Muscle Brain Fitness & Rehabilitation

04/05/2023

04/03/2023

𝐒𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝

The long-term negative consequences of being overweight, particularly in childhood, cannot be overstated: between 40-70% of obese children will grow up to be obese adults, and will be more likely to develop chronic health problems such as Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. Battling a weight problem early in life can also lead children to develop a negative body image, which may make them more prone to developing eating disorders or body dysmorphia.

Childhood obesity comes down to more than just genetics. It is directly related to the environment in which a child grows up. While a high-sugar, high-fat diet and inactive lifestyle are certainly contributing factors to the growing problem of childhood obesity, there are often other social determinants at play that cannot be so simply treated with diet and exercise.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden recently conducted a meta-analysis of previous studies, which included a total of 112,000 participants, and concluded that being subjected to abuse during childhood leads to a marked increase in the risk of developing obesity as an adult.

This link has been corroborated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than six million obese and morbidly obese people are likely to have suffered physical, sexual and/or verbal abuse during their childhoods, according to the CDC’s ongoing ACE Study.

As stated in the insightful article “The Second Assault” published in The Atlantic, "Researchers are increasingly finding that, in addition to leaving deep emotional scars, childhood sexual abuse often turns food into an obsession for its victims. Many become prone to binge-eating. Others willfully put on weight to desexualize in the hope that what happened to them as children will never happen again."

A 2013 analysis of 57,000 women found that those who experienced physical or sexual abuse as children were twice as likely to be addicted to food than those who did not.

Feminist author Roxane Gay details her own experiences of obesity as a defense mechanism against sexual assault in her book “Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.” According to The Atlantic, "It’s [about] the body she built to shield herself from the contempt of men and her own sense of shame…She describes much of her ongoing struggle with weight and trauma as a result of being gang-raped at the age of 12 in the woods near her home in Nebraska."

Eating disorders, from anorexia to binging and bulimia to compulsive overeating, can also be a way for victims of abuse to exert "control" over their own worlds and bodies.

Interestingly, childhood trauma can actually have biological effects that contribute to obesity. Trauma that occurs during critical periods in the brain’s development can change its neurobiology, making it less responsive to rewards.

This deficit of positive emotional feedback more than doubles the likelihood that abused children will become clinically depressed adults, and also increases their risk of addiction. With their brains unable to produce a natural high, many adult victims of child abuse chase comfort and happiness in the form of food.

Adults who have undergone some kind of trauma as children may struggle with the effects of residual stress from the event as well. Excess stress can lead to the release of proinflammatory cytokines, which prevent insulin from being taken up by the muscle cells and can lead to weight gain.

Unexamined childhood trauma can lead to obesity both in the short- and long-term. When treating obesity in adults, it is absolutely critical to seek out and address the underlying causes of their weight gain, which may be rooted in their childhood.

Here’s more: https://dworakpeck.usc.edu/blog/the-link-between-childhood-trauma-and-obesity

04/02/2023

Trauma impacts much more than just our prefrontal cortex or our behavioral activation system. It impacts our whole being—and it must be treated from a whole being perspective. Importantly, any legitimate trauma treatment must consider all of our being—the entirety of our body-mind—not just our thoughts and behaviors, alone.

Remembering the Body

There are many brave researchers and practitioners who have made important contributions to our understanding of how to treat trauma. One of the most useful models for understanding how to understand trauma comes from Peter Levine's conceptualization of the constituents of phenomenological experience that he has memorialized through the catchy acronym, SIBAM, and his work of Somatic Experiencing.

04/01/2023

The next chapter of your life is going to require you to let go of someone, instead of proving your worth to them.

03/31/2023

Tears are an attempt by the body to self-regulate. Emotional tears activate the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) so that we feel soothed and calm after crying. Crying can regulate our emotions by helping us recover, get relief, and a sense of control after a stressful event or even intense positive emotions such as joy.

Crying is a self-soothing (self-care) behavior: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4035568/

Health benefits of crying: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-crying-good-for-you-2021030122020

EMOTIONS AND PHYSIOLOGY: https://fullerlife.com/2020/03/19/emotions-physiology/

03/30/2023

“If your parents didn't know how to hold you you develop a mind to hold yourself with.” -Dr. Gabor Maté

03/30/2023

Polyvagal theory is the most important contribution to psychology since the Sermon on the Mount.

Polyvagal Theory was created by Dr. Stephen Porges, PhD and then brought to the world by Deb Dana, LCSW.

This video helps you understand Polyvagal 101… and this is how your nervous system works.

Where do you spend most of your time?

In red (dorsal)

In yellow (sympathetic)

In green (ventral)

The goal is for ventral to hold hands with dorsal and sympathetic.

Or… the goal is for green to hold hands with yellow and red..

When you understand how your nervous system works, it takes the shame out of a lot of what you think is “wrong” with you.

How can you have more compassion for yourself after learning more about your polyvagal system?

You got this!

Mastin

03/30/2023

𝐍𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐲: 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝

Think about it. Your brain is always "on." It takes care of your thoughts and movements, your breathing and heartbeat, your senses — it works hard 24/7, even while you’re asleep. This means your brain requires a constant supply of fuel. That "fuel" comes from the foods you eat — and what’s in that fuel makes all the difference. Put simply, what you eat directly affects the structure and function of your brain and, ultimately, your mood.

Like an expensive car, your brain functions best when it gets only premium fuel. Eating high-quality foods that contain lots of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants nourishes the brain and protects it from oxidative stress — the "waste" (free radicals) produced when the body uses oxygen, which can damage cells.

Unfortunately, just like an expensive car, your brain can be damaged if you ingest anything other than premium fuel. If substances from "low-premium" fuel (such as what you get from processed or refined foods) get to the brain, it has little ability to get rid of them. Diets high in refined sugars, for example, are harmful to the brain. In addition to worsening your body’s regulation of insulin, they also promote inflammation and oxidative stress. Multiple studies have found a correlation between a diet high in refined sugars and impaired brain function — and even a worsening of symptoms of mood disorders, such as depression.

It makes sense. If your brain is deprived of good-quality nutrition, or if free radicals or damaging inflammatory cells are circulating within the brain’s enclosed space, further contributing to brain tissue injury, consequences are to be expected. What’s interesting is that for many years, the medical field did not fully acknowledge the connection between mood and food.

Today, fortunately, the burgeoning field of nutritional psychiatry is finding there are many consequences and correlations between not only what you eat, how you feel, and how you ultimately behave, but also the kinds of bacteria that live in your gut.

How the foods you eat affect your mental health

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep and appetite, mediate moods, and inhibit pain. Since about 95% of your serotonin is produced in your gastrointestinal tract, and your gastrointestinal tract is lined with a hundred million nerve cells, or neurons, it makes sense that the inner workings of your digestive system don’t just help you digest food, but also guide your emotions. What’s more, the function of these neurons — and the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin — is highly influenced by the billions of "good" bacteria that make up your intestinal microbiome. These bacteria play an essential role in your health. They protect the lining of your intestines and ensure they provide a strong barrier against toxins and "bad" bacteria; they limit inflammation; they improve how well you absorb nutrients from your food; and they activate neural pathways that travel directly between the gut and the brain.

Studies have compared "traditional" diets, like the Mediterranean diet and the traditional Japanese diet, to a typical "Western" diet and have shown that the risk of depression is 25% to 35% lower in those who eat a traditional diet. Scientists account for this difference because these traditional diets tend to be high in vegetables, fruits, unprocessed grains, and fish and seafood, and to contain only modest amounts of lean meats and dairy. They are also void of processed and refined foods and sugars, which are staples of the "Western" dietary pattern. In addition, many of these unprocessed foods are fermented, and therefore act as natural probiotics.

This may sound implausible to you, but the notion that good bacteria not only influence what your gut digests and absorbs, but that they also affect the degree of inflammation throughout your body, as well as your mood and energy level, is gaining traction among researchers.

Nutritional psychiatry: What does it mean for you?

Start paying attention to how eating different foods makes you feel — not just in the moment, but the next day. Try eating a "clean" diet for two to three weeks — that means cutting out all processed foods and sugar. See how you feel. Then slowly introduce foods back into your diet, one by one, and see how you feel.

When some people "go clean," they cannot believe how much better they feel both physically and emotionally, and how much worse they then feel when they reintroduce the foods that are known to enhance inflammation.

via Dr. Eva Selhub, Harvard Health

03/29/2023

False memories are one of the reasons I don’t focus on recalling traumatic memories with clients. I focus on nervous system regulation. Trauma is stored in the body, not in the brain. In fact, researchers have noted that a trauma is stored in somatic memory and expressed as changes in the biological stress response.

03/28/2023

I first learned about the deep emotional connection between the food we eat and our emotional well-being from Dr. Llaila Afrika in 2007. It changed my relationship to food & myself.

03/28/2023

I can hardly believe the picture on the left was me a few years back.

On the 15th of this month, It will officially be 2 1/2 years since starting the "raw" journey. 💖🌟🍊🍎

Wow, what a journey of transformation of body, mind and soul. 🧠 ☮️

I have overcome so many diseases and disorders. 🙂

I was so near death, you see. Here's my symptoms then...

Muscle tightness in neck, head and shoulders, so much so that my head was drawn to the side and I could not hold it straight or turn one way or another.

Scary large growth (tumor) on my thyroid.

Debilitating Fatigue - could hardly walk from one side of the house to the other.

Flesh eating MRSA for 5+ years on several places on different parts of my body - a constant fear my ears and other body parts would be completely eaten away.

C-diff intestinal infection that required many trips to the ER. I had to be flown to Florida 4+ times to have a procedure to replenish the good bacteria in my colon in order to stay alive. This infection kills 50% of the people who have it each year.

Horrible brain fog, inability to make decisions, think clearly.

Sometimes I hardly knew who I was or where I was.

Hypothyroidism.

Anxiety was through the roof with an overwhelming sense that I was going to die at any time.

I think I had the worse parasite infection on the face of the earth.

Pounding heart 24/7.

I could hear my heartbeat in right ear constantly.

Eyes blurring, painful, twitching, extreme dryness.

Pulsating and flashing in eyes.

Pain and heaviness in lungs.

Scabies infestation.

Rib cage pain.

Depression.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Stagnant lymph system - tests constantly coming back with reports of heavy metals, high chemical, pesticide load, mold toxicity, mycotoxins, etc.

Kidneys not filtering - edema in legs. (MD in the ER told me this was normal)

I was sad and depressed and cried every day. Now, I can't imagine feeling like that.

Thoughts consumed with concern over whether I would get better.

Terrified to be alone.

Constant rashes and hives.

Candida.

Low blood pressure.

Always cold, often had chills.

Daily intestinal pain.

BUT TODAY... NOT ANYMORE!

Almost every one of these symptoms are gone.

How have I done it⁉️

🍎 Eating Mostly Fruit.

🍎 Drinking a lot of Fruit Juice - I have done several juice fasts, including a 50 day fast that I just finished a month ago.

🍎 Water and Dry Fasting.

🍎 Meditation.

🍎 Changing My Thoughts and Emotions.

🍎 Cleaning out the Intestines.

I have also done liver flushes, parasite cleanses, herbs, sauna treatments, etc. It all ads up to creating wellness over time.

But the transformation has been more than I ever expected. I not only feel better than I have in years, but I am getting younger instead of older through my looks, vitality, feelings and energy level.

Juice Fasting/Feasting has been integral to my success.

I vowed to myself and God when I was horribly sick that I would help others if I ever got well.

So, I started my page, created my raw recipe book, created a course to guide others to do what I've done and now I am hosting a 5 Day Juice Challenge.

I've found there are so many who need a little help to get them started, so I believe this juice challenge will be the help they need to propel them into deeper detox.

I'm here for you if you are ready to take your health transformation to a higher level.

Feel free to check out my upcoming juice challenge starting on January 11th.

You can do this!!

🎖https://book.rejuvenateraw.com/sales-page1609248142622...

Much love, 🥰

Via Kim Whitaker