Your body’s immune system has several defensive ploys to attack and destroy unwelcome and potentially harmful microscopic invaders.
The first defense is the skin and lining of organs that connect with the outside. These contain chemicals that break down unwelcome organisms.
If an organism somehow sneaks past the skin barrier, your immune system then mobilizes a host of other defenses.
Some cells surround the organisms while other cells, usually white blood cells called neutrophils, leave the blood vessel and enter the site of injury or infection.
Now, other bacteria-eating cells called macrophages, travel to the injured site.
They extend tentacle-like arms that reach out and snare the invading organism. The macrophage then destroys the microbe with powerful chemicals or swallows it whole.
Macrophages, neutrophils, and skin, along with other immune components such as antibodies, provide a multi-faceted defense against infection.
In hearing, sound waves pass from the outer ear into the auditory canal. They strike the eardrum, making it vibrate.
These vibrations travel to the middle ear, setting into motion three tiny bones: the hammer, anvil, and stirrup.
The vibrations continue through the cochlea and deep into the inner ear, which contain a fluid reservoir.
As fluid ripples across membranes, it stirs tiny hairs connected to nerve endings. The stimulated nerve endings carry impulses into the brain where they are interpreted as sound.
Also located in the inner ear is the equilibrium, or balance center. The center sends continuous messages about the body’s position to the brain. This information helps us maintain balance.
Many of the body’s most basic functions are regulated by the endocrine system—eight different glands located throughout the body.
The endocrine system constantly and quietly does its work—secreting liquid chemical messengers called hormones. These chemicals manage muscle growth and digestion, as well as energy, reproduction, and more.
Here in the pancreas, a hormone called insulin is produced and secreted into the blood. When levels of blood glucose —or sugar— become too high, the pancreas increases production of insulin.
Chemicals in the insulin cause body cells to open up, allowing more glucose from the blood to enter cells—stabilizing the amount of glucose in the blood and maintaining adequate energy in the cells.
This is just one example of how the endocrine system regulates a number of important body functions.
Whatever your goal may be… losing weight, toning and building muscle… The simple fact every single Veteran Training Coach or Instructor in the Norwell Area will tell you is that you need to eat to burn body fat.
The first nutritional demand of your body is energy. Without adequate energy, your body will convert muscle protein into energy to feed your brain, nervous system and red blood cells.
These particular tissues do not possess the metabolic machinery to burn fat. They only burn carbohydrates. When your intake of carbohydrate falls below these tissues demand, the body begins to convert tissue protein into carbohydrate to meet their need. The net result is a loss of muscle tissue.
Yes, the scale may say you have lost “weight”, but you have lost the very tissue that burns fat. Muscle tissue burns 70% of the fat in your body; so losing muscle sacrifices your ability to burn body fat. Building frustration and never accomplishing the simplest of goals.
In fact, the “weight” you lose on a diet can represent up to 10 to 20% of those pounds in muscle loss. This poor dieter will not only regain this weight, but then some. All because they have compromised their ability to burn body fat.
Listen to your Veteran Training Personal Trainer, Athletic Trainer or Coach no matter how strange it may sound…. if you want to lose weight quickly eat healthy and stay on track with your meal plan.
