Welcome to the category of my blog simply called ‘Healthy Tips.’ Many times, when I write articles for various publications, I need to find sources for the story as seen in Yahoo Shine (click here) or PBS (click here) about staying healthy. I was looking for experts and non-experts to chime in and give their favorite ‘tips’ to help kids and adults lead a healthy lifestyle.
The feedback for various stories was amazing. The sources had some fantastic points of view that could not be ignored, and I thought their opinions should be viewed on the Your Health Journal web site.
So, enjoy my new series, with some ‘great’ insight from some ‘great’ people giving exceptional and educational points of view.
“Recently there has been a lot of media coverage about not snacking and actually allowing your body to feel hungry between meals. I personally am a huge advocate of having two to three between-meal snacks every day. I think snacking is very important to maintain the blood sugar; prevent insulin resistance; stimulate the conversion of T4 to T3 in the thyroid; and continue to feed the liver to metabolize fat. The whole controversy with not snacking is that by stimulating the hormones in the brain; serotonin, dopamine, and especially leptin levels are activated, allowing the body to feel hunger. Some people feel that not snacking will stimulate the metabolism once the body has eaten.
In actuality, what we are finding from a biochemistry perspective is that when we start to secrete those hungry hormones, or those starvation hormones and cortisol, our body converts a larger portion of T4 to Reverse T3, which is actually a fat storage version of the T3 (metabolically active) thyroid hormone. Yikes! We are talking about more than 90% of what regulates the metabolism. Cortisol can cause insulin resistance. Insulin is the key that unlocks the cell wall allowing blood glucose or sugars to be escorted across the cell wall and be broken down or metabolized by the body giving off energy. Insulin resistance meaning that even though insulin is produced by the pancreas the body becomes resistant to allowing it to be effective. Typically a protein- and fiber-based snack will feed the liver and stimulate the pancreas.
By not snacking and stimulating the starvation and stress hormones we are actually promoting insulin resistance as well as the conversion of a malformed thyroid hormone that is not as metabolically active as T3. I think working in healthy snacks such as raw almonds, hummus, juicy apples and nitrate-free jerky is a step in the right direction.”
– Haylie Pomroy, Celebrity nutritionist, wellness consultant, author of the upcoming book The Fast Metabolism Diet)