Why You Should Avoid Exercise (6 page)

1. With hyperventilation, each breath of air is held inside the lungs for much less time compared to normal breathing. As a result, less of the air is processed into carbon dioxide and oxygen.

2. With hyperventilation, the lining of the airways dries out, concentrating the contents of the cells in that area. This is called increased osmotic load. The airways cool rapidly because of evaporative heat loss. The dryer and cooler airways results in less of the air being processed into carbon dioxide and oxygen.

For these two reasons there is less carbon dioxide in the blood and this causes blood-vessels to constrict. As a consequence, the bloodstream feeds less carbon dioxide and less oxygen to the brain, to body cells, and to organs.

Slower and shallower breathing is best (this is how we breathe automatically) as this allows the body to fully process the air so as to give the body the required level of oxygen and carbon dioxide for optimum health and well-being. In fact, the less air that we breathe throughout life, the healthier we will be.

There is zero scientific evidence supporting the myth that deep breathing is beneficial, and hundreds of published studies have clearly shown that hyperventilation (or breathing more than the tiny medical norm) reduces oxygen supply to the brain, heart, liver, kidneys, and all other vital organs due to losses in CO2. In fact, being breathless (as for example when we exercise) is unnatural for humans - we have not evolved to breathe in this way, and the body (metaphorically) does not like it, hence the consequent health problems.

Unfortunately, many people believe in the benefits of deep breathing and typically say "Breathe deeply and relax, it will help you" or "Go out in the fresh air and breathe deeply." But nothing could be further from the truth - deep breathing harms the body in many ways by reducing the amount of oxygen and CO2 in the blood. And, when you exercise, you quickly force the body into deeper and quicker breathing and consequent bad health.

A Great Myth of Our Age:

It is commonly believed that exercise combats free radicals.

The myth goes like this: When you exercise you breathe in more air, and hence more oxygen reaches body cells. This in turn helps combat or reduce harmful free radicals.

The reality goes like this: When you exercise you breathe in more air, i.e. you hyperventilate. Many studies clearly show that hyperventilation reduces CO2 in the blood, which in turn constricts blood vessels. This in turn restricts blood flow, and this reduces the amount of oxygen that reaches body cells. As a result of reduced oxygen, the mitochondria inside body cells cannot function properly, and the result is an increase in free radicals. Exercise causes free radicals. This is how exercise ages the body before its time.

"
Cell Oxygen Levels are controlled by CO2 and breathing. Hyperventilation....causes CO2 deficiency, which leads to low cell-oxygen concentrations. Free radicals generation takes place due to cell hypoxia [low cell-oxygen concentrations]
". Source: www.normalbreathing.com.

Coming back to obesity, there are many studies showing a direct link between stress and surplus body-fat. Do a search on internet for "stress+obesity" and you will find many studies and articles linking stress and obesity. The point here is that exercise causes hyperventilation (becoming breathless), and this in turn profoundly stresses the body.

According to Wikipedia, stress causes many health problems, but "
small amounts of stress can be beneficial and even healthy because stress can inspire and motivate
". Health practitioners have struggled to define the difference between harmful stress and beneficial stress. In our daily lives we are all subjected to stress in varying degrees, such as the need to work or clean the house or prepare food or whatever. But when does so-called beneficial stress become harmful and what is the difference between the two?

The answer is simple: stress (from whichever source, physical or emotional) becomes harmful when it makes you breathless and/or sweaty. Please do read that last sentence again. Stress that does not make you breathless and/or sweaty is not harmful. The stress can be caused by physical exertion (such as exercise) or by mental/emotional exertion (such as missing deadlines at work). The harmful effects of stress (whether from physical or non-physical causes) are similar and boil down to hyperventilation and sweating.

Exercise causes almost immediate hyperventilation and the greater the exertion the greater the hyperventilation. It is well known to medical science that hyperventilation causes ill-health in many ways. Briefly, and as already mentioned, when you hyperventilate, the body loses carbon dioxide which in turn constricts blood vessels. This constriction restricts the supply of oxygen to all parts of the body. The lack of oxygen causes, among other things, oxidative stress to the body.

Oxidative stress "
is thought to be involved in the development of cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, atherosclerosis, heart failure, myocardial infarction, fragile X syndrome, Sickle Cell Disease, lichen planus, vitiligo, autism, and chronic fatigue syndrome
." [Source: Wikipedia, oxidative stress].

"
According to an article in the Journal of Royal Society of Medicine (Rosen et al, 1990), a group of British doctors from the Department of Cardiology in Charing Cross Hospital, London, tested 100 consecutive patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue disorder. Ninety-three patients had chronic hyperventilation. If the doctors had used a stricter definition of hyperventilation (less than 40 mm Hg CO2 in blood), probably all 100 patients would have been diagnosed with chronic hyperventilation.
" [Source: www.normalbreathing.com].

"
In 1931, Dr. Warburg won a Noble Prize for proving that cancer is caused by a lack of oxygen into the cells. Since then, many similar studies have been done which agree totally with this discovery. The simple answer is to supply the cells with oxygen to handle the starvation which is the real cause. Basically, the enzymes in the cell dies and can no longer produce energy with oxygen since it can no longer receive it. There are a few reasons why oxygen stops getting absorbed into the cells which include a lack of proper nutrients, toxins, lack of omega-3, poor quality air. The mitochondria in the cells are what produce energy. But when they are unable to receive oxygen into the cells, they rely on sugar fermentation. That eventually turns the cells cancerous; then these cancerous cells produce lactic acid which infects the surrounding cells with toxins and destroy them as well. This is the basis behind the spread of cancer in the body. Cells which are receiving 35 percent less oxygen will become cancerous and start creating energy using damaging sugar fermentation. These cancerous cells stop doing anything for the body or communicating to any other part of it; they just multiply
". Source: Lucille Femine, Cancer Caused by Oxygen Starvation? (October 15, 2013), www.guardianlv.com.

"
Regular exercise workouts age you faster. Exercise produces free radicals. In small quantities your body can rid itself of free radicals and prevent excess damage. However, when you do long, extended workouts free radical damage is out of control; you'll start aging faster than you can imagine. You don't want that
". Source: Steve and Becky Holman, professional fitness coaches and fitness magazine editors, www.steveholman.com.

So how exactly does hyperventilation cause obesity? The sequence of events is as follows:

1. Exercise makes you hyperventilate.

2. Hyperventilation causes fatigue. Regular exercise causes chronic fatigue.

3. Fatigue causes hunger, food cravings, and over-eating, and de-motivates you to follow a healthy, nutritious diet. The result is obesity.

4. Indirectly, hyperventilation also causes obesity through ill-health. Hyperventilation causes ill-health through oxidative body-cell damage and pre-mature aging, and this indirectly makes it much more difficult to lose weight or stay slim.

The digestive system is a sophisticated 'conveyor belt' more complicated than any modern chemical factory. It has its own 'brain' (the enteric nervous system), various organs, special chemical messengers for communication, and hundreds of digestive enzymes. When we are hungry, the whole digestive system gears up to accept and process food. Eating without real hunger (i.e. as a result of hyperventilation rather than as a result of genuine hunger) results in a biochemical stress for some organs and the whole system in general.

According to a recent survey (Americans and Overeating) over 60 percent of American women eat or have a snack when they feel stressed. When you eat as a result of stress it causes an additional requirement for digestive enzymes and the need to store new substances in the body. This in turn leads to hyperventilation, causing a shortness of breath after eating. Hence, the immediate effect of overeating is hyperventilation.

This in turn causes low CO2 content in alveoli and arterial blood leading to reduced body-oxygen levels. Hence, overeating promotes all kinds of chronic disease and health pathology, including obesity.

"
Over-breathing sets in train a host of physiological disturbances that range from respiratory problems such as asthma, through behavioural problems due to poor oxygen delivery to the brain, to serious health problems in later life such as hypertension, panic attacks, and sleep apnoea. Professor Konstantin Buteyko clearly demonstrated these matters from his research in Russia almost half a century ago, and a remarkable American artist published a book on this subject over a century ago titled Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life.
" Source: Michael Lingard, BSc DO BBEC, The Breath Connection, www.buteykokent.co.uk/blog/.

It used to be thought that when you exercise and hence hyperventilate, this has the effect of increasing the respiratory rate so as to match the increased oxygen demand and increased carbon dioxide production. But many studies show this not to be so since it has been shown conclusively that hyperventilation restricts blood circulation and hence restricts oxygen supply to all parts of the body.

Hyperventilation creates a vicious circle: it makes you fatigued and hungry leading to over-eating. And over-eating in turn makes you hyperventilate. It is well known that fat people hyperventilate and/or mouth breath much more often than slim people. And as mentioned when you overeat, the stress on your digestive system makes you hyperventilate.

Worse still, regular exercise causes chronic hidden hyperventilation (CHHV). CHHV has been described as a hidden 21st century health-plague. What happens is that regular exercise leads to a regular loss of carbon dioxide. Receptors in the brain then begin to accept this lowered carbon dioxide level as the norm and the individual’s breathing is then controlled to maintain such a lowered level. This can become a serious chronic problem if there are repeated similar incidences such as regular exercise.

Note: the combination of sweating (which causes malnutrition and hence obesity) plus hyperventilation (which causes fatigue and over-eating to replace lost energy) is devastating. This combination makes exercise a major cause of obesity.

To summarize, hyperventilation caused by exercise promotes obesity in four ways:

1. Hyperventilation causes fatigue which in turn causes hunger and over-eating.

2. Hyperventilation causes the body to store more fat than otherwise from the food that you eat as a result of digesting food when you are in a state of stress.

3. Hyperventilation causes an increase in blood glucose as a result of oxidative stress (the body switches into a 'fight-or-flight' response and cortisol goes up).

4. Hyperventilation causes oxygen starvation to the body. This promotes disease, poor nutrition, and consequent obesity.

It is widely believed that
you can detoxify (i.e. remove toxins) from the body through appropriate diet, fasting or exercise. In fact this is not so. You cannot detoxify (i.e. remove toxins) from the body through any kind of diet, fasting or exercise regime.

Let's start by looking at why sweaty exercise does nothing to detoxify the body and exactly why such exercise makes you fat.

The myth that sweat helps detoxify the body has arisen because it used to be thought that toxic substances that 'build up' in the body can be excreted through sweat (or be 'forced' out of the body by drinking water and not eating). But modern science has proved this to be wrong as evidenced by all the recent research on this subject. Here are a few examples of such research: