YOUR BODY IS TRAINABLE

Among the biggest lies we’ve been taught is that our bodies are in control and we simply obey them. That genes dictate what we are going through.

The truth is the opposite. Your body is always learning. What you repeat, your body remembers. What you practice, your body perfects. How is this a genes problem?

1. Hunger is more of a learned signal than an empty Stomach.

Many of us interpret hunger as, “My body needs food.” This is not always true.

Most of the time, it simply means, “It’s the time you’ve taught me to eat.” So, it’s a reminder of your teachings.

Have you noticed that if you normally eat lunch at 1:00 pm, you’ll feel hungry around that time every day, even if you had “serious” breakfast?

But if you’re busy, traveling, or fasting, that hunger often disappears after 20–30 minutes. Why? It’s because hunger comes in waves. It is controlled by hormones such as ghrelin, but these hormones are released according to patterns your body has learned.

This is why intermittent fasting becomes easier after a few days. Your body stops expecting food every few hours.

The challenge is, you cannot understand this until the day you try it. You have to go through it to experience it.

2. Your gut learns through conditioning.

Ivan Pavlov demonstrated something remarkable. He rang a bell every time he fed his dogs.

Eventually, the dogs began producing saliva simply by hearing the bell, even when no food was present.

This is what yielded something called classical conditioning.

Humans do exactly the same thing. They go for lunch and eat not because they are hungry but just because it’s lunch break and others are headed for it.

They walk into a cinema and suddenly you “need” popcorn.

They drive past their favorite restaurant and their mouth waters instantly, or they drop by a fuel station to fuel the car and they end up buying snacks.

Many see an advert for pizza and boom! They are hungry.

Did your stomach suddenly become empty at the sight of a billboard on a highway?

Your brain has trained your digestive system to expect food whenever it sees certain cues. The gut then releases gastric juices in readiness for the meal and digestion. Trust me, you will hop into the next KFC or PIZZA INN and grab that pizza.

The good news is, you can reverse that conditioning.

The bad news is, it takes discipline to get their. This is where most people draw the line.

Instead of eating every time you see food, train your body to respond only when it’s actually meal time. This is the real struggle.

Over time, your stomach will produce digestive juices when you choose to eat not every time food passes in front of your eyes.

Fasting, rests your dopamine, taste buds, gut reflexes and brain habits.

You don’t need a 48 hour fast. You need consistent 8 hour gaps between meals.

But, you cannot be consistent with fasting if you are still eating inflammatory and addictive foods.

You must start from a center of dropping what destroys you then now uphold what builds you.

3. You can train your bowels.

Some people can only pass stool after taking tea, others can’t go unless they smoke a cigarette, others need coffee, others wait until evening.

None of these are natural requirements. They are learned habits.

Your bowel can actually be trained to empty at a particular time every day. One of the best times is in the morning after waking up.

Consistency trains your colon.

Even posture matters. The natural position for emptying the bowels is a squat, not the standard sitting position.

Squatting straightens the rectum and makes bowel movements easier.

This concept is explained well by Julia Enders in her book The Gut. Buy and read it.

4. You can train your taste buds.

Children are not born addicted to sugar or food, they are introduced to it.

A child who grows up drinking soda, eating sweets, biscuits and processed snacks develops cravings because the brain has been conditioned to expect them.

The same child, if raised on whole foods, develops a completely different relationship with food.

Taste is largely trained. Which means, parents transfer Thier coping habits to children. They think their children are small adults. They force them to eat every time and yet all they are pushing to them is sugar addictions.

Later, they wonder why these children are a mess and with all these weird conditions. I have seen parents who use sugary foods to lure children into behaving in a certain way. SAD!

Anyway, when people stop sugar for a month, they later find soda unbearably sweet. The taste buds have adapted.

Your enemy is not sugar, it’s your habits. Sugar doesn’t force you to eat it, you are the one who picks it.

Start ignoring it from the supermarket shelves.

5. You can train your metabolism.

Many people believe they have a “slow metabolism.” They defend obesity using this phrase.

They start searching for solutions in supplements and procedures. The truth is they simply have a body that has been trained to rely on constant feeding.

When you introduce fasting, your body initially complains, then it adapts.

It becomes better at switching between burning glucose and burning stored fat. This is called metabolic flexibility.

When you get to a metabolically flexible state, you’ve won the battle.

Either way, you have to FAST. You cannot run for ever. It will catch up.

6. You can train your sleep.

If you sleep at 1 a.m. every night, your body eventually believes that it is bedtime.

Start sleeping consistently at 9 or 10 p.m., and after a few weeks you will naturally become sleepy around that time.

The body loves rhythm.

Go to bed at specific times even if you don’t have sleep. Leave your phone and laptop aside. Get rid of that T.V in the bedroom.

Make a silent prayer to overcome those thoughts.

You can supplement with magnesium glycinate supplements initially and once you get your sleep back, you wean off.

However, hormones that regulate sleep come from the gut. You have to go an extra mile to fix it.

The lesson for the above posts is simple;

Your body is not stubborn, it is obedient.

It obeys whatever you repeatedly teach it.

If you teach it sugar, it craves sugar.

If you teach it fasting, it becomes comfortable with fasting.

If you teach it movement, it enjoys movement. So is comfort.

If you teach it discipline, discipline becomes your lifestyle.

Don’t say, “My body can’t.” Ask instead,

“What have I trained my body to do?”

Because whatever the body has learned, it can also unlearn.

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