I want to give you one last overview of how everything fits together. Before we look at the summary of impactful changes, as we get older, very often we become bogged down by life itself. We're busy dealing with our children, our job, and of course the household. So, our activity levels start dropping off, our sleep cycles change and our stress levels rise, we may begin to eat more convenience foods, because time is short, or even fast foods and fast treats are created especially by the fast food industry to get us eating more and craving more. And of course, all this begins to impact on our insulin. This takes time and slowly creep into insulin resistance and insulin resistance may be 15 years 15 or 20 years before, we are fully aware of the impact and the damage it's doing.
Over the years, our cells become more resistant, and our fat levels rise. Because of the impact of insulin on hormone sensitive lipase and lack of protein lipase, we find it harder to lose weight. And as we get fatter, our leptin levels also rise and overflow and we ease into a state of leptin resistance. Now, our metabolic rate slows down because the brain tells the body is starving, even though we're overweight and have lots of food and are carrying more fat than we should. To top it all. We're craving madly and we're getting very hungry.
When we do try to lose weight, we feel exhausted and unhappy. So We carry on for a little bit, and then we put it off. Our mitochondria start to suffer, and our energy levels are low. So of course, we don't feel like exercising, we may decide to go on a strict diet. But then Lipton works that attempt thoroughly. And now we not only feel overweight, but we feel a failure as well.
We're fat, we're unhappy. And now we're worried because of the health risks. Every change has to begin somewhere. But the first step in any change is to equip ourselves with information. And this is what you have done with this particular course. The second step is to begin making changes.
And even one change at one time is one step further towards health.