Among them are weight loss, exercise, glucose-lowering medication, and changes in food choices or eating habits. Tom says exercise is the most effective tool. Exercise helps by reducing body fat, which makes cells less resistant to insulin, and by building muscle, which helps the body use insulin more efficiently.
Insulin: The Key Player in Belly Fat
Insulin also drives inflammation and oxidative stress, creating myriad downstream effects. Eventually you become insulin resistant, which leads your body to generate belly fat and hold on to that spare tire for dear life.
A minimum initial prolonged fast of 36 hours to 3 days may be needed to start the process of reversing insulin resistance. For morbidly obese patients Fung uses initial fasts of 7 to 21 days. The longest known medically supervised fast is over 1 year in a male weighing more than 460 lbs.
Exercise is one of the fastest and most effective ways to reverse insulin resistance. Eat a balanced diet emphasizing vegetables, proteins, and low-fat dairy. Moderating your carb intake can help with weight loss and decreasing insulin resistance. Lose weight, especially around the middle, if possible.
Foods to avoid for insulin resistance
soda, juice, and sweet tea. refined grains, including white rice, white bread, and cereal with added sugar. ultra-processed snack foods like candy, cookies, cakes, and chips.
If your cells become too resistant to insulin, it can result in elevated blood sugar levels, which can lead to weight gain, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. Losing weight with insulin resistance is more difficult because the body stores excess blood sugar as fat.
Experts believe obesity, especially too much fat in the abdomen and around the organs, called visceral fat, is a main cause of insulin resistance. A waist measurement of 40 inches or more for men and 35 inches or more for women is linked to insulin resistance.
How do you find out if you're insulin resistant? No one test will tell you, but if you have high blood sugar levels, high triglycerides (a kind of blood fat), high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, and low HDL (“good”) cholesterol, your health care provider may determine you have insulin resistance.
There are some signs of insulin resistance that your doctor may look for. These includes a waistline over 40 inches in men, and a waistline over 35 inches in women. Skin tags or patches of dark velvety skin called acanthosis nigricans. A blood pressure reading of 130 over 80 or higher.
Intermittent fasting diets have certain therapeutic effects on blood glucose and lipids in patients with metabolic syndrome and significantly improve insulin resistance. It may be considered as an auxiliary treatment to prevent the occurrence and development of chronic diseases.
Exercise. Physical activity reverses many insulin resistance risk factors and improves insulin sensitivity. Aerobic (cardio) and resistance training (strength) are equally important. Some studies suggest that doing both types of exercise provide greater benefits than doing either one alone.
1. Exercise: Vigorous exercise trims all your fat, including visceral fat. Get at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least 5 days a week. Walking counts, as long as it's brisk enough that you work up a sweat and breathe harder, with your heart rate faster than usual.
There are many reasons why people gain belly fat, including poor diet, lack of exercise, and stress. Improving nutrition, increasing activity, and making other lifestyle changes can help people lose belly fat. Belly fat refers to fat around the abdomen.
It might be as simple as eating too much too fast, or you could have a food intolerance or other condition that causes gas and digestive contents to build up. Your menstrual cycle is another common cause of temporary bloating. Sometimes a bloated stomach can indicate a more serious medical condition.
Prediabetes happens when your blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Prediabetes usually occurs in people who already have some insulin resistance. Prediabetes can lead to Type 2 diabetes (T2D), the most common type of diabetes.
Not everyone with diabetes is insulin resistant, and not everyone with insulin resistance will get diabetes. Dr. Bridenstine explained that insulin resistance is a broader term: If your body is secreting higher levels of insulin to adequately regulate your blood glucose levels, then you have insulin resistance.
Another study tied higher vitamin D to a lower risk of insulin resistance, when the body is unable to respond to or use the insulin that it's producing.
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Mounjaro (tirzepatide) injection to improve blood sugar control in adults with type 2 diabetes, as an addition to diet and exercise.
The Weight Biology Kit is the first and only at-home test that identifies insulin resistance early on and gives you next steps to get your levels under control.
Insulin resistance usually develops slowly and does not cause obvious symptoms. It can make you feel tired and low in energy, however. Since many people blame these effects on other factors such as lack of sleep, insulin resistance can go unnoticed for years.
Eggs are an excellent protein source with all nine essential amino acids and less than 0.5 grams of carbs, making it ideal for weight loss and for overcoming insulin resistance.
If you struggle with insulin resistance, try eating fruits in moderation. While fruits contain “natural” sugar, they still contain carbohydrates and can spike blood sugar, especially fruits like apples, bananas, and mangoes, which all have high sugar content.
The Bottom Line. Bananas are a delicious, nutritious and affordable food for everyone, including those with diabetes. Eating this healthy fruit can help stabilize blood sugar levels, improve insulin sensitivity and improve heart health.