The Ups and Downs of Weight

Excessive weight gain or loss signals some alteration in your physiology. Observe, too, if you are not gaining weight or are losing it too rapidly. If you are, there is some underlying problem because your body's homeostasis should maintain a more or less constant weight, and there should be no need to go on a diet to lose weight. Look for a problem. Consider whether there may be some connection between your appetite (and weight) and your lifestyle, blood type, and gene pool. Has the nature of your work changed recently to a more sedentary one, thus reducing your need for calories? These may offer clues.

Losing weight starts with a diet pyramid, of which the base is water. Water is the easiest to lose because we are built of 75% water, and you lose water first. Sweating and evaporation makes the body lose water, which come back, as it does to dry lichen during rehydration. Don't fool yourself!

During fad dieting the next nutrient after water that we get rid of is carbohydrate (sugar) deposited as glycogen which, like starch, is a glucose polymer. Glucose itself cannot be retained as a storage material in the cells because it would absorb a lot of water, being responsible for osmotic pressure in the cytoplasm. The more glucose, the more water and the cell would burst. But we can keep glucose handy, so to speak, (because it is a handy source of energy for rapid use and especially for the working brain) by forming some molecules of glycogen for 20 minutes work, whether it is to escape from a predator crucial for our remote ancestors, hard work to get food or just moving rapidly from one place to another.

After a 20-minute workout, voluntarily or involuntarily, we start to get energy from the protein of our muscle cells so at the beginning dieting people lose muscle tissue and become weaker, and feel sluggish and out of energy. Protein metabolism to yield energy leaves behind its nitrogen which, when oxidized, produces the strongest and worst free radicals. NO and N02. These are eventually converted to uric acid, which requires a lot of detoxification. This is where glutathione is very useful as a scavenger of toxins and free radicals.