Insulin Resistance

Stephan Guyenet at http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-causes-insulin-resistance-part-i.html is doing a series on Insulin resistance.

I hope along the way he says something to confirm my opinions. Insulin is the energy regulation hormone, as well as the glucose gatekeeper. It also hogs Leptin receptors causing leptin signal blocking aka leptin resistance.

It appears to me that once we have two of three carbohydrate meals in a row, or a feast, our liver and muscles are filled with glycogen, and we become insulin resistant enough to push everything into the fat cells. The liver is the first to fill, due to the first pass effect, and it becomes insulin resistant, pushing more of the insulin and nutrients through the liver to the blood flow. Insulin resistance is a continuum, not a sudden onset issue. It occurs cell by cell, at a cellular level of decision making. It protects the cell from overfeeding.

As I understand it, the liver uses 50% to 90% of the insulin. The portal vein has insulin concentrations 2 to 10 times higher than the circulation. When the liver is full, it becomes insulin resistant, it must allow more insulin to pass, along with glucose and fats. Insulin controls glycogenesis and glyconeogenesis in the liver. As the concentration of insulin goes up these shut off, first glyconeogenesis where glycogen is made from odd amino acids, followed by the production of glycose from glycogen. Once the insulin is passing the liver faster, the body gets fed.

It appears to me that cravings are the result of cellular hunger during the insulin depletion stage of intermittent insulin resistance. That is the hell that I go through in the first days of any diet. It is my intention to never again overflow my liver by eating small meals, and low carbohydrate, until I get down to the point that my waste/hip ration is less that 1.0, perhaps 0.95. That is a good reason to not eat out if possible.

A comment like "I do not want to take a chance of inducing insulin resistance again and have to go through 5 days of the agony of  recovering from insulin resistance again." Take that ye old food pusher.