Loving a Broken Body

Source: Shutterstock Image purchased by UCLA CNS for Dr. Gordon

I have lost 290 pounds in the last six months, which I have been documenting on Facebook with videos and pictures. Hundreds of people have subsequently asked, "What miracle diet are you on?" I am not dieting. I removed 290 pounds of rage, fear, insecurity, and self-doubt that came from the negative social messages of growing up as a black, poor, badly abused child; messages my subconscious mind stored and plays like an endless iTunes playlist.

Western Medicine and old-school biology
Jointly, the double helix and Newtonian physics created the central dogma of Western Medicine. The double helix says that information flows from DNA to RNA to protein; the body is protein, so genetics control us. Newtonian physics says the world is a machine made of parts, to understand it, take it apart, study the pieces, change them and the operational dynamics and we can change bodily function, which is what pharmaceutical drugs do. ^[1]

Quantum Physics and the New Biology

Source: Shutterstock Image purchased by UCLA CNS for Dr. Gordon

Quantum physics says the Universe is full of various invisible force fields that control biology, not the mechanical parts. For example, if you put metal shavings near a magnet, you see the particles move but not the magnetic field causing it.

“The field is the sole governing agency of the particle in the Universe.” –Albert Einstein

To comprehend what’s happening to the iron filings you must understand the magnetic field. Our cells are like the iron filings, so to understand our body, we must also understand the invisible energy fields that influence our body via our mind. Some call this energy force the matrix or divine matrix; others call it God. Thus, quantum physics considers the spiritual aspect of our being that Newtonian physics ignored and Western Medicine disregards, although physicians know about the placebo effect. (People think they’re getting a drug, but instead get a sugar tablet, yet still experience the effect of the drug, i.e., the mind changes the health response.) The placebo effect means positive thoughts can generate healing.^[2] So what about the nocebo effect, i.e., negative thoughts creating negative health consequences, like cancer, obesity, and diabetes? Clinical Psychologists say 70 percent of our thoughts are negative — could this explain global pandemics, like obesity? ^[1]

The Triune Mind

Human thought is an invisible energy field that shapes biology, but it’s not that simple. The three parts of the mind are separate but work as a team: The conscious mind (CM), the unconscious mind (UM), and the subconscious mind (SM). The thinking CM is creative and attached to our self-image and desires. The SM is just an iTunes play list that continuously adds recordings of our every experience. The UM is merely the help — it does whatever the boss at the moment, the SM or CM, tells it to do. It’s where the bodily processes that we once thought of as involuntary functions, like the heartbeat, respiration, and digestion occur. It is also where we store our habits and evolutionary mandates.

Source: Shutterstock Image purchased by UCLA CNS for Dr. Gordon

The functional dynamics of the triune mind works like this: The SM is a much more powerful information processor than the CM is, so the SM runs our biology 95 percent of the time. Even though the CM is tiny, it can run any aspect of biology, e.g. it can slow down the heart beat or body temperature. The reason a mother can lift a car off of her child is that the CM has seized biology, but the SM is in charge 95 percent of the time.^[1] That is problematic because the SM is an iTunes playlist created by the sum of our experiences, with the people and environmental events. The brain’s mirror neurons put most of the songs on the SM’s playlist. Having external influences create your SM's playlist is problematic because externals do not know what music moves you or what lyrics you need to hear. Especially considering the subconscious mind takes over when the conscious mind is distracted, which, again, is 95 percent of the time. ^[1]

When our conscious wants are not met, we blame people, places, and things, because our CM had positive intentions. However, while the CM was thinking positive thoughts, we were sabotaging our lives with behaviors driven by negative messages on the SM’s playlist. So we believe we have no control over our lives. As soon as we purchase that myth, we become victims, but not because we are victimized by the people or events we blame, but because our SM’s playlist was playing and we volunteered based on the negative messages it has recorded.

Then we say, I shouldn’t have done that. Who are we addressing — surely not our subconscious mind or its playlist? We can talk to an iTunes playlist, or iPod until Steve Jobs reincarnates and turns the Vatican into an Apple Store, but an iTunes playlist won’t change until we physically change it.

How does that work? I did not want to weigh over a 1000 pounds. I was thinking positively, but the CM's positive thinking cannot change one's life because the SM’ is a much larger and better information processor that keeps playing the playlist containing the negative tunes of experience and environment. Action must accompany positive thinking.

Changing the playlist
There are several ways to do this; Dr. Bruce Lipton, a pioneer in stem cell research at Stanford, and the biology of belief is the expert and best resource for this. I can only speak to the techniques I have used.

Hypnosis. Colleagues at the Brain Research Institute at UCLA recommended Maureen Pisani - Chopra Center, La Jolla, CA. Maureen explained that the SM is like the Smithsonian, and hypnotherapy rearranges the exhibits we have collected. It moves our negative experiences to the back, the positive to the front, and creates new positive exhibits to fill the space where the negative ones once resided. She tailors my hypnosis sessions to my needs, then makes tapes that I listen to as I fall asleep, subliminally change the playlist in my SM.

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Anecdotally: I was in the ER with atrial fibrillation and a heart rate of 260 that would not respond to medicine. A colleague called Maureen, and she brought my heart rate down to 60 and returned it to sinus rhythm with hypnosis, over the phone!

The SM learns through repetition, e.g. learning the alphabet, or forming habits. ^[1] So you can change the SM with repetition.

Source: Shutterstock Image purchased by UCLA CNS for Dr. Gordon

However, you cannot instantly stop a runaway train; I didn’t reach 1000 pounds in a day. Kicking Western Medicine to the curb would be insane and hasten an ugly death. So, I augment allopathic strategies. I continued taking my diabetes medications to avoid the dangers of diabetes. But, I am also decreasing my insulin resistance by eating fewer carbs, more fiber rich foods, and wild fish. I do avoid processed foods. I became a better cook so I can eat healthy food that also tastes good. I removed sugar and flour from my diet because they are dangerous addictive drugs, not food. I eat fermented foods that promote healthy gut bacteria because gut microbes can manufacture any hormone or neurotransmitter that humans produce.^[3]

I began Intermittent Fasting because it lowers blood glucose levels, decreases insulin production and insulin resistance; it generates human growth hormone stimulates vital cellular repairs, affects gene expression and reduces oxidative stress and inflammation.^[3]

I found physical activities that I enjoy. Exercise releases endorphins, which feels good and lowers cortisol, serum glucose, and insulin levels, which decreases weight. It also alters the brain's reward circuitry, affecting habit formation in the unconscious mind, as well as decreases addictive behaviors and increases metabolism.^[3]

Source: Shutterstock Image purchased by UCLA CNS for Dr. Gordon

I developed good sleep hygiene. Sleep deprivation increases cortisol, insulin, and insulin resistance, which causes weight gain, and compromises vital physiological repairs while increasing the reward value of unhealthy food in the nucleus accumbens that impact habit formation.^[3]

If you don’t reduce stress, you won’t reduce cortisol, and you won’t lose weight^{. [3]} The sad tunes dominating my SM’s playlist were depressing. One of my physicians taught me an Emotional Freedom Technique called Tapping. Tapping works well for me, especially if I combine it with essential oils.

The Big Question

Source: Shutterstock Image purchased by UCLA CNSR for Dr. Gordon

If you found a sick child freezing in the snow, would the child’s illness, disappoint you, embarrass or anger you? Would you berate the child for being weak, lost, and freezing? And if the child were the wrong color, impoverished, unconfident, battered and abused, would you say, this is your circus, your monkeys, and walk away? Or would you pick the child up, cover him or her with your coat, try and explain that the boogie men were just shadows on snow. A broken body, dancing to the subconscious mind’s sad playlist is just a sick child, freezing to death in the snow. I chose to pick mine up, rather than walk on by or beat it up. I opted to reverse the nocebo effect that buried me beneath a 1000-pounds by choosing myself over social assigns. I chose to love my body now, as it is, not when I reach goal weight. I chose love; I chose light, I chose family, community, and country. I chose to accept life and people, as they are — cacophonous playlists and all — on the universe’s terms, not mine. I chose quantum physics, neuroscience and the invisible forces influencing the mind that spiritual people call God. And that, my friends, is my miracle diet. Try it or don't try it, but always... Remain Fabulous and Phenomenal!

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Introducing MORE: Morbid Obesity Rescue Effort - each-one-reach-one

Source: Graphic created by Dr. Gordon in Photoshop

^{Introducing MOR: Morbid Obesity Rescue - each-one-reach-one MOR is my way of paying it forward... so to my first installment - Estabano. Change is going to come, my brother! You will be on stage rocking that great guitar again. I know, these past three years of being non-ambulatory and in a hospital have been brutal; it's been a long, long, time coming; but MOR is the house; we got this.}

^{I thank Dr. Caroline Fife, Chief Medical Officer, Inttellicure, Houston, Texas for recognizing something in me that I did not see. I am grateful to Dr. James Park, Chief of Staff, Universty Washington Valley Medical Center - Renton, Washington, and his colleagues. It is an honor, education, and a pleasure to serve in an advisory capacity on your care team as you make this a kinder, more salubrious world. Most of all - Thank you, Estabano.}