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Modern humans are the most advanced species on Earth; humans, however, have not evolved (that is, our DNA has not changed) for millions of years, what we have done is adapted. The secret to our success is our amazing ability to flourish in an enormous range of environments. In the past few hundred years we introduced an unfortunately nasty twist into this scenario; instead of adapting to our environment we have become quite proficient at adapting the environment to us.

This trend results in devastating consequences to our health and happiness; fortunately our ancestors possessed an extensive collection of tools, which are still very useful today, to heal themselves from injury and infirmity. Our challenge as health coaches is to use our knowledge of physiology and psychology to help ourselves and our clients function optimally in our modern, rapidly changing world.

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  • THE INSULINATOR - Guardian of The Fat written by Dr. Theresa Nesbitt, The Movement Doctor

    THE INSULINATOR - Guardian of The Fat

    People eat food but cells do not. Food must first be digested, broken down into something usable like building blocks or fuel. These nutrients are transported to the individual cells by the blood. When fuels such as fatty acids and glucose enter the bloodstream after a meal, insulin is the one who makes the decisions about how that energy is going to be used or distributed. When Insulin becomes "The Insulinator" he will guard your fat - locking you in Fat Storage Mode. You can't release fat in Fat Storage Mode and if it isn't released, fat cannot be used as fuel. Humans aren't designed to lose weight - we are designed to use weight.

    SUGAR IN THE BLOOD CAUSES CORROSION IN THE PIPES

    When we eat food that contains a lot of carbohydrate, starch or sugar that means that the amount of glucose in the blood is going to go up. That’s what people mean when they say “blood sugar”.  Normally, blood doesn’t have much sugar because sugar does terrible things to those plumbing pipes we call blood vessels, veins and arteries.  If blood sugar stays at a high level for a long time it basically destroys the vessel and that plumbing can no longer supply energy or nutrients. Diabetics often have chronically high blood sugar and that’s why they often have problems with their organs. The kidneys and the eyes are particularly vulnerable, so diabetics are much more likely to go blind or need dialysis.

    Just like every important bodily process, blood sugar is monitored by sensors that give "up to the minute" status reports to the brain. Clearing the circulating blood of sugar is priority. Unless you have a rare tumor or take diabetes medications it is unlikely that your blood sugar is ever abnormally low.  What we usually mean when we say hypoglycemia or low blood sugar is the feelings we get - anxiety, headache, cravings that are the side effects of all the hormones needed to lower elevated blood sugar.

    MOST BEVERAGES ARE 50 to 60 TIMES SWEETER THAN BLOOD

    Let’s say you have a sweet drink - it doesn’t matter if it a soda pop, a mocha frappuccino, a sports drink or a glass of orange juice.  All of these drinks are about 50 to 60 times sweeter than normal blood. In the natural world there is food to eat and only water to drink. Milk is the only naturally occurring caloric beverage. Milk is "food" for baby mammals because they are not physically able to get food on their own. Milk isn't really a beverage anyway - it's really liquefied  “food” because as soon as milk hits stomach acid it turns to cheese. But in the modern world we drink all kinds of caloric liquids. Even a supposedly "healthy" glass of fruit juice will cause blood sugar to shoot up quickly. Mother Earth has no ability to provide us with so much sugar in such a short time.

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  • How Your Rump Is Like a Camel's Hump written by Dr. Theresa Nesbitt, The Movement Doctor

    How Your Rump Is Like a Camel's Hump

    Adaptation is defined as a change or changes by which an organism becomes better suited to it’s environment. Camels possess a number of nifty traits, such as their famous humps, which enable them to make it in the desert without water for seven months. The human body has more fat cells than a polar bear - an adaptation that allows us to survive and even flourish in a variety of environments where food might be scarce or abundant.  For millions of years humans survived cyclical periods of feast and famine without the benefit of refrigeration or canning for long term food storage.

    Our brains depend on an uninterrupted supply of oxygen and fuel.  We have no mechanism for storing oxygen, if we stop breathing we die within minutes. On the other hand we are able to convert intermittent feedings into fuel that can either be used right away or stored for short or long term access.  Because we require fuel even when food is unavailable, and the most efficient way to ensure a constant fuel supply is to pack on the pounds; we were brilliantly designed to USE weight - not to LOSE weight.

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