IR and Women

The following story is about a woman I personally work with. I have been focusing on screening and preventing female diseases for a while with my program participants, but especially with the new LifeT!lt. So, anyone who signs up with me must undergo a full medical examination and specialized medical examinations tailored for women. Many factors can hinder weight loss that we often cannot do anything about. These include TSH problems, more commonly known as abnormal thyroid function, and IR (Insulin Resistance), which we will examine in more detail in this post, illustrating it through the story of a real woman. The purpose of this post is to raise awareness, as this disease is responsible for most miscarriages and is the most common cause of infertility in women.

LifeTilt, IR, and Me

I am a mother of two children. I was never a thin girl, but after the birth of my children, I struggled more and more with overweight, painful weight loss, and weight regain. I am a persistent person, I tried many things to achieve my goal, I ate healthier than anyone around me, and I exercised more - with little results, or if I got tired of the slow weight loss and the much more tormenting time spent, and gave up the fight, I regained the painfully lost pounds almost within days.

I guess everyone is familiar with this feeling. It can be disheartening, and I thought if I were lazy and didn't exercise or diet, I would deserve to look like a fat pig, but not this way.

I felt that either I was doing something wrong, or something was not right with me, and as a last resort, on the recommendation of a friend, I contacted Tomi, who had already successfully helped another friend of hers lose weight. During my consultation with Tomi, after telling my story, his second sentence was approximately that there might indeed be a problem here, and I should check my insulin resistance and thyroid values. We chose a 10-week program, for which I had to wait a month to start because Tomi's calendar was full, but what he said struck me, and I thought I would quickly arrange the insulin level measurement and hormone tests, but at the specialized institution, I had to wait even longer to get an appointment - meanwhile, my program with Tomi had already started.

My program began with a full medical examination, I received a diet, the initial assessments were done, and we started our joint training sessions. It was reassuring that they checked us from head to toe, and since IR screening was also available here, I took advantage of it. However, the results did not arrive by the time I could go to the other institution, so I went there as well, since they specialize in this topic, it couldn't hurt to have two blood test results for insulin and sugar levels, and I already had an appointment with an endocrinologist there.

I received the result, then talked with the doctor for an hour – and yes, what I feared, what Tomi suspected, was confirmed. I have IR. So much became clear to me, so many symptoms turned out to have a cause, that I myself was surprised. I owe IR for my frequent headaches, dizziness, digestive problems, inability to lose weight, rapid weight regain, impatience, pimples on my chin, fainting spells, sudden stomach-gnawing hunger attacks, miscarriage, inability to get pregnant, hair loss... and more?

The doctor was very surprised when she learned that someone who was not a doctor – Tomi – had brought all this to my attention. It is not very common for trainers, or even lifestyle advisors dealing with weight loss, to draw attention to this disease, and often even doctors do not.

Where to go from here? How to live with this? I am still learning things myself, and it is not easy to accept that I have a lifelong illness. At the same time, when my friend asked if it was worth paying a considerable sum to Tomi for the program, I could only say that it was absolutely worth it. It was worth it, not just for the 7 kilograms I've lost with the help of Lifetilt, not just for the regular exercise, the attention, the advice, but primarily because he said those two words: insulin resistance. This way, I can fight it, I won't become diabetic, I'll spare myself a lot of unpleasant symptoms and complications, and knowing that it's hereditary, I can spare my children a long and arduous battle against this disease - because with a proper lifestyle and diet started early, all this can be avoided. This is currently worth more than any money to me!

Insulin Resistance (IR)

IR is a pre-diabetic condition that can be genetically inherited, so you're not only at risk if you've been eating only langos at Lake Lelle beach for years. IR is a carbohydrate metabolism disorder. In IR, fat and muscle cells are insensitive to insulin, but to maintain proper blood sugar levels, the pancreas starts producing more insulin, meaning we have insulin overproduction, until the pancreas gets exhausted and eventually stops producing insulin, and that's when diabetes develops. The only question is when the pancreas will tire out, how long it can sustain this forced pace.

The problem is that diabetes is not a local issue but affects almost the entire body and influences the function of other organs. In gynecological terms, for example, the ovaries malfunction as a result of the disease, which leads to menstrual irregularities and difficulties in getting pregnant, among other things. The latter can manifest as infertility, recurrent miscarriages, or PCOS (presence of cysts in the ovaries), which affects many women. But of course, IR can cause more than just gynecological complaints; sooner or later, it can lead to high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems, increased risk of cancer, vision problems, etc. Since people can get used to the symptoms over the long years of their development, or do not connect the various symptoms to a specific disease, they ignore it, or even if they go for an examination and have laboratory tests done (complete blood count), the problem will not be revealed because IR is not yet diabetes and therefore cannot be detected. That is why a separate IR test must be requested to detect this disease. Even at a private clinic, the examination costs 3-4 thousand forints.

We are talking about a very insidious disease that cannot be reversed but can be managed and kept under control. This involves a properly formulated diet (containing a defined amount of carbohydrates, eating every 2-3 hours, completely excluding white flour and sugar) and at least 4 x 30 minutes of cardio exercise per week. Without adhering to these, no medication (metformin) will be worth a damn, and it's important to make everyone aware of this, because diet and exercise determine 60% of the success of the treatment.

IR screening, TSH (thyroid) test, mammography, and abdominal ultrasound. Those who sign up with me are required to undergo these examinations, not only for prevention but also because if these results are negative, then the failure to lose weight cannot be easily explained.