Why Your Brain, And Everything Else, Works Better With No-Carbs Part 2….

 
Chas…

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Yesterday’s Post was Part One of a response to a question or comment many of us still have to hear or deal with everyday. “If I eliminate carbs, won’t my brain shut down? Won’t I have no energy? Won’t Kellogg’s go out of business?”

In Part One, we tapped into a very light description of how carbohydrates are not just entirely unnecessary to the majority of everyone’s life-long goals, but how they are detrimental to most of our wants, hopes and dreams. Yesterday we explained the diagnosed disease of “carbivorism”. Today the focus in on the cure to the carbohydrate catasthrophy: the fat syringe.

How Eating Fat Cleans Up Your Insides, Leans Out Your Outsides, And Produces Endless Energy:

We are, essentially, speaking in terms of triglycerides or blood fat. A triglyceride is a three-chain fatty acid (get it?..”tri-”?) attached to a glycerol (sugar…we will get to that later) molecule for transport through the body. When your triglycerides are too high, it means a much worse diagnosis than high cholesterol as the media would have you believe. High triglycerides signal a few different things: you’re eating too many carbohydrates, you’re storing way more fat than you’re burning, and more than likely you have become insulin resistant, making the body eat away at all that hard-earned muscle because it’s having a hard time recognizing all the insulin you’re already saturated in. Remember, insulin management is the key to a high quality life.

The carb fiends, those carb-loading psychos and the morning oatmeal junkies will tell you they’ve just gotta have their carbs or they feel all foggy, or less than energized. I’m sure they do feel that way.  They’re addicted.  It’s called withdrawal.  It’s withdrawal from a substance the body DOESN’T need. Withdrawal from a substance the body DOES need, like fat or protein, is called death.

Once you have given up the carbohydrate life once and for all, your brain, blood, and internal organs (especially kidneys, heart, and intestines) will begin to adapt, utilizing your fat stores as an endless fuel source. As kids, we used to spray hairspray on our arms and light it (don’t ever do this). The hairspray burnt off and your arm was fine. This is what eating carbs is like. The energy burns and the fat is never touched. Your body expects that quick-burning energy, so it makes you hungry. Once you achieve a fat metabolism, however, you become even keeled without the energy peaks and valleys. You’re essentially in the presence of an endless mountain top.

Teaching the body to switch to a fat metabolism isn’t so tricky, although some do experience withdrawal if they have been on the carbohydrate bottle for a long time. After one becomes accustomed to a fat metabolism, the brain no longer looks for that 150g/carbs a day that it used to crave.  It only takes what it needs. In fact, the brain and blood will make do on only 30g/carbs per day and you will feel great doing it without those foggy carbohydrates crashes or weird sugar highs. 

If you were to test your triglycerides while ingesting carbohydrates regularly your test may come back at least comparably high. After four simple weeks carb-free, however, it is almost a guarantee your numbers will plummet.  They have to. Where do you think you’re getting the few carbs for your brain from? Or the glycogen for the muscles? That’s right. Those triglycerides are now your carb source. The backbone of the thing carrying the fat through the blood when broken down is a sugar, so when the body ain’t got no carbs, it becomes efficient as hell at rampaging through your fat stores making you leaner on the outside and cleaner on the inside.  This alone should make you give up carbs.

Ketosis And The Cancer Crusher, The Epileptic Eliminator, And Muscle Maker:

Ketosis is the action of burning ketones or fat particles for fuel as opposed to glucose. Ketosis is not only a naturally-occurring bodily function, it’s a state we would do well to live in. A while back I penned The Shift which detailed just how we venture into keto-adaptation. However, I left out a few things as I tend to just sprinkle information into this beautiful fish tank of life as not to overwhelm new fish.

Recently ketosis has been hallowed as a method for fighting epilepsy, especially in children. In fact, the NYT published This Article a while back that credits ketosis for reducing seizures to the tune of up to 90% in some cases, drug free. Admittedly, the article is off in a couple spots but at least they got the premise right.

Not only does ketosis fight epilepsy, but it has a hand in preventing Alzheimer’s, quelling auto immune disorders by the handful and, oh yeah, it just might cure cancer. Remember Dr. Warburg? He’s the dude who coined the Warburg effect, or the art of starving all those pesky cancer cells to death by eliminating their food source. Yup, you guessed it: carbohydrates. As a side note, Warburg was awarded the Noble Prize and then kicked out of science class a few years later when folks started trying to make millions treating cancer rather than curing it.

It’s almost a given you like boobs right? Women tend to like their own, and men…well you get the
idea. Becoming ketotic can be the biggest gun in your breast cancer arsenal even if you’re genetically prone. We posted here the effects simple nutrients have against fighting the BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 gene thought responsible for breast cancer. Simply don’t eat the shit that makes the bad shit grow.  Sugar makes bad shit grow, so eliminate carbs and save your boobs.

For those worried about losing muscle while in ketosis, you can pretty much worry not. Gluconeogenisis is the process by which the body converts protein or muscle into glucose for the body to to use as fuel. However, a by-product of ketosis prevents muscle protein breakdown, and actually stimulates the body to breakdown triglycerides.

So, ketosis starves cancer, stops seizures, saves boobs, makes you smarter, provides endless energy, preserves muscle and is the source of fat burning. What more could you ask for?

The Brain Drain And Bridging The Gap:

The bridge on our way from carb queen to a fat king can get a little sketchy if you cross unprepared. The transition or withdrawal can suck a little and this is where folks think they’re going to go brain dead, and so they start spouting ketosis propaganda or high carb bullshit. When shifting, simply enlist a couple of helpful aids until you seamlessly make it to the Dark-side.

Glutamine is the first supplement I would start consuming to help transition easier. Glutamine is a glycogenic amino acid. Essentially, it’s a building block of protein that the brain can utilize as glucose while it begins to shift to fat stores for fuel. After chopping out your carbs, start talking 15g of Glutamine a day, and reduce it by five grams every week until you no longer need it. Don’t touch it, though, if you have a cancerous history.

L-carnitine works like an amino acid, but it’s not. It helps shuttle the fat into the cells so it can be burned as fuel more efficiently. 2000mg/day should get you burning fat for fuel faster and make the bridge shorter.

If you’re not picketing General Mills, burning Monsanto’s fake-ass crops, and suing Panera Bread by now, no worries. Now you have the ammunition loaded for when the day comes that one of your friends says, “Your brains gonna die.”, or your well-meaning doctor spouts some kinda bullshit he clearly has never tried himself.

The next time you want a carbohydrate enema ask yourself if it’s really worth the shit, or if it’s just easier to stab yourself with the fat syringe and catch the lifelong cure.

For Score:

“Death By 10 Meters”

-Rest 3 Minutes

Strength:

-Work up to a heavy Push-Press

Post meters achieved, and weight moved.