Educate yourself the fundamentals of your body engine

In many ways our body is like a highly complex engine. It rebuilds and runs itself all the time from whatever we feed it in the form of foods, drinks, medicine, food supplements, etc. Sometime we may feed it things that interfere in its rebuilding and running process. Other times we may feed things that are deficient in the ingredients it needs. Without going into physiology and anatomy of our body, we will address salient questions related to bodyweight control.

• How is body engine built and run?
  Our body engine is built with muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, bones, organs, and brain. They all work in harmony for the body engine to work efficiently. Proteins are building blocks of muscles. Muscles contract and expand, either voluntarily or involuntarily to provide movements of the body and its organs. It takes energy to perform these movements. Energy is provided by the chemical combination of sugars and oxygen in the blood carried by arteries to the muscles. Muscle tissues made from proteins break down from working and their rebuilding requires proteins.

• How is body engine maintained?
  Protein we eat in foods is used to build and repair muscles and organs. We also need essential minerals, vitamins, and enzymes for the purpose. If our food is deficient in any of these elements, especially protein, the engine becomes weak and we feel tired after little or no work. Body then constantly demands food so that it can extract these elements from the food in sufficient quantity it needs. As a result we feel hungry very often and wish to eat a lot each time.

• What are body's automatic controls? What is its fuel? How and where does it keep the fuel for running?
  Carbohydrates we consume in food are converted into sugars, mainly glucose, for absorption into blood stream. These sugars metabolize and provide energy for the operation of voluntary and involuntary muscular activities. Excess sugars are readily converted by insulin first into glycogen and then into body fat. When body does not have enough sugars in the blood stream to support the muscular activities, it first converts glycogens into sugars and when glycogens are depleted, it starts to converts the body fat back into the sugars. Body thus automatically maintains its sugar level in a rather narrow range, 65 to 110 mg per 100 cc of blood for most of us.
  
  Body engine fuel is thus mainly glucose. Fuel is stored as body fat.