What are hunger hormones?
Insulin Molecule
Ghrelin Molecule
Leptin Molecule
We, mammalian primates, (aka human beings) are hormonally driven by the needs of unique clusters of symbiotic eukaryotic cells, (aka the body). These hormones control us in many different ways. They can signal our brain cells when it’s time for us to fall asleep (melatonin), while others are able to tell our muscle cells to produce more mitochondria (Triiodothyronine) for the creation of more energy-giving ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Their effect often depends upon where they’ve been released. (PMID: 20148673) The hormones related to diet and metabolism affect your brain in different and very distinct ways (with different biological roles and functions). Every hormone in your body affects our desire to eat in subtitle ways, but some have a more direct effect on hunger than others. Much of this happens in the limbic system located near and signaled by the thinking region of your body, the cerebral cortex. To understand what drives your desire to eat you don’t need to be an expert, however, you do need to understand how to give your brain that ‘I feel full’ signal without consuming an additional significant amount of calories that defeats your efforts towards significant weight-loss.
There are two hormones that affect your eating habits the most, Ghrelin and Leptin. Ghrelin produces the desire to eat while Leptin is the hormonal signal that you have satisfied this desire. Unfortunately, our brains are genetically engineered to seek out the sweetness as favorable foods that give you a higher fat level in your blood and which triggers the fat-storage hormone Insulin. (PMID: 25653876, 27877104, 27614806, 22315413,19352508) This is why we crave foods that have little nutritional value. Hormonal signaling can not be stopped quickly, and we may often feel as if it is an out-of-control freight train and derailment is inevitable. But, once you are educated on this hormonal mechanism you can become like a conductor and control these two hormones incredibly well.
However, because your cells are continuously producing ketones in response to the abundance of fatty triglycerides within the cell, your body can become so toxic from the increased abundance of ketones that your body starts to shut down as you become excessively dehydrated and your kidneys weaken in their attempt to continually fix a homeostasis problem in your body. (PMID: 20546255) The longer you subject your body to excessive caloric intake the greater is the chance that the acid imbalance will totally destroy all of the beta cells in your pancreas, and cause irreversible damage to your kidneys, thus causing your other most important organs to fail as well. (aka diabetic ketoacidosis).
Fortunate, there is a simple way to get your hormones to work more efficiently towards the repair of proper metabolic function. Obesity can be thought of as a malfunctioning metabolic system controlled unwittingly by the genetic programming of our evolved brain to feast when food is plentiful. Sweetness actually triggers your brain to eat more than it actually needs, so that it will have an adequate fat reserve when there is a famine. (PMID: 25653876) However, in our present-day American society, we are never far from high-calorie foods that our brain craves, and the pressure to eat in an unhealthy way is tremendous.
Once you have grasped the reality of how the body functions to grow cells, you can learn that the anti-slimming hormones can simply be controlled through a low-fat high-fiber diet and monosaccharide abstinence. It not only controls your hunger in a big way, but it also stimulates your gut to produce the chemicals to give you a more robust immune system and longevity. This reduction in monosaccharide (aka sugar) consumption is referred to by this dietary weight-loss expert as ‘The Carb Fast’ which hormonally switches the body from being in fat storage mode to a fat-burning satiated machine so that you can become Slim and Trim.
