Jumbo Rider’s BodyBlog

A few posts back I wrote about the 350 barrier and that I felt my body stalling.  How can I describe that or explain how I ‘felt’ my body resisting weight loss?  I really can’t, but I know it is true.

My nutrition plan has been solidly in place since November 2007.  Prior to November I had been simply watching caloric intake.  Things that I now have a handle on that was foreign to me just a year ago:

1. I know when my body is thirsty.
2. I know when my body is in need of specific nutrients
3. I know when my body is fatigued and needs rest
4. I know when I have pushed too far during exercise
5. I know when I need to get activity in or backslide

Each of points above deals with physiological>unconscious>conscious communication.  I can honestly say a couple of months ago this communication was completely broken.  Worse, the communication was giving wrong messages.

The wrong messages came from a bunch of causes.  My blood glucose was severely out of whack.  High blood glucose would make me tired and weak, and low blood glucose would make me crabby, hungry, and weak.  I would rarely be at a good blood glucose level. The blood glucose roller coaster was a wild ride that left me literally sick, tired, weak, and ever getting fatter.

Another wrong message bearer was chemically induced by what I was drinking.  It was normal to pound down 2-3 2 liters of diet Pepsi in a day.  The Pepsi had a double whammy of caffeine and Aspartame. The caffeine made me edgy and placed me in a foggy state of non-sleep.  The Aspartame messed with my blood glucose and there are multiple studies showing that Aspartame inhibits weight loss and affects mood.  Drinking all day long you would think that I wouldn’t be thirsty, but I was in a state of waterlogged dehydration.  The caffeine and salt in Pepsi stole any hydration from the drink that may have been available.  That dehydration was mistaken for hunger.  That hunger was never satisfied by eating because I really wasn’t hungry but thirsty.  This led to binge sessions, which led to more weight, which led to more depression, which screwed with my blood chemistry making the whole matter even worse.

Chemicals in the form of anti-depressants mess with the bodies communication system in a big way.  The fatter you get the more your dopamine receptors are reduced.  Dopamine of course is the ‘feel good’ chemical your brain makes when stimulated by certain activities like feeling full.  Dopamine receptors are the things that take in the dopamine to give you that good feel.  Scientists are not sure why the receptors die but they postulate that it is caused by an overabundance of dopamine being released with all of the dopamine in the system the body tries to gain equilibrium by reducing the receptors.  The exact same effect is seen in drug addicts.  The lack of receptors of course means that the body seeks an ever increasing amount of dopamine creating stimulants, more food, increasing the cycle.  The same thing may be happening with serotonin and the common anti-depressants are SRI’s which increase serotonin levels.  Normally serotonin leads to a decrease in appetite but  people taking SRI’s  are shown to have a huge problem with weight  gain and  trouble with weight loss.

Every item I have mentioned leads to increase weight and a decrease in energy.  This makes exercise very difficult.  It is like a 5 pack a day smoker trying to run wind sprints.  A lack of exercise makes it harder for the body to lose weight but also creates a messaging problem in the brain.  Remember those dopamine receptors?  Guess what?  Those receptors are rebuilt by exercise!  Rebuilding those receptors in a big key to getting the body chemistry in line, but if you have no energy and weight too much to exercise at a level sufficient to create change you will never replace the dead receptors.

The lack of solid nutrition also sends wrong messages in your body/brain.  If the body does not get the nutrients it needs it craves more.  With my body out of whack that craving is seen as simply being hungry.  The problem is that if my body needs vitamins from a vegetable carbohydrate source but I give it a tub of Rocky Road that body will scream that it is not satisfied and wants more.  This is true even when you feel full to the point of sickness because of the volume eaten.

Another problem we find is that we through a ton of chemicals in our body trying to "figure" out a way to break the cycle.  This can be quality fat burners or protein powders that work well when all things are equal but only increase  the miscommunication going on in the system.  Think of a traffic light that is working properly.  A fat burner may be like making the green light stay on a bit longer to allow more traffic through.  If that light was flashing red and that same fat burner was used you would have a flashing red light and a solid green light on at the same time.  What a mess right?

All of this messed up chemistry produces a body that is quick to get sick.  The immune system is confused at best and failed at worst.  I can not tell you how often I was sick or how bad my allergies were prior to eating a sound, nutritional diet.  Being sick led to me taking more chemicals, drugs, which further confused my body’s chemistry.

In my next post I will begin to tell you how and why I was able to correct my body’s communication and why I think people who lose a great deal of weight wind up in the same predicament in a few years in my next post.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Nutrition, Other, 2008 BB.COM Transformation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.