptoms of metabolic syndrome and prediabetes disappeared. I lost significant visceral fat and retained lean muscle.

After a decade, I gained six-pack abs and eliminated loose skin in my early 50s as my testosterone and growth hormone levels tripled. In addition, my dental and skin health significantly improved, making me feel younger than before.

Takeaways

After summarizing my decades of experience in defeating metabolic syndrome and gaining a healthy body and mind, I’d like to provide a few takeaway points that healthy individuals can customize by changing the parameters based on goals and needs.

Rather than counting calories, consume adequate calories or burn excessive ones.

Consume nutrient-dense food, lower refined carbs, and add healthy fats like omega-3s to your diet.

Skip a meal, cut snacks, or perform time-restricted eating or fasting to initiate autophagy if you can, and your doctor approves.

Move the body regularly and joyfully.

Address sleep issues and get restorative sleep every night.

Lower your stress with rest, fun, hobbies, and timely recovery.

Optimize hormones by seeking advice from professionals.

Fix chronic inflammation with lifestyle choices and seek support from your doctor.

Get rid of toxins and pathogens and stay away from them as much as possible.

Solve emotional problems via guided or self-therapy.

These principles might work for many people if appropriately customized with help from professionals.

Nevertheless, people with underlying health issues need to seek support from qualified healthcare professionals timely. These takeaways are for healthy individuals as preventative measures.

I documented metabolic issues in an article titled Solve These 7 Metabolic Issues to Shrink Waistlines and Protect Muscles. I also shared Seven Mistakes to Avoid When Losing Fat.

The key takeaway of this story is to make your body insulin sensitive as soon as possible with healthy lifestyle choices to stay young and prevent metabolic and mental health disorders.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

I aim to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and write about various hormones and neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, adrenaline, glutamate, and histamine.

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.

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, Phosphatidylserine, 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.

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