The Right Way to Control Your Body Weight The Little Man in Your Head _______________________________________________________________________________
In order to understand why you eat you must first understand the biological mechanisms involved in hunger. Let’s do it this way. You go over to McDonald’s restaurant and order one of those ninety nine cent Big Macs that sells for five dollars nowadays. You know the kind…two all beef patties, special sauce, cheese, pickles, lettuce and onions on a sesame seed bun. You take a big bite and chew it up into this icky substance called bolus. This process is called mastication, not masturbation, as many of my students seem to think. Of course, many of them are working on the wrong end most of the time. Anyhow, after you chew your food up, you swallow it and it goes down into your stomach where it is churned up into this gummy substance called chime. Your pancreas then squirts out hydrochloric acid that breaks the chime down to a complex sugar called glycogen. The glycogen is then converted to a simple sugar called glucose and the glucose is circulated through the body by way of your blood stream. The pancreas then secretes insulin, which gives the cells of the body the ability to absorb the glucose. Now, here is something you may not know. Every cell in the body has a manufacturing company called mitochondria. Once the cell absorbs the glucose, it is taken to this manufacturing company and converted into an energy rich compound: Adenosine triphosphate (ATP). It is ATP that actually serves as the fuel for the cell’s energy requirements. ATP molecules represent stored chemical energy. When the bonds of the ATP molecules are broken, energy is released. The breakdown of ATP serves to power all biological work. Isn’t that neat? In brief, nutrients in consumed food supply the energy that powers all biological functions. However, in order for the cells (which are like chemical factories) to use these nutrients, the nutrients must first be converted to ATP and then oxidized. If you understand all of that raise your ∞ WELLNESS FOR LIFE ∞ hand. To bad, we are going ahead away. __________________________________________________________________ Okay! Okay! I will wait…go back and read it again you big dummy. Loosing Weight is Easy if You Really Want it, Right? Once the food is converted to glucose, the glucose is dumped into the A person who really wants to lose weight should be able to do so fairly easily, right? Not necessarily so. Achieving, and then maintaining a blood stream. The blood in turn carries desired weight loss over several years has been proven to be very difficult. In the glucose throughout the body and fact, according to Dr. Alvin Feinstein of the Yale Medical School, the success passes it on to the cells so that it can be rate for curing cancer is much higher than the long term success rate for most used for energy. You should remember medical weight-reducing programs. that too. We just talked about it…the Although there are thousands of weight control practices, there is pancreas secretes insulin, cells absorb the really only one way to control body weight, namely, the regulation of caloric glucose, mitochondria converts it to ATP, intake and caloric expenditure. If your caloric intake exceeds your caloric ATP molecules are broken down and expenditure, you are in a positive caloric balance and you will gain weight. energy is released. I know… go back and Conversely, if your caloric intake is lower than your caloric output, you are in a negative caloric balance and you will lose weight. Maintaining a proper balance read it again. It is important, so make sure between your caloric intake and caloric expenditure will cause your body you understand it. Go ahead, I will wait weight to remain relatively constant. here for you. Here is the point I am trying to make. It is the glucose or sugar concentration level of the blood that offers