In contrast to insulin, glucagon raises blood sugar when it is too low.

While insulin converts sugar to glycogen, glucagon converts glycogen (a form of sugar stored in your liver) to sugar.

The key: Unlike other methods of creating sugar in the blood, glucagon does so by breaking down body fat.

When your blood sugar gets too low, glucagon will go to work trying to raise your glucose levels. It does this by getting glycogen stored in the liver and breaking it down.

Liver glycogen depletes in about 24 hours without food. Physical activity will shorten this period.

When glycogen (the form sugar is stored in your liver) in the liver depletes, and glucagon is in your blood, it causes your nervous system to use body fat to create glucose.

Due to the rise in blood sugar, insulin is increased again to shunt the sugar in to the cells. When the muscles have had their fill and stop taking in glucose, insulin will shunt blood sugar back into you liver.

This means if you deplete the liver of glycogen, you eliminate a source of sugar. Without this, there becomes only three other sources: from your food, from inside your muscles and from your body fat.

What we want to do is get your glucose from your body fat. But we don’t want sugar to come from your muscles. That will be age-accelerating.

Glucagon Muscle-Destroyer

If your body is preventing your body fat from being broken down, glucagon will create blood sugar from the glucose in your muscle. Your muscle protein is broken down to amino acids and then converted to glucose. This is the muscle destroyer aspect of glucagon.

What Affects It?

• Where sugar is the trigger for releasing insulin, protein is the trigger for releasing glucagon.
• Protein, however, also triggers insulin at about a 30% strength compared to sugar.
• So you don’t want to consume large servings of protein at one time.
• Glucagon is also triggered by too little food.
• Glucagon is also another fat-burning hormone secreted after intense exercise.

Estrogen and fat are related. Estrogen is the antithesis of testosterone. While testosterone is mainly created by men in large amounts, estrogen is created by women in large amounts by their ovaries.

When it comes to cortisol, the receptors for this hormone are inside and around your belly, chin and upper back. This is why fat gets stored there when there is excess cortisol.

With estrogen, the receptors are on your hips and thighs.

When there is excess estrogen, there is fat storage in those places.

And until you address this fat loss from a hormonal point of view, you will be very frustrated.

Estrogen From The Environment

There are chemicals in the environment which act like estrogen inside the body. They come from the animals we eat and toxic chemicals in the environment.

Estrogen also suppresses your thyroid production. So it is fat storing in two ways.

Insulin has a major effect on your weight loss. This is a peculiar hormone because it is equally effective for losing fat as well as gaining muscle. Which is why I call it a “double-edged” hormone.

The Purpose Of Insulin

Insulin drives nutrients in to your cells. It is the carrier of nutrients. So if insulin is not allowed to go inside your cells, neither is food.

Also, if there is not enough insulin in the blood, there is not enough food going into your cells.

Problems with insulin = starvation of cells.

Here Is How It Works

The food you eat turns to glucose…

Glucose then goes into your blood…

Your nervous system recognizes this through receptors on your cells…

Insulin is then released by your pancreas…

Insulin binds to glucose AND existing protein in your blood (in the form of amino acids)

Your cells open the doors on the cell walls which allow insulin inside… Insulin goes inside your cells and brings glucose and protein with it.

Muscle-Builder

This is how insulin acts as a muscle builder and fat burning. It enhances muscle growth, recovery, and repair by delivering to the muscles the raw materials needed for protein synthesis. It also inhibits muscle breakdown.

This is highly desirable for weight loss, health, fitness and wellbeing.

As long as the sugar in your blood gets used, it does not get stored as fat.

The food you eat goes to muscle because insulin drives it into muscle rather than store it as fat.

It is also what drives protein into your cells.

Let’s get into where the problem lies…

Death Dealer

The problem comes when you have excessively high levels or low levels of insulin.

Chronically high levels of insulin lead to death by way of diabetes and heart disease. This is done gradually and slowly and the road is riddled with poor enjoyment of life and addiction to food.

This is how most Americans are dying today.

When there is a lot of insulin in your blood and it is not allowed to go inside your cells, the next step for insulin is to get the blood sugar it has connected to and drive it to your liver.

Hypoglycemia

This action takes the blood sugar out of your blood. This is what you feel when you have a “sugar low.”

• Shakiness, anxiety
• Nervousness
• Palpitations, tachycardia
• Sweating, feeling of warmth
• Pallor, coldness, clamminess
• Dilated pupils
• Feeling of numbness “pins and needles”
• Hunger and growling stomach
• Nausea, vomiting and abdominal discomfort
• Headaches
• Impaired judgement
• Nonspecific dysphoria, anxiety, moodiness, depression, crying, fear of dying, suicidal thoughts
• Negativism, irritability, belligerence, combativeness, rage
• Personality change, emotional lability
• Fatigue, weakness, apathy, lethargy, daydreaming, sleep
• Confusion, amnesia, dizziness, delirium
• Staring, “glassy” look, blurred vision, double vision
• Flashes of light in the field of vision
• Automatic behavior, also known as automatism
• Difficulty speaking, slurred speech
• Ataxia, incoordination, sometimes mistaken for “drunkenness”
• Focal or general motor deficit, paralysis, hemiparesis
• Paresthesia, headache
• Stupor, coma, abnormal breathing
• Generalized or focal seizures

It also means your cells do not get the food it needs to grow and stay strong. It also means your muscle cells do not get their batteries recharged.

So very high levels of insulin will cause hypoglycemia and this leads to STARVATION of your cells

Hyperglycemia

Very low levels of insulin cause a lot of devastating problems as well.

If you get a bunch of glucose in your blood, and (for whatever reason) your body does not create insulin to deal with this blood sugar, the high blood sugar levels are damaging.

Shortness of breath, breath which smells fruity, Nausea and vomiting and Very dry mouth. The first three are the “classic” signs of hyperglycemia.

• Frequent hunger, especially pronounced hunger
• Frequent thirst, especially excessive thirst
• Polyuria – frequent urination
• Blurred vision
• Fatigue (sleepiness).
• Weight loss
• Poor wound healing (cuts, scrapes, etc.)
• Dry mouth
• Dry or itchy skin
• Tingling in feet or heels
• Erectile dysfunction
• Recurrent infections external ear infections (swimmer’s ear)
• Cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat)
• Stupor
• Coma

Roller-coaster

When a person cannot lose weight, they are usually seesawing between hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. The muscle building, anti-aging, fat burning properties of insulin can never be used!

And you are exhausted from this seesawing.

Other Properties Of Insulin

At the same time, insulin makes it very easy to build fat. In a study published in Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology in 1978, rats that were injected with insulin had an increase in fat, and rats injected with glucagon (the hormone that does the opposite of insulin) had a decrease in fat.

A characteristic of insulin is there is either too much or too little. It is not secreted in precise amounts. It is always overshot. Then it takes the sugar supply away and brings your glucose level (blood sugar) too low. This is the state of hypoglycemia.

So What Causes It?

So the obvious burning question is… What causes the roller-coaster and how do I get Insulin to be the “Antiaging Muscle Builder.”

You can view insulin like a switch. When it is switched one way, you grow younger, leaner, stronger and firmer. When it is switched the other way your body ages faster and you open the door to many modern day degenerative diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, metabolic syndrome, atherosclerosis, etc.

As you continue to read this book, you will learn how to get the switch to the healthy side.

Ghrelin is the opposite hormone to leptin.

It does not directly cause your body to store fat.

But it causes enough problems with weight loss and self-control.

Ghrelin is a hormone created and released by the stomach. It’s probably the reason why appetite suppressants are created in the first place.

It is called the hunger hormone because it sends the signal to your brain that you need to eat.

If this hormone is increased, you will feel hungrier. If it is decreased, you will not feel as hungry, regardless of how much food you actually have in your stomach.

Causes of Increase and Decrease

Believe it or not, it is sleep.

Medical scientists from Stanford and other universities found people who consistently slept five hours or less per night had on average about 15% more Ghrelin and 15% less leptin levels than those who slept 8-hour nights.

They also demonstrated the less you sleep, the more you weigh, and the higher your BMI, which means the higher your likelihood of premature death from any cause.

With high levels of “The Hunger Hormone”, you can eat and never feel satiated

When I hear my clients talk about cravings for food, I ask how much sleep they get.

The answer is always something like, “Sleep? What is this thing you speak of?”

So if you are trying hard to eat right but find it very difficult because you experience bouts of voracious appetite, there’s nothing wrong with your willpower.

In fact, I am anti-willpower when it comes to weight loss.

The cause is Ghrelin and the cause for the increase for Ghrelin is lack of sleep.

Find a way to solve those two things and you will see a reduction in appetite.

It controls your appetite.

When it is created, your brain gets the signal you are satisfied and don’t need to eat.

Excessive Hunger Getting In The Way

I don’t like the idea of only eating less to lose weight.

But for many people I talk to, they have bouts of extreme hunger. And it can be overwhelming.

Too little of this hormone, and you can have an almost complete inability to lose weight.

Just because you’re hungry all the time.

What Affects It?

Low calorie diets.

That’s the main culprit.

Leptin is triggered by receptors in the stomach stretching when food fills it up.

But only up to a certain point.

So, overeating is not a way to get “excess leptin”.

High Fructose Corn Syrup.

As far as leptin goes, it suppresses leptin

And is in almost all food today.

It has completely replaced sugar.

And it’s in “natural” food products and “diet” food products as well.

Not to mention “kids” food products.

It is the most difficult substance to avoid because it is in everything.

Even condiments like:

• Ketchup…
• Worcestershire Sauce…
• A1 Steak Sauce…
• Dips…
• Salad dressings…
• Fruit juices…
• Gatorade (and drinks like it)
• and all sodas…

Lack of sleep

This is a new branch of study but the data supporting it is growing.

Medical scientists from Stanford and other universities found people who consistently slept five hours or less per night had, on average, about 15% less leptin than those who slept 8 hour nights.

They also had about 15% more ghrelin (the opposing hormone which causes hunger).

They also demonstrated the less you sleep, the more you weigh.

There is also some new research about the production of this “I’m full” hormone during sleep.

During sleep, melatonin is created.

When melatonin interacts with insulin, it increases leptin and decreases appetite.

IGF1 is produced by the liver. When growth hormone reaches the liver it stimulates IGF1 to be produced.

Low protein diet = low IGF-1.

What influences levels of growth hormone (GH) and IGF-1 in the circulation include:

• Genetic make-up
• Time of day
• Age
• Sex
• Exercise status
• Stress levels
• Nutrition level
• Body mass index (BMI)
• Disease state
• Race
• Estrogen status and xenobiotic intake.

IGF-1 is a primary mediator of the effects of growth hormone (GH).

Growth hormone is made in the anterior pituitary gland.

Then it’s released into the blood stream, where it stimulates the liver to produce IGF-1.

IGF-1 stimulates systemic body growth, and has growth-promoting effects on almost every cell in the body.

Especially skeletal muscle, cartilage, bone, liver, kidney, nerves, skin, hematopoietic cell, and lungs.

In addition, IGF-1 can regulate cell growth and development, especially in nerve cells, as well as cellular DNA synthesis.

It increases the lifespan and is a fat burning hormone very similar to growth hormone.

The first fat storing and age accelerating hormone I am putting here is also the most destructive one. 

If growth hormone is Superman, cortisol is Lex Luthor. It does the exact opposite of growth hormone.

It also suppresses Growth Hormone secretion

 and Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1. 

Cortisol is one of the adrenal hormones. It is secreted during times of stress. That is, any kind of stress:  mental, emotional or physical. Cortisol helps us deal with our “fight or flight” response. As such, it is called the “stress hormone.” It is the main hormone which prepares our body for dealing with stress just like adrenaline does.

However, over time, when this hormone is released consistently, it causes fat to be stored. Specifically in and on your belly. There are other negative things this hormone does to not only sabotage your weight loss, but also cause serious health risks.

High cortisol and belly fat are almost always going to be found together.

Remains In The Blood

In the short term, burns fat … in the short-term. Just like adrenaline.

But unlike adrenaline, it remains in blood for a longer time. This is an important point to know when losing weight.

When you do not allow yourself, or cannot lessen the stress and let your body and adrenals recover, cortisol stays in the blood for an exponentially longer period of time.

Let’s Take a Trip Down Cortisol Lane

Here are some of the things excess cortisol does:

Breaks Down Your Lean Muscle Mass

Cortisol breaks muscle down and uses it for protein which is broken down into sugar for energy. So your metabolism starts to use your muscle for fuel, specifically your thigh muscles. You will also see the arm muscles looking atrophied.

Creates Stomach Fat

Because fat in the midsection contain the greatest amount of cortisol receptors,

 fat is created and stored in the midsection.

 This hormone moves fat from storage depots and relocates it to fat cell deposits deep in the abdomen.

So you get belly fat. You will see a pendulous and sagging abdomen.

Increased stomach acidity and “sour stomach.”

Cortisol causes the lining of your stomach to get very thin. This prevents your stomach from producing enough hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid is the most important substance your stomach produces.

When there is too little hydrochloric acid produced, food does not digest or breakdown. This causes bloating right after eating and eventually causes an overproduction of other acids. This is the sour and acidic feeling we take things like Pepto Bismol, Alka Seltzer for.

A buffalo hump or a fat pad on the back and below the neck also forms.

The accumulation of fat in the upper back, commonly referred to as “buffalo hump,” is typical in people with too much cortisol.

Hips and thighs become weaker

Things like getting up and down from a chair or walking up stairs is hard now. The glutes and thighs are the densest muscles in the body. Thus they become the first target for a source of protein and glucose. You will notice some people have large midsections or torsos but thin legs and arms.

Moon Face and Facial Hair

There is fat accumulation on the face. There is extra facial hair for both men and women. The eyes and face get puffy as well and a double chin develops.

Elevated Insulin

Excited adrenals and their respective hormones will release blood sugar to provide quick energy for physical activity.

 But since you are not active there is just a lot more sugar in the blood, which releases insulin

 – which is another fat-storing hormone (as you will learn about).

Muscle Cramps

Excessive adrenal hormones will also cause a depletion of potassium, which then causes the inability to absorb calcium into the muscles and bones. Over the short-term, this lack of calcium in the muscles causes cramps and inability to relax muscles. Over the long term, lack of calcium absorption will result in osteoporosis.

Because calcium is the mineral the muscle uses to elongate and relax your muscle fibers,

 your muscles just do not recover after exercise as well.

Constricting Blood Vessels

Then there is tightening of blood vessels. Part of the function of adrenal hormones is the contraction and relaxation of blood vessels. When there is not enough adrenaline, a very important blood vessel called the coronary artery can get too tight and not relax which leads to the tightening of the chest and chest pains.

Water Retention

Due to the decrease in potassium, there is an imbalanced amount of sodium. 

This imbalance of excess sodium will cause water retention.

Hypertension

Since there is too little potassium, hypertension starts to develop (one of the symptoms of potassium deficiency).

 The blood cells also get engorged. Even to the point where they cannot fit into the small capillaries.

Increased Urination

To reduce the excess water retention mentioned just now, your body will try to rid itself of this excess water by making you urinate more. The excess salt starts to be eliminated this way. The reduction of sodium will cause less water to be held in the body.

The person also starts to simply feel dehydrated but drinking water actually makes them feel MORE dehydrated. The increase in thirst will cause you to drink more water. But because there is a mineral deficiency, water does not hydrate you and you feel washed out. It actually takes more minerals out of your body.

Cravings for Salt

The imbalance of the fluids in the body now causes a craving for salt and sharp cheese.

 Cheese balls are about as addictive as crack-cocaine.

Calcium Deficiency

As a further result of the potassium-sodium imbalance, part of the chain reaction involves the inability to absorb calcium. The calcium, since it is not absorbed and used by the muscles and bones is urinated out and/or deposited on the organs. You will also find in these cases, bursitis, heel spurs, arthritis, tendonitis, arteriosclerosis, calcium deposits in the kidneys, and twitching of the muscles.

Muscle-Tension and Insomnia

The lack of muscle relaxation will also make it hard for a person to relax and sleep. The sleep/awake rhythms get skewed. It is difficult to get to sleep and have deep sleep. You will have tiredness during the day and wakefulness during the night. 

This is simply because adrenal hormones are produced to help you counter something stressful and prepare your body for action. This, combined with tense muscles makes it a recipe for insomnia.

Immune system

Cortisol can weaken the activity of the immune system.

 This is why illness is preceded by a stressful event. This used to be based on intuition but is now has a scientific basis.

Reduces Collagen

In studies, it was found loss of collagen from skin, caused by cortisol, is ten times greater than losses from any other tissue.

 So when you notice a “stressed-out” person looking like they aged 10 years, this is the reason. Again, you can use the example of a President before and after his term and see how much he has aged in those years.

Suppresses Production of Growth Hormone

In the past, when the Growth Hormone was discovered as an important hormone to help people, the old solution was to increase it through injections. But now it is discovered cortisol, in excess, and in constant stimulation undoes all growth hormone does. So the problem is not always insufficient GH, it is too much Cortisol.

Forgetfulness and Poor Memory

Studies have also shown excessive and constantly high levels of cortisol reduce memory.

From My Experience:

These are things I saw happening with people who had excess cortisol.

Constant Fatigue

There is sometimes a constant fatigue and a manifestation of a person dragging around. They look washed out and drained. This is constant now. They also have brain fog. It is hard to think and remember simple things during the afternoon.

Out of Breath

The person is out of breath while climbing stairs when there is no reason they should be. They work out and are not physically debilitated yet they experience being out of breath doing simple physical activities.

Afternoon Fatigue

In the afternoon they feel sleepy.

Excessive Anxiety, Worry and Impatience

Then there is excessive worry and impatience. There is constant fidgeting and twitching. This is very exhausting to the individual (and to the people around them). This exhaustion leads to the need for stimulants.

Increased Digestive Sensitivity

There is increased sensitivity to foods and food combinations.

Weak Thigh Muscles

Excess cortisol makes your thigh muscles weak making it harder to climb stairs or get up from a chair. 

Other than that it is a joy! 

What affects cortisol levels? 

The main “umbrella” answer to this is… “reduce stress.”

I cover this in depth in every step of the Metabolism Makeover. Every single step is designed to get you to become more aware of your sources of stress, both the hidden and visible ones.

For this chapter, you need to leave with one concept… stress makes you fat and also kills you. Recuperation NEEDS to be one of the MAIN facets of a weight loss plan.

The thyroid gland is located on the front of your neck. Right under where the Adams Apple is for men and where it would be for women.

Thyroxine is another powerful hormone which burns fat.

It is called tetraiodothyronine (T4) and  is the main hormone secreted by the thyroid gland.

The function of this and the other thyroid hormone, triiodothyronine (T3), is to increase the rate your body will convert carbohydrates to energy. It also causes protein assimilation.

Thyroxine increases the amount of energy your body spends. This means given the same amount of work or effort you put forth, a greater amount of thyroxine will cause more energy to be spent, and vice versa. When people talk about “spending” or “burning” more calories, this is what they are referring to.

It also makes the cells use more energy per unit of time. This hormone makes the rechargeable batteries that I talked about it “Fat Burning Roadblock #2″larger and makes more of them. So if you imagine your car engine replaced with an engine twice as powerful, you will see your car go very fast but the bigger engine will use a lot more gas. So you will need to fill it with more gas.

This is what thyroxine does to your cells. Instead of gas, you are using food and body fat.

A Few Things Which Increase And Decrease Thyroxine:

• Iodine. Iodine is an element needed for the production of thyroid hormone. The body does not make iodine, so it is an essential part of your diet. If you do not have enough iodine in your body, you cannot make enough thyroid hormone.
• Intense exercise. Any exercise where you are pushing the boundary of how much weight you are lifting or how long you are doing the same exercise will raise this. I will give the specific details in the last section of this book. Doing the bare minimum exercise won’t work. Without pushing the limits, the thyroid hormone amounts do not change.
• Avoiding overtraining or prolonged stress. Stress and prolonged strain will reduce thyroid production.
• Cleaning your Liver. All your hormones pass through your liver before they are used by your body. The liver is the main gland which stimulates your thyroid.
• If your liver is clogged up or fatty or underperforming in anyway, the hormones will be weakened or not be used all together. This can be a case where there is an adequate amount of hormones produced but they cannot be used because of the liver.
• Detoxing. You will read a lot more of this later in the book. Almost every toxin (which is a poison) in the environment and in your foods affect your thyroid and/or prohibits your ability to use them. By removing these toxins you can see a dramatic change in your appearance and in how you feel.

Adrenaline is the hormone which starts the process of breaking down body fat.

 It is the prime instigator of fat breakdown. After this, other hormones continue the process of breaking down fat to be used for energy and body tissue.

Adrenaline is produced by the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are two star-shaped cones on top of each kidney.

It’s also called epinephrine. The term epinephrine is derived from the Greek roots epi- and nephros, and literally means on the kidney, in References to the gland’s location within the body. 

When in the bloodstream, it rapidly prepares the body for action in emergency situations.  Adrenaline boosts the supply of oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles, while suppressing other non-emergency bodily processes (digestion in particular).

It increases heart rate and stroke volume, dilates the pupils, and constricts arterioles in the skin and gastrointestinal tract while dilating arterioles in skeletal muscles.

It elevates the blood sugar level by increasing catabolism of glycogen to glucose in the liver, and at the same time begins the breakdown of lipids in fat cells.

Like some other stress hormones, adrenaline has a suppressive effect on the immune system.

A Few Things Which Increase And Decrease Adrenaline:

• Adrenaline is increased by intense exercise. Exercises like sprinting, jumping, lifting weights and resistance exercises. The more consistently this is done, the more adrenaline you will produce.
• Adrenal Fatigue. The problem with low adrenaline in all cases is the adrenals are fatigued and underperforming. The only exception is some kind of physical problem with the gland.

Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is a very powerful hormone that changes the chemistry of the body so that it starts using fat for energy instead of just sugar.

It literally reduces the age of your metabolism.

It is the most anti-aging, fat burning, muscle building focus restoring and emotionally uplifting of all the hormones.

Studies have found that there is an inverse relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and HGH. For each increase in BMI of 1.5 kg/m2, there is a 50% decrease in the amount of HGH secreted per day.

What Else Does HGH Does For You:

• Increases calcium retention, and strengthens and increases the mineralization of bone
• Increases muscle mass. Don’t worry ladies, the muscle will grow in all the right places)
• Promotes lipolysis (breaking down fat for fuel)
• Increases protein synthesis. Your food goes to muscle, rather than body fat
• Stimulates the growth of all internal organs excluding the brain
• Promotes gluconeogenesis (creation of “new” blood sugar as opposed to simply releasing blood sugar) in the liver
• It stimulates the immune system.

It doesn’t take much to see how this affects your weight loss and fat loss. All the above allows your muscles to recover faster, grow stronger, and burn more fat.

Makes Your Metabolism Younger

Human growth hormone has been regarded as an anti-aging agent.

You can take identical twins who are obese and give only one of them this hormone and their fat will seem to “vanish” and their face will get more chiseled, the waist will get smaller and the muscles will grow in all the right places.

Growth Hormone Over Time

As a person grows older, the amount of HGH produced decreases. The graph below shows the natural decrease of HGH in your body over time.

I am not advocating a 70 year old should be able to look, feel and perform like an 18 year old. Not at all.

What I am saying is the levels of HGH in people today en masse are dramatically lower than normal. Both men and women and even teens are registering lower levels of HGH.

And in cases where there is too much growth hormone, it is synthetic growth hormone put into the body from eating animal meat injected with growth hormone, or from injected HGH supplementation.

The problem here is this is not “human” growth hormone. This is synthetic hormone not intended for humans. This can and does contribute to “abnormal” cell and organ growth in the body.

What Promotes HGH?

• Deep Sleep. Most HGH is secreted in deep sleep
• Resistance training
• Low levels of blood sugar (hypoglycemia)
• Dietary protein

What Stops HGH Secretion?

• Lack of sleep
• Lack of deep sleep
• Sleeping when exhausted
• Eating high glycemic index foods before sleep
• Chronic stress
• High cortisol levels(a hormone which is caused by stress)
• High blood sugar
• High Insulin levels
• Lack of sleep

I’m sure you want more detail on how to increase this hormone. Don’t worry, there are ways to naturally boost all these hormones!