We are socially conditioned to fear hunger, told fasting is dangerous  and we have been told by ‘who knows who’ that we need to eat regularly, to ‘keep our metabolism going’.

This is not only wrong but it is promoting insulin resistance that leads to type 2 diabetes, obesity, hormone imbalances and in some cases cancer. Insulin is released every time we eat and insulin  is a storage and growth hormone and humans are not supposed to be in growth and storage mode all day. There are numerous studies that link calorie restriction and fasting to longevity.

Why Going Without Food For a Bit is A Good thing

• Firstly, it is not possible to burn fat when the body is in storage mode and insulin is high, this has been demonstrated over and over in studies.
• Secondly, if insulin is high all day the body starts to ignore it and become ‘insulin resistant’ which is the 1^st step in becoming a type 2 diabetic, some children as young as 10 are insulin resistant already.
• Thirdly, when food is around or ‘nutrient abundance’ a out bodies main growth switch mTOR is on all the time and mTOR will stimulate the growth of everything, including some cancers. mTOR is not bad at all,  but it is if it is on 12/7.

Our ancestors would have gone without food for up to days at a time and the body makes specific biological changes to adapt to this, so our are genetics are geared for fasting.

• Firstly, during a fast or in the absence of food the body switches from using  glucose to ketones as fuel which come from body fat.  Ketones are not only a great energy source for the brain, but the are also anti-inflammatory. Learn more about ketosis HERE
• Secondly to protect muscle, growth hormone increases during fasting so you don’t ‘waste away’, growth hormone also heals tissue and helps the body break down and burn fat. If our ancestors got weak during times of no food we wouldn’t be here.
• Thirdly, brain derived neutrophic factor (BNDF) increase during a fast and this is our natural anti-depressant and it also improves cognitive functions. Our ancestors needed to keep their mental faculties sharp during food shortages.

Why Fasting Is Good for Your Health

During periods where our body is energy nutrient deprived, autophagy acts a survival mechanism to make energy.

Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2016 for his research on autophagy.

Autophagy is key for

• Removing old damaged cells , organelles & proteins
• Removing damaged mitochondria ‘The power house of the cell’ (Mitophagy)
• Reducing plaques in brain & atherosclerosis
• Lipophagy fat breakdown and connective tissue around fat cells
• Removing unwanted cells eg pre cancerous, rouge immune cells
• Activating longevity genes like FOXO & surtuins

Autophagy is like a spring clean, or ripping out an old kitchen to put a new one in. Not enough autophagy is linked to many diseases, simply because people are constantly in a ‘fed state’

I feel deeply saddened that people have been mis-informed about food and fear fasting or being hungry as it is evident in society the impact of food being forced at us wherever we go.

The post Why banning eating on public transport is a good idea – Hunger Fear appeared first on Sara Pugh Pilates Hypnosis Nervous System Biochemistry Leeds.

Our brain chemistry is based on the balance of neurotransmitters like dopamine, oxytocin,  serotonin and noradrenalin which do play a big role in how we feel and can easily be knocked out of balance leading to addiction, depression and anxiety.

There isn’t and will never be such thing as a happy pill or any compound which can give us all the elements of happiness. The correct balance of neurotransmitters can lead to wonderful experiences like ‘Flow States‘.

In addition different things make different people happy as 50% of our neurological wiring in the brain  is the same and the other 50% the wiring depends on life experiences. This means that different things excite, interest and please different people.

Dopamine is an important neurotransmitter that is involved in what we perceive as enjoyable, but there are other factors. Dopamine is involved  pleasure, learning, movement, motivation, addiction and boredom.

Too much dopamine is bad and is linked to psychotic episodes and too little results in Parkinson’s diseases,  It is about balance or the ‘goldilocks amount’.

Dopamine and Pleasure

When we do something pleasurable,  dopamine is released and our brain learns what that stimulus was and motivates us to do more of it to get more pleasure. Your brain will then prompt you to seek out this enjoyable experience again, which if allowed to go out of control can lead to addiction. Unfortunately your brain can associate all sorts of things with pleasure and some of them are not socially acceptable or healthy.

Cocaine, sugar, exercise, pornography, video games, shopping, sex, gambling, arguing, shouting,  getting likes on social media, eating junk food, smoking cigarettes, giving people gifts, helping people,  watching sport and  extreme sports are some activities which tend to give a good dopamine hit. Not all of these are bad of course, particularly in moderation!

The problems also comes down to dopamine floods and dopamine drips. activities which create a dopamine flood like a sugar rush, cocaine and the exhilaration of gambling are a big problems as the dopamine receptors get used to the flood so you need more and more to get the same effect. Over time things which you used to find fun or pleasing like having a bath, a cuppa and a laugh with friends or a nice walk become boring, as your brain has become de-sensitised to simple pleasures. This will have an impact on your happiness.

The dopamine pool needs time to refill, so there will be a horrible low while this happens after a dopamine flood. You can’t feel exhilarated or totally amazing all the time, our brain chemistry doesn’t have the capacity or resources.

However,  you can feel content and happy most the time if you let the dopamine drip out at a slow steady pace and have the odd dopamine flood now and again for fun. 

That was a little bit about some of the biochemistry of happiness and pleasure.

Do you have an addiction or something you feel might turn into one?

Is your habit impacting your relationships or affecting how you function as a human being?

Is it stopping you from doing other things you enjoy?

Is it making you feel like a bad person ?

Are you keeping secrets about how often or how much you are spending on your habit/hobby from friends and family?

Are you rushing home to have a drink,  a joint, go online or play a video game rather than doing something social?

What do if you think you are addicted to something

You do not necessarily need to see a therapist as you can manage things yourself. In general there is the pulling the plaster off in one go or pulling it off gently, but the plaster has to go.

Fasting does not only apply to food, you can have social media fasts, Netflix fasts,   dry January etc.

Fasting from food  is very helpful for overcoming junk food and sugar addictions as your taste buds and brain will re-sensitise over time and normal food with start to taste amazing again. This is true for other activities if you do them all the time, they are no longer special.

However if you do seek therapy, a good therapist wont judge or laugh and could well have been addicted to something themselves. Therapists specialise in different addictions so you can seek out one who specialises or has experience of yours.

Get in touch if you would like some help

Sara

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Should older women do intermittent fasting with the same eating windows and macros as men? Do women need the same macro nutrients as men on a  low carb or ketogenic  diet?

Women in general as well as those who are approaching the menopause, going through it or have been through it have different hormonal circadian rhythms to men and younger women. Many women find a cyclical ketogenic/low carb diet works well to manage cortisol levels and thyroid hormones. This would be a period of following a low carb/ketogenic diet then having a break and eat meals containing protein and carbohydrates for a day. The length of the low carb window can vary from several weeks to five to six days and trying out different variations is the only way to find what works for you. 

Anecdotal data and emerging studies suggest that older women struggling with weight loss do better when they eat in the morning / earlier in the day, then fast until the next day, rather than fasting for the morning / early afternoon then having the eating window later in the day. This traditional method of OMAD, 16/8 or 20/4 (fasting in morning, eating in early evening) works well for men but not for all women. Particularly if the woman is not insulin resistant. 

In addition for women who are not insulin resistant and are  fat adapted, eating more protein and less fat (appx 30% of calories from protein, 60-65% fat ) find that this can also kick start weight loss that has plateaued on a keto / fasting way of eating. 

Because they are not insulin resistant and not carb burners, the insulinogenic effect of protein is less pronounced so they don’t need to worry about protein and gluconeogenesis as a carb burning insulin resistant woman. 

With anything we all vary slightly but I am going to try reversing my eating window, lowering fat and prioritizing protein to see what happens in my n=1 experiment 

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