Leptin Hormone

Leptin Hormone

Carbohydrates are your body’s fuel they make you feel satisfied after a meal, not only they make your stomach full they also feed your mind. When you reduce your carbs drastically for many days your body will think that you are starving and you do not have any food sources to eat for energy, this low carb diet will affect your hormone production especially testosterone and estrogen which finally slows down your metabolism there by decreasing the rate of fat burning so it won't burn off all those stored fat energy thus making you fat.

Why this happens?

It is because of a hormone called Leptin, the master controller of your metabolism. When you reduce your carbohydrate intake for about a week your leptin level will drop down from its normal value which will drastically reduce your fat loss process. When leptin level drops your body thinks that you are in starvation mode and it tries to preserve your stored body fat by slowing down your metabolism. You have to trick your body and make it understand that it is okay to burn the remaining fat storage as you will be providing it with the required energy by eating carbs and that is how carb cycling works.

Your body has two sources of stored energy; the primary is from fat stored around your body and secondary is the glycogen stored in muscles and liver.

Glycogen is nothing but glucose (blood sugar) which your body uses for its daily activities. Whenever you eat food your blood sugar goes up and when you don't eat for longer periods of time it drops.

Whenever your stomach is empty your body starts burning glycogen stored in your muscle and liver, when it runs out of the secondary energy source it goes into the primary source that is the fat storage.

But it is not a good idea to keep your glycogen stores in a depleted state for too long, when you are on a low carbohydrate diet for more than one week your Leptin level will drop and your body starts burning your muscles for energy (Catabolism).