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If you have problems gaining weight or if you’re looking for a way to gain weight faster, keep reading. In fact it is very simple and logical to do so. All the processes I’m about to explain have been very well documented. This is not a diet or a supplement, it is something you already posses the power over right now – your brain.

I’m going to discuss:

1. The two branches of your nervous system, their functions and how you can determine which one is dominant in you.
2. How creating an imbalance prevents you from getting the results you want.
3. How you can regain balance to produce the results you desire.

A quick description of the Automatic Nervous System(ANS):

The model of ANS used in clinics originated from Francis M. Pottenger, M.D, 1919. The ANS is the master controller of your metabolism; it controls almost all metabolic processes. The ANS is divided into two divisions on the basis of anatomic and physiological grounds. Nerves from both divisions connect the brain (Hypothalamus) to the organs and glands of the body.

The ANS is like an information transport system with the brain as its switchboard operator. The two divisions, the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system work together to regulate all the activities in the body. To name a few: heart beat, fight or flight, blood pressure, digestion, elimination, repair and rebuilding and much more. In this article, we are interested in the repair and rebuilding activities.

The difference between Parasympathetic and Sympathetic influence is different from person to person. People are more or less influenced by one of these. I encourage you to search the web for a more in depth description of these influences to see where you fit.

Parasympathetic (rest and digest branch): Digestion, Elimination (detoxification), repairing, rebuilding, anabolic processes. People with Parasympathetic dominance tend to be wider build, procrastinate and have excessive appetite and lethargy.

Sympathetic (survival branch): fight or flight response, motivation, stress, catabolic processes. People with Sympathetic dominance tend to be tall, thin, highly motivated, have a low appetite, and excellent concentration.

The key is to be highly motivated and have excellent concentration while training (sympathetic dominant) and then be relaxed and calm in the restitution period (parasympathetic dominant).

Since the parasympathetic branch is the one that builds and repairs our body, along with controlling our anabolic processes, we want that branch to be most active when wanting to gain weight.

Now what you probably don’t know, is that most people in our stressed and modern world are in a constant condition called Autonomic Disregulation where our sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are opposite of what they should be. They are literally jacked out of direction, disturbing every metabolic process including our ability to be anabolic. This is where your mind comes in the picture.

You are, in fact, in charge of whether you want to be disregulated, or if you want to be regulated. Regulated is where your body works at 100% efficiency giving you high health and energy.

When you are stressed, your sympathetic nervous system gets activated and responds with a release of catabolic hormones which makes you alert. Cortisol is one of the many, but is the primary stress hormone. You don’t want to be sympathetic when gaining muscle.

When you elevate your levels of cortisol, your DHEA ratio to cortisol is disrupted. DHEA-S or DHEA-Sulfite is an anabolic hormone. It is a tissue repair hormone and is very closely related to growth hormone, testosterone and all the other anabolic hormones. So when your cortisol goes up, your DHEA goes down, damaging your health.

High levels of cortisol in the body have been related to highly rapid death of brain cells, and rapid ageing. As cortisol levels go up, it affects the memory and ability to learn .In other words, it disrupts the neurocognitivity which enables the neurons to communicate with one another. Look at the patterns of people who consume caffeinated drinks, sports drinks and coffee, etc.

Caffeine creates a sympathetic catabolic response in your nervous system, where glycogen (sugar) is released from your liver, along with cortisol (which makes you feel fresh and alert). Cortisol is a catabolic anti-inflammatory hormone that breaks down muscle tissue and feeds it to the body. Since the high release of glycogen in your body also triggers a release of insulin, your blood sugar crashes, and it crashes with you. It also affects the quality of your sleep and mood because it interferes with anabolic repair cycles.

If you’re waking up in the morning after 7 hours of sleep still tired (not feeling fresh) you are probably not entering deep sleep, because cortisol also disrupts your ability to enter the restorative phases of sleep – REM (Rapid eye movement) Cortisol disrupts your ability to repair your nervous system, and it disrupts your ability for the immune system to do its job. One of the most important changes you can make is to not consume any caffeinated substances after 3pm, because depending on the rate on which your liver is able to detoxify caffeine, it may disrupt your hormonal levels. This will interfere with your ability to sleep and therefore, interrupt your anabolic repair cycles such as DHEA-S. Most physical repair happens between 10pm – 2am – don’t workout and go to bed at 1am. Most psychogenic repair (nervous system repair) happens between 2am – 6am.

Another thing to consider is to avoid full spectrum lighting in the hours before sleep. Light stimulates the pineal gland which stimulates the RAS (Reticular Activation System) which “turns you on” again. As cortisol levels drops during the day, melatonin increases. Melatonin is the hormone that puts you to sleep and makes you tired. So when you come home with full spectrum lighting in your house, it jacks up your cortisol levels again, interfering with your sleep and repair cycles.

Consider what happens when you come home late at night and have coffee with your full spectrum lighting. Guess what… your body’s hormonal cycle is totally confused, ramped and ragged, you sleep poorly and you are not repairing. Next morning you feel awfully tired and like many people do, you drink another cup of coffee! Be smart. If you’re reading this it means you are smarter than most people. So live up to it. We need to be parasympathetic while we sleep. Bear in mind, that just because you are not a fan of caffeine, it does not mean that you’re safe. A high level of stress elevates cortisol just as effective as caffeine.

This discussion gets more technical so take a look at the picture here while reading:
http://www.freakygrowth.com/images/chem-process.gif

Your anabolic hormones are mainly produced from Pregnenolone. When your stress levels are high, your sleep is poor, your exercise habits are wrong and you consume the wrong metabolic stimulators (stuff that stimulate a sympathetic response), your body overproduces cortisol and cortisone. Since both your anabolic hormones and your stress hormones are produced from Pregnenolone, which production do you think the body takes away Pregnenolone from in order to compensate for the overproduction of catabolic hormones? It steals the Pregnenolone which should have been used to create testosterone, Androstenediol, Aldosterone among other anabolic hormones. This syndrome called “Pregnenolone steal” or “Cortisol Escape” will steal 60% of your Pregnenolone to compensate for the overproduction of cortisol (or stress in your life), which will mean 60% less anabolic hormones in your body. That’s a tough fact.

If you want to gain weight and gain muscle, you must be more parasympathetic than sympathetic. It is really that simple. So take some time of for yourself, relax, get to bed before 10pm, stay away from metabolic stimulators (such as caffeine), avoid full spectrum light before bed hours and give it all you’ve got when training.

Copyright 2008, Masszymes Inc. All rights reserved.

Thanksgiving to the New Year seems to be the Scariest time for most people who are Health Conscious. Most people view these 6 weeks as the inevitable time they Gain Weight and becomes the classic downfall to their program. I am here to tell you that you Can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too… it all comes back to Understanding the Body and Educating yourself on the proper adjustments before and after you have an “Off Plan” meal and realizing that a few additional days of extra enjoyment has a very minor effect on your waistline in the grand scheme of things.

Let me use my recent Thanksgiving Meal as an example. First, you should know that I love Thanksgiving and I love to eat! When dinner was served I ate everything on the table: Turkey, Stuffing, Bread, Butter, Broccoli Casserole, Pumpkin Bread, Vanilla Ice Cream and of course Whip Cream! Needless to say this was a meal that spiked my blood sugar levels and I enjoyed every moment…

In the past I would feel guilty before I ate the meal, while I ate it and after I was finished, thinking that I was sabotaging myself. I thought I needed to be 100% compliant 100% of the time. Even when I was knee deep in it, that mentality just never seemed realistic so I decided to focus on the body’s physiology, and uncover some secrets that would minimize storing fat from big meals. Now these Secrets should be used for all “Off Meals”, not just during Holiday time.

Let’s start with the most important secret, Eating Consistently before the Meal. Too many times people don’t eat anything all day in preparation for their feast of an “Off Meal”. This becomes a nightmare for your metabolism. What ends up happening is you burn lean tissue mass all day long while you are skipping meals. Your muscle mass is responsible for a fast metabolism, so if you burn muscle mass you slow down your metabolism causing you to store more body-fat. Additionally you will be eating with low blood sugar; this in turn maximizes your appetite. The end result is a very high blood sugar spike alongside an Increase in fat storage. This metabolic swing can be avoided simply: just eat balanced meals right up until the “Off Plan” Meal. Doing this will keep your body stable and burn energy more efficiently through the day. It will also prevent you from severely overeating at the “Off Plan” meal.

The second secret to surviving these kinds of meals is to eat a Meal of Just Protein and Fat 4 hours after the “Off Plan” Meal. Eating food causes the digestive system to work, and an active digestive system typically means an active metabolism. Most people after an “Off Plan” meal will not eat for the rest of the evening. This causes the body to flip right over into a storage state, something that carries over to the next day – and they’ll have no appetite upon waking. There is an easy solution to this. Even 4 hours after an “Off Meal” the body’s blood sugar may still be high, so by having a ½ Meal of just Protein and Fat (No Carbohydrates), you’ll allow stimulation of the digestive tract and will increase your body’s metabolic rate, helping digest your initial “Off Plan” meal. In this second meal, you want to avoid carbohydrates since your blood sugar is still high and carbohydrates are the biggest component in causing elevated blood sugar. You will notice that this second meal will cause your appetite to increase later in the evening and this way you’ll wake up the next morning hungry. These are very good signs that your body has used the extra energy available to it.

The last Secret is to accept that “Off Plan” Meals are good for you! There are 365 days in a year, if you are consistent 85% of the time you are doing Fantastic. “Off Plan” meals are a great way to indulge in your favorite foods, enjoy Social Gatherings, and most important give yourself a Vacation from your regimen. There are even studies showing that an “Off Plan” meal can be helpful in breaking through Plateaus, due to the way they tend to shake up the body’s metabolism.

There you have it, the Three Secrets to fully enjoying your Holiday meals as well as any Future “Off Plan” meals. It’s important to remember that the Key to Achieving your Permanent Nutrition and Fitness Goals is your day to day consistency. “Off Plan” meals, if used in moderation, are excellent for maintaining a realistic and balanced approach to your program. By embracing these ideas, you can now let go of the worry about Weight Gain during the Holidays. Implement these three secrets and you can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too!

You probably expect to gain a number of things when starting a home business. You may expect to gain freedom or perhaps you expect to gain wealth. It is not uncommon to expect gains from your home business endeavors. Unfortunately many people gain something they do not expect or want when starting a home business. A number of home business owners are shocked to discover that a home business can cause them to gain weight.

Grazing Behavior

When you work at home, your kitchen is like a workplace cafeteria open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you are not careful, you can find yourself running to the fridge or the cupboard for frequent snacks throughout the day.

Grazing behavior can be devastating to a person’s weight maintenance. Many people really do not realize how easy it is to rack up hundreds of extra calories every day just by grabbing a few handfuls of this and a couple of handfuls of that. Those calories quickly convert to extra pounds, and the home business owner is suddenly wondering where the extra weight has come from.

While a handful of chips here and a few M&Ms there may not seem like a big deal, when you add up the handfuls eaten throughout the day, throughout the week and throughout the year, you start to see the big picture – no pun intended.

Unhealthy Eating Habits

When you are serious about starting your home business, it is only natural for you to be extremely busy with home business activities. Because of this, many home business owners do not follow a healthy diet. Weeks and weeks of fast food, frozen dinners and quick-fix meals can really take a toll on your waistline and you definitely do not want to see what it is doing to your arteries and heart.

Glued to a Chair

If your home business involves hours upon hours of computer work and no time for anything else, you are not going to get the exercise you need and you are going to start packing on the pounds. Home business owners who do not make time for healthy activities and exercise almost always experience significant weight gain.

Think about the extra calories you actually burned just from working outside of the home. You had to walk from your home to your car and walk from your car to your workplace. Most people also walk to various locations throughout the day, whether it is to a meeting, someone’s office, the printer, etc. Then, at the end of the day you walked back to your car. All of that activity can add up to quite a few calories being burned. Once you start working at home, you are no longer burning those calories.

Avoiding Unhealthy Weight Changes

If you want to avoid the weight gain pit so many other home business owners have fallen in to, there are some steps you need to take.

First and foremost, make sure you eat right. That means eating three square meals a day with healthy snacks in between each meal. For those of you wondering, just because a potato chip is baked and not fried does not mean it qualifies as a healthy snack.

When your schedule becomes so busy you can barely keep your head straight, it may be tempting to throw in a frozen dinner, grab a burger and fries or order pizza every night. No matter how tempting it is, do not give in. For your body and mind to be performing at their best, you need nutritional meals rich in the nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants your body needs.

In addition to a proper diet, you also need to make sure you get the exercise your body requires. If you are stuck in front of the computer, get up every half hour or so to do some sit-ups, push-ups, or jumping jacks. Some home business owners even invest in treadmills and work out once or twice a day to keep their bodies active and in shape.

By taking measures to avoid significant weight changes, you will be able to stay in good shape and perhaps you may even find yourself getting into better shape than you were before you started your home business.