Insulin is a hormone produced in your pancreas that's responsible for distributing the carbohydrates you eat around your body. While insulin itself cannot make you gain weight, it does play a very important role in your metabolism, and if insulin production is too high or too low, this can damage your health and cause you to start gaining weight.
What Insulin Does
According to nutritionist Dr. John Berardi, when you eat a carbohydrate-containing meal, your pancreas releases insulin into the bloodstream. This insulin is responsible for moving the carbohydrates, along with amino acids and fats, into your cells. The carbohydrates are either taken to the liver or to your fat and muscle cells. This process is vital for optimal health; however, because insulin is a storage hormone, having too much of it circulating in your blood can cause more of the food you eat to be stored in fat cells.
Diabetes
Diabetes is a common condition associated with insulin. There are two types of diabetes -- Type 1, which usually occurs for genetic reasons, and type 2, which is normally due to diet and lifestyle choices. Type 2 usually happens when you eat a diet high in carbohydrates over a prolonged period. The insulin receptors in your cells become unresponsive to insulin, and this causes your pancreas to have to produce huge amounts of insulin, which eventually exhausts it, meaning it can no longer produce enough insulin.
Diabetes and Weight Gain
A large number of type 2 diabetics are overweight, both before and after diagnosis. According to Berardi, having lots of insulin circulating in your blood -- the cause of type 2 diabetes -- also leads to a lot of fat storage. Many diabetics will have to take insulin injections to manage their blood sugar and insulin levels, which can further lead to weight gain.
Insulin in Non-Diabetics
Even if you aren't diabetic, having chronically high levels of insulin can lead to diabetes and weight gain. High insulin levels are usually a result of a high-calorie, high-carbohydrate diet, which causes you to gain weight. According to Dr. Mike Roussell, around 23.6 million people in the U.S. were classed as "pre-diabetics" in 2007, meaning they were already overweight and had high levels of insulin resistance.
How to Manage Insulin and Weight Gain
Insulin on its own will not cause weight gain, but when combined with a large calorie and carbohydrate intake over an amount of time, it will lead to weight gain and possibly diabetes. To avoid this, you don't need to avoid carbohydrates at all costs, you just need to be careful with what carbohydrates you choose and when you eat them. Look for carbs with a low glycaemic load, such as vegetables, fruits, beans and whole grains, and try to consume the majority of your carbs before and after your workouts, so that the insulin shuttles them to the muscle cells, rather than storing them as fat.
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