Clean Run - April 2013 - 19

its job. It stuffs as much glucose into our fat cells as it can get its
little hands on. Sometimes, your body releases too much insulin and it stores a majority of your blood sugar. Now, your body
doesn’t have anything floating around in your bloodstream to
burn because it’s all been stored in fat cells. The resulting sugar
“crash” leaves you feeling tired, spaced out, and ready for a nap.
Some people’s bodies are better at processing extra carbs and
sugar. They are the people that seem to be able to eat what they
want and not get fat. Some people’s bodies aren’t as good as
processing extra carbs. Their bodies produce too much insulin
in reaction to consumed carbs. The result of excess insulin is
that the carbs are stored mostly as fat and the body is left with
nothing to burn. The person gains weight, has no energy, and is
often hungry.
Sound familiar? Looking back at my
“agility menu,” you can get a good
idea of why I was so tired in the
afternoon. I didn’t eat anything for
breakfast, but had a nice caffeine fix.
The caffeine got me going, but my
cells still didn’t really have any fuel to
burn. Then I ate a donut or something
sugary. That gave me a short-lived
sugar rush. But once my insulin took care of my elevated blood
sugar, I crashed. I was usually tired and very hungry before
lunch. I thought it was because I got up early. Now I’m thinking it was because I just hadn’t fed my body anything it could
use for sustained energy.
The hamburger for lunch wasn’t too bad, but a side of fries is
basically treated as a quarter cup of sugar by our body. The
carbs in the fries are converted to glucose, which raises your
blood sugar. Your insulin will rise to handle the glucose. The
unused glucose will be stored as fat (in addition to the fat in
the fries) and you may get sleepy depending on what else you
ate with the fries. A serving of fries contains as many grams of
carbs as a quarter cup of sugar. You would never eat a quarter
cup of sugar for lunch would you? Probably not. But once the
fries are processed by your body, the net effect is that your
blood sugar is raised about the same amount as if you had eaten that sugar for lunch. Not a good choice for sustained energy.
Fat and protein do not require insulin in order for the body to
use them. They are used “as is.” So when you eat fat and protein, your body does not release insulin like it does with carbs.
This is beneficial for several reasons. First, there is no crash
associated with fat or protein. You won’t suddenly get really
sleepy and hungry a half hour later. Second, because there isn’t
excess insulin floating around, it is easier for fat to move out of
your fat cells and be available to burn as energy. This is an important point. Insulin is good at storing excess blood sugar as
fat in your fat cells. When there is an excess of insulin floating
around, it can also block fat from being released from your fat
cells. The result can be that even though your body is requesting fat for energy, the insulin is preventing its release. So if you
avoid insulin spikes, it is easier for your body to burn stored
fat. If fat is available as an energy source as your body needs
it, your energy level will stabilize throughout the day. You may
also find it easier to lose weight.
April 13

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Clean Run - April 2013

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