In starvation mode our body consumes fat from our fat stores (adipose tissue) for energy. One would expect then that a grossly obese person could last, or live longer, without food than a person who was overweight but not grossly obese. One would expect this to be so because the grossly obese have more fat stored to provide energy to sustain life.

In the 16th and 18th centuries numerous explorers set off to the Indian and Pacific Oceans on their voyages of discovery only to lose more than half their crews to disease which we now know as Scurvy. These sailors were not starving, there was still plenty of food on board their ships, but they were dying because the food was lacking certain nutrients. Now we know that Scurvy is caused by a cocktail of vitamin deficiencies, mainly C and B vitamins.

So who is likely to die first, the overweight or the grossly obese person? Well that will depend on what their diet was before they stopped eating. The person that had the most ESSENTIAL nutrients stored away in their cells and serum is likely to live longer. So to maintain excellent health while we lose weight we need to eat food that contains nutrients that are ESSENTIAL for healthy life.

What are these essential nutrients?

Rewired’s research says that the essential nutrients in food that we need to maintain excellent health while we lose weight are;

Vitamins

Minerals

Amino Acids

Certain essential fatty acids, and

Fibre

How much we need and which foods they are contained in are included in articles restricted to participants in Rewired’s weight loss program.

The doctor put it down to his lifetime abstinence from alcohol, smoking and luck. He said the president must have excellent genes. But I believe there could be more to it than genetic luck.

The Donald did though, have a good coronary calcium score (my research suggests this is the most accurate non invasive test for heart attack and stroke risk, more accurate than cholesterol tests) and blood pressure of 122 over 74. This is an excellent blood pressure and there is little doubt that high blood pressure is clearly the greatest risk factor for heart disease.

Then a reporter asked about the presidents stress levels, now I was really listening;

⇒Because being president of the USA would be a really stressful job,

⇒And in my lifetime most presidents took office with natural hair colour and left office with grey hair (unless they were impeached or assassinated) and

⇒It is known that acute stress or anxiety causes arteries to contract, stiffen and blood pressure to rise!

There is at this time no hard evidence to positively say that chronic (long term subliminal stress) stress also raises blood pressure. But chronic stress is hard to determine, its subconscious, so many of us would not know whether it was occuring or not. I believe that biologically it certainly could raise our “normal” blood pressure, so I was very interested in the answer the doctor would give re the stress question. His answer went like this;

This is the third president I have served as their personal doctor, I work in the White House and see the president every day, and he is different. Every day is a brand new day for him, what happened yesterday doesn’t seem to matter.

Maybe we could all lower blood pressure a little if we had the same attitude in our own lives. The Doc did say he was going to try and get the President to eat better food and do some exercise to lose 10 to 15 pounds over the next year, but he didn’t sound too confident that he would actually succeed.

Maybe the Doctor should try the Rewired way on the President?

Self Control is different. People with a good degree of self control find it easy and more natural to ‘value a future benefit’ more highly than a lesser but immediate present reward. It maybe going without chocolate today is worth it compared with the risk of diabetes when we are older. Self control has a greater chance of working, it’s not a choice to buy or not buy the chocolate, instead it’s a choice between reducing the risk of becoming diabetic in the future relative to missing out on 10 minutes of pleasure now.  The issue with self control is that the degree of it we blessed with is usually established by the age of 5 (blame mum and dad). Most people who have overeaten for a long time and gained weight will likely find self control difficult and time consuming to master.

It is easier and less stressful not to rely on willpower or self control to stick with an appropriate weight loss diet. The problem is our past eating habits that are embedded in our subconscious and are driving (unbeknown to us) our choices; in this example to eat chocolate. If we hadn’t ever eaten chocolate in the past it is really easy to say no to it in the future. So the most effective way to eat less chocolate is to replace our past with a new one, so that the subconscious drive to eat chocolate no longer exists.
Now in my case I still love chocolate, its taste and mouthfeel is unsurpassed, its great stuff. On the other hand I no longer have any desire to buy it or keep it in the home. I used to walk down the supermarket aisle, immediately noting the price of my favourite dairy milk block, and buying extra if it was discounted. I could tell you the usual price, how much it  had increased over the years, how the block was 220gm and it had been reduced to 200gm and so on. Now I can walk down the supermarket aisle and not even notice the chocolate is there. The good thing is I still enjoy it when it is available for free!

Learn how to talk to yourself to Rewire your brain to override past lifestyle habits and achieve long term permanent weight loss without the stress caused by the torment of willpower or the need for an abnormal level of self control. Get started by subscribing and reading our free eBook it’s all there. To make it even easier and improve your chances of long term success I recommend you join our online Rewired Weight Loss program.

To a new you, Glenn

Adenosine Triphosphate?  (ATP)

I bet you haven’t read about this stuff in any diet book. This in itself is amazing because it is this molecule that provides the energy that is the gift of life. It is our cells electricity it is required 100% of the time for cell survival.

In our modern society we need electricity to provide for our lifestyle, we all know what happens when the power goes off. While electricity runs the machinery of modern civilisation, fuel is required to produce it. That fuel can be coal, oil, sun, wind, uranium and so on. In our body the cellular fuel required to make ATP is carbohydrates, protein, fats, certain ketones and (dare I say it) alcohol plus oxygen. These feed little power plants in our cells called mitochondria that convert it into ATP to produce life’s energy (electricity) for us to prosper.

Our body has natural fuel preferences. When awake it’s number one preference is glucose, number two preference is fat and number three is protein. Glucose is a sugar found in all plant food and milk. It is not found in animal flesh. When we are fast asleep our bodies preference is to metabolise fat and store glucose for the next day. Fat will only be used for energy during the day when and if glucose reserves are depleted. The glucose reserves are stored in our muscle cells and liver. That stored in the muscles can only be used by them. That stored in liver is released by it to fuel all our other tissues and organs.

What’s The Point?

If we want to lose weight we need to consume less energy than we expend. If we want to lose body fat we need to deplete glucose storage.

Breakfast – The most important meal of the day!

When we wake up our liver is primed to deliver glucose it has stored up overnight to our tissue and organs, so the last thing we want to do at breakfast time if we aim to metabolise fat is to eat glucose (plant food). This means all cereals and bread should be avoided in the morning. Instead eat or drink something filling that has no glucose (carbs) to postpone hunger feelings until later in the day. Your group moderator will be able to advise on this matter if appropriate.

WARNING

This advice should not be done by persons who are Type I diabetics unless it is under medical supervision by a qualified medical practitioner.

I determine when to turn the the steering wheel, apply the break and where I want to go. It’s not one of those new self driving cars, it needs me.  Even if it was one of those new self driving cars, it would still need me to tell it where I want to go.

But my little car also tells me what it wants. It tells me when it needs fuel, and if I don’t provide it, it will soon refuse to go. It sends me feelings through my backside and the steering wheel that lets me know if I’m going too fast. If I make bad decision, like not braking hard enough to stop in time, the car will override my actions and apply the brakes harder without my input, or it may turn on the headlights when I forget to. In fact I no longer have to remember to turn on the headlights, my little car makes that decision for me all by itself.

So I control my car and at times it takes over control from me, or should I say controls itself without my input. My car is a machine, I own it, and I control it. But it does also have a mind of its own which allows it to make decisions without my input and that I have no control over, like turning on the headlights for example.

Now when we say “My head hurts” or “I feel good” or “My eyes are blue” it also designates ownership, the ownership of our head, feelings and eyes. Just the language we use determines that we own our body and feelings. Do we control our body, does it do what it is told? Sure we do, and it does; but not all of the time.

We instruct our body to walk, jog or run. Like the steering wheel of the car we can make it go left or right, we are in control. But our bodies also automatically control certain actions and choices, and we have no control over them. For example we cannot hold our breath forever, even if we could hold it until we lost consciousness breathing would resume as soon as we did (Don’t try this I would hate to be proven wrong). Some aspects of our body are semi-automatic, like the cars fuel warning our body sends us signals saying I’m hungry. It lets us know when we need sleep, or need to drink water. We don’t have to follow these signals, we can fight sleep, and ignore the drink signal depending on our circumstances.

So What are We – Are Car Or Something Special?

What we are is different to who we are. What we are is an incredibly intricate biological machine, with hands arms and legs, with a computer (brain) and sensory devices (sight, smell and hearing) sitting at the top of the machine. We physically use this machine to fully enjoy our lives; it would be wise for us to respect and look after this fabulous machine.

The Real Question Is – Who are We, or I?

Some would say our ego, spirit or soul, it depends on our faith or personal beliefs. Others may simply say it is our conscious self. So which is in control of our decisions, the subconscious US that automatically runs our machine, knows what we like and influences our choices based on what pleased us and was successful for us in the past, or our conscious US. Are we prisoners to our habits and subconscious? No we are much more than that.

Our conscious self (ego spirit or whatever) is the control knob of our subconscious. To change our lifestyle (including eating habits) all we need to do is trust our conscious self, spirit or ego, and learn how to use its control knob to rewire our subconscious for success.

Some people want to lose weight to look better or improve self esteem, others understand that maintaining a healthy weight is the most proven way to extend personal health spans.

At the end of the day how much we eat is the primary determinant of our body weight. But other factors like what we eat, when we eat, when we sleep and so on can also affect body weight and influence health spans. All posts written by us are evidence based, and designed to inform. How you use this knowledge is entirely up to you.

This little fellah lives in our gut, along with more than 100 trillion of his mates, he is a bacteria. They are not all the same, they are not identical twins, and there are thousands of different types of them that reside in our gut.

These bacteria eat the components of the food we eat but can’t digest. That is what is left over after the food has passed through the small intestine (and hasn’t been absorbed) to the large intestine where most of the bacteria live. These leftovers are commonly known as fibre.

Bacteria eat and poop (metabolise) the fibre, and the poop is really important. It can be a vitamin, an antigen, a special amino acid, in fact thousands of different chemicals vital for good health, including neurotransmitters that talk to the part of our brain (hypothalamus) that involves the feelings of hunger and fullness, or in other words how much we eat. Scientists call this the ‘the gut-brain axis’.

Rewired Weight Loss uses principles and methods backed by neuroscience to invoke weight loss easily and naturally for or members. We have to consider the micro biome because it feeds signals to our brain, and it does affect our weight.

For example; rodents raised in a germ free environment and have no bacteria in their gut have to eat 30% more calories to be the same weight as their normal counterparts.

Gerard Clarke Roman M. Stilling Paul J. Kennedy Catherine Stanton John F. CryanTimothy G. Dinan Molecular Endocrinology, Volume 28, Issue 8, 1 August 2014, Pages 1221–1238,

Our bodies are constantly working to maintain balance. A fancy word for this action is called homeostasis. An example of homeostasis is our body temperature, our body fights to keep it at around 37°C. If our bodies  get too hot (fever) for too long we die, and if we get too cold (hypothermia) we die. Homeostasis also influences our weight.

The Bad News

In people who are overweight, homeostasis works to keep that weight steady. So when they try to lose weight, their endocrine systems attempt to prevent this from happening by delivering subconscious messages to our brain to slow down our metabolism to help prevent weight loss. This was a good system when we were hunter gatherers and it was smart for our bodies to maintain energy stores in times of adversity or during an acute sickness.

The Good News

Once overweight people have achieved a healthy body weight and maintained it for more than 12 months (it may take longer), homeostasis and the new mind map actually works for them. Homeostasis becomes our friend instead of our enemy as it then helps to maintain our new stable weight and protects against weight gain.

When people are “rewired” with their new mind map and at a healthy weight, homeostasis begins to make weight maintenance natural and effortless.

Research Links

Adaptive thermogenesis was evident at 6 months, but not at 24 months.

“At 6 months, the measured resting energy expenditure was significantly lower than predicted (−18.2±6.7 kcal/24 h p<0.0068), suggesting adaptive thermogenesis. After 24 months, this had reversed, with measured REE being significantly higher than predicted”

Adaptive Thermogenesis in Resistance to Obesity Therapies: 

Adaptive reduction in thermogenesis and resistance to lose fat in obese men.

Clinical significance of adaptive thermogenesis.