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Hi, This is Vishy Dadsetan, your host for Essence in Fitness video series.
This is the last video in this series. So let me take you for a behind the scene look
and more insights into the process you have been watching.
I saw a movie once based on a true story. A promising gymnast was injured.
He had the heart of a champion and life provided him with an experienced teacher to help him
get back into shape. One day the old teacher was waiting for him
on top of a bridge. The young man came running. I am really behind.
I have a lot of things I need to do. Can we hurry up the lesson today?
Sure the teacher said and then he picked up the young man and tossed him over the bridge
into the water below. The young student came out of the water wet
and furious. He yelled at the old man, What the hell is wrong with you?
I emptied your mind the teacher replied.
I know you are in a hurry to speed up your lesson, find the solution to a problem you
are facing fast so that you can run to the next problem and the one after that.
Life picks you up and tosses you over the bridge into cold water and you come out of
the water saying, “What the hell is wrong with my life?”
And life says, “I emptied your mind.” It is up to you to decide how you fill it
again. With a busy mind and even busier emotions,
you are in a hurry to go where and accomplish what when you get wherever it is you are in
hurry getting to? Has all this hurrying up helped you? Do you
have fewer problems as weeks, months and years go by?
Slow down, pause, and look at your whole life instead of bits and pieces of it.
You don't have enough time to solve every problem in life one at a time.
You do have plenty of time to learn problem solving. And solve problems that are significant.
Pause and plan based on your detached observation of events and their impact over a longer period
rather than what is happening right now.
Let’s go back for another look at the recommendations I gave Sabrina who came to me to lose around
80 pounds and control her cravings for sweets at night.
Sabrina without realizing it was activating powerful stress hormones.
Stress hormones impacted her perception, her emotions and her body’s function including
her mood, hunger, energy and fat storage. Part of this stress was the Sabrina's low
opinion of herself.
My father had a cat with a huge head and a thick neck. His name was dondo. He looked
like a tiger, moved and acted like a tiger.
This cat would attack the widows trying to get at coyotes that came around at nights.
I used to tell my father that an angel told this cat just before he was born that he was
going to be like a tiger.
The cat didn’t hear well and thought the angel told him that he was going to be born
as a tiger.
That cat did not understand fear. I am sure he looked at the coyotes and wondered how
tasty they looked and wondered why we wouldn't let him have just a few of them.
Another time, we brought two cats home with us from an animal shelter.
One of the cats we called bhuts. He was real scarred; he would hide under the bed behind
laundry machine, in dark and quiet corners. He jumped at the slightest sounds.
I think he too did not hear the angel right. The angel probably told him that he would
eat mice and the cat heard that he would be a mouse.
Most of us need to remember and clarify what our angels told us. To clarify what is in
our hearts.
Another part of stress is feeling trapped, feeling helpless, fear, loneliness, frustration
and anger.
My recommendation provided tools for Sabrina to rise above the conditions that caused stress
and to take charge. To detach, observe and begin to solve her problems, to increase her
awareness and learn right discrimination.
Without tools for Sabrina to learn the skill to manage stress, any conversation about hormones
would not have been very productive.
Sabrina needed skills including keeping a journal to show her and me other necessary
steps.
For example Sabrina’s journal pointed to the physiological aspects of hormones gone
wild.
I suspected this because of my experience and what Sabrina told me in our first meeting.
A trained physician needs to be involved in this process because hormonal changes are
pretty serious. Sabrina seemed to struggle with actions leptin
and insulin.
What would have happened if I even mentioned the possible role of these hormones in our
first or second session? More than likely Sabrina like many of you
would have stopped listening, focused all her attention on these two hormones, would
run to Internet looking for a pill to fix her hormonal problems and move on.
She would have stopped any effort to develop the skills needed to understand and manage
the wider influences in her life and the impact of these hormones.
It was like telling her she was like a tiger and she would hear that she was a tiger.
To solve problems I start with simplest material first. When it comes to nutrition the simplest
approach is with macronutrients will cover later on. One of them is carbohydrates that
are broken down to four basic categories. After Sabrina began to pause, I asked her
to research low glycemic complex carbohydrates. I have posted a link below for you to do some
research on your own.
I can only assist those who wish to learn without interfering with their choices.
The discussion below came after Sabrina researched not before.
Fourteen hours of starvation time between Sabrina’s dinner and breakfast was sending
two signals to her body. The first signal told her body to slow down,
sleep, rest and repair.
This is a great signal for natural sleep especially on an empty stomach.
When Sabrina woke up, she still didn't eat for another five or six hours.
This sent another signal to her body that there wasn’t enough food around.
This new signal told her body to slow down, conserve energy and store fat.
Things got worse for Sabrina when she broke her fast with high glycemic foods.
These foods increased her blood sugar to very high levels fast and then they were gone in
less than one hour.
High blood sugar sends a signal to the brain not to burn fat.
The body burns stored fat best after sugar is gone from blood, cells and liver.
So, even when Sabrina ate, what she ate signaled her body to store fat. Now we were looking
at around 18 hours of Sabrina, in three different ways was telling her body to store fat.
About an hour after Sabrina ate her high glycemic index food, her blood sugar dropped signaling
her brain that it was time to eat.
However, by now Sabrina not having planned her meals was busy with work and didn’t
have the time to eat but had plenty of time to feel frustrated.
Low blood sugar slowed down her brain and added to the feeling of being foggy and inefficient
and with Sabrina’s low opinion of herself, this translated to feelings of inadequacy
and more stress.
The simple incorporation of low glycemic complex carbohydrates in the mornings and lunch time
kept Sabrina’s blood sugar at medium levels providing her body and her brain a steady
source of fuel for a longer period of time.
Through the process of keeping her journal and recording her feelings before, during
and after each meal, Sabrina began to look for, find and plan low glycemic complex carbohydrate
meals.
These were meals she liked with the timing that helped her quality of life most.
They helped her think more clearly, to make better decisions and to be happier.
Sabrina still has a variety of other challenges but she is on her way.
Beginning to see success in everything including losing weight is very different than completing
the process and reaching a point that you could naturally and with minimal effort maintain.
I call this a sustainable dynamic balance. For Sabrina this would mean being confident,
healthy and happy. One of the biggest challenges for Sabrina
is to the temptation to stop journaling and stop improving.
Sabrina has learned the basic steps to pause but she has to protect this skill and develop
it more.
We will continue referring to her journal to help her find solutions to various challenges.
The skills to pause, detach, observe and plan will only improve by use.
Thank you for watching this video series. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
I’ll be posting other videos on perception, stress management, nutrition and exercise.
The lessons you learned in these videos work as the foundation for those.
Let me take you back to the beginning.
Imagine that it is a Wednesday morning. Sit across someone you trust. Tell them what kind
of help you need. Listen to what they have to say. Listen well.
There is a big difference between when your teacher says that your body will be like a
tiger and you hear that you will be a tiger.
Pause, open your heart and listen to the music of your heart and the angel that sings your
instructions to you every second of every day. Part of the song is that you are never
alone.