learning to be physically stronger
After thinking about it for more than three years, I’ve finally signed up for personal training so I can learn how to strength-train. We start to have muscle loss as we age:…
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should we follow our natural inclinations?
why I prick my fingers 5x a day
Some time in 2018 I bought a glucose meter. I cannot remember exactly why – I was probably worried I was diabetic because I was frequently getting serious food comas after eating….
the invisible threshold
I wanted to write on sunday, but I was having my monthly migraine, so only today I seem to be slowly recovering. I still feel like shit though. This month’s menstrual cycle…
searching for an enough in health
I got sick again this week, so just paying attention to my cardiac data didn’t work. But the data did serve as data points to an ongoing mystery, and at the very…
making sense of health
I would like to lose the weight I feel whenever I publish anything on the internet. There is an automatic self-consciousness, the idea that people would judge me. You would think that…
hippocampal shrinkage and memory loss
The scientific name for the disorder speaks volumes: hypercortisolism. Its symptoms are eerily similar to those of chronic stress: weight gain around the midsection; breaking down muscle tissue to produce unnecessary glucose and then fat; insulin resistance and possibly diabetes; panic attacks, anxiety, depression, and increased risk of heart disease. One of the many correlations Starkman has shown is that the extent of hippocampal shrinkage and memory loss is directly proportional to elevations in cortisol.
the action of cortisol amasses a surplus fuel supply
Cortisol takes over for epinephrine and signals the liver to make more glucose available in the bloodstream, while at the same time blocking insulin receptors at nonessential tissues and organs and shutting down certain intersections so the fuel flows only to areas important to fight-or-flight. The strategy is to make the body insulin-resistant so the brain has enough glucose. Cortisol also begins restocking the shelves, so to speak, replenishing energy stores depleted by the action of epinephrine. It converts protein into glycogen and begins the process of storing fat...If this process continues unabated, as in chronic stress, the action of cortisol amasses a surplus fuel supply around the abdomen in the form of belly fat.