Sugar, Stress & What the Body Has to Say

Working on the seminar/workshop. Want to discuss the sugar-stress connection & how both the body & mind play dearly when high level nutrition is not practiced....then place this in self-hypnosis suggestion.

It's amazing how few people truly understand the gravity of poor nutrition, for themselves & for their children. Compulsive & emotional/stress eating is so engrained in our culture that it is hardly noticeable......like a killer in a crowd... Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht

GETTING INTO FOCUS

We are all born with a genetic history that is passed down from our family members. As we look at the baby on the day of birth, admiring how beautiful he or she is on the outside, it is important to remember that the baby also has an “inside” that will need just as much care, if not more, than the outside. If we lived in a perfect world, parents would care, as well as plan for the needs of both outside and inside needs.

We can learn from a lot from reading or hearing about the experiences of others, learning to apply new knowledge to our own inner needs. The people raising their hands below attended complimentary online classes at our websites. These are some of the areas that concerned them along with the corresponding Knowledge Hooks.

MEET LYNN:

I always would describe my addiction to sugar like a heroin addiction and it turns out that was very intuitive of me! I¹ve never been into drugs (certainly not heroin!) -- but my birth mother was a heroin addict and almost everyone in my birth family over 40 is dealing with diabetes or has died because of it. I want to prevent diabetes from happening to me! I¹ve always thought I came from a blood line with weak pancreas', but now I think I come from a sugar sensitive blood line. How can I prevent this from happening to my daughter? Or is it simply genetic?

KNOWLEDGE HOOK Lynn’s question helps us to see the problem from many different aspects. She speaks of her problem with sugar, her family medical history, as well as her family addictions history. While all of this is important, what sings out are her beliefs, especially whether or not prevention is possible because of the genetics. As people learn to take care of their genetic “wallpaper”, prevention is indeed possible.

It is so important to clear the air here. Yes, we are born on the path of our path of our predecessors, but we are each given the opportunity to change our outer and inner experiences. Lynn does not have to be a heroin addict, nor does she have to be a diabetic. Her child does not have to experience the level of sugar addiction that Lynn is experiencing, if her child builds new choices now. This is achieved by introducing healthy lifestyle behaviors designed to meet her family and personal medical history.

Lynn will need high level nutrition, a good communication system with her body, a way to manage her emotions, and a goal plan for persisting through obstacles.


MEET RYAN:

I’m just a teenager and it is so hard for me to eat healthy, but when I don’t I get very sleepy in class. I simply want to be like everybody else. Why do I have to be different?

KNOWLEDGE HOOK I’m sure we can all commiserate with Ryan and being a teenager in today’s world. Hopefully as Ryan learns about his body and how to care for it, he will find that he doesn’t have to give everything up. It’s a matter of getting well and then staying in healthy balance. Ryan needs to know that there are big rewards that come from being responsible at an early age, as well as knowing that he is setting the stage for his life down the road.

HORMONES & BURNING FAT:

It would be wonderful if we all understood the workings of our body, but unfortunately few of us have more than a meager knowledge of what goes on below the surface. However, when we come to understand something, it then becomes easier to make changes and stay motivated.

One of those important bits of knowledge is how and why the body responds to sugar in the way that it does. So we must turn our attention to a part of our body called the pancreas. That particular organ sits below the stomach where it produces the life-sustaining hormones of insulin and glucagon. Simply put, the job of these hormones is to regulate the blood sugars in your body.

If for some reason the pancreas over-produces insulin, the body will store sugars as fat, and will not allow them to be burned for fuel. This results in frequent hunger that can be quite intense in some people. The body then asks it’s owner for more sugar foods that are experienced as cravings.

Depending on the individual’s response to the food chosen to take care of these cravings, there could a sharp rise in blood sugars, followed by a sharp drop, known as reactive hypoglycemia. If the over-production of insulin continues over the years, many people become insulin resistant with the reactive hypoglycemia turning into adult onset diabetes. Earlierchapter one you read that even children are beginning to develop this adult form of diabetes, of course due to their genetics and their “inner care” from the nursery forward.

MEET JON:
I understand about adult onset diabetes, but my family history is positive for heart disease and stroke. Is insulin responsible for this problem as well?

KNOWLEDGE HOOK Insulin signals our livers to make cholesterol. Earlier you learned that heart disease, circulatory disease and diabetes tend to walk hand in hand. Sometimes one of the diseases is walking faster than the others, but make no mistake. If one is present, the others are somewhere down the path. It is absolutely imperative for someone with heart disease or circulatory disease to watch their fat intake, but also their sugar intake.

But remember, when we talk about “watching” it is important to know what you are watching for. This is where many people get into trouble, forgetting that each person is an individual with their own genetic wallpaper. And, keep in mind if addictions are present, these are also adding to the problems at hand. Moving along to Jon’s prevention program, he needs to be addressing all aspects of his family medical history, as well as making certain about his own lifestyle behaviors to date.

MEET TESS:

I’ve had a problem with yo-yo weight gain since I was a teenager. After the birth of my second son my weight my weight was up another twenty pounds. I exercise daily and lost most of the weight, but find that if I miss exercising the weight comes back so quickly it’s almost ridiculous. I also tend to feel better as far as the cravings go if I don’t eat in the morning, but by afternoon my emotions are on a roller coaster and having two toddlers doesn’t help. Sometimes I’m afraid of my emotional self and frightened for my children’s safety.

KNOWLEDGE HOOK It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty losing weight after giving birth, especially if they have a history of yo-yoing. To understand this, it is important to review what happens when the body over produces insulin and begins the building of insulin resistance. When one talks about weight gain, the subject should be excess fat storage because the term weight gain doesn’t tell us what we need to know.

We all have a lean body mass and a body fat percentage. Most people who are overweight have a body fat percentage that is too high for the size of their lean body mass. The excess fat storage is simply an indicator that the body is out of balance in some way. In order to find out what’s going on, one has to look at the lifestyle behaviors. Unfortunately most people don’t know what they are looking for and therefore can’t focus on solving the problem. If you can’t see something you can’t fix it.

If the family medical history and/or addictions history is positive for a tendency towards reactive hypoglycemia, there is a history of yo-yoing and then a pregnancy, the stage is set for a metabolic hormonal dance. Tess is trying to manage this hormonal dance only with exercise, and that is not sufficient. Her body is reporting this to her when she feels better without eating breakfast, but has uncontrollable cravings and emotional instability in the afternoon. As she learns to work with the needs of her own body including high level nutrition, Interactive Awareness and Self-Hypnosis, her body physiology will balance.

MEET DENISE:

Quite simply, I’m obese. It shames me to say this because it is the one area of my life that I cannot control. As a professional woman I wonder what people think and why they would trust me to handle their personal matters, when I can’t manage my own body. I’ve been on every diet that exists to no avail. I rationalize by saying that I don’t have time and my work life takes precedence. I fail to understand why I can take a complicated work project and enjoy the process, yet not with my own self-care. Why would I do this to myself?

KNOWLEDGE HOOK Denise is an intelligent woman who is quite simply barking up the wrong tree. Her obesity is the way her body is communicating the fact that it isn’t getting what it needs, and until it does she will continue down the same path. But keep in mind that the path changes step by step. We do not remain the same outside, and so why would we believe that we remain the same inside? Denise is playing the blame game, more than likely because the solution hasn’t been found to her problem of fat storage.

There are many reasons why people store fat, and it is usually a combination of things including inaccurate serving amounts of foods, types of foods, times of eating, emotional and stress management to name just a few. Of course, Denise’s family and personal medical/addictions history all play in the background and must be taken into consideration.