What to Eat to Keep Insulin in Check: An Ancestral Approach to Healing Metabolic Health

What to Eat to Keep Insulin in Check: An Ancestral Approach to Healing Metabolic Health

Ancestral Nutrition
August 08, 2025•7 min read

What to Eat to Keep Insulin in Check: An Ancestral Approach to Healing Metabolic Health

Why Insulin Control Matters

Insulin resistance is one of the most pressing metabolic challenges of our time. Dr. Benjamin Bikman notes, “Only 12% of Americans are metabolically fit… meaning 88% are showing at least one sign of metabolic dysfunction”.

High insulin levels don’t just lead to type 2 diabetes (T2D); they accelerate fat gain, drive inflammation, and contribute to heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and hormonal imbalances. Dr. Mindy Pelz explains, “If you can’t go without food for 12 hours, that’s a sign of metabolic inflexibility… often the first sign of insulin resistance”.

The good news? Diet and lifestyle—not medication—are the most powerful levers to restore insulin sensitivity.

The Core Problem: Modern Food

We live in a food environment that didn’t exist for 99% of human history:

  • Hyper-processed, high-fat, high-carb foods (chips, pastries, fast food).

  • Refined sugars and starches that spike insulin all day long.

  • Industrial seed oils that damage cellular and metabolic function.

Bikman explains: “In nature, you don’t find high fat and high carbohydrate together, except in milk… but we’ve engineered foods that are high in both, stripped of protein, and sold in bags and boxes with barcodes”.

What to Eat to Keep Insulin in Check

1. Prioritize Real, Whole Food

  • Animal Proteins: Grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, wild-caught fish, and organ meats provide complete amino acids and support muscle—the “organ of longevity.” (See Animal vs. Plant Protein: Why Animal Protein Wins for Longevity)

  • Healthy Fats: Cook with ghee, butter, coconut oil, or tallow instead of seed oils (canola, soy, corn). These fats don’t spike insulin and are stable under heat. (See The Ancestral Advantage: Eating the Way Nature Intended)

  • Low-Toxin Vegetables & Fruits: Focus on nutrient-dense, low-toxin plants like squash, cucumbers, olives, avocados, and berries. For other plants high in oxalates or lectins (like spinach, beans, or certain grains), prepare them traditionally (soaking, fermenting, cooking) to reduce anti-nutrients and make them easier to digest.

2. Rethink Meal Timing

Insulin sensitivity improves when we give the body breaks from food:

  • Time-Restricted Eating (TRE): Skip breakfast or dinner to extend your overnight fasting window. Bikman notes, “Fasting through dinner has the greatest metabolic benefit, but skipping breakfast is often easier socially… either way, you prolong low-insulin periods and improve fat burning”.

  • Avoid Grazing: Every snack triggers an insulin response. Focus on 2–3 nutrient-dense meals instead of constant eating.

3. Build a Low-Insulin Lunch

Many people experience afternoon fatigue because of high-carb lunches. Bikman explains: “After a high-carb meal, nutrients crash, the brain senses low energy, and fatigue sets in… I keep my lunch very low-carb with lots of protein and fat to avoid the crash”.

Example Lunch Ideas:

  • Leftover taco meat with avocado and sour cream (no tortilla).

  • Bunless grass-fed burger with sauerkraut and mustard.

  • Big chef salad with eggs, bacon, olives, cucumbers, and olive oil dressing.

4. Fasting: A Powerful Tool to Reset Insulin

Fasting isn’t about starvation—it’s about giving your body space to do what it’s designed to do: repair, burn fat, and improve metabolic flexibility.

Dr. Jason Fung, author of The Obesity Code, emphasizes:

“Insulin resistance isn’t a calorie problem; it’s a hormonal problem. If you want to fix it, you need periods of low insulin—and fasting is the quickest way to achieve that.”

Dr. Ken Berry supports fasting as a safe and sustainable lifestyle choice:

“Humans are designed to fast… skipping a meal doesn’t harm you; it heals you. Every time you don’t eat, your insulin levels drop, and your cells clean up damaged proteins and reset.”

Why Fasting Is Not a Fad

Fasting is often misunderstood as a new “trend,” but it’s actually how humans have lived for thousands of years. Before refrigeration, grocery stores, and 24/7 restaurants, food was not always available. People naturally went through periods of fasting because hunting, gathering, and preparing food took time—and there were days or seasons when food was scarce.

Even after food was obtained, ancestral cultures often feasted, then fasted until the next meal was available. Fasting was woven into the rhythm of life—not a diet plan, but simply reality. Our bodies evolved with this pattern, and fasting today simply reintroduces a cycle our biology expects.

Fasting Benefits:

  • Lowers Insulin & Blood Sugar: Reduces chronic hyperinsulinemia and improves fat burning.

  • Triggers Autophagy: Your body clears out damaged cells and proteins, supporting longevity and reducing disease risk.

  • Boosts Cognitive Function: Ketones from fasting improve mental clarity and focus.

  • Supports Hormone Balance & Weight Loss: Fasting reduces visceral fat and improves hormone sensitivity.

How to Start Fasting Safely:

  • Begin with 12 Hours: Finish dinner by 7 p.m. and eat breakfast at 7 a.m.

  • Progress to 16:8: Fast for 16 hours, eat within an 8-hour window (e.g., 10 a.m.–6 p.m.).

  • Occasional Extended Fasts (24+ Hours): For deeper metabolic resets when comfortable and medically safe.

5. One Diet? No—Ancestral Lifestyle

Modern nutrition often jumps from one trend to another—keto, carnivore, vegan, paleo. While these approaches can work short-term, they’re often marketed as restrictive “diets,” and most people don’t stay on “a diet” forever.

Dr. Mary Ruddick, a nutritional anthropologist, explains:

“When you look at isolated ancestral populations around the world, they don’t ‘diet’—they simply eat the foods available in their environment, prepared traditionally, with nutrient density and seasonality built in.”

The ancestral lifestyle is not a temporary program—it’s a return to how humans have eaten and lived for thousands of years:

  • Whole animal protein (nose-to-tail).

  • Natural fats (ghee, butter, tallow, coconut oil).

  • Seasonal, properly prepared plants and fruits.

  • Built-in fasting periods (because food wasn’t always available).

  • Daily movement, natural light, community, and restful sleep.

The Problem with Modern Eating

In the last few decades, modern agriculture and massive food corporations have shifted our food supply dramatically: ultra-processed snacks, chemically refined seed oils, constant access to high-carb convenience foods, and heavily marketed “diet” products. These changes have not worked—chronic disease rates have skyrocketed.

By returning to an ancestral lifestyle, you’re not adopting a short-term diet—you’re reclaiming the way humans are biologically designed to thrive.

How This Ties to Ancestral Living

In our previous blogs, we showed why ancestral eating works:

This post builds on those principles with practical food and fasting strategies to help you take control of insulin and your health.

Bottom Line

  • Insulin resistance and T2D don’t require lifelong medication—they require lifestyle change.

  • Fasting, ancestral nutrition, and eliminating modern processed foods are powerful, sustainable tools to restore metabolic health.

  • This isn’t about jumping on another “diet trend”—it’s about reclaiming the way humans are meant to live and eat.

References & Resources

1. Gary Brecka

2. Dr. Eric Berg

3. Dr. Shawn Baker

4. Dr. Paul Saladino

5. Dr. Ken Berry

6. Dave Asprey

7. Andrew Huberman

8. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

9. Dr. Mindy Pelz

10. Dr. Catherine Shanahan

  • Focus: Seed oils, deep nutrition, traditional fats.

  • YouTube: (Search for interviews)

  • Website: DrCate.com

11. Dr. Anthony Chaffee

12. Dr. Bill Schindler

13. Dr. Mary Ruddick

  • Focus: Ancestral lifestyle, fermentation, reducing antinutrients

  • YouTube: @thesherlockholmesofhealth

  • Website: https://www.maryruddick.com/

what to eat for insulin resistance ancestral lifestyle diet fasting for insulin resistance type 2 diabetes reversal naturally how to lower insulin naturally insulin resistance meal plan intermittent fasting benefits ancestral diet vs modern diet best foods for blood sugar control low toxin vegetables list healthy fats for insulin sensitivity metabolic health improvement fasting and longevity whole food ancestral eating reversing type 2 diabetes with food ancestral eating meal plan insulin friendly foods Dr Jason Fung fasting insulin ancestral diet benefits Dr Mary Ruddick nutrition
Coach Ron Lyons helps high-performing entrepreneurs scale their businesses with smart marketing, strategic automations, and cutting-edge AI tools—while optimizing their health through an ancestrally aligned lifestyle. Whether you're running an online or offline business, your success depends on leveraging technology (like CRM systems and passive income streams) just as much as honoring your biology with real food, natural movement, and deep recovery. Ready to upgrade your revenue and your resilience? Book a free consultation to build a business—and a life—that thrives.

Ron Lyons

Coach Ron Lyons helps high-performing entrepreneurs scale their businesses with smart marketing, strategic automations, and cutting-edge AI tools—while optimizing their health through an ancestrally aligned lifestyle. Whether you're running an online or offline business, your success depends on leveraging technology (like CRM systems and passive income streams) just as much as honoring your biology with real food, natural movement, and deep recovery. Ready to upgrade your revenue and your resilience? Book a free consultation to build a business—and a life—that thrives.

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