As you may have seen on my website or elsewhere, I am a Certified Insulin IQ Coach. But you might be wondering what that means.
Thankfully, through the work of Drs. Casey Means, Christopher Palmer, Bret Scher, Benjamin Bikman, Georgia Ede, and many others, we are seeing a growing interest in metabolic health.
Metabolism is at the core of most health and disease. It's about cellular energy! If your cells don't have healthy mitochondria, they won't have the ability to repair and regenerate. That's bad news for your health.
But what if you could improve mitochondrial function and metabolic health? Disease is not just random or the result of old age. It's about diet and lifestyle.
Insulin IQ is a program developed by Dr. Benjamin Bikman, who is a professor at Brigham Young University and a passionate advocate for metabolic health, but with a focus on improving insulin sensitivity.
Insulin, if you don't already know, is a hormone that helps to lower blood glucose (sugar) by injecting it into cells for energy. Dr. Bikman has found that in many cases, a person's blood glucose appears to be "normal," giving people the illusion that they are healthy, but insulin is rarely ever tested, and is often too high because the cells have developed insulin resistance due to an overwhelming amount of sugar circulating in the bloodstream. The body responds by producing more and more insulin to try to get glucose into cells, but the cells refuse to take in that glucose. If this continues for too long, blood glucose begins to rise as well (since insulin becomes ineffective), and only at that point does a typical doctor actually say "you have pre-diabetes/diabetes."
But insulin resistance causes a host of health problems before you get high blood sugar. Insulin IQ is a program designed to help reverse insulin resistance and encourage insulin sensitivity instead. If you are insulin-sensitive, you are probably very healthy. If not, you have some work to do.
But what causes insulin resistance? Eating a diet full of highly processed carbohydrates. And unfortunately, that's the Standard American Diet (SAD). It's modern foods. Our ancestors ate low-carb diets, except during a short time in the summer when fruit was in-season. They didn't have access to refined flour or sugar or seed oils. They were generally healthier (very little chronic disease). So we simply need to mimic the way they lived.
Insulin IQ promotes a ketogenic lifestyle as a therapy to most chronic diseases, such as:
- Mental illness (depression, anxiety, ADHD, autism, etc.)
- Inflammation
- Arthritis
- PCOS/infertility
- Diabetes
- Brain fog
- Fatigue
- Obesity
- Sleep problems
- Weakness
- Autoimmunity
- and more!
In many cases, people are able to get off their medications after following the Insulin IQ program for a while. Imagine that financial freedom and no longer worrying about side-effects!
A ketogenic diet seems a little restrictive, but it doesn't have to be boring and doesn't mean cutting calories. There are many ways to make keto a delicious and motivating lifestyle. And what I love about the Insulin IQ approach is that they don't encourage people to over-track their data. As a therapist, I've noticed that tracking numbers can lead to disordered eating. Insulin IQ encourages some tracking, but ultimately teaches you to intuitively listen to your body instead of relying too much on numbers.
So you might be wondering, do I need to stay on a ketogenic diet forever if I do this? Not necessarily. But since 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy, you most likely need to be restrictive for a while to allow your body to heal. Once you get to a point of good health, you can start eating carbs again, if you choose to do so. But that is NOT a green light to just eat whatever junk food you want every day. If you do that, you'll just end up reverting to poor health and have to start all over. Eating healthy carbohydrates means eating them in their whole, least-processed form. Examples are fresh fruit and vegetables (preferably in-season) and whole grains, nuts, beans, and seeds (properly prepared such as soaked, sprouted, or fermented).
So that's the gist of Insulin IQ. If you want to learn more, book a session or read Bikman's book.
In conclusion, Insulin IQ is all about improving insulin sensitivity by reversing insulin resistance through ketogenic therapy. It's a coaching process to support you in eating right to lose weight, reduce inflammation, repair cells, and be healthier overall. This ultimately leads to better metabolic health, which means less stress, better sleep, mental clarity, more energy, more strength, and more vitality for you!