Sugar Burner or a Fat Burner?

A hot topic in nutrition today is becoming a fat burner. This is the most optimal way to keep body fat low, as well as help ward off different diseases. A sugar burner is just what it sounds like, where a person is burning sugar to rely on energy. A fat burner gets their energy from stored body fat that they carry with them at all times. Most of us have plenty of that to go around, but the key to becoming a fat burner is gradual and can take as long as 6 months or even longer in some cases. How do you even know you are a sugar or fat burner? I created my top 5 list below to help find out whether you are a sugar or fat burner.

1. Hungry every few hours- Unless you exercise A LOT , there is no reason you should be hungry every 2-3 hours. In fact, everything I learned in school about nutrition/blood sugar was way off base. The human body functions at its best when you don’t “clog” your pipes with an overabundance of insulin every few hours. The best solution to this is to slowly adapt to becoming a fat burner by intermittent fasting and eating a diet much lower in carbohydrates.
2. Its hard to lose weight- This is a classic symptom of a sugar burner, they do all the right things and still can’t lose weight especially in the midsection.This is due to their body relying on sugar for energy and not stored fat like it should to function optimally. I have seen this time and time again where people switch to a higher fat diet and lose weight quickly. A modified type of Atkins diet works wonders, as well as exercising on an empty stomach.
3. You eat a high carbohydrate diet- This is a no brainer  considering you are what your body feeds it, so eating a diet with a significant percentage of carbohydrates will cause you to be one. Once again, the solution is to shift to a diet with a higher percentage of fat, combined with intermittent fasting.
4. Leptin resistent- Leptin is a hormone in our bodies that is responsible for satiety (being full from a meal.) If you are a sugar burner, your body isn’t as efficient as moving insulin in your cells. Insulin will block Leptin from letting you know you are full so you end up in this constant cycle of eating more food to get full only to not get this cue to be so.
5. Highs and lows- If you are a sugar burner, your body is constantly trying to maintain proper blood sugar levels. When you eat a high carbohydrate meal your body secretes insulin in an effort to maintain proper blood sugar levels. This constant supply of insulin secretion causes a constant cycle of highs and lows in your blood stream. With this will also come more high and lows in your mood which isn’t fun for people around you! Sugar burners tend to get “crankier” than fat burners due to their inefficiency in burning stored fat and their body relying on sugar from their most recent meal. Fat burners tend to have a steady supply of energy and maintain it as well.