Everything you eat and drink effects your hormone levels.
What’s a hormone? According to Dictionary.com it is…”A substance, usually a peptide or steroid, produced by one tissue and conveyed by the bloodstream to another to effect physiological activity, such as growth or metabolism.”
And…that means? That means that hormones are little messengers that are made by one organ and sent out to tell another organ to get busy doing something. How’s that for simple? Make sense?
Your endocrine system is made of the pituitary, pineal, thyroid and adrenal glands as well as testes, ovaries, thymus and the pancreas.
When the levels of our hormones are out of line, our system reacts with illness and disease. When the various organs within the endocrine system are over worked our systems react with illness and disease. When we abuse our bodies by eating foods that cause repeated and constant damage, our bodies revolt and illness and disease takes hold. It really is that simple. Except its not. Each person has their ideal food prescription and finding it takes time and trial and error. Not to mention that even if we find your ideal prescription we still need to give your body time to heal itself, rebuild and start anew. Patience is key and that is no easy thing in an instant gratification world.
The food you eat is a drug that effects the production of two key hormones…insulin (a storage hormone) and glucagon (an energy releasing hormone). Protein that you eat effects your body’s production of glucagon. Glucagon causes your liver to release stored energy (glucose) into the bloodstream where insulin pulls that energy out of the bloodstream and into your cells to be used as fuel. This is good so far. Carbohydrates that you eat effect your body’s production of insulin. There needs to be a balance of insulin and glucagon in the bloodstream for mental and emotional health, optimal physical health and optimal physical performance. Eating fat is hormone neutral. When we eat a diet heavy on carbs we cause our bodies to produce excessive insulin…constantly. This state where our cells are constantly bombarded with insulin due to being heavy on carbohydrate consumption (much of your processed foods, grain-based foods) leads to the cells becoming insulin resistant.
What does that mean? Here’s a visual.
You’ve all seen it, lived it or wanted to strangle someone who was in the midst of dealing (or not dealing) with a child who is repeating “mom…mom…mom…mom…Mom…Mom…Mom…MOM…MOM…MOM…MOM!!…” over and over again until you could strangle the kid or the parent or both. Just reading that bit above is enough to start a low grade headache. Yikes! Ok…the mom not hearing the kid anymore is ‘mom’-resistant. They are desensitized to the kid saying mom. It’s the SAME THING as insulin resistance. Your cells love insulin and need insulin and want to do their jobs but your constant supply of carbohydrates which directly causes a constant supply of insulin flooding the bloodstream has them too tired to use what’s right in front of them. So they don’t.
Is that bad? YES!! Too much insulin floating around in the bloodstream leads to a giant host of illness and disease. Remember the 5th paragraph above? It’s like that. Excess insulin in the blood leads to Hypertension (insulin increases sodium retention by the renal tubules), Coronary Artery Disease (increased insulin damages endothelial cells), Increased synthesis of VLDL (hypertriglyceridemia), Type 2 Diabetes (insulin resistance and insulin deficiency within the cells) as well as damage and function impairment of many organs the cardiovascular system. This is the short list.
The processed foods, the soft drinks, the high-fructose corn syrup laden everything are all plotting and scheming to take us down and its worse for our kids! We feed our children cereal for breakfast, pack a Lunchables for lunch and pick up chicken tenders and fries for dinner and wonder why they can’t shut down and focus on their studies. There wasn’t even any soda mentioned in that list. Dang!
Here’s another kicker…my previous post talked about Fruit Loops getting this its healthy for you check mark on the box for being ONLY 12 grams of sugar per serving (and the serving size is?). Prior to us finding out the information we share with you today we ate what the typical “healthy” family ate and searched the cereal aisle for the better foods. Compare the “heart-healthy” cereals and their load of sugar with the much maligned Fruit Loops and you’ll be surprised to find that, in comparison, Fruit Loops is lower in sugar. Crazy! Compare it to that packet of instant oatmeal. Holy cow! We swore off foods in boxes. It took less time than standing in the aisle reading the back of every box, trying to find something at least okay for the girls. It didn’t even need to be good for them!
This post doesn’t even tap into thyroid issues and pancreatic cancer and imbalanced sex-hormones affecting the ability to have children, enjoy your spouse or transition through the various stages of life. Everything you are and everything you do is controlled by the hormones your body produces and your hormone production is controlled by the foods you ingest. The magic pill, the miracle diet, the savior of your health is the food that you choose to eat. Choose simple. Choose wisely.