10 Minutes to Up-Skill Yourself: Take Control of Your Fat Loss Journey
We’re going to break down carbs, insulin, and how these two work together (or against you) when it comes to fat loss, building muscle, your health, fitness and wellbeing.
You’ll leave here with a solid understanding of why carbs and insulin are crucial in managing your energy levels, staying lean, and avoiding the modern day, gaping pitfalls of fat gain and declining health as you age.
What You Need To Know About Carbs
First off, carbs are your body’s preferred source of energy.
You NEED them, in your diet.
When you eat carbs, they’re digested, absorbed, and stored in your muscles or liver as stored energy.
Depending on how much muscle you’ve got, your body can hold about 350-500 grams of carbs—roughly 1,400-2,000 calories of stored energy ready to go.
But not all carbs are created equal. Here’s what you’re dealing with:
- Complex Carbs: Think sweet potatoes, butternut squash, whole grains, and legumes like lentils, quinoa, split peas and black beans.
- Simple Carbs and Sugar: This is your white bread, white potato, pizza, and sugary snacks—basically the stuff that gives you a quick hit but burns out fast.
Pro Tip: You can download The Ultimate Fat Loss Food List for a full breakdown of complex carbs, proteins, fats, and veggies. It’s golden.
Grab it on the link below.
==> The Ultimate Fat Loss Food List
What You Should Know About Insulin
Insulin is the only hormone you can actually control to some degree.
When you eat carbs, your pancreas produces insulin.
Insulin’s job? To carry those carbs to your muscles and liver to store as energy.
Complex Carbs and Insulin: When you eat complex carbs, insulin is released slowly, keeping your blood sugar stable and energy balanced. Good news for your focus, mood, energy, and fat loss.
Simple Carbs and Sugar: On the other side, when you overeat simple carbs, ultra processed food (UPF) and processed sugar, insulin spikes hard and fast, followed by that dreaded sugar crash.
That’s why you’re struggling and need for a nap by 2:30 PM.
Managing insulin is key if you want stable energy, better moods, better quality sleep, leaner results, and better overall health.
Here’s How Carbs and Insulin Work Together
When things are going smoothly, you’re eating the right amount and types of complex carbs, insulin acts like a 5 star delivery driver, escorting carbs from your bloodstream into your muscles and liver safe and sound, no messing about.
When the carbs get to your muscle of liver, they’re stored as energy, ready to fuel your workouts and hectic day you’ve got coming.
But when you overdo it on the simple carbs, it’s a different story.
Your muscles and liver fill up quickly, leaving no more room for carbs.
So, where do those extra carbs go?
Straight to the dustbin of your body: your fat cells.
Yep, your body converts the extra carbs that cannot fit into your muscles or liver into body fat, and boom—there goes your waistline.
The Short-Term Effects of Too Many Simple Carbs
When life gets tough, it’s easy to fall into the trap of grabbing UPF and simple carbs for that instant hit of energy.
In my experience when life had kicked me all over the gaff, my healthy nutrition habits were the first to go.
With the extra financial stress, personal disappointment and feeling like I had been undersold adulthood, add to this the frustration of eating crap and struggling with exercise I did what most of us do in this country, I started drinking too much and hammering cocaine to hide from those things called feelings and refusing to face the suffering of life.
I didn’t know it at the time but I was raging in the middle of my active addiction.
Then the cherry on top, my sleep pattern went right out the window along with my mental health, and physical energy.
When this happened, my brain reset to factory settings and my habits were to reach for UPF, simple carbs for the convenience, to give me the instant gratification and energy from the sugar rush.
But here’s the reality: all those pizzas, burgers, chips, biscuits and pints of Guinness were sending my insulin levels through the roof.
My muscles and liver could only store so much, and when they got full, the rest was stored as fat.
Result? A tighter belt, muffin tops, and chippy tits. And so the torment continued. I think i was the only cocaine addict that actually put on weight.
The Long-Term Effects Of Eating Simple Carbs: Insulin Resistance
Keep pounding the UPF and simple carbs, and you’ll start dealing with insulin resistance. Here’s what happens:
1. Your muscles stop taking in carbs all together, even when they have room to store energy. They send the carbs them straight to your fat cells. {1}
2. Your pancreas gets overworked, producing less insulin over time, which leads to higher blood sugar levels and eventually pre-diabetes. {2}
This is when your body shifts into “fat-storing mode.” It’s bad news for your physique, your and your mental health.
Fun Fact: Fat cells can expand, and expand, and expand, and when they’re full, your body makes new fat cells to be filled up with more fat. Once you’ve got them, they’re there for life and your potential to store fat shoots up. {3}
But don’t stress mate—there’s always hope.
Reversing Insulin Resistance
If you’ve been reading this article and recognise yourself in it, to get yourself and your body back on track, you’ve got to rebuild the relationship between your muscle cells and insulin, and get talking again.
Here’s the plan:
- Switch to Complex Carbs Only: Bin off the UPF, sugar and simple carbs. Complex carbs digest slower, they are full off fibre, vitamins and minerals that cause less of an insulin spike, giving your pancreas a breather.
- Taper Your Carb Intake: Slowly decrease your carbs over 2 weeks, take a day of zero carbs, then slowly add them back in over another 2 weeks. Timing them around your workouts or evening meals.
This 4 week strategy gives your muscles and pancreas a break. It gets them ready to start storing carbs as energy again instead of fat.
And the best part, you’ll drop at least 7 pounds in this 28-days, without touching exercise.
The entire process moves your body from “fat-storing mode” to “fat-burning mode.”
The Results Speak for Themselves
After running through a 4-week carb reset, I developed the Evo: 43: The Busy Parents Ultimate Guide To Training— It’s a foundation that powers all my fat loss programs today.
It’s not just about losing fat; it’s about long-term health, better energy, and sharper focus and becoming the best version of yourself, so you can be the best version for your family.
To get yourself involved mate push the button below and read exactly what the Evo: 43: The Busy Parents Ultimate Guide To Training is all about.
It will cost you £0 too, but i cant keep it this way forever, so grab your spot and take the first steps towards your future self, the leaner, fitter, stronger, and healthier person that’s waiting.
And now we get to the Step 1: What If Complex Carbs Are the Key to Better Performance and Fat Loss?
I recommend you call it day now, there’s been a lot to get to grips with today.
So have a break and I’ll see you tomorrow.
If you’re reading this and have no clue what Step 1: What If Complex Carbs Are the Key to Better Performance and Fat Loss is, click the link here and you can get yourself involved in Rethink Sweet: The 10-Step, No-BS Guide To Low Sugar Living.
Yours in Health
Rick
