Weight Loss : Is Stress Sabotaging You?

“I don’t get it!!  I am only eating 1500 calories a day and I am exercising like crazy…but the fat doesn’t seem to be coming off!”

On the surface, when you read that, your first thought may be (especially if you are a Coach with incomplete nutritional knowledge), “You have to be cheating.”  There’s no way you can put less calories in and exercise and not lose an optimal amount of weight.

Right?

Wrong.

How is this possible?  Cortisol.

When your body is under stress, it produces a hormone known as Cortisol.  Cortisol’s roots go way back in our biology to the days when we were hunters and gatherers…not observers and keyboard peckers.  When you experience stress, your body releases Cortisol into your blood.  The effect of the Cortisol, as a response to the emergency conditions your body is under, is to preserve your fat for future emergencies and burn carbohydrates immediately to help you get away from the stress.  To burn the carbohydrates and use them in your muscle you need insulin.  So your pancreas jumps into overdrive and starts producing insulin.  All of this activity from stress starts your body into carbohydrate burning mode…and seriously inhibits your ability to burn fat. 

As a side note, the insulin in overdrive (when there is really no carbohydrates to burn) produces cravings for fuel that you may satisfy with short-term snacks that are not the best for a diet.  Many people reach for fatty foods.  Why?  Because the fat in things like Ice Cream and cookies goes into your system and dulls the receptors of the brain that process emotional response.  So you are craving sugar and fat.  Damn.  That donut looks good right about now.

Elevated Cortisol can also cause other issues in your body besides inhibiting your ability to burn fat.  The hormonal imbalance cause by the excess Cortisol can also cause electrolyte imbalance (hurting your ability to stay hydrated).  In this case, your body won’t get the right nutrients because your fluid delivery system FOR those nutrients has been thrown off.  Anyone trying to exercise in a dehydrated state can tell you how rough that is.  Your workouts have worse quality, which hurts your ability to burn fat.

High Cortisol also messes with our ability to sleep properly.  You need sleep, particularly if you are exercising rigorously, to allow your body to fully repair itself.  At least seven hours per night is recommended.  High Cortisol wreaks havoc with your sleep.  Your workouts get worse and worse, again, which hurts your ability to burn the fat.

Mainly, the point here is, Cortisol hurts your ability to burn fat.

But wait…I live a very happy life.  I have no worries.  I am not stressed!  So that can’t be it.

Right?

Wrong.

Stress comes in many forms.  It is not just emotional.  Your body can suffer other kinds of stress…and REMEMBER…ALL stress types cause you to produce that dreaded Cortisol. 

Certain stresses in your life are necessary.  Complementary and Productive stress are normal and actually push you through the necessary obstacles you face every day.  This stress makes up about 40% of the stress we experience each day.  The stress you need to consider and worry about is UNCOMPLIMENTARY stress…which impacts us about 60% of the day.

Uncomplimentary stress takes three forms, psychological, environmental, and nutritional.  Most of us think about stress in its psychological form.  If we have no emotional stress, we pretty much think we have the whole ‘stress’ thing whipped.  This is NOT the case.

Psychological stress actually makes up only about 20% of the stress you experience every day.  Your environment (or physical stressors) make up about 10%, after all, we are physical beings.  Nutritional stress makes up a whopping 70% of the stress we put our bodies under.  70%.

Let’s do the math.  Uncomplimentary stress at 60% and Nutritional stress is 70% of that…40-42% of the stress you experience every day is NUTRITIONAL.

Nutritional stress is not about eating sugary and fatty foods.  Nutritional stress is caused when your body is asked to process fuel that was not meant to be processed by it.  It CAN be excess sugar (particularly the refined stuff) and excess fat, but nutritional stress also comes from eating foods laced with chemicals and toxins.  Aspartame (or NutraSweet), Sucralose, Saccharin...these are some of the most popular chemical additives in our food that have to be processed in our bodies.  Those toxins are hard to remove.  Our livers are working overtime to do this because they weren’t designed for that process in such amounts.  Also, the liver is responsible for fat burning.  So while it is busy with the toxins, it is NOT burning your fat.  Your body is sensing that it is being poisoned and is under duress and stress, so more Cortisol is released as well.  Starting to see the picture?

As our food becomes more and more ‘created’ and not ‘grown’, our bodies are spending inordinate amounts of time removing the junk from our system.  Refined foods like white bread, where all the nutrients have been basically removed, are making your system work overtime.  Think about the ingredients in the foods we have adapted into our diets everyday.  High fructose corn syrup?  Dye?  Look at the ingredients label on what you really are eating.  How much of what you read actually shows up on a food chart?  Probably not a lot. Your body has to deal with all of these ingredients.

In addition to all the work your body has to do to remove the toxins in the additives and refined foods, consider HOW these products have been altered.  The ingredients in the food ‘creation’ process, if not chemical, are almost always high in sugar and fat.  They are the cheapest things to use in the food ‘creation’ process.  So after your body is done with the toxic ingredients, it now has to deal with the sugar and fat…and it doesn’t have a lot of time to do it.  There are only so many hours in a day.

Ever wonder why you can’t lose a ton of fat weight by drinking diet soda?  Yep.  You now know why.

But Dick, wait.  I eat lots of fruit and vegetable.  That is awesome.  No joke…it really is.  Consider though how food production in this country has been modified into a chemical laden process.  Consider all the toxic chemicals used to GROW the rest of the food we would consider healthy?  Pesticides?

If you are eating the good food, please don’t stop.  But when you can consider organic vs. non-organic, think about the toxins and how your body will process them and be affected.

That covers nutritional stress.  There is also physical stress to consider.  While it makes up about 10% of the stress, don’t underestimate the impact of a rigorous exercise routine that does not allow for recovery.

Cortisol is produced in ALL stressful situations.  Consider the impact of a rigorous workout (physical stress) combined with poor diet (nutritional stress).

Are you burning fat or producing Cortisol?

As you continue to hear the term CLEAN EATING, remember this...the goal of clean eating is to reduce the 40-42% of the Nutritional stress your body experiences every day.  And if you do that along with your exercise, you WILL lose weight.

Note:  Much of this content was obtained from my reading of the book “Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life”.  I highly recommend it.