Fat for Fuel: Lose Weight, Control Diabetes

The human body is a machine. And as a machine, it requires fuel to operate. And this fuel is the food we eat.

There are five major classes of food, plus water. The five classes of food are carbohydrates, proteins, fats and oil, vitamins and mineral salts. And out of these five, carbohydrates and fats and oil are the fuels that can power the human machine.

We were taught in lower schools that energy given foods are foods that contain enough carbohydrates, but the truth is that fat of same quantity with carbohydrates contains more energy than the carbohydrates. But it is easier for the body to burn carbohydrates for fuel, so whenever carbohydrates is available, the body burns it and leaves the fat.

What Happens When We Ingest Sugar?

I want to use the term sugar not just because the end product of every carbohydrates is glucose, but because every carbohydrate is sugar, but could be simple or complex.

When glucose hits the blood stream, the body responds by releasing insulin. Insulin is produced in the pancreas and it enables the uptake of glucose from the blood by the cells to burn for energy. Thus when the sugar intake is significantly high and constant, the pancreas keeps releasing insulin to deal with it. At a time, the body cells begin to develop resistance to the insulin. And the insulin is no longer able to reduce the sugar in the blood and the level gets high. And when this persists, the raw glucose begins to cause damage to cells and tissues. And type 2 diabetes is developed. 

Fat on the other hand gets digested into fatty acids and glycerol. The glycerol may be used by the body as fuel or stored in the tissues. It is converted into glucose when there is low level of blood sugar and converted to glycogen and stored in the body.