Cold Climate and Weight Gain

Janu, how are you?

I’m fine thanks and yourself?

Good. How can I help you, sweetheart?

I haven’t quite finished the book, I’m almost finished, but one question I wanted to ask as far as the FAT programs and you were discussing about the cold and how the body goes to famine, but how do you explain the fact that if you were born in a Caribbean country, though?

I explain it by there’s just a lot of other things that go into the equation. I mean, there’s basically there’s maybe 14 things that could be activating your FAT programs and that’s just one of them. Obviously there’s a lot of overweight people in warm climates, so that’s just a very small part of it. For Connie, that was her particular issue. Other people might — like I talk about, might have sleep apnea or might not be able to digest their food properly, might be deficient in certain nutrients, might have had some sort of mental or emotional stress or even abuse like we talked about in the last episode where a couple of callers that came in, they had some sort of trauma as a kid. Whatever the stress is, it’s going to cause certain chemistry that activates your FAT programs or it could be medication.

So there could be numerous things. In the book, I list out all the different things that could be activating your FAT programs, but it’s basically just a chemical thing. If there’s a certain combination of chemical changes in your body, if your triglycerides go up, if your body becomes insulin resistant, if it becomes less sensitive to lepton, if your cortisol levels go up either in your bloodstream or in your fat cells or if pro-inflammatory cytokines go up, these are certain hormonal changes that take place as a result of stresses, either physical, mental, or emotional stresses in your body, if those things happen, it’s going to activate this ancient program that we have that causes our body to gain weight.

I agree, I agree. I think mine was mostly emotional trauma.

Well, there you go.

That’s what I think. What the book really did for me, it made me really think back of things that happened as a child growing up. Leaving the Caribbean, coming to America and back and forth and cultural differences and things that have happened. Especially regarding weight, and I think I also parents are always trying to put their children on diets so they can lose weight and I think, as a result of that, my thyroid — I guess my metabolism just got shot, was shot, and I think that’s what my problem is right now. It’s still emotional and thyroid and physical.

Well, the thyroid — believe it or not, the thyroid is related to all of it. As you mentioned, if you do go on diets a lot that’s going to slow down your metabolism, but that’s just part of the FAT programs. And so the emotional thing will affect your metabolism and your thyroid also. So it’s been a lifetime issue for you; is that right?

Yes, yes, and it really was everyone else’s problem. It wasn’t mine, and then now it’s become mine because of everyone’s problem, namely parents.

Yeah. Well, how old are you now?

I’m well into my 30s.

Have you gotten your thyroid checked?

Yes, yes.

Are you within the range –

The levels are fine, the levels are fine.

Kelly:

Did you go to a regular doctor?

I went to an endocrinologist.

Let me just ask you a question. When you say you know that you had the mental or the emotional trauma, was that from moving around? Is that from moving back and forth?

I think that yes. Especially my first time coming, going into a classroom. I remember — one thing I do remember, I remember going to a Girl Scout’s meeting and they were having food there and I remember I was upset and I wound up eating more sandwiches than I was supposed to, and I was like eight years old. And I remember it vividly and I don’t know — I think it’s possibly because I bonded with my aunt, then came back to the United States and bonded with my mom, but that initial bond was not with my biological mom but with her sister, and back and forth, and I think the cultural thing and I think you don’t realize how much it affects you until later on.

I think that’s a really — I just want to mention that’s a really common thing with people that I talk to, is that it all started when they moved from one country to another and the stress and the trauma trying to fit in to another culture. So at least you understand that these are issues that made you feel unsafe as a kid and that feeling of feeling unsafe caused certain chemistry in your body. And that chemistry — and your body was trying to protect you and it doesn’t know how to protect you from mental and emotional stress, but one of the things it will do for some people is activate their FAT programs if the chemistry that’s being caused by the stress is so similar to that of a famine. So that’s what’s happened with you, and so doing things like what I talked about earlier in this program, like getting into the SMART Mode and practicing visualizations that say, I am safe, I am safe, I am worthy and feeling every cell of your body saying I am safe, I belong, I’m worthy or whatever you feel that your issue is, will help you develop a feeling of safety and will really start —

I think that’s what I need, and that’s what I have been — I have started to do that and believe you me, after reading so much of your book, I really have been feeling less anxiety ridden. And I’ve really been implementing those thoughts and I find myself not half as anxiety ridden and looking for comfort foods.

Great. Are you listening to the CD?

No. I don’t even have the CD.

You can get the CD for free.

I have to get it.

You can get it for free on my website.

Okay. Then I’ll go back to the website.

Just go to the website, download the CD. Look at gabrielmethod.com, look where it says download the CD for free, it asks for a password, the password is heart. Download it for free; listen to it every night and possibly in the afternoons, also. If you’ve been able to go so far with feeling less anxiety already, it’s going to tremendously improve by listening to the CD. And then make sure you practice the visualization because it’s going to communicate to your body that you don’t need the weight.

Okay. I will do.

Keep in touch.

Thank you so very much. God bless you.

All right. Thank you Janu.