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I want to lose weight, When is the best time to go for a run? First thing in the morning?

Is it the evening? How long should I run for? How many days should I run?

These are some of the most regular questions that seem to be asked.

The answer to the question is that sprint training is one of the best ways to shed that unwanted body fat.

Why?

Rather than going for a ridiculous run for an hour, or jogging at a steady pace, sprint training will have a far more effective result. This is because sprinting creates a massive amount of lactic acid like other taxing exercises such as squats and dead lifts. The lactic acid secretion when released causes an increase in the release of growth hormone.

What is growth Hormone?

Growth hormone is a protein hormone made up of amino acids that are synthesized and secreted by cells in the anterior pituitary which is in the brain. It is secreted in short surges during the first hours of sleep and after exercise, and it only remains in the circulation for a few minutes. So how the whole thing works is that your fat cells have human growth hormone receptors and growth hormone stimulates them to break down triglycerides and suppresses their ability to take up and accumulate circulating lipids. This helps you to burn fat and keep it off! You also need to look after yourself by getting a good night’s sleep, ideally 8 hours. This is because the majority of our growth hormone is released at night. So sprinting during the day and having a good sleep is one of the fastest, most effective methods of fat loss.

This is also a great way to maximise fat loss because it doesn’t give you a negative effect on your strength. Low intensity cardio work such as running for long periods can also work for fat loss, will take twice as long, and at the same time can overstimulate your body and cause you to increase your cortisol, (the stress hormone). This hormone is catabolic, meaning it destroys muscle tissue, which slows down your metabolism!

Here’s an example you could follow.

Sprint 400m then rest for 2 minutes. Do this 4 times.

Then that’s your work out.

Then as the weeks for by decrease the rest period by 20 – 30 seconds. Then once you get down to a minutes rest, increase the sets.

Another option is to sprint 20 seconds flat out then rest 20 seconds. Repeat 6 times for a total of 4 minutes.

The Chakra System

The Chakra system is a multi-faceted system that integrates our nervous system, endocrine system, circulatory system and emotional and spiritual development. It has been used for thousands of years in the Yogic disciplines as a system of total body personal development. It has relevance for us with weight loss as we can use it to identify blocks to a person’s success from a holistic view. We can see from where a person stores excess weight what hormones are out of balance and then we can link that back to what potential emotional and spiritual stressors can be blockages to success.

The Chakra system works in a hierarchical fashion. These rise in an ascending fashion with each level leading to a new level of consciousness. What is often seen is that the hormone that is inhibiting someone’s weight loss goals relates to that particular Chakra’s emotional and spiritual challenges. The correspondences are as follows:

Gland                                             Organs                                                                          Emotions
Base Adrenals                              Sex organs, Colon                                                       Safety, security, tribal alliance, financial stress
Sacral Testicles, Ovaries            Kidneys, Bladder                                                        Relationships, Creativity, Emotional balance, sexuality
Solar Pancreas,                            Digestive organs                                                         Self Esteem, Personal power and self will
Heart Thymus,                             Heart, lungs                                                                 Loving relationships, giving and recieving
Throat Thyroid,                           Esophagus                                                                    Expression, speaking your truth, Communication
Brow Anterior Pituarity,            Cerebral Cortex                                                           Intuition, learning, wisdom, creative intelligence
Crown Hypothalamus, Pineal  Brain                                                                              Transcendence, relationship to God, Spirituality

This system is absolutely amazing in it accuracy for identifying peoples emotionally issues. What we need to next look at is where some of these glands store excess fat if they are dysfunctional.
Gland                                                            Storage place
Base – Adrenals                                          Belly button, stomach
Sacral – Testicles, Ovaries                        Upper thighs, Back of arms
Solar – Pancreas                                         Hips, back of shoulder blades
Heart – Thymus                                           None but can influence base
Throat – Thyroid                                        Mid axilla, Throat, face, cheeks
Brow – Anterior Pituarity                         None but influence others
Crown – Hypothalamus, Pineal               None but influence others

This tells us a lot of information about why people have problems losing weight. If someone is storing weight around their belly button it can often tell us that they have emotional issues related to the base Chakra. This means that any security issue will negatively impact on the adrenal glands. Most people with weight issues also have issues with the adrenal glands. To fully lose weight from this area addressing these issues is essential (for more detailed information on the physiology of the Adrenal glands and a multi-disciplined approach to treating the adrenal glands please see Adrenal Stress, building muscle, losing weight and your health available on this website).

The second Chakra or Sacral Chakra relates to relationships, emotional balance and sexuality. The hormones involved store fat on the back of the arms and the thighs respectively. These hormones can be impacted positively by resistance training and creating high levels of lactic acid. However, if the person is in a negative relationship that is causing stress efforts with training may be hampered. Many of our clients will be in stressful relationships so helping them through their emotional issues can be extremely useful.

The third Chakra or Solar plexus controls our Pancreas. Our Pancreas governs our blood sugar regulation. Our blood sugar regulation is absolutely critical to our health and weight management. The two hormones glucagon and insulin operate antagonistically to each other, with glucagon helping to burn fat and energy and insulin stores energy as adipose tissue or fat. When we are emotionally stressed we will generally overproduce insulin in an effort to conserve energy for survival purposes. This will store fat on our hips and back of shoulder blades. These emotions which relate to self esteem and self will affect a lot of people. In western culture we are defined very much by what we do not who we are and this leads to a lot of self esteem issues. This can often lead to seeking solace in the form of food which is most commonly sugar, which again negatively affects blood sugar balance.

The heart Chakra relates to the Thymus gland. It related to our immunity and is our fourth Chakra. It has to do with loving relationships, giving and receiving. The Thymus gland does not really store fat in any particular region of the body. It does however, relate to our immunity. Anytime our immunity is lowered, it negatively affects our adrenal glands. This means if someone is holding onto Adrenal related fat but they do not have issues with their Base Chakra the heart Chakra could be negatively affecting it. Another good indication is if someone has a lowered immune system and is susceptible to lots of colds and flu’s.

The throat Chakra relates to our ability to communicate and speak our truth. If we do not speak our truth this can cause stress in the Thyroid gland. The Thyroid is the throttle on our metabolic rate. It governs how fast or slow our metabolic rate is and how much fat we burn. This gland is very dependent on our Adrenals. If the adrenals are stressed what you will see is the metabolic rate dropping. If a person has a lot of Adrenal issues and have been told they have a sluggish Thyroid the Base Chakra may be driving the Throat Chakra. What you will see is that by addressing issues from the foundation, the Base up you will resolve a lot of other issues.
The next two Chakras are the Brow and Crown. The hormones released by these two chakras do not store fat in any particular place in the body but influence other glands. The two glands of these Chakras are the Hypothalamus and the Anterior Pituarity. These glands control all glands via feedback systems that regulate how much the other glands secrete their hormones. Their influence is generally limited and in rare cases is the cause of the problem. If the base levels of the Chakra system are integrated and taken care of, the higher levels will take care of themselves. The main issue people will have is their relationship to God being a stress on their system. This is generally due to conditioning from society and can manifest as Thyroid, Estrogen, Adrenal and Testosterone issues due to the connections.

So as we can see the Chakra System is a brilliant system for identifying underlying issues affecting people’s weight. What we need to see is a truly holistic approach to weight loss addressing our clients as a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual beings.

References: Chek, P. How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy, C.H.E.K Institute 2004

Digestion

Digestion is the key to the healing process of almost any condition. We are not what we eat, we are what we absorb, assimilate, utilize and eliminate. A block in any of these functions will give sub-optimal health.

The first phase of digestion is known as Pre-digestion. This is a highly important phase and is often forgotten by the health care professional. The smell of food activated many centers of the brain and the digestive system. Smell in regards to digestion serves these main functions:

1. Excites the digestive system
2. Stimulates salivary glands
3. Stimulates the mucous glands

Smell activates the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, gallbladder and the pancreas. It initiates the redistribution of blood and sets the limbic system.
Some things that interfere with this include loss of smell. It is extremely rare when based on disease. It is more commonly attributed to lifestyle factors. These include smoking, drinking alcohol, medication, drug abuse and occupational exposure. It can also be due to a cranial fault that obstructs the nasal apparatus. If someone has a diminished sense of smell they will generally fall back on the sensation of taste. They will go for sweet first, sour and then bitter.

Another fault with smell can be a faulty cranial nerve. This could be Cranial Nerve 1 (the olfactory nerve) not working causing an interference with Cranial Nerve 10 (the Vagus nerve).

With digestion the second place we need to look at is the mouth. Optimal chewing is required for digestion. Lipase and Pytalin, which are enzymes for digesting lipids and carbohydrates respectively, are found in saliva. Proteins need to be adequately broken down so the HCL in the stomach can break them down efficiently and utilize their amino acid sequences. Food should be chewed around 30 times or until liquid.

Salivary states are of vital importance here. These include whether someone is a mouth breather or not, medical disease, emotional state, conditioned reflexes and the state of hydration. TMJ issues also need to be addressed as it could create an avoidance of chewing due to pain. The mouth also helps with the immune response. There is a Secretory IgA response in local tissues which is a non-inflammatory messenger.

Swallowing is an overlooked issue when it comes to food and digestion. It takes between 6-10 seconds for the food to travel to the lower esophageal sphincters. This is important because most people do not chew their food correctly, they shovel it down. This causes problems with digestion due to blockages. From a Kinesiology point of view Hyoid balances can be useful here. Problems in the esophagus are generally quite rare.

The stomach is next on the digestive pathway. This is the area that is most often a concern in digestive issues. The problem that plagues most people is HCL deficiencies or hypochlorhydria. This substance allows us to assimilate the majority of foods that we put into our mouths. This is why it is so important to look at digestion before other areas because if you aren’t absorbing nutrients the food becomes worthless.

Stomach acid breaks down food, chemically altering it so that the body can extract the required nutrients for proper structure and function, including muscle maintenance and growth. The acid begins the digestion of protein in the stomach and then triggers the pancreas to secrete digestive enzymes and the gallbladder to release bile into the small intestine. The acid is also responsible for killing pathogenic bacteria that enters the body via food. These functions and reflexes all need to be in working order for optimal health and are mostly dependent on adequate stomach acid.

If there is insufficient hydrochloric acid (HCL), proteins will pass into the intestine and putrefy instead of being digested. In addition, carbohydrates will also be left to ferment without adequate digestive enzymes from the pancreas. Fat digestion is also dependent on the acid’s influence on the pancreas to secrete lipase and the gall bladder to secrete bile. Poor digestion of these macronutrients means poor absorption of our basic energy sources. This consistently leads to fatigue and sub-optimal health.

Low stomach acid prevents adequate absorption of essential minerals such as zinc, manganese and calcium because they cannot be ionized for proper absorption. Cruciferous vegetables are known for their estrogen-detoxification properties through the production of Diindolylmethane from Indole 3C, but this extraction cannot occur without an adequate amount of stomach acid. These vegetables include broccoli and cauliflower. Excess estrogen is another huge problem with the amount of plastics in the environment. The average everyday intake of phthalates, as from every day plastic wraps is 210mcg a day. This is a dietary average!

The take home message with this information is to be aware of your digestion. Chew slowly, enjoy your food and relax. All these things contribute to optimal digestion. Drinking two glasses of water, with either lemon juice or apple cider vinegar can also stimulate the secretion of HCL. If digestion is still a problem, it would be a wise idea to see someone trained in the neurology and physiology of digestion to truly address the problem. Practitioners can be contacted through paulmeldrum@sportskin.net

Paul, Chris and Elissa

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