Leptin resistance and hunger.

Leptin is a hormone that helps us to manage energy

Leptin is a hormone – try and imagine it like the signal you hear when you have filled enough car with fuel.

You may haven’t put in diesel it might be petrol haha but it will say hey ive had enough. Leptin works like this, it should tell you that you feel satiated and when you need to eat, in theory the larger we are or the more energy we have the less we should feel that signal.

There is better fuel you can use but feeling satiated will happen whatever you eat if you eat enough of it.

The problem is we can develop a resistance which causes us not to sense that – the Ive had enough thanks feeling.

It helps us to regulate our hunger in the longer term and feed back to our central nervous system.

Helping us to create a drive to eat, but also when we have had enough, which can then have a impact on how many calories you eat and burn as well as how much fat we then store.

Leptin is produced by fat cells and then carried via your blood to your brain and to your hypothalamus – this is the area in your brain that controls how much you eat and when. The fat cells should send information on how much fat the body carries.

If perhaps you go through a extended period without food and fat energy stores are low your body will feed that information to the brain and increase your drive to eat,

This is a negative feedback loop and works in the same way with blood pressure, breathing and even your temperature,

This in a ideal world would help us maintain a healthy weight.

However

With people that are overweight or obese although they have higher body fat and therefore higher levels of leptin their bodies can come resistant to these signals

This resistance can cause the person to feel starving and also for the person to change their behaviour – moving less or eating more

Having inflammation in the body, elevated triglycerides (fatty acids) and elevated leptin levels can cause resistance and this is further impacted and increased by obesity – the longer you don’t address it the worse it gets.

Doing all the things I advise will help to reduce and reverse leptin resistance.

Getting to bed earlier

Reducing alcohol

Eating protein and more soluble fibre

Exercising

Lowering your triglycerides (reducing carb intake)

If you suspect this is you and you find yourself yo yo dieting and constantly hungry have a chat with your gp too, they can sometimes be able to offer further help and support but please dont underestimate the power of your actions in helping to manage this.

Its not that its you, or you can’t, or your greedy, there is often hormonal reasons and a lack of positive actions as to why we find our bodies in unhappy places.

You can maker a huge impact by exercisisng and eating more fibre, protein and fruit and veggies!