​Leptin and Keto.....

     Steve and I had an excellent week.  Although temperatures dropped into the freezing range at night, the sun was shining all week, so it wasn’t gloomy.  We are doing our usual thing, except for Sunday when we drove to Coquitlam, B.C., to get some fishing gear for Steve.  He plans to fish on the Vedder River in British Columbia with his brother next weekend.  It will be interesting to see if they can catch some salmon.  That would be great!  We stopped at a wonderful little restaurant that serves brunch all day.  That was perfect for me, as I always enjoy eggs benedict allowing myself an English muffin occasionally.  We really enjoyed our day.  In the meantime, I remain focused on my weight loss goal and continue using Wegovy.  I understand much more about the complexities of losing weight, particularly for someone my age, which causes hormone resistance, particularly with insulin and leptin.  I’m discovering that hundreds of hormones influence weight gain, weight loss, metabolic rate, eating behaviors, and more.  However, like last week, my current focus is leptin and increasing leptin sensitivity to burn more fat.  Leptin is very important.  As I explained last week, it tells your brain when you’re full, controls your appetite, and helps keep your metabolism healthy.  At the appropriate levels, leptin regulates appetite, food intake, and energy balance, helping you stay lean and healthy by telling your brain to burn rather than store fat.  When you become leptin resistant, the body generates high levels, beginning a vicious cycle of storing rather than burning fat, thus increasing fat mass and preventing weight loss.  Diets high in carbs and processed and refined foods increase leptin levels. while shutting down leptin receptors in your hypothalamus, so it takes longer to realize that you’re full.  Overeating carbs is particularly bad and promotes leptin resistance, while a high-fat, low-carb diet like keto helps reverse leptin resistance by decreasing the appetite, increasing satiety, increasing fat burning, and preventing insulin resistance.  Thus, the ketogenic diet positively impacts leptin levels.  I am doing the right thing.  However, I cannot do anything about my age, which is the other huge factor in the hormone issue.  Thus, the Wegovy support is working for me.