Metabolic-Based Depression?

A sad story about a man's brother and electroconvulsive therapy reminded me of why I've always struggled to respond to queries framed as; "Would you be slim if you could?" The short answer is that weight can't be separated from the state of your metabolic function and your body's use of energy.

Consider Stephen Mayers-the writer's brother. The article tells the story of how he developed a deep and intractable form of depression ten years before the end of his life. In the end his cause of death was a heart attack. Certain things leapt out, 

A life that had been little more than an extended stupor, enlivened only by the gobbling of stodge...

Insatiable appetite for carbohydrates-ready energy.

The article itself is defending the revival of ECT-electroconvulsive therapy, where electrodes deliver electric shocks to the brain to induce seizures. This supposedly can relieve the deepest of depressions, presumably by destroying certain functions of the brain,

The addiction to discomfort eating, which brought only self-hatred, was ousted by a renewed passion for cycling.

Something was wrong with his body's use of energy and a signal of this prompted feelings of self loathing, well done 'obesity' crusade.

As the writer and professor of clinical psychology Andrew Solomon has sagely noted, the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality.

For "vitality" we can read, flow as well as presence of energy. Once ECT broke through depression, the brother felt a restored urge to really stimulate his flow of energy via activity.

It's possible that heart trouble was the cause of what was perceived solely as his state of mind. It could also have been something else that eventually caused his heart to succumb, perhaps something about the workings of his digestive system.

How ECT works is not fully understood. The damage from these induced seizures seem to have the effect of separating certain functions in the brain associated with depressions' circular thinking, this undermines depression.

Our results show that ECT has lasting effects on the functional architecture of the brain. A comparison of pre- and posttreatment functional connectivity data in a group of nine patients revealed a significant cluster of voxels in and around the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortical region (Brodmann areas 44, 45, and 46), where the average global functional connectivity was considerably decreased after ECT treatment (P < 0.05, family-wise error-corrected). This decrease in functional connectivity was accompanied by a significant improvement (P < 0.001) in depressive symptoms;

[My emphasis] It's possible that it affects functioning in the gut, sort of reversing the effect of gastric mutilation.

One thing that has revealed to more people is the intimate connection between that area, the brain and the heart/circulatory system.

Not Cool With Misogyny

Regarding this TITP post entitled "For the record". It uses an acronym, "TERF". That stands for "trans excluding [or exclusionary] radical feminist". This is one for the dustbin. There's no valid excuse for the existence of this stupid term. What's so specifically noteworthy about the exclusion of trans people by radical feminists, as opposed to any other trans excluders/exclusionary personages of any type? Why are they the only people who merit a specific term?

What's the acronym for those who kill trans people because they are trans? Or are they of less import to the well being of trans people than radical feminists excluding trans people from...........what? 

Rather like people use the racism of white people in fat acceptance to legitimise their desire to turn weight into a caste system for any fat person. These of course give a free pass to the open racism of the 'obesity' cultists and use their same terms.

I'm taking the liberty of reproducing the post in full to illustrate the point;

Other mods may disagree with me, but as far as I’m concerned, TERFtransphobes can FUCK RIGHT OFF.
My WIFE is trans, you bigoted shitheads.
(If you don’t know what this means or is about, feel free to ignore this post.)
-MG

Yes, I agree. TERFtranphobes can fuck right off. I know your schtick. I’ve spent time in your subreddits, trying to understand how you want to deny the right of the people close to me to exist the way they understand themselves. I’ve listened to you cherry-pick and armchair psychologize and twist and deform any research that’s vague enough towards your purposes. At the end of the day you assume *everything* you have to prove. Yours is not a scientific crusade, it’s a plain old regular ideological crusade. The sooner you realize this, the better. But until then, fuck right off.
-ATL

“aninkyaffair replied to your post “For the record”
Are all the mods on board with this message? Because I’m not comfortable following or supporting if any of the mod team are even a little bit TERF transphobic sympathetic.”

Even though FatBodyPolitics hasn’t been very active on here I know for sure that she is not cool with TERF transphobes in any way, shape or form.
So yes, everyone at TITP believes that TERFtransphobes can fuck right off.
-ATL

I'ts fair to say nothing is lost except the misogyny.

Release the Hump

Discovered something the other day, especially for those given the useless orders to "lose weight" i.e. starve to deal with sleep apnoea/snoring.

I was doing a bit of [physical] stress release and later found to my surprise that I felt as if someone had opened my throat with a friendly crowbar. It actually stopped me from immediate sleep because I couldn't get over the feeling of having an open jaw and throat and the fresh feeling of air travelling freely as it should.

Can you guess what was the key point of release?

The hump.

Specifically, the dowager's hump.

That's the curve/bump many of us have at the base of our necks.

It seems allowing the release of tension in that area, along with gentle stretching - no force whatsoever and only go as far as that part will allow- opens  the throat and jaw.

The dowager's hump is said to be a product of holding your head too far forward. This leaves your head less than properly supported. This can increase the natural curve until it becomes more hump-like. Fatz can get padding over that area too, depending on tendency and size. Don't worry about that, you can improve your alignment just the same.

If you can manage to remember to keep your head over your chest lump, rather than hanging forward over it, that can make quite a difference to your overall energy. You'd be amazed at how draining that head-jutting forward pose can be.

Do not stress about it though. Just learn to gently correct yourself, whenever you remember to. You'll find over time the situation improves, don't try to be perfect or chastise yourself.

Recall the old imagining your spine is a rope continuing out of the top of your head, being pulled upward...

Sweet dreams, chilli beans!