Is obesity a risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, and other diseases ... or is it a symptom? Is the real underlying factor leading to disease insulin resistance (or something else) that then leads to obesity?

I may be wrong, but after all the reading I've done on the topic for the past 20+ years, I believe obesity is a symptom, not a cause, of disease.

I agree with your believe BW. Obesity is a symptom.

This is something that at least some are finally starting to recognize - that the problems correlated to obesity are not actually caused by obesity, but by the excess insulin produced as part of increasing insulin resistance and the body's attempt to control blood sugar by producing even more insulin. Then once they push eating even more carbs (bushels of hearthealthywholegrains, and lots of fruit!) to lose weight progresses to diabetes, they add in even more insulin rather than cutting off the excess carbs that caused the excess insulin to begin with.



Gaining weight through excess insulin production is the body's way of coping with excess blood sugar brought on by eating all the recommended carbs. The cells can only cope with so much of that, so they become insulin resistant, but the pancreas is still trying to do it's job of finding a home for all that blood sugar, so it produces even more insulin. The cycle continues until the cells become so resistant that even more insulin is needed (in the form of Rx insulin injections) to force all that excess sugar into the cells, which leads to even more weight gain, with all the excess insulin causing damage throughout the body.


So it really is ridiculous to blame obesity for all those problems - it's like blaming firetrucks for starting fires. The fire trucks may show up when there's a fire, but only after the fire has already started.

Well said!

Several years after I started low-carbing, there were three men of my acquaintance who dropped dead of heart attacks in the span of a few months. These were trim and active guys in their forties: a ski patroller, a mountain climber, an avid hiker.

All eating "healthy" and exercising, no fat on them; maybe even on statins, sad to say.

But while they didn't show the high insulin with weight gain, inflammation was doing a number on them all the same.

I would say it is both and becomes cyclical. Yes the more insulin resistant you become, the more weight you will gain as body begins producing more and more insulin. BUT the more you weigh, the more insulin you need anyway.
1. Insulin dosing in a type one is done based upon body weight. Even with a ten pound fluctuation, you will need adjustments. We are a “blank canvass” to see this effect.
2. The more the you weigh, often the more you eat (not always, but usually. I don’t mean overeating necessarily, simply larger people need more calories than smaller ones). The more you eat, the more insulin you need (even eating low carb foods!).
So an obese person is going to produce more insulin, by the body needs more to account for more caloric intake.

So yes, I agree IR causes obesity, but also obesity causes IR.

IDK about that theory....
A fat person who goes low carb can cut their insulin production in half by simply eating more meat and eating no sugar or starchy white carbs.

Absolutely, but eating more on a low carb diet compared to fewer calories on low carb requires more insulin.

I could eat steaks all day long, for every meal and my BS would not budge at all. (I take no meds)
LC and especially all meat, levels out your BS so you don't have all of those spikes of insulin or drops of BS.

Do you have insulin resistance?
At most people can absorb 20-25g protein at one sitting, after that, it is converted to glucose and then used by body. Certain protein types are less prone to do so, like those found in meat. Some are notorious for causing this, like whey.
In a non diabetic or someone without insulin resistance, you would never detect this. Your body is more than capable of producing enough insulin to compensate.
A woman Who is your size and age is unlikely to eat enough to see this, compared to an obese young man who might eat triple what you do....

Here's my mind-set.
I will eat 4 oz of steak and consume 0 carbs.
For you to get the equivalent grams of protein you would have to eat 95 peanuts. https://vitals.lifehacker.com/this-...ks-l-1721365486

I would get 0g carbs from my steak and you would get 44g+ of carbs from peanuts.
https://www.myfooddiary.com/foods/2...anuts-with-salt

Plus I would be getting vitamins, minerals and amino acids not in peanuts.

Good discussion. I look at this as a chicken/egg situation, obesity is a symptom. One can develop IR and then become obese. One can be obese and then develop IR. One can develop IR and not gain weight but experience increased inflammation. I call this the "silent killer." Either way, there are indicators that IR or Metabolic Syndrome is present. As a former carb addict who was rapidly developing IR, all I know is when I made corrections, all of it went away.

That is really a great thing to see. I have been limited in my diet so I've been eating peanuts because I can tolerate them but I think they are just too carby for me.

Speaking of "limited," I have eliminated these categories from my food:

sugar
soy
grains
legumes

severely limited these:

nightshade vegetables (tomato sauce testing in progress)
high sugar fruit (paired with cheese at parties if need be)
vegetables because of fiber in all its deadly forms (I can top my BBQ pork with a bit of coleslaw - homemade dressing)

leading to cries of what do you eat? and the answer is "meat, with condiments like high fat dairy and occasional low sugar fruit"

And yet I don't feel deprived at all. The food is delicious, satisfying, and makes me feel good. While keeping my autoimmune issues in remission.

I was approaching my own issues from the wrong angle, it turns out. I was starting at the top and trying to eliminate downward, which helped me go gluten free. This helped my digestion, and did wonders for my arthritis. But reactions I was not aware of were going on behind the scenes, invisibly, until they broke out in symptoms.

Now I am wondering if I had done further inflammation tests, like CRP, it would have tipped me off that something else is going on. My carb levels are not as strict as one would think, seeing how I blew through what I thought was my goal weight. And it might not even be weight: now I wonder if it was really a lot of inflammation and bloating and the like, all along.

A year ago I flipped that elimination strategy by only eating beef for almost a month. I gradually added in things, one at a time.

And yes, I found out there were giant categories of food that were not big in my diet carb-wise: like the low carb wrap that had gluten, a few black beans on a salad, a few fries from my husband's plate.

But after ONE cashew made me nauseated for two days, a light went on. I could eat that carb level (9 grams) in raspberries with no problem at all, provided those are accompanied by heavy cream or at the end of a meal.

I could see it's not just the carbs. It's also their source, and what else comes along for the ride.

In my case, corn can cross-react with my gluten problem, invisibly; until I have a flare-up. Those occasional beans were something my body didn't like, but I was unaware of that until I gave my system a total break from them, for long enough. These days, processed foods seem to always contain some kind of "textured wheat protein" or soy derivative: packaged stuff is off limits.

Dairy really doesn't bother me, though I hedge my bets with relatively small quantities and high quality. Fiber was the big surprise. It not only upsets my intestines, the mechanical damage seems to create inflammation, through actual injury and by not keeping certain things where they should be: leaky gut indeed.

I had to rethink everything I put in my mouth, but the benefits are incredible. I don't miss the foods I don't eat as a result.

Because they really are poison to me.

Finding out what works for you and what doesn't work is important, and you used the preferred method.

IMO if you can cure your problem with diet, it's better than anything the medical profession can do for you.

I eliminated quite a few foods decades ago, and as a result, I never get sick anymore.

My diet is extremely limited, susteainable for decades. I don't look at food as entertainment anymore, but a pleasant way to sustain life for another day.

Bob

You hit the nail on the head.