Health Counseling – Leptin; the Hormone in Charge
When the body depends on sugar for fuel, it impedes the normal functions of leptin, the “chief” of the hormonal chain of command. Leptin is in charge of your pituitary hormones, which regulate your thyroid functions. The thyroid gland controls how quickly the body uses energy, makes proteins, and governs how sensitive the body should be to other hormones. If you have chronic fatigue or are cold all the time, it’s probably going to be thyroid related.
The thyroid is also responsible for detoxifying the body, flushing out impurities such as fluoride, chlorine, mercury, aluminum, pesticides, and other harmful toxins that we take in from the water, air, vaccines, dental fillings, and our diet. If the thyroid isn’t operating at full potential, these toxins accumulate in our cells and joints, causing chronic pain diseases such as fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.
The hormone leptin decides when to make us hungry, and therefore oversees our metabolism. It works hand-in-hand with insulin, which becomes abnormalized when leptin levels become too high or too low. If we are dependent on a starch-based diet, we’ll probably start to get hungry about two to three hours after we eat. From an evolutionary perspective, that’s crazy. The human body is not that stupid.
Frequently going days at a time without a meal, our paleo, hunter-gatherer ancestors would have starved to death if they had to depend on complex carbohydrates (sugar) for fuel. But because they depended on ketones from fat, the leptin hormone in their bodies were able to make their metabolism much more efficient than that of the modern human. As a result, they could go for extended periods of time without getting hungry. This allowed for a much lower dietary caloric intake. Subsequently, obesity was nonexistent.
They goal is not to increase your metabolism. Why would you want to make the engine in your car run hotter? They goal is to get your body to metabolize calories more efficiently. And the only way to do this by letting go of a carbohydrate-dependent diet and embracing a paleo diet that is based on ketones.
Leptin also orchestrates our parasympathetic, fight or flight response in the nervous system. Until your leptin levels are under control, you will constantly be in a state of anxiety because you will be physiologically reacting to everything. There won’t be any saber tooth tigers to worry about, but, nevertheless, you will be acting as if there were. The ramifications of chronic anxiety over a period of months and years include chronic depression and fatigue. All of this is leptin-related.
Jason Lincoln Jeffers is a Wellness Coach who founded Sunlighten and co-founded Sunlight Day Spa; holistic wellness companies devoted to infrared radiant therapy, sound therapy, and massage therapy. His Wellness Coaching program embodies infrared sauna detoxification, upper cervical care, and consuming an alkaline-forming, nutrient-dense, sugar-, gluten-, and starch-free diet.