Why Insulin Resistance Keeps You Feeling Tired, Hungry, and Stuck

One of the most frustrating parts of insulin resistance is that it can trap your body’s stored energy. When your cells stop listening to insulin properly, your body often responds by making more insulin. High insulin tells your body to store fuel, not release it.

So even if you have plenty of stored energy on board, you can still feel flat, snacky, and constantly thinking about food. Your body is struggling to access its own fuel.

Five Things That Make Insulin Resistance Worse

Modern life is full of habits that keep insulin high and make it harder for your cells to respond. Here are five common patterns that can sabotage your metabolic health—and what to do about them.

1. Frequent High-Carb Meals and Constant Snacking

When you’re eating refined carbs across the day, insulin rarely gets a chance to come down. Foods like bread, cereal, crackers, muesli bars, hot chips, and sweets keep insulin elevated and lock fat storage on.

That constant insulin elevation drives hunger and cravings, especially in the afternoon and evening. Many people notice they feel better when they build meals that actually keep them full and reduce between-meal nibbling.

2. Ultra-Processed Food as a Daily Default

Ultra-processed foods are designed to be easy to overeat. They combine refined starch, added sugar, industrial oils, flavourings, and textures that bypass normal appetite signals.

They’re usually low in protein and fibre, which means you’re hungry again sooner. Even when the packaging looks “healthy-ish,” the metabolic impact is often the same—higher insulin, more cravings, and the tired-snack-spike-crash cycle.

3. Sitting Lots and Low Muscle Use

Your muscles are glucose powerhouses—they soak up blood sugar and keep insulin levels lower. But when movement is low, muscles become less responsive to insulin, meaning your body must produce more to get the same result.

The good news? Movement works quickly. A walk after meals and regular resistance training can improve insulin sensitivity in surprisingly short timeframes.

4. Poor Sleep (Too Little or Low Quality)

A single night of poor sleep can make your body more insulin resistant, even if you don’t have diabetes. Sleep loss also increases cravings for quick energy—usually carbs.

After a rough night, many people move less and snack more, stacking the metabolic odds against them. Consistent sleep timing, morning light, less evening screen time, and treating sleep apnoea can all be game changers for better insulin control.

5. Chronic Stress (Including Busy-Brain Stress)

Stress isn’t just emotional—it’s deeply biological. When your brain perceives threat (deadlines, conflict, people pleasing, financial worry, constant rushing), stress hormones rise and make insulin work less effectively.

Stress also drives comfort eating, poor sleep, and less movement, which all worsen insulin resistance. That’s why stress care is not a luxury—it’s metabolic medicine.

If you recognise yourself in any of these patterns, you haven’t failed. You’re simply living in a modern world that constantly pushes insulin up.

The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progress. Fewer insulin-spiking moments, more real food, more movement, more sleep, and better stress management all make a powerful difference.

A Note for Peri and Post Menopause

After menopause, insulin resistance often increases sharply. Falling oestrogen levels lead to a natural rise in insulin. This is one reason many women notice new belly weight, stronger cravings, and more stubborn blood sugar changes in midlife.

Lower oestrogen also changes how and where we store fat, with more tendency toward abdominal and visceral fat. Many women also experience shifts in sleep, mood, recovery, and muscle mass—all of which push insulin higher and make weight gain feel unfairly easy.

Action Steps

If you are peri or post-menopausal, consider this your permission slip to double down on the basics:

• Prioritise low carb, real food.

• Add strength training and daily walking.

• Protect your sleep.

• Practise stress care daily.

These lifestyle steps aren’t just nice ideas—they are core tools for keeping your insulin and appetite hormones working in your favour.

Dr Mary Barson and Dr Lucy are the founders of Real Life Medicine. They help women who have been on every diet under the sun, optimise their health and achieve long lasting weight loss without feeling miserable or deprived.

They do this with their 3 step framework:

• Strategies to improve your metabolism
• Brain-based skills to overcome self-sabotage
• Tools to make it easy to implement

With this comes increased energy, vitality and confidence.

You can avoid chronic disease and stop living life on the sidelines!