Day Ninety Five!!

What is Metabolic Syndrome? 


Metabolic Syndrome, is when a person becomes insulin resistant. What happens is that your system secretes more and more insulin, and when this happens we have a tendency to gain weight, especially around the waist. The waist is where your fat cells are most sensitive to insulin, and the larger your waist, the higher the risk of heart disease. Other related metabolic disturbances are; higher blood pressure, an increase in triglycerides, and the decrease in HDL cholesterol, all of which, leads to your trouble in controlling your blood sugar, which may lead to type 2 diabetes. This combination of metabolic disturbances is known as metabolic syndrome, and are all indicative of heart disease risk factors. It is estimated that a quarter of the population in the USA now suffer from it. 


Researchers first identified that there was a link between carbohydrate intake to high triglycerides, to heart disease, in the late 1950’s. Researchers and doctors and health organizations just could not come to terms with the fact that it was a persons intake of carbohydrates that had been identified as the dietary cause of heart disease and diabetes. Not fat. Insulin works in our body by accumulating in the fat cells by expanding fat cells, releasing inflammatory molecules and thus the accumulation of fat. The chronically elevated blood sugar levels that go along with insulin resistance causes what is called activated stress, which invades throughout the body. 


The reason that we need to eat foods and drink foods with antioxidants is in order to combat and prevent oxidative stress. So bottom lining it, it’s the carbohydrates that drive up insulin levels and as such, low carbohydrate high fat diets,improve the metabolism, keeping hormonal abnormalities at bay and, keeping us free from metabolic syndrome.


Generally, the way in which the medical community sees someone with metabolic syndrome is to diagnose that the person has sedentary behaviour and overeats, and that is what has made the person fat. So the answer the medical community usually provides to this poor person is the low fat diet, eat less, and exercise. 


I have a story. There was always this one table in my college cafeteria that hosted the gym rat parasites. You know the ones, big muscles, took the business course, yeah those guys. One day I was sitting at the table beside them and overheard the conversation going back and fourth between the guy sitting with a girl on his lap (every damn day she sat on his lap) and another dude. The conversation was ‘I always hear fat people complain about how they are fat because of genetics, but girls like her (referring to the nameless woman I assume was his girlfriend on his lap) work for their bodies!’ 
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that,
#1. He has never spoken to/listened to a person that has trouble with their weight.
#2. His girlfriend never ate. I saw her everyday at that same lunch table, sitting on that same lap, and she NEVER ate.


So in conclusion, is that exercise doesn’t help, eating carbohydrates definitely does not help, what does help is eating low carb/high fat and increasing your antioxidants. I have since switched to red wine.
Also I recommend educating your local gym rat.