Understanding Homeostasis and Adaptation for Optimum Fitness Health
Did you know that your homeostasis mechanism is vital to keeping you fit and alive. This negative feedback system is a dynamic process that is in constant flux to maintain optimal internal conditions for your body’s survival. It self regulates, carrying on without your knowledge.
Homeostasis has one goal ~ to maintain. When your body is exposed to an external or internal environmental stress, it is dealt with through a negative feedback control mechanism.
What this means is that when a stress is presented, your homeostasis mechanism responds in the opposite to negate a stress’ influence. All this in a battle to return you to the prior preset point. Not good if this point is less than optimum health.
A working understanding of this regulatory balancing system helps you understand why you may be finding it difficult to lose weight, or perhaps stick with a fitness program. Essentially homeostasis is hard at work trying to maintain a steady state. In some cases, against all your best efforts.
Homeostasis also has the amazing ability to adapt to a repetitive stimuli, thus creating a new set point. You conditioned your homeostasis to an unhealthy steady state, by overeating or under moving.
Once a new set point was established, you will then need to mentally push your own body to adapt to a newly desired set point, the beauty of adaptation. Did you have a good time establishing an overweight and lazy new homeostasis?
Hope so. Because if you wish to lose those extra pounds, or get your unhealthy self into shape, you will need to battle your own body’s homeostasis. Frankly, it will fight against you initially.
Adaptation takes time and repetition. How long it takes your homeostasis to adapt depends on your particular genetic being. So essentially you must condition your body to maintain less fat or get moving.
Just having a mental desire to change this does not create a new set point. What will change this is conditioning. Conditioning is repetitive stimuli (fewer calories or increased movement) that pushes past homeostasis, and thus setting a new optimum fitness health steady state.
Adaptability is preparing your body for the future based on the past. Don’t get discouraged and lapse back to past behaviors. Push through your homeostasis negative feedback system until it has the opportunity to create your newly desired healthy set point.
Remember, homeostasis didn’t set an overweight steady state overnight, so give it an opportunity to reset to optimum fitness health.
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Filed under: Fitness
