Brain in Shape (Part 1)

Leaving all those dreams from my last post, let’s come back to reality, maybe a reality that you don’t even know about yourself . . . Who is in charge, you or your brain!?

Quite often a difficult relationship, but knowing better your brain can lever big time your long term goals.

At first is good to remind that brains are always worried about the urgent. In danger or stress, it will give you an abnormal strength and if needed to run, other than doing speed PBs, you would go over obstacles that you never thought you could. Only hours later you are going to notice scratches and wounds caused by the defensive actions.

What if there is no danger in sight?

Well, then the grey mass, is going to prepare yourself for a future danger, in other words, it’s time to store as much energy as possible. And that’s why it’s so hard to exchange your comfort zone to study, diet, work and workout, as all these tasks will not bring you any immediate benefits.

That’s why you will need to persevere to reach any long term goals, and here comes motivation . . . I like this word because it derives from motive, and basically what you need is to give a good reason for your brain to spend all those calories, or why to not store energy when you your goal is to lose weight.

Each person has it particularity when it comes to motivation. For my “profession”, having a notebook with all my workouts is enough, as I don’t want to have any “chicken” workout written down. For your diet it’s even more important, as you are depriving your brain from its most precious thing.

Not talking only about calories, I’m talking about fat!

The captain of your body is made of more than 75% of fat, and cholesterol is what makes your brain works by neural synapses.

I know, we all thought that cholesterol was something harmful, and as David Perlmutter says on his book, Grain Brain: “Ironically, ever since we ‘scientized’ nutrition, the state of our health has declined.”

Yep, your brain has been washed up. And if we could have no body fat, there would be no brain! Making true those statements about gorgeous women with no content! Lol

On the same way, against the idea of bad cholesterol, you will find a lot more on this website: http://www.survivediabetes.com/lowfat.html

>>> continue . . . Part 2

Brain in Shape (part 2)

>>> If you missed, here is Part 1 link.

Luckily time is progressing, but maybe due to comercial issues, it’s kind of hard to hear about this things. So here I am trying to write down what I have learnt since I started noticing alterations on my routine blood exams: thyroid imbalance, high insulin, low testosterone, lack of vitamin D and total cholesterol at 281.

A great doctor from my hometown, Curitiba, wisely told me not to worry about cholesterol, but that I should make sure I could fix all the rest, I couldn`t be competitive with all those blood results.

Hormone intake would be a hard path, as I could test positive for an anti-doping test, and I would need support from my National Federation for a therapeutic exemption use, which I rather avoid.

Since then I started to research the reason why my system was in such bad shape!

Our bodies produce around 70% of the cholesterol available in our blood, and the less cholesterol we ingest, the more cholesterol our body will produce. The reason why we produce cholesterol is that it links neurons in our brains. So if there is not enough cholesterol available in our body, we would probably evolve mental diseases.

The “bad” cholesterol LDL, has also a very important function as it is the one in charge to deliver cholesterol cells to the brain.

Modern scientists point the sugar as the real bad guy. Well known to cause diabetes, it also promotes oxidation and inflammation in the blood vessels, producing obesity, lethargy, tiredness, mental prejudice, strokes and heart attack.

Great video about this: Sugar: The Bitter Truth, Robert. H. Lustig MD.

According to Dr. David Perlmutter, the excess of sugar on blood vessels will promote fast oxidation of the “Low Density Lipoprotein”, the LDL cholesterol, an important carrier protein bringing vital cholesterol to brain cells. Only if oxidized it could be called a “bad cholesterol”, as does it wreak havoc on blood vessels. So the high sugar diet can cause coronary artery disease, other than diabetes, arthrosclerosis and Alzheimer`s, this one can also be called as diabetes type 3.

Interesting is that the worse sugar available is fructose. Yes! That so natural one from fruits. Fructose is whole metabolized by the liver, differently from glucose, which is distribucted by liver and mitochondrias. On this way, fructose don't even enter in the blood circulation. And although the brain got that tasty flavor, it will not perceive any calories, asking you to eat more and more.
Sugar is scientifically proved to be addicted and only one hour after having sugar with no exercise, it will all be accumulated as adipose tissue, or the popular localized fat.

Fruits itself, still something healty, as the enzimes and fibers do the work and comunicate with the brain. The problem is the fructose in fruit juices or added in cookies, cakes, breads, yogurt, and so many things.

Tips:

- Include fat on your diet, specially those with Omega 3. (Fish, Nuts, Avocado, Meats...)
- Sugar, pasta and bread, ONLY during or right after working out. 
- Avoid sugary drinks, including fruit juices.
- Avoid Gluten
- Be careful with cereals, specially bar cereals, if you put some of those in the oven they will become caramel as there is so much sugar added!
- Eat dark chocolates with more than 70% of Cacao.
- Eat lots of vegetebles, green leafs and tomatos.