That’s why you need to store sugar when you want to lose weight

Have you read the book The Truth about Sugar or some of my shorter or longer waxings lyrical about needing to make sure you move excess sugar from the blood into the body’s energy stores? That, preferably, there shouldn’t be too much sugar in the blood, because it interferes with the positive collaboration of the cells. But isn’t it precisely when we store sugar that we become obese? Is the “good” storing of sugar not terribly illogical if you want to lose weight?

It’s quite true that when you store more energy than you use, you gain weight. But the body is created to alternate between storing energy and using those stores. So no one state should run stably all the time. There are two states that need to alternate in order to keep both mechanisms equal: storing in the stores and retrieving from the stores.

Some people mistakenly believe that the body is created for us to snack all the time to keep our blood sugar stable: ‘Adding carbohydrates slowly means we can use them continuously’. This serious misunderstanding is perhaps the main reason why type 2 diabetes is becoming so commonplace. We shouldn’t accumulate sugar in the blood and then use it until new sugar is added to the blood again. Quite the opposite. When we have excess sugar in the blood, it ravages the body and disrupts all the fine hormonal balances that determine when we store and when we retrieve from the stores. That ravaging is due to two things: that excess sugar in the blood binds to the proteins in the bloodstream and that excess sugar in the blood runs into the wrong cells. The wrong cells are those that don’t have a significant amount of storage space, but conversely are forced to burn more than they need when more is let in.

If, however, excess sugar is stored in the storage areas (in muscle and liver cells), the storage manager, insulin, slips in too. That way you avoid insulin rushing around your bloodstream and carefully make sure you don’t burn fat or other energy sources from the stores.

So store – use and don’t disturb your body with a prolonged signal to store, because the body can no longer be bothered removing excess sugar from the blood.

And here’s a really important point: some of us can eat almost all the sugar there is and still store it effectively in our muscle and liver cells at a level of 0.5. Others have excess sugar in their blood for a long period of time after eating only half a slice of rye bread.

We are born with these differences, but they are also quite dependent on many other things. For example, it is absolutely crazy how much a walk can mean for your body’s ability to put sugar nicely in the stores. In addition, our muscle mass and fitness level are important for our ability to store, as is the food we eat, the time we eat at and a good night’s sleep. Similarly, the amount of fat in our bodies is crucial for how quickly we store excess sugar in the blood.

You can get a great overview of all your options for improving your ability to store in the book The Truth about Sugar.