VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good

by Mark Bittman

Hunger, of course, is your body’s way of ensuring nourishment, but unfortunately this glucose-insulin spike-and-drop cycle can lead you to consume excess calories that your body has trouble processing. And if this cycle becomes chronic, you can develop insulin resistance, meaning the hormone can no longer efficiently regulate and store glucose, causing muscles and cells to “resist” the way insulin functions to control blood sugar. One way to prevent and control high glucose and insulin levels and hypoglycemia (which can become chronic and very problematic) is to rely on carbohydrates that are digested and used by the body in a way that is similar to how a time-release drug works: slowly, consistently, and over longer periods of time. This means, for the most part, eating vegetables, legumes, and real whole grains. Insulin is even more important than I’ve made it seem so far, because every molecule of energy that enters your body in the form of food is assigned to be either burned or stored; those are the only two options. As the regulator of the rate at which you burn and store calories for energy, insulin is the dominant factor in determining which of those options is chosen for every bite you eat. The more insulin present in your bloodstream, the more incoming energy will be converted to fat; less insulin means that more of that energy is burned immediately.