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.

Insanity: Preparation for the Next Level

I finally received the Insanity DVD’s this past weekend.  It was all I could do to NOT open them and just “Push Play,” as we say in the Beachbody world.  I will be starting on Saturday.  I have a Fitness Challenge group starting on or about June 1^st.  At least one member of the group will be doing Insanity with me.  I am going to start two weeks ahead and blog the experience.  I am leading the group so I will be kind of like a “scout’ on this one.

As many of you know, my success formula is built around four factors.  Knowledge, Skill, Confidence, and Motivation.  Right now, I am highly motivated and my confidence that I can do this, given my success with P90X is very high.  I need to work on my program knowledge to prepare myself and then prepare for the skills part as I review the DVD’s to make sure I have all the materials to execute the routines.

First, the knowledge.  I am reading the materials.  There isn’t much.  This routine does not come with the big instruction book that P90X did.  It is a pamphlet.  Basically, there are three things you have to know.

(1) Make sure your doctor says you can do this, particularly if you have neck issues, back issues, or are extremely overweight.  The program is an advanced workout routine, so you want to be careful.

(2) Do what they do on the DVD and try to keep up.

(3) Eat right.  They DO have a book for this and I am reading through it..

As far as I can see, I am pretty much set to start.  The program is advanced, but I just finished P90X, another advanced program.  I think I am ready for the work.  I love the Plyometrics and Core Synergistics of P90X and Insanity appears to be an extreme level of that kind of routines.

I think I can keep up with the DVD.  Ha-Ha.  Do you have any idea how many times I thought I could just 'do this?'  That is the watchword of the day...no matter how hard something is when you start, don't get discouraged.  It always gets a little easier.  If you don't believe me, read my P90X blog.  Can I just start this with no issues?  That one we will find out together through my next blog!

I eat very clean so I tend to look at the diet portions of these programs and actually criticize them for being too lenient.  My breakfast, lunch and dinner are about as clean as anyone you will meet.  I have one cheat meal per week and that is on Friday night…Pizza night.  If I have one concern, it’s making sure that I have the right level of nutrients to ensure that my body is performing optimally.  That was a challenge during P90X, but a Nutrition coach gave me some very helpful hints on it.

So as far as building my knowledge around the program, I think I am all set.

The skills portion of my preparation will entail simply scanning through the DVD’s visually.  I like to know that I have the right things to start.  Insanity requires, to the best of my knowledge, very few pieces of equipment.  I want to check out how much jumping there is and how high…because I typically do my routines in my basement.  If a lot of jumping is required, I usually remove a few ceiling tiles for extra height and try not to hit my head on a plank.  Nothing ends a workout faster than that!  Also, do I have the right type of mat for this?  All things I need to consider. 

I made the mistake a few times in P90X of thinking I had done enough DVD review only to find out that I needed a few dumbbells or stronger bands for the pulliups.  It also helps mentally to not be surprised by what’s coming.  Mental preparation is almost half the challenge of the workout.

I will let everyone know tomorrow how the review went!

Have a great night!  I am off to do P90X Plyometrics!  My favorite.

Four Reasons to be Fit Over Forty

“Yes, Dick, I get it.  You have been working out.  You are in the best shape of your life.  Good for YOU!”  And the next thought is, “Now leave me alone, I am fine the way I am.  There is no reason for me to care.”

Really?  I think there may be some things to consider.  Let me try because there are at least four good reasons to stay in shape over the age of Forty.

NOTE: if you are looking at the picture on the left...is this person truly 'old' or are they too big?  If this person were at a different fitness level...would they look younger?  Would they feel younger?

The first reason is:  The concept of ‘old’.

The mere “passage of time” does not make a person old.  If you saw a 1978 Pontiac TransAm (black with gold trim and a T-top of course…) that had only 3000 miles on it, it would most likely be in pristine condition.  Time does not make the car “old”.  If you had the choice between that car and a 1999 Toyota with 120,000 miles on it, you would probably take the TransAm (notwithstanding the idea that you might never be able to find parts for it).  It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.  An ‘in-shape’ fifty year old is no older than a thirty year old obese person, and he/she may in fact be ‘younger’…I found that out in Utah in the mountains.

‘Condition’ is what makes a person old.  It ages some before their time and gives others a lot more time.  Being fit over forty means you are in condition for the long haul.  

The second reason is:  Inactivity ‘ages’ the human body.

One of the key reasons that a body shows the symptoms of age is that our lives become sedate.  We stop moving around so much.  We are busy working and have families to monitor and parent.  So we sit at our desks, sit in the car (or train) to get home, eat a fast meal for dinner, plop ourselves into the car to drive the kids to their activities, and then sit there and watch them.  Then we go home to bed.

We sit.  We eat.  And sit.  And eat.

The symptoms of age in a human body are directly related to inactivity.  A human body regenerates most of its cells about every 6-7 months.  The body regenerates through metabolism.  As your metabolic rate slows, so does your body’s processes.  Your cells do not regenerate.  They hang around…literally.  Your skin begins to look older and wrinkled as it loses elasticity.  You retain less water.  You retain more fat.  All of your cells are getting older and staying with you for prolonged periods of time.  This leaves a nice nesting ground for illness and disease.

When you exercise regularly, your body rids itself of old cells and replaces them with newer and (if you are eating right) hopefully better cells.  New cells, and this makes sense to you, look younger than the old cells that you are metabolizing away.  Through proper conditioning, you can put the brakes on that physical perception of ‘old’ because you will be slowing all the ‘symptoms’ of what people think ‘old’ is.

The third reason is:  Inactivity increases the potential for illness…real illness.

Quality of Life.  We all have heard that phrase.  No one wants to think they will spend their last ten years in firmed or in a nursing home being cared for by others.  There are people who are there because they had an illness they couldn’t prevent, but there are many who just ‘let things go’.  As our cells stop regenerating, they become a breeding ground for illness.  They are great places for your body to store toxins that you pick up in everyday life from the food you eat to your environment.  Those toxins hang around those old cells and wreak havoc with the rest of your body’s functions.  Sometimes, those toxins become cancerous and they have to be removed or harshly treated.

A life of activity greatly increases the chances that you can bypass many illnesses that others suffer over the age of forty.  High blood pressure.  High cholesterol.  Type II diabetes.  Acid reflux.  Swelling of the limbs and joints.  Heart issues.  Knee and hip problems.  All of this can be directly correlated to a distinct pattern of inactivity.  You do NOT have to experience these things because ‘time has passed.’  That’s not how it works.  You don’t get these illnesses with the AARP card that you get at age fifty, they come to you because you have stopped moving.

The fourth and last reason is:  Being able to stay in the game.

Have you ever gone on a vacation or some kind of outing where some level of physical activity was required?  How many times do you see people over forty just look at it and say, “No, I think I will just stay here.”  Nothing ages you like simply feeling old.  And nothing makes you feel old like having to be left behind because you can’t keep up.  If you are ‘fit’ you can keep up.  Given the physical state of our nation, if you are ‘fit’ you can probably lead them, not simply ‘keep up.’

Life is a participation event.  You are either in or out.  When you opt for ‘out’ you have charted your own destiny.  We will live longer on average than any other humans before us.  We can either enjoy every minute with a high quality of life or we can painfully sit and watch others participate.

Is there anything worse than having to look at pictures of someone else’s vacation?

That’s what being ‘old’ really means.

Nothing will help you be ‘old’ more than NOT being physically fit.

Thanks for reading.  Have an awesome day.  Have a salad for lunch.  Go for a brisk walk or do a workout.   

You are here for the long haul.