Insulin is a critical metabolic hormone that governs all cellular and homeostatic functions in the body. The main function of insulin is to transport nutrients such as glucose, amino acids and fatty acids from the blood to the cells. Today, because we eat too many carbohydrates, we overload the extremely delicate hormonal machinery in the pancreas (where insulin is made) and liver (which regulates glucose levels in the blood). Most carbohydrates in a meal are converted to glucose after ingestion, a small portion is consumed immediately, and the excess is quickly cleared from the blood and redistributed by insulin. Insulin sends excess glucose to muscle cells and the liver, where it is converted to either glycogen (the storage form of glucose) or triglycerides (the storage form of fat). Hyperglycemia is highly toxic — which is why diabetics can faint if they don't get their insulin shots in time. If you don't have a "sharpening" workout plan to burn a lot of glycogen, those excess calories will be stored in fat stores all over your body.
As modern humans devour high-carbohydrate breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, drink sugary drinks, and indulge in sugary snacks, insulin has to be pumped continuously to deal with the glucose burden of these foods. Insulin is a storage hormone, and the standard American eating pattern pushes us into round-the-clock fat storage mode. In contrast, low insulin levels cause the counter-regulatory hormone glucagon to release stored nutrients into the bloodstream, where they are burned for energy. "Three full meals a day" is a thoroughly modern concept that is completely different from our evolutionary experience as hunter-gatherers in chaos and then fat burners in times of fullness and hunger.
The "two meals a day" approach will bring you back to the rhythm of fullness and hunger, keeping you in step with your genetic predisposition to maintain health. This diet modification can save your life, because when you overproduce insulin for a long time (a condition called hyperinsulinemia), you will eventually enter the disease state of insulin resistance. Because of chronic overproduction of insulin, the cells in your body become less and less sensitive to the messages that insulin sends and no longer receive the nutrients that insulin delivers to their doorstep. Cell hotels put up "full" signs one after another, causing a large amount of glucose to accumulate in the blood. This is the prelude to the imminent disaster. The liver doesn't detect your blood sugar levels, and it even relies on signals from insulin to know when to release more glucose into the bloodstream. Sensing elevated insulin levels in the blood, the liver is tricked into releasing more glucose in an futile attempt to bring you back into homeostasis. Too much insulin and glucose in the blood can put you in a decades-long disease pattern. Many medical experts agree that insulin resistance is the number one health crisis facing humanity worldwide today.
