Hormone number two: Glucagon

Glucagon is not very well known, but it is a hormone with many positive effects in your body. It has the ability to relax spasms of the smooth muscles in your stomach and intestinal tract. It can also work as an antidote for the adverse reactions to some medication overdoses. But for our current purpose of fat loss, it is a very powerful substance in mobilizing and processing fat from the cells where it became stored or locked up you might say. Glucagon is our fat burning hormone (11). When your blood sugar is low, Glucagon causes even stored fat to be released and “burned” as fuel instead of sugar. All right, how do we then request the body to bring forth some of that Glucagon?

Here is what we know and the answer to the third question:

3. How can we reverse that process and burn or melt that excess fat?

To flush fat out of your millions of fat cells and make them (and you) smaller, you will need the help of Glucagon. You see, once your body quickly uses up available energy from the small amounts of sugar you are now supplying it with, the body turns to the next best fuel: fat. The request for Glucagon goes out immediately (just like the request for Insulin went out immediately a while back) and the fat in all the million fat cells enters a break-down process (fat burning) that allows the fat to flow out of those cells and get flushed out of your body through the blood, kidneys and intestines.

All those cells become smaller; and so do you!

To make that happen, you will need to eat more protein to encourage release of Glucagon.

How does that work? Simply by “Crowding Out.” If more protein food is put on your dinner plate, it automatically crowds out the other two types of food (carbohydrates and fats).

For example: If you can only eat one dinner plate full of food, it may have a pork chop, lots of pasta, some corn and 2 dinner rolls. That pasta and 2 dinner rolls supply lots of carbohydrates, resulting in lots of sugar, the excess of which invariably turns into fat.

However, pushing more protein food onto the plate, such as broccoli, zucchini, fish and carrots, could force most of the pasta and 1 dinner roll off the plate. Your dinner now supplies more protein and fiber, and the excess sugars have simply been “crowded out.” From your meal!

Your body quickly burns the small amount of sugar you consumed, but needs more energy. Since no more sugar is available, it calls on Glucagon for help to get
energy from burning some fat. Protein saves the day!

OK, so now we know where the fat comes from, and we have seen what those two hormones do. When it comes to fat loss, Insulin is the bad guy and Glucagon is the good guy. We have seen that Insulin is bad when we cause an excess to be produced in response to eating the wrong foods, consuming excess sugars. Glucagon is good when there is little sugar around. Glucagon will then call upon fat stores to be released and used for fuel to provide energy for the body. When your body needs energy, burning sugar is always the first choice of fuel. If there is excess sugar around, from simple sugars or other carbohydrates, as they are not needed, they will simply be converted to fat and stored. If you want to “burn” fat, you must keep your sugars at a minimum in order to keep your Insulin level low, so you don’t make fat from the excess sugar.

OK now what?

As you may have guessed, it has to do with nutrition. Yes, you must eat the right foods! I hope you are beginning to see how important your nutrition is in many respects, not just for a long and healthy life, but especially in managing your weight. All throughout this e-book, we keep coming back to nutrition as the key to that problem. Aren’t you glad there are such simple and easy solutions? That’s why this website is called “Easy Off Fat Loss”.

In a few words, it is essentially this:

1. Lower your intake of simple and complex sugars
2. Yes, you can eat fats, but eat mostly good fats, like Omega-3 in Salmon, some vegetables and supplements.
3. Increase the amount of protein in your diet by eating lots of protein rich foods.

Now you should have a good knowledge and understanding of how this complicated system we call your body works as far as fat gain or loss goes. The essence of this e-book is the group of four chapters on nutrition. Following the advice in those chapters will be the key to your success. You have been given an extensive list of outstanding foods. To make up a set of menus for each day or week is left up to you to do, as only you know your own tastes and tolerances. Also understand that although nutrition is critical to your success, there are several other factors that you can add to your insider secrets, such as the right exercises,
and mind over body techniques. (See next chapter) Remember, you are not going on a new diet!

(I use the word “diet” in two different ways. I do not advocate a specific “diet”, but all that you eat is also known as your “diet”, no matter what it is, and is clearly different from any specific selection of foods also known as “a diet”.)

You are going to be changing your style of eating for the rest of your life. You are not going on a low carbohydrate “diet”, you are merely going to be eating the right carbohydrates, the ones that don’t cause a sugar spike in your system. See earlier sections on foods. Don’t try to cut out all carbohydrates from your diet, as you will soon get strong cravings for them. You should gradually reduce your carbohydrates along with stimulating the production of more Glucagon to burn the fat. How do you do that? You know that already! You need to do two things.

First, gradually reduce your carbohydrates. Start with the high-glycemic ones, the ones that produce a rapid “sugar high”. At the same time, increase the amount of protein in your diet to crowd out all excess sugars and carbohydrates. That will increase the production of Glucagon (See page 59). You will then have made along lasting fat burning machine in your body that will soon be on auto-pilot! Improvement in your weight and health will follow.

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