tegid’s BodyBlog

BNBF Central Championships, 26 July 2009: Report by David Kaye

"Masters Over 40
In 3rd place was an elated Mike Dancer. Mike had made considerable improvements to his physique since his Southern outing and deservedly took home the 3rd place trophy. Mike has a very detailed upper body with a good chest and wide back, all Mike has to do now is bring his legs up to match and he will present a nicely balanced and competitive package. Mike seemed to lack a little confidence on stage and should endeavour to impose himself more in front of the audience and judges".
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So…. What do you think I can do in the next 9 weeks before the National Finals in Glasgow?

1 May 2008 I was told by a ‘professor’ of neurology at London’s top epilepsy hospital that I would not be living beyond the age of 50.  In his opinion my condition would lead to progressive brain damage and death.  I got the impression that he wasn’t used to people disagreeing with him; judging by how defensive he became my subsequent 30-minute reply…

Anyway, what he said really isn’t that important.  It is one whole year since that meeting with the character that I chose to name ‘Dr. Death’.

There’s a number of ways people can react to this type of news:
* They can keep it secret and not tell anyone – keep it inside: they can ignore it and do the denial thing.
* They can rebel against the news: spend their remaining time in court and going sour on the world that brought them to this place
* They can throw abandon to the wind – after all they’re going to die so there won’t be time to get punished for whatever they get up to in this world.
* They can search for miracle cures in the remaining time

Over the past 12 months I’ve tried a little bit of all of those but I guess the last one was the one that appealed the most to me.

On reflection it seems as though ‘fate’ was anticipating my meeting with Dr Death and knew exactly what my reaction would be. Knowing that the journey ahead would be decidedly rocky, ‘fate’ brought some incredible people to help me - just as I was being told that my light was about to go dark. I want these people to know how very grateful I am for their helping me to shine on.

Firstly, I’d like to thank Carla.  This lady has the ability to ‘be’ there exactly when I need to sound-off or when I need inspiration.  She has the capacity to remind me of what is important and what I need to devote time to.  If anybody’s taught me to listen to my heart, it’s Carla - which is quite an achievement because she lives thousands of miles away from me.  She also has the capacity to recall birthdays and other important dates on the ‘Mike’ calendar - again, pretty impressive when you consider her own family commitments and commitments to her own training.  Following the incident with Dr Death, it would have been very easy for me to lose sight of the things that add richness to everyday life and Carla has been there to help me with this - most notably faith, hope and inner strength.  I’m convinced that she’s some sort of guardian angel, sent to watch over me: and to watch over my heart.  She does it superbly well.

Next I’d like to thank Dom.  It just seems such incredible luck - me stumbling across somebody that was doing leading research into the ailment that was (according to Dr. Death) finishing me off - on a bodybuilding website… Or maybe it was Dom that stumbled across me..  Nevertheless, it sounds impossible, even now.  When I tell people about it, they can’t believe that I was so lucky: neither can I.  The information and education that Dom has provided have been incredible.  I recently met with a children’s charity in the UK and they proudly announced that they were consulting the ‘top’ people in the field and then delivered the same names that Dom gets information from and discusses research.  

Dom has a scientific approach that I identify with (from way back in my past!) and I can apply this to the medical and dietary issues that currently face me.  He has provided me with so much of the information that I need to manage this illness.  It is a very different philosophy from that found in the British medical system (i.e. instructing me to "shut up", take sedatives and hand control over to them. It has helped me regain a lot of personal confidence, by showing that when I’m given the freedom to think for myself, I can still do some good work.  If I could describe anybody as a mind mate, it would be Dom.

I’ve kept quiet about my life prior to developing epilepsy 9 years ago. My university studies took me to glaciers, lakes and mountains.  I worked in the countryside of Wales and also in London/Scotland. I journeyed around the world and saw astonishing things including the Barrier Reef, Yellowstone Park, Monument Valley, Vancouver Island, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Jerusalem - anywhere that offered an adventure in terms of people or geography.  Having my mobility taken away from me (in terms of driving license) was a huge blow.  My soul needs adventure to stay alive.  In many ways, the gym compensates for this loss and nobody had identified that that until I met the Lido gym crowd - and one person in particular: Adam Read.

Adam has a ‘human radar’ in him – he ‘tunes in’ to the nuances of my body language that not even I am aware of - and he then tells me what they show… accurately.  It shows astonishing intuition.  He identified the hopes and fears that I previously didn’t have the courage to voice.  Up to that point I had chosen to discard my trust/faith in a lot of things as part of a defence mechanism.  Adam (rightly) yelled at me for believing what Dr Death said: I was letting some very negative words hold me down and tear out my soul.  Adam figured out that an explorer is at the heart of my personality: which means that I need goals - dreams – on my horizons to move toward and look forward to.  Hence my entry into the bodybuilding contest on 21 June.  Well…. What’s life if you haven’t got a dream?

Adam has been there when I’ve had seizures. When others have found it too disturbing to witness these - and have not come back - Adam has.  Always.  He has been there - not just to listen to me but also to talk: to lift me up when I’ve felt discouraged, bewildered, frustrated, inadequate and confused by the things that have complicated my life over the past 12 months.  He’s reminded me that these experiences need to be balanced with the more rewarding and more positive ones such as being creative, energetic and hopeful.

Over the eight years that I’ve had epilepsy, a number of experiences led to the erosion of my trust in other people.  Yet here is somebody that I have grown to trust: in terms of his advice for training and diet and also in terms of more philosophical things.  I am glad that I have.  If there was only one person that I could say had acted as a soul-mate to me over the past year, it is Adam.

As a teenager, I lived in dread of ‘Physical Education’ lessons at school. So much so, that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, the night before these lessons. I was scared about what would happen in them. The teacher that led these lessons thrived off terror and encouraging a pack instinct in those with typically ‘alpha’ instincts. I didn’t match these personality traits and they clearly didn’t like me.

Today I was woken up early, thanks to a thunderstorm that hit the south-east of Britain at about 5AM. I realized that these days I lay awake contemplating what I’d be doing in today’s workout and that going to the gym is the part of the day I now LOOK FORWARD TO. That is quite a contrast to my earlier experiences. I’d say that it has a lot to do with the attitude of the people I meet through training and a feeling of belonging that I associate with the gym culture.

I’m really lucky to have experienced this. How many other people felt scared of Physical Education lessons at school (at that particular point in history - I know it’s different these days) and as a result never did any form of exercise in adult life?

For the past 24 hours I’ve experienced erratic heart beat: nothing painful, just episodes of slightly faster beat and not feeling ‘right’. My initial thought was "oh no – this is all the fat I’ve eaten over the past 8 months on the ketogenic diet: this is heart disease catching up with me". But then the scientist in me came out - along with the heart rate monitor and running shoes… So I went for a short run and recorded my heart rate, which reacted to the exercise’s demand for oxygen as predicted.  I only got palpatations while I was ‘resting’.  To me, palpitations that can be over-ridden by oxygen demand suggest an endocrine trigger. Exactly what, I can’t say.. It could be thyroxine or adrenaline. I am aware that over-exertion is linked to palpitations. However, I can’t help but question whether this is linked to Anti Epilepsy Drugs that I took in the past…

An epilepsy medication called carbamazepine was prescribed to me for 6 years. Whenever I had a seizure, the prescribed dose was increased. At the end of 6 years, I was taking very high doses of this drug.  In scientific literature, this medication is associated with changes in serum sex hormone concentrations as well as in levels of the sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG).

Carbamazepine (a.k.a. Tegretol) is known to ‘accelerate’ the P450 enzyme system in the liver (Perucca et al. 1984).  So hormones that get metabolised via this enzyme system -including T4, free T4, TSH, DHEA-S and SHBG will get ‘taken out’ of the body at a faster rate. The research on all this dates back to the 1980s. It seems pretty obvious to me that that endocrinological expertise is a necessity whenever this medication is prescribed.  Serum lipid levels (i.e. fat) are known to change when people take this medication - total cholesterol, HDL, LDL and TG increase.

I noticed many things going wrong with my hormone (endocrine) system - as well as my digestive system and immune system - when I was taking carbamazepine. These illnesses seem to be gradually wearing off, since I stopped taking the drug.

I was never given any routine blood tests while I was prescribed anti-epilepsy drugs. I could have avoided a lot of hardship if blood tests had been taken regularly.

In May 2008 I was told that I had a condition that would kill me. I was sat next to my father at the time. Now that I can reflect on this incident in a calm situation I can see that I was immediately concerned for him. I didn’t really consider who would look after my feelings because I was scared about how this news would impact on those I hold dear to me. I went into ‘protective’ mode - and stayed in it for quite some time.

There were those that offered their help via this website and to whom I am so very grateful - Carla, mk2004, FireMedicMike being the immediate ones. I am so very, very lucky to have discovered dpd55 - whose scientific approach has brought me astonishing discoveries with the low-carb diet that now outsmarts the disease that the UK’s ‘experts’ predicted would finish me. I have tried to stay objective and analytical throughout the seven months that I have used this diet, recalling the method of intuitive thinking that I learned back in the 80s.

Battling the outside world with intuitive thinking is one thing - confronting the inner world of feelings with emotional intelligence is another. And with that I really have problems: I’d been told I was going to die and just about everything I coming back to haunt me.. Anger, fear and sadness. Right when I needed it most Adam247 was there -in person - to listen to me and all the stuff I’d never dared to voice before. I suspect that quite a bit more is needed as time goes on - but the outshot of all this is that I’m learning something new: to trust.

The seizures came back in December/January. Once a week, in the mornings they would strike. It was a mystery as to why - as I hadn’t changed anything so I couldn’t figure out a cause. My waking hours were spent making sure that I was doing everything I could to keep them at bay - but they were back…

Here is my latest idea:

The brain uses glucose to power epileptic seizures - the chemical reactions involved when the neurotransmitters all fire off need the rapid energy that glucose provides. A low carb diet gives the brain limited glucose - the diet gives it ketones - which are a much slower form of energy and can’t power the neurotransmitter ‘big bang’.

So glucose is coming from somewhere - once a week early in the morning…

The part of my brain that IS damaged is called the amygdala. This was shown in MRI scans taken back in 2001. There’s two amygdala - one on the left, one on the right side of the brain. My damaged one is on the left side. The amygdala is involved with the formation of memories and intense emotions. When we sleep, it is particularly active during REM sleep and the dreams we have during this time. Could my left amygdala somehow activate the hormone system while I sleep?  In particular during dreams that involve anxiety or distress, could it not make the adrenal glands release more cortisol? During waking hours, the adrenal glands can do this…  Under normal circumstances, cortisol levels are known to be highest as we wake - so if there was some disruption to this normal system, could my body be making more cortisol as sleep - and in particular as I dream?

I say this because cortisol increases gluconeogenesis - the chemical process where the liver breaks down protein and turns it into glucose and then releases it into the blood. This would increasing the amount of glucose circulating in the blood. This could then explain how my brain gets hold of the glucose it needs for seizures in the morning.  

Cortisol also decreases amino acid uptake by muscle, preventing protein synthesis. This could explain why my body is simply not growing despite high amounts of dietary protein and fat. I eat 300g/30g/350g (pro/carb/fat) daily.

Any suggestions?

This is the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, that is associated with the action of reflection and prediction. Starting something that is positive and taking action - as in new years’ resolutions- is a tradition for this month. January is named after the Roman god Ianus - the god of gates and doors or endings and beginnings.

There have been some very inspiring things written by members in their BodyBlogs, today. I feel slightly humbled by the experience of reading these.. as I don’t have anything like so profound to place in mine.

So, I’ll do what tradition encourages and look back through the past 12 months  and see what I can take from my experiences to make the next 12 months of my life even better.. One of the characters I met last year is one of London’s top therapists and the thing that they said to me that I found profound is the following line:

"When it comes down to simplifying matters, there are really only two reasons why people come to me for help. Either they believe that they can’t love anybody else or they believe that nobody can love them".

As time has gone on, I can appreciate that just about every difficulty that I have faced can be simplified into those categories. Even the most complex of situations can be explained - and then improved -with those two explanations. Others I have shared this information with have said similar things about it. I wanted the people on this website to have access to that information

I have witnessed some astonishingly honest and personal comments from bb.com members, over the past year; regarding their motivation and enjoyment of bodybuilding (that takes courage - something I don’t witness much in the ‘outside’ world).  They accept that they find it difficult to like themselves - physically, intellectually, emotionally or spiritually.  What they share is that they all believe that they can do something positive to improve the situation. They all have hope. They wouldn’t keep doing the exercises or choose the food if they didn’t have hope that they could improve things.

It is that hope - that optimism - that I’ve kept burning at times when my surroundings have wanted it extinguished. That’s what the astonishing friends I’ve made at bb.com have helped me to do - to keep hope alive. And THAT keeps me alive.

In the northern hemisphere we are heading toward the shortest day and the time of year that seems to be the darkest. Emotionally (and medically) I have been in the dark for a very long time. Very recently, I have come to realize that I held the key to understanding my life - and to its way forward. It was though that key is like a jigsaw and I have to figure out how to put the pieces together in order to get the full picture. As I said - I was in the dark and was trying to do the jigsaw in the dark.

This past 6 months has seen some fantastic people come into my life and they have cast light into it. The most important seem to have been bodybuilders – but where they’ve helped me the most have not directly involved lifting weights… It’s been in philosophy, psychology, optimism and spirit. They have acted as my antidotes for the despair launched at me by one particularly unpleasant epilepsy hospital.  All of these marvelous people use this website.

Without the following three, I would still be in the dark and unable to complete that jigsaw mentioned earlier: Adam247, Carla Hampshire and dpd555.  They all have an astonishing gift of helping other people to feel good about themselves. I am so very lucky to know them. All three write impressive forum posts - I enjoy reading them.

I saw the article called ‘Breaking out of Prison’ written by Adam247 a few days ago:

http://blog.bodybuilding.com/adam247

I like observations - and the questions they raise. I’m glad that Adam and others like him are writing things like this.

One of the things that I have noticed since joining bb.com is the derision that is launched at the bodybuilding community - particularly from the UK’s fitness industry and its medical world. I do not feel that this derision is supported with adequate rationale: I used to run the gyms in a medical university (in the UK) and spent quite some time chatting with the PhD/research students and the trainee medics, listening to their opinions and their approach to things. I’d say that Adam’s approach is as every bit as convincing as theirs. "Bodybuilder" vs. Sport & Exercise Science PhD students. I’d say that the only difference is the way they’ve come to their current conclusions… Think about it, people!

I haven’t performed this diet in a way that deliberately targeted fat loss. Fat loss just happened to be one of its side-effects.  My approach to this diet was to establish something that could be maintained long-term so it was introduced slowly, allowing my body to adapt without going into any dangerous ‘reactions’ that could send me straight into unstoppable epileptic seizures.

In its original format, the ketogenic diet was developed at the John Hopkins hospital in the 1920s, to treat children that had incurable epileptic seizures. It involved an initiation phase and then a maintenance phase. The initiation phase involved fasting until 10% body weight reduction had occurred. Initially this was done through a 25 day starvation and after complaints (are you surprised??) it was reduced to 36 hours of no food at all.  The ketogenic ‘ratios’ of macronutrients were introduced gradually - as it takes a good 14 days for the body to adapt - namely the bran cells’ mitochondria and the liver (which converts fatty acids into ketones)

There were a small number of patients (kids!) that developed hypoglycemia - and I had very strong evidence to suggest that hypoglycemia triggered my epileptic seizures.  So I had to adapt the John Hopkins system - the last thing I wanted was to be killed by it..  They recommend starting with 75% of total daily kCals coming from fat.  The other 25% come from carbohydrates and protein combined.  What they are trying to do is ’starve’ the brain into using ketones for energy - rather than carbs.  Put simply, as a fuel type, Ketones act like diesel - more mpg but poor acceleration. Carbs are like regular gasoline - better acceleration and faster top speed.  Converting between the two is always going to be complicated.

In an adult, the body will release all the glycogen stored in the liver and muscles for the brain to use, before the brain will use ketones.  So initiating ketosis it depends very much upon how rapidly you can use up all your stored glycogen.  For me, it was at least two weeks and the second week felt ruddy awful, as the glycogen drained out of me. My weight plummeted as stored water was also released.

I didn’t start with 80% of my total kCal coming from fat.  I started at half this - and changed things gradually, over 2 week intervals. A HUGE thanks to Dom (dpd555) for all the comments he made during this. I admit that things weren’t always perfect and corrections have been made along the way BUT I’ve been seizure free for 14 weeks. And I feel so much better than I have over the past 8 years. It has been complicated, obsessive (I still weigh and analyse every gram I eat) and initially I was petrified this might kill me if I got it wrong.

My rationale was also guided by the lifestyles of the Inuit and Sami people that live above the Arctic Circle.  During the winter they traditionally have no carbs so I wanted to mimic what they go through during one of their autumns because I know that they survive perfectly OK (I used to be involved in Arctic Research, long ago).  Hence I reduced carbs and increased protein (way too much protein, in retrospect) initially.  I then reduced protein and increased fat.

The other thing that I have not investigated yet is how to STOP the ketogenic diet. I suspect that it involves equally complicated manipulation of diet macronutrients.  I know that the brain will always grab carbohydrates for fuel if it gets the chance, owing to the fact that only carbs can get through the brain-blood barrier very rapidly.  Hence after a certain threshold level of carbs in the blood, the brain will instantly ’switch over’ to carbs.  At that moment, fat is no longer required for fuel and I assume it gets stored (270g fat a day = a LOT to store!).  

There is an element that I have not investigated, yet – and which is very important (thanks FireMedicMike for pointing this out). How does insulin and the endocrine system respond to chronic ketosis?  I want be check this out very soon.  There are suggestions that the pancreas gets affected and this could lead to hypoglycemia - leaving me back in the firing line when it comes to seizure triggers. For others - it may leave you with type II diabetes. I will try to get regular checks for diabetes. I will also try to get hold of medical data from the Norsk Polar Institute to see if diabetes is noted as being higher in the Sami peoples that live above the Arctic Circle.

As ever - I couldn’t have done this without my guardian angels: Adam247, CarlaHampshire, dpd555, mk2004, FireMedicMike and xxx666. Thank you!

I haven’t written much in the Blog recently - I’ve been developing and applying the ketogenic diet that has so far successfully stopped my epilepsy for 3 months.

On Friday I dared do things that I haven’t done since developing epilepsy - namely clean & jerk and then go for a run afterwards. The last time I did that was over 8 years ago and I was running the gyms at the University of Birmingham.

So I have some major, major thank-you’s to go out here:

Firstly to dpd555 who has researched the effects of this diet (at a nanoscopic level!) on adult people with incurable seizures. He continues to send encouraging messages and updates from the world of academia. I wouldn’t have dared try this approach without his words.

Carla Hampshire has been a saint - and has sent some of the most touching messages to me. I know that she’s been praying for me over the months when my condition was getting worse. While dpd555 was in charge of my brain, Carla was in charge of its soul! She did a stunning job. I feel so utterly delighted to know that she got her pro card last week. That was well deserved.

FireMedicMike and MK2004 continue to stand by me, regardless of the ups and downs I experience. I want to see the pictures of both of them going up on stage and competing, at some time in the future. I just know that something good is going to happen for those guys.

And then… When London’s neurologists’ speeches were preparing me for death… Along came the guy that  shattered their arguments with the one quality that they will never have.. The one thing that could keep my life-fire burning when their rain set in. Honesty. Thank God I bumped into Adam247 when I did. He’s seen me in seizure, he’s seen me fight them off… He’s always been there for me, with downright honesty and his astonishing mixture of physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual reasoning… He’s the one person that accurately indicates my mistakes - without offending me - so that I can change.. And improve.  It’s rare that I trust people to the extent I trust him.

So there are a few of the names that have helped me get through the past year. Where would I be without the bodybuilders that have helped me rebuild my life?

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I feel as though my ability to ‘think’ is now back - after 8 years of suspended animation caused by those prescribed epilepsy drugs.  I was taught to argue by the philosophers at Jesus College, Cambridge: Heaven help the medics that put me on those drugs- should my focus ever turn to them….