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Why Intermittent Fasting Works for Weight Loss
Obesity is a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric imbalance: the science behind intermittent fasting
In our body, nothing happens by accident. Every single physiologic process is a tight orchestration of hormonal signals. Whether our heart beats faster or slower is tightly controlled by hormones. Whether we urinate a lot or a little is tightly controlled by hormones. Whether the calories we eat are burned as energy or stored as body fat is tightly controlled by hormones. So, the main problem of obesity is not the calories we eat, but how they are spent. And the main hormone we need to know about is insulin.
Insulin is a fat-storing hormone. There’s nothing wrong with that — that is simply its job. When we eat, insulin goes up, signaling the body to store some food energy as body fat. When we don’t eat, then insulin goes down, signaling the body to burn this stored energy (body fat). Higher than usual insulin levels tell our body to store more food energy as body fat.
