For many of us, the sight of a freshly glazed doughnut can feel like falling in love and coming home to a pack of unopened cookies can feel like the adult version of Christmas morning. There’s something about sugar that hooks us and keeps reeling us in again and again. Whether we like it or not sugar has a major hold on us.
If you’re reading this it’s highly likely you understand and have the first-hand experience, of this allure. Sugar isn’t just confectionary, it’s compulsion; there is no such thing as stopping after “just one.” I mean, if one is good, more is better. At least that’s what it feels like with the sweet stuff.
We are given many reasons for our sugar cravings: pleasure-seeking brain circuits, intestinal parasites, mineral deficiencies, malnutrition, habitual behavior, unbalanced diets, too much salt, buried emotional issues, lack of sleep, stress…. and my favorite, lack of discipline. We are not at a loss for reasons for our addiction to sugar, yet knowing isn’t enough to change us or our behavior. If knowing was enough we would all be winning gold medals and gold stars in every area of our life. If anything, knowing just makes it feel worse… we know better so why aren’t we doing better? Knowing becomes just another reason for us to feel bad about ourselves.
The next step to knowing is to try and do something about it. We take matters into our own hands and attempt to turn our sugar-loving switch from on to off. This is not a painless process, and just when we feel we’re making ground something happens to throw us off and we’re on a mission to hunt down any sugar we can find and back at the start.
When we decide to target our sugar dependency, we attack the sugar itself, we clear the pantry, empty the house of all products and declare sugar the enemy. And this is fine… except it doesn’t work. When we create an action plan like this, we’re a few steps too far ahead and facing the wrong direction. We don’t address what’s really happening.
The key: target the true problem, not the side-effect of the problem. And sugar cravings are the side-effect, they’re the symptom of the real problem, and treating symptoms never makes the problem resolved. The only way to create true, long-standing change is to address the root cause…. otherwise you’re just wasting your time and prepping yourself for another future sugar-binge.
What is the root cause? Leptin resistance. When leptin resistance occurs in our body we have a malfunctioning system. This malfunction will produce troublesome symptoms. Not only does leptin resistance increase hunger but it creates cravings! That’s a recipe for disaster! Not only will you be hungry but you’ll be hankering after the worst foods imaginable…
We may have blamed everything else under the sun for our inability to stop reaching for the next cookie… everything but leptin resistance. If you want to see real movement and change you’ll need to target leptin resistance and do something to “fix” it.
What is Leptin Resistance?
Before we saw the world as a globe spinning in the vast expanse of space we once believed it was flat and the sun revolved around us.
Before we knew the dangers of mercury—as a neurotoxin and overall health no-no—it was once considered the go-to treatment for a host of medical conditions, for everything from syphilis to parasites.
Before we had modern health-conscious cosmetics women would adorn themselves with lead-filled face paint and wash their skin with ammonia. They would slowly poison themselves but were convinced it was essential for true beauty.
The knowledge we have gained over the years has not come without a fair share of innocent misunderstandings, but thankfully, as we know more we are able to make more informed choices based on actual science, on truth, on what works. It is crucial we build our actions on a foundation of truth.
Our beliefs about weight loss have centered around constantly shifting paradigms. Throughout the decades we have blamed various things for our inability to lose weight and keep it off – high-fat foods, carbohydrates, calories, lack of motivation, genetics… We have, in a way, been the people who thought the sun orbited us.
Deep down we may sense there’s another reason for our inability to control our appetite and our expanding waistline, but just don’t know what it is. If you look at the diet and health industry we have created, you’ll see the answers we’re fed about the obesity epidemic. We are supplied with new “answers” and “solutions” all the time, and so—full of hope—we try them, only to be disappointed when we end up back where we started.
What if I told you the health industry has got it all wrong?
What if I were to tell you that we actually have the solution for why you have gained weight and been unable to lose it?
Would you believe me?
If you’re anything like the people I’ve just described, the people who have trusted the “answers” and “solutions” in the past, probably not. You may be burnt out on hope…Yet, you are reading these words so there must be some trace of hope left, and I want to work with that tiny bit of remaining hope to change your life. And I mean it.
We’re here to show you a new way, to point you in the direction of the actual cause of your weight gain. No more blaming the wrong thing, looking in the wrong direction, no more wasting your time.
The Real Cause
This new direction starts with something called leptin. Never heard of leptin before? You’re not the only one. This hormone is a lesser-known player in our hormonal system (which is sad since it is responsible for so much within our body.) Did you know leptin helps regulate bone mass, the menstrual cycle, the synthesis of thyroid hormones, our appetite, and metabolism? And this is just scratching the surface.
Leptin is known as the “obesity hormone” and the “fat hormone.” A pretty big clue for what it’s responsible for.
When our body operates faultlessly, like a well-oiled machine, leptin would be produced by your body’s fat cells and communicate with the hypothalamus (in our brain) via the bloodstream. The amount of leptin would determine whether the body stores fat or loses it, “a minor increase in leptin concentration reduces the appetite and leads to a decrease in body weight.”(1) This is how things are supposed to work: a high level of leptin in the body informs your brain that there is enough fat stored, you are not starving—you will survive – and so your appetite is switched off and you burn more fat. Similarly, if your body fat were to decrease, leptin should follow suit and diminish, signaling to your brain to stop burning fat—to store the fat you have—to increase your appetite and prompt you to eat.
This is how things are supposed to function. But what happens when something interrupts the balance which our body is meant to keep? That’s when leptin resistance occurs, and this leptin resistance is the reason for our fruitless (yet well-intentioned) attempts to take control of our health and body. Once you are leptin resistant you won’t lose the weight no matter how little you eat or how much exercise you do.