Day 34    Don’t Let the Lion Catch You, Or Maybe you Should

Before I begin I want you to know my summer schedule of blogging. I’m a lot busier than I thought, so I will post one blog a week on Monday. Some of my followers say they are missing some of the blogs and then have to catch up. I think this is because they are so random. So I am going on a schedule of having one ready every week and it will be posted hopefully Sunday night, but Monday morning by the latest.  Thanks for tagging along.

My last blog, (Day 33,duhhh), told you my story of how I let strong emotions effect my eating. I just want to illustrate (by bad example) how it was true in my life.  Larry and I were taken out to eat last night by a prospective bride and groom. Larry is preforming their wedding ceremony in June, and he was nailing down the details.  It was a great night. We laughed, shared life, shared Jesus, and shared some principles of life to help them understand what marriage is all about. We had a great meal that exactly followed my new lifestyle. It was a great time and my emotions were high.  I just can’t wait until this barn wedding. If it is half as beautiful as they say, it will be fantastic. We had to travel to High Point to meet the couple after work. And guess what is in High Point, an hour away from our house?----Krispy Kreme, and it was calling my name. I cannot even remember the last time I had a doughnut.  I know before I retired four years ago, I stopped one morning going to work and bought a dozen, and almost ate the entire dozen before I pulled into the driveway at my school. Yes, the “hot light” was on!!! (Can you say sugar addiction and massive sugar spike to start my day)? So after our get together, I looked at Larry and said, “Could I have just one doughnut and a cup of coffee”? I’ve never had just ONE donut.  He agreed and that is what we did. Of course it disrupted my sleep, my sleep cycles were off and I only slept six hours. (I track my sleep on an app every night). The excitement I felt overcame me, and I was not prepared. We usually carry some nuts and some type of fruit with us most every time we get in the car. Last night we did not. It’s a journey. Now I know these were good emotions, and that is great. If the occasion is not an everyday occurrence and you are eating a healthy diet, it will have little effect---maybe just a sleepless night. I know that I, nevertheless, have to control myself.  But if life does not challenge you, it won’t change you. So let’s embrace the new challenge---facing the lion.

I want you to know that I try my best to simplify, as much as possible what I relate to you. My blog is taken from concepts backed by science and it can get deep. If I make it too simple, I hope you will dig deeper, especially if it is part of your journey, too. So here goes!  Our bodies are either in a sympathetic state or a parasympathetic state. The parasympathetic state is a state of relaxation (that’s what we feel at the beach); the sympathetic state is “fight or flight”.  When the car fell on Papa’s head (blog 33), he fought the weight of the car, won, and saved his life. It was pure “fight”. “Flight” was impossible with a car on his head. If you meet a lion on a trail, you decide: Am I going to fight or I am going to run? What you do does not always turn out for the best, but your body will automatically give you choices and help you when you make them. So with just about everything else---life is all about choices. And except in extreme cases, you can make the decisions to keep yourself in this parasympathetic state and this is why you want to do it. Look very closely about what happens in both states.

When in the Sympathetic State (fight or flight)

1.       Increased heart rate

2.       Increased respiratory rate

3.       Increased blood pressure

4.       Increased adrenal hormones

5.       Movement of blood from the abdomen to the extremities

6.       Increased thickening of plates (acute)

7.       Squeezing of the arteries

Parasympathetic State (life at the beach)

1.       Decreased heart rate

2.       Decreased respiratory rate

3.       Decreased blood pressure

4.       Decreased adrenal hormones

5.       Movement of blood from the extremities to the abdomen

6.       Normalization of platelet function

7.       Relaxation of the arteries

 

Don’t just look at the charts in the squares, examine them carefully. Do you recognize a heart attack in the “Sympathetic Chart”? See thickening of the platelets? That is blood clotting! See squeezing of the arteries? That is chest pains. If you remember reading my blog entitled “My Heart Attacks” (Day 19), that is exactly what was happening to me. My blood vessels were constricting and I was having chest pains. My doctor’s advice was great, he gave me a choice--Relieve the stress or I would damage my heart. Thank God he did not say, “Here is some Lipitor”, pat me on the back and say, “Have a nice day, see you when the prescription runs out”.  That is the current state of health care---fix with a pill. How sad!!  But he took the time to question my life until he found the source and advised me to change for my health’s sake. I did! It was a no-brainer. If you live in the sympathetic stare, you can be sure of this next statement----

 

You are opening the door for a heart attack. What is the leading cause of death in the US? You guessed it!! Thank God I got a warning and thank God I got rid of the major stress in my life at the time. Because you see, stress was a choice, or I should say, how I handled the stress was a choice. But first let’s go back to the “lion” incident and see how God designed your body to protect you during extreme stress. Whether or not you decide to fight the lion or run from it, your body responds in the same way. Your heart rate, breathing, and your blood pressure increases, because you are going to need this strength and extra oxygen to fight or run. This response also causes your body to release adrenal hormones, norepinephrine and epinephrine, to help you move quickly. Your body anticipates potential damage, so it tries to decrease swelling by releasing cortisol (your own steroid that acts like a prednisone). Then your platelets get sticky to help increase clotting in case you bleed during the fight.  Blood travels away from the abdomen to go to the arms and legs to deliver a boost if you have to strike or decide it was a bad decision to fight and you decide to run. After all this, your body is designed to back down after the threat is over.  Isn’t that amazing??? These fight or flight incidences rarely occur, so you are fine until it happens again. Our problem is that a stressful life (the sympathetic state), creates an ongoing fight or flight situation, and our body does not have time to recover. When I think of all the times I allowed myself to live with stress, it scares me. I honestly did not know how to relax and it was affecting my health. It showed up as fat, because of the sugar spikes, but there was much more going on inside. Inside our body there is a hormone called dopamine, which is produced in the brain. It is a hormone and a transmitter, so it sends messages between nerve cells.  If your dopamine level is not what it should be, the stress can trigger a heart attack or stroke. Ever know of anyone who exercised regularly, was not overweight or obese yet had a stroke or heart attack? This is possible and happens often because their diet is not good. Papa had a heart attack and a stroke. He weighed 140 pounds and his cholesterol was 150. So there had to be other reasons. From what I have learned, it is diet and stress.

 

The previous blog was about how I let stress, from something as simple as facebook, rule my emotions and I found myself warring with people instead of loving them. When that strong emotion took hold, dopamine started sending messages saying, “You need pleasure to relieve your stress”, and my cravings would begin and I would eat what brought me pleasure-----sugary foods, which would cause my blood sugar to spike and it was ON!!!!  It was caused by dopamine, which is released in times of stress. It is part of the adrenal system, but the problem is that when you are constantly experiencing stress, it creates a dangerous and potentially life threating condition for the body. And worse still, after you “please” yourself with whatever----food, drink, drugs, etc., your body craves more pleasure and there goes the addiction. Yes, I was addicted to sugar!!!  In the brain, the overuse and depletion of dopamine causes ----on the low end of the spectrum, poor concentration----on the high end of the spectrum Alzheimer’s. And this is only one area. The Franklin Institute suggests that chronic stress and depletion of dopamine in exchange for hormone flooding, creates the perfect environment for Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, cancer and numerous autoimmune diseases. And all because of the stress which depletes our system of dopamine. So the question is, “how do we replace it or keep the dopamine from depleting”? Now you know me enough to know that I believe God has a way of restoring. He is not going to create a body that does not restore itself, if we cooperate with Him. I will deal with the ways that I learned to deal with stress later. That was part of the journey and I did not reach my state of calm overnight. One reason it took a long time is because I did not know how to feed myself along the journey. I had no idea what foods were necessary to replenish the dopamine. And it was a journey in itself learning to let go of the emotions that life threw at me through other people in my family, my job, and in my friendships. And as hard as I tried, there was only so much I could do to control others. But there is one thing I can control----what goes into my body. So along the way, I had to learn how to replenish my body with dopamine to help me relieve the stresses of life. I found six foods that I begin to regularly include in our diet, in fact Larry and I eat most of them every single day. Some of them are loaded with dopamine and some of them protect the major regions of the brain that control dopamine secretions. The six are 1)blueberries  2)raw chocolate  3)healthy nuts and seeds 3) fermented dairy products--- sour cream, or yogurt(plain, no sugar), etc, 4) pasture raised animal products, 5)cruciferous vegetables—kale, collards, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, and cauliflower.  In another family of vegetables there is garlic, onion, chives and scallions (all easily grown in your flower beds).  I will add that your cruciferous vegetables are better juiced or steamed to retain the most nutrients. And if you want optimal nutrition, ferment your cabbage and make kraut. (See blog on Day 7).  It is super easy. I make a batch in about 10 minutes that will last 2-3 weeks. We eat about three tablespoons before every meal. All of these six fit well into the ketogenic diet. Everything fits into the paleo diet except dairy. Not sure what journey you are on, so I just thought I would mention this.

 

These foods have definitely boosted my dopamine levels. In times of stress, my food cravings for salty and sugary treats have diminished and for the first time in my life I have control of food. I can actually eat one donut or one cookie when my emotions get out of control. Before, it was a platter full before I knew it.  If I had my stress 100% under control (which is impossible in the stressed filled world we all live in), I would have the ultimate healthy body. That is assuming that there is not some disease lurking in my cells caused from years of not taking care of my body. I’m not entertaining that thought, because “As a man thinketh in his own heart, so is he”. I am working on detoxing my organs and releasing heavy metals that tend to stay in our cells for years, but that is a story for another day.

 

To sum up, I fought the “lion” most all of my life. I fought by going on every diet that offered quick success, exercising, begging God to help me get control of my appetite, and sometimes fasting for all the wrong reasons. In the process I turned a parasympathetic person into a full blown sympathetic person, so the lion had caught me. I was stressed out, overweight, depressed, miserable and I gave up.  One day I remember saying to Larry, “I’m done”. I am approaching 70, I  am a grandmother, and no one but me cares what I look like.”   The lion caught me and was as licking his chops. I was tired of fighting and losing. I gave up, but God didn’t. Not long after, I began a search for health, because several of my friends and extended family members died with cancer. They had a little sickness that most people would have not thought was serious. But upon close examination, found out that it was cancer and the doctor basically said that it was too late to save them. (By the way, I hope you never believe that. I know of many who have survived stage 4 cancer when they changed their lifestyle). So I simply asked myself the question, why? Did God curse them with cancer?  Did he love them less than others? Why did they have to suffer?  So the research began. Along the journey I found many people who had taken their health in their own hands and had been cured. I found out that God had created the foods, the exercises and the methods that would fight for me. I was not alone in this battle. I realized He was on my side, He created me, He loves me, and when I mess up, he has designed a way for my body to heal itself.  This is what I reasoned through my studies. He does not dish out diseases. They are a direct consequence of lifestyle, and that was the bottom line for me--- CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE!!!!  Thank God for those cancer patients who blazed the trail for me.  And it is not just cancer patients, but patients with other diseases, who are taking control of their health. They had the courage to buck the system and go on their journey of healing themselves. I am just tagging along, and the purpose of my blog is to hopefully have a few people tag along with me. It really increased my faith to believe there was a better way. The big hurtle I had to get over was this----if this health information I was learning was true--- why was it not being screamed from the rooftops?  Could I trust what anyone said? So I decided to find God’s foods and trust Him. I had no problem doing that. So I began to look up the secret concepts that seemed to be hidden from the average person.  They are not really secrets or hidden. They were there all the time. My grandparents seemed to know the secret. My grandmother lived to be 93 and my great grandmother lived to be 99. Larry’s granddaddy lived to be 93. They ate God’s way. There was no other way. Society had not yet discovered a way to poison their food with toxins. There were very little stresses---no TV, no facebook, no dog eat dog world. It must have been parasympathetic heaven. So now I am not fighting anymore, I am running. I am running just as hard as I can to discover ways to be Healthy and Happy. Yes, I am in danger of becoming a sympathetic mess, because I am so excited about reading, watching health videos, and blogging that I think I could do it 24 hours a day. Stress does not have to come from a bad situation, it can come from seemingly good things like over exercising (more later), or just being too busy.  Those techniques that I am using, is the topic of my next blog.  So for today, here is your prescription:

Let the Lion catch you and start over. It is summertime. Go to the beach---then bring the beach atmosphere home with you. Determine to lower the stress in your home. Introduce the foods to your family that brings health.  Be a Parasympathetic Queen or King.  It can be done. In the next blog I will give you some solutions. For right now, just be aware that when stress creeps into your life, grab some nuts, fruit, sit down and sip some green tea.