Women over 40 experience a lot of hormone changes. If you are a woman over 40 and you want to lose weight permanently, an important hormone to look at is insulin. It can prevent your ability to lose weight permanently and make you fat instead. Do you know why?

Insulin is secreted by the Pancreas- an organ playing a major role in digestion and regulating blood sugar. There are many hormones increasing your blood sugar, including glucagon, adrenalin and growth hormones. High blood sugar (hyperglycemia) is linked to health hazards, such as diabetes. So all of these hormones are able to increase your blood sugar level what is not good for you.

But: There is only one hormone helping you to decrease blood sugar, and that’s insulin. So insulin is extremely important to balance your blood sugar level because it reduces your blood sugar.

After eating, sugar is entering the blood stream- for example as a result of digesting starchy foods. To deliver energy to your body, this blood sugar needs to go into the cells of your body. And that’s exactly what insulin does: It promotes the transfer of sugar from the blood into the cells.

And: Insulin does much more. It helps to get fatty acids from the blood into the fat cells where they are stored. In addition, it prevents burning fat. So, insulin is a major player in the old orchestra of players promoting fat storage- very useful for our ancestors who were threatened by starvation all the time, but causing too much fat on our bodies today.

Too much insulin contributes to belly fat, being overweight and diabetes, disorder in fat metabolism, heart attacks and strokes.

In women over 40 the hormone system can be disturbed much easier compared to women in their twenties. If you are a women over 40, you need to look at your insulin level. There are two major errors in nutrition contributing to a high insulin level:

1. High glycemic index (GI). The easier sugar contained in food enters the blood, the faster and higher the insulin level rises. To measure how easy sugar from foods enters the blood usually the glycemic index (GI) is used. Some common foods with a high GI are most sweets, white bread, cakes or sweet fruits. Generally, the more processed a food is, the higher it’s GI is. Stay away from anything containing corn syrup, or containing ingredients ending in “-ose”- particularly fructose.
2. Eating artificial sweeteners fools your brain into thinking “sugar has entered the blood stream”. The pancreas releases insulin, what will prevent burning fat. That’s one of the reasons “diet” sodas do not contribute to losing weight permanently in a healthy way.

In addition, if you’re eating too much fat a high insulin level will cause the fat to be stored in fat cells- what you want to avoid to lose weight permanently over 40.

For a free weight loss program that helps you improve your hormone system have a look at:

Are you a woman over 40? Do you want to lose weight permanently? Signup for your free, personalized “Lose Weight Permanently” program. I answer your questions individually. Click here now.

Recommended reading:

• The Really Dangerous Fat Is Hidden In You
• Women Over 40: Hormones And Weight Loss
• 3 Steps When Reading A Food Label
• What’s So Juicy About Juice?

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