How Certain Hormones Get in the Way of Health

If you’re living with prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, or obesity, it can feel like your body is constantly working against you, especially when you’re trying to improve your health or lose weight.

And in some ways, it is.

Not because you’re broken, but because your system has changed. How your body manages hunger, energy, and fat storage works differently than it used to and differently than most fitness advice assumes.  

Many factors play a role, including genetics and your environment, but they don’t explain everything. The reality is that some of these shifts were shaped by years of long-term lifestyle patterns that put you in survival-mode living: Busy schedules. Skipped meals. Binging. Poor sleep. Chronic stress. Processed foods. Low movement. The list goes on.

None of it probably felt like a big deal at the time, but over the years, those patterns quietly reprogrammed how your body functions today.  

But that doesn’t mean it’s too late. It just means your body (and maybe focus) needs something different now.

This post will help you understand how hormones like insulin and GLP-1 influence your system and what’s actually happening so you can stop fighting your body and start working with it.

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The Body’s Main Energy Source

When you eat, especially simple carbs like bread, fruit, pasta, or sweets, your body quickly breaks that food down into glucose, a type of sugar that becomes your main fuel source.

That glucose enters your bloodstream, where it travels around waiting to be let into your cells so it can be used as energy. This energy powers everything: your brain, your muscles, your heart, even your ability to get up off the couch or think clearly at work. But glucose can’t get into your cells on its own; it needs a key, and that key is insulin.

What Is Insulin?

Insulin is a hormone made by your pancreas. It helps keep blood sugar (glucose) balanced and allows your body to access the energy it needs to function.

You can think of insulin like a key. Its job is to unlock your cells so glucose can get in. Once in, it can either be used for energy right away or stored (as glycogen) in your muscles and liver for later.

Those glycogen storage areas have a limit, though. If they stay full, because you’re not using that energy, your body converts the extra glucose into fat in the liver, which then gets stored in fat cells. Unlike glycogen storage areas, fat cells don’t have a hard limit; they just keep growing.

It’s like having a full closet, so your extra clothes get stuffed into garbage bags and thrown into the garage. It’s not ideal, but your body has to put it somewhere.

So, yes, your body has a backup plan to store extra glucose by converting it into fat when your muscle and liver storage is full, but that process takes time. And while your body is figuring it out, that extra glucose just sits in your bloodstream… and causes damage.

The Damage You Can’t See (Yet)

Glucose isn’t meant to float around aimlessly; it’s supposed to be used or stored quickly. When it hangs out in the bloodstream for too long, it starts causing some issues:

• It sticks to proteins (like your red blood cells),
• Damages blood vessels (especially in your eyes, kidneys, and fingers),
• And throws off nerve function and hormone signals.

Over time, this can lead to serious problems like nerve damage, poor circulation, and blood sugar dysregulation, but before that, you’ll usually feel it in more subtle ways:

Early signs that insulin isn’t doing its job:

• You’re tired all the time
• You can’t focus
• You feel moody or foggy for no clear reason
• You’re hungry again even though you just ate

These are some of the first red flags that your body is having a harder time managing blood sugar and needs support.

What Happens When Your Cells Stop Listening to Insulin

At first, insulin works just fine because it “unlocks” your cells so glucose can get in and be used or stored. But after years of unbalanced meals, little movement, poor sleep, or chronic stress, your cells start ignoring insulin’s signal.

This is what’s known as insulin resistance. Your pancreas is still making insulin, sometimes too much, but your cells aren’t responding anymore.

So, your body tries even harder to make them respond and pumps out more insulin to force it. But if your muscle and liver storage tanks are already full, and it takes time to convert glucose into fat, there’s still nowhere for that sugar to go, so glucose keeps building up in your blood. And insulin stays high.

So Where Does GLP-1 Fit into All This?

GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) is another important hormone, but it doesn’t come from your pancreas. It’s released from your gut after you eat, and its job is to help your body handle food more efficiently.

The GLP-1 hormone does three main things:

1. Slows digestion, so food doesn’t rush through too fast (which helps you feel full longer)
2. Helps your pancreas release insulin more efficiently,not all the time or in excess, just when food is present and in the right amount.
3. Signals your brain that you’re full, so you stop eating without overdoing it.

When your metabolism is working well, the GLP-1 hormone does all of this in the background. But when it’s not, and insulin resistance or overeating patterns have taken over, your natural GLP-1 response isn’t as strong anymore.

That’s when GLP-1 medications step in to give your body the push it needs since they’re designed to mimic what your body is supposed to do naturally.

Why You Can Still Feel Hungry Even After Eating

Just like your body can become resistant to insulin, it can also become less responsive to GLP-1.

This means:

• You don’t feel full when you should
• Insulin isn’t triggered properly
• Glucose builds up in your bloodstream

And all of that puts more pressure on a system that’s already overwhelmed.

Here’s what that can look like:

• Your body produces less GLP-1 after eating
• Your brain doesn’t get the “I’m full” message while you’re eating
• You still feel hungry, even if you just ate

It creates a vicious cycle: Weak fullness cues, more eating, more fat storage, and more stress on your metabolic system.

Other Impacts of GLP-1 Resistance

Blood sugar control gets shaky – If GLP-1 isn’t functioning well, insulin can’t do its job properly either, and that means your blood sugar starts climbing and staying higher than it should. Over time, this can push you closer to insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes.

Inflammation creeps in – When your body’s dealing with too much glucose and excess fat storage, it creates a kind of quiet, constant inflammation. The kind that shows up as brain fog, joint aches, fatigue, and even higher heart disease risk down the road.

It can stress your heart, too – Most people don’t realize this, but GLP-1 plays a role in heart health¹. It influences your heart rate, how flexible your blood vessels are, and how your body handles cholesterol. So, when that system’s out of sync, your cardiovascular health can take a hit.

Like insulin resistance, GLP-1 resistance builds slowly and is shaped by lifestyle, stress, and biology over time.

Habits That Help Retrain Your Hormones

GLP-1 medications aren’t magic; they still need your effort. They’re effective and powerful tools, but work best when paired with a few key habits. These habits help your body function better with and without the medication.

Here’s what actually helps:

• Movement that uses your muscles. When you move regularly,² especially your larger muscle groups, your body taps into stored glucose for energy. That clears out space in your muscles and liver, so the next time you eat, there’s someplace for that energy to go. If you don’t move much, your storage stays full, and your body has to keep pumping out more insulin to handle anything you eat.
  • This is why walking, strength training, or any consistent movement helps improve insulin sensitivity: You’re actually using what you’re storing.

• Balanced meals that work with your body. Meals that include protein, fiber, and healthy fats help slow digestion and keep your blood sugar stable. That means your body needs less insulin to manage meals, which reduces stress on your system and helps keep hunger, energy, and cravings in check.

• Stress control. High stress raises cortisol,³ and cortisol raises blood sugar. That’s part of the body’s fight-or-flight response. It’s essential and useful during an emergency, but draining and harmful when it’s happening all day, every day.

• Better sleep. Poor sleep⁴ makes your body more insulin-resistant. Even one night can throw off your hunger and blood sugar hormones the next day, causing cravings to spike and energy to tank. Try to get 7–9 hours of consistent, quality sleep, not just more hours in bed but actual rest that helps your system reset.

Final Thoughts

Insulin and GLP-1 resistance don’t show up overnight. They build slowly, shaped by habits, stress, sleep, and everyday life.

If that’s what happened to you, it’s not your fault. But now, it is your responsibility.

And like any long-term condition, this isn’t something you fix once and forget. It’s a system you’ll need to understand, manage, and support over time.

That might sound heavy, but it’s also incredibly empowering, not in a cheesy cheerleader way, but in a you’ve-got-tools-now kind of way.

Because now you know:

• What causes Insulin and GLP-1 resistance.
• How GLP-1 medication can help turn the volume back up on your body’s signals.
• How lifestyle habits help your body trust those signals again.
• That education puts you in control, not your diagnosis or prescription.

You didn’t choose to end up here. But now that you know what’s happening, you get to choose what happens next. And I’ll be here, rooting for you every step of the way.

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Resources

1. AHA/ASA Journals, Circulation, GLP-1 Receptor Agonists for the Reduction of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes, https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059595 ↩︎
2. PMC, NCBI, NIH, Exercise and glucagon-like peptide-1: Does exercise potentiate the effect of treatment?, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6107470/ ↩︎
3. Harvard Health Publishing, Understanding the stress response, https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response ↩︎
4. Sleep Foundation, Sleep and Weight Loss, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-health/weight-loss-and-sleep ↩︎

Photo Credits

Woman working out by Eva-Katalin from Getty Images Signature

Woman Working Out at Home by Crystal Sing from corelens