In the United States, overweight and obesity affect two-thirds of the population. As the rest of the developed world takes on the typical Western diet, obesity rates are climbing globally.
Obesity is a key risk factor in diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and early death. It’s been scientifically proven to cause or worsen more than 60 serious conditions and diseases. It is time to take the obesity epidemic seriously because now, it’s becoming a serious concern for children as well! This isn’t about how you look in a swimsuit. This is about the fat that is choking out your organs and stealing your opportunities for a long life filled with good health!
You need to know the secret to burning fat. It isn’t counting calories, being nasty to yourself, or exercising for hours at a time. The true key to weight control is leptin.
Once you understand what this hormone does in your body, why you need it, and how to increase leptin naturally, you’ll be on the road to burning fat, getting healthy, and living the life you are meant to live.
What is Leptin?
Leptin has many important functions in your body but we’re going to focus on the way it regulates energy levels and fat stores inside you. It calls the shots about how much food you “need” to eat and then decides what your body does with the fuel.
The fat cells in your body produce leptin. This hormone tells the hypothalamus region of your brain (via the bloodstream) when you’re full. That message lets the brain know that you can return to burning calories without the necessity for more food.
High levels of leptin tell the brain that you’ve had enough and you also have plenty of fat in your fat cells, stored for energy requirements. Low levels tell the brain that you have no “backup” fuel and that you’re in danger of starving.
It is a natural safeguard even newborns have to avoid starving or consuming too much food. However, when your body is flooded with too much leptin for too long, the brain becomes “deaf” to these crucial signals. Long-term obesity means your body has too much leptin all the time and your brain loses the ability to communicate with the hormone.
This is called leptin resistance and the result is gradual fat accumulation.
There is a defect in a system that has worked for hundreds of years for the majority of people. The brain isn’t getting the right signal and the “you are full” message is being distorted. To conserve as many resources as possible, your brilliant mind relays the need to rest, eat more food, and reserve those calories for when you need them.
What causes this defect? Our mortal enemy…inflammation!
Approximately 5% of “diets” show any true, long-term success. This is common knowledge and yet, the hope of consumers is evident as well. People keep trying even when diets don’t work. They don’t work because your brain is protecting your fat by any means necessary!
Crash diets where you actually do starve your body make leptin resistance even more pronounced. Without necessary fuel that it needs to function properly, your brain sends out the signal to reserve everything – every single calorie – because things are dire!
Let’s not play games with the truth, however!
If you consume sugary, junk calories day after day, you’re not helping your own situation. Fast food, sodas, candy, and box meals are not food and your body can’t use anything they offer as necessary fuel. Not to mention, they are highly pro-inflammatory, which is bad for every single molecule.
How to Increase Leptin Naturally – Without Packing on the Pounds
The way to prevent or reverse leptin resistance is going to sound very familiar to you. It involves the same things you do to prevent diseases such as cancer and diabetes, the same method to lowering inflammation throughout your body, the same key to a brain that stays sharp into oldest age, and the same “trick” to losing weight and controlling it for the rest of your life.
- Exercise for thirty minutes every day. It doesn’t have to be more and it doesn’t have to include high-impact running, jumping, or coordination. A simple walk, laps in the pool, or yoga class is as effective over time because you are moving your body consistently.
- Dump the processed and pre-prepared foods. With the internet, you can find a thousand healthy (and easy to make) foods that can be prepared by you in your own kitchen. All the refined sugar, refined flour, dangerous fats, and chemical additives are killing your cells. Instead, choose healthy fats, fiber-rich foods, and options that feed your body rather than rob your body.
- Give yourself permission to sleep. Lack of sleep has been scientifically linked to weight gain, higher risk of inflammatory conditions, and Alzheimer’s disease. You need sleep in order for cell repair to happen and you owe it to yourself to get a full eight hours of it every night.
There is no quick fix, no magic pill, no “secret” to being healthy. The Western diet is re-writing how your brain works. It is changing how your tissues communicate with one another. The only “trick” to how to increase leptin naturally and prevent or reverse leptin resistance is treating your body well.
Your success is 80% diet and 20% lifestyle.
Eating right, moving your body, making common sense lifestyle choices, all help to lower the inflammation soaring through so many bodies in the modern world. In essence, you need to re-wire your brain. You have to remind it about healthy foods and healthy habits. You must be kind to it and give it the tools to take care of you.