taking my own advice

After all the madness in December, i concentrated on healing, rest, and reestablishing good nutrient repletion for the first almost-three weeks of 2016.  Then, on Wednesday -- after a special-event dinner at a charming local restaurant -- i was ready.  I'm back on the VLC wagon, and it feels GOOD.  :-)

Choosing arbitrary times to start our self-improvement programs can be self-defeating.  If the body doesn't indicate that THIS IS IT, all by itself, chances are that it is NOT ready.  It will refuse to cooperate and even might fight back.  No fun!  Swimming with the tide gets you where you want to be a lot more efficiently and with less stress.

I woke up early this morning and i was actually hungry.  That's not common with me.  I didn't rush downstairs to get some sustenance, though -- i was actually ENJOYING the sensation.  I remembered an old blog-post at gnolls.org, and went back to refresh my memory of its contents.

It's entitled "I Am a Ghrelin Addict," and it confirmed my positive memory of it.  J. Stanton writes:

Ghrelin is a hunger hormone. ... Yet ghrelin is so much more than hunger.

Ghrelin is neurotrophic. It enhances learning and memory — in fact, it is “essential for cognitive adaptation to changing environments and the process of learning.”
Ghrelin stimulates the secretion of growth hormone.
Ghrelin increases cardiac output.
Ghrelin increases the concentration of dopamine in the substantia nigra, the brain’s center of reward and addiction.
That is why ghrelin is a rush.

Part of why fasting feels good to me is that i'm sensitive to histamine/tyramine/salicylate, and no food going in means less of those disrupters of well-being.  When i'm hungry, i'm also low-insulin and low-BLOAT.  But another good part is definitely about the ghrelin.

From my own experience as well as in that article, i find it important not to try to ride THAT wave too long -- if i go too long without food under these conditions, the ghrelin high crashes into an energy low.  We have excellent bodily resources for providing emergency fuel, especially if we're fat-adapted, but tapping into them sometimes raises stress.  It's the same with exercise -- if it feels good, do it, but doing it when it does NOT feel good is counterproductive ... for me, at least.

Fasting after a carb-heavy day, or allowing myself to get good and hungry before eating acts as a sort of "reset."  When i finally decide to eat something, i do so with much more satisfaction.  On our December trip, at mealtimes, i would actually think to myself "jeez, do i HAVE to eat AGAIN?"  Where's the pleasure in that?  Eating IS a pleasure, or should be.  Alternating the ghrelin high with satisfying it properly is a joy that too few people in this country probably appreciate.