Mastering Cortisol: Stop Your Body's Stress Hormone from Making You Fat Around the Middle
Mastering Cortisol explains why the fat that collects around the middle of the body can't simply be blamed on eating too much or not exercising enough. The real cause is stress, which triggers an imbalance of the hormone cortisol that in turn tricks the body into creating unnecessary belly fat. It's all part of the fight-or-flight response dating back to the caveman that tells the body to store up fat in times of peril.
But the cycle can be stopped: Mastering Cortisol details specific ways to counter the cortisol with a tailor-made exercise plan that will slim the belly. Based on breakthrough genetic tests, the program also recommends specific vitamins and minerals and explains which foods will work best for the reader.
In mylast post, we’ve established that there are three specific hormones that cause the three most common types of regional fat storage.
As a quick recap:
1. Estrogen - the female sex hormone responsible for lower body fat storage patterns.
2. Insulin - Or rather, insulin resistance; this nasty little dude heavily influences fat storage in the love handle and lower back area.
3. Cortisol - the appropriately dubbed stress hormone is part of the reason you’ve got more flab than ab.
Those are your enemies.
Now, I want to talk to you about how you can actually increase the production of other hormones that offset the above "bad" hormones--through the manipulation of training methods.
Estrogen vs. Testosterone
Now that we’ve established (again, with apologies to the ladies) that estrogen is the main reason lower body fat storage occurs, we need to know how to work around that.
Well, how else would you combat estrogen but with testosterone? In all honesty, when if comes to fat loss and muscle gain, testosterone good, estrogen bad.
It’s for that reason that professional athletes, bodybuilders and the juicers down at the Jersey Shore use illicit steroids that are derivatives of testosterone.
Of course, that’s not an option for us--and certainly not desirable. Instead, we are going to increase testosterone levels naturally, through training. Not only will this increase the net fat-burning effect of all exercises, but more appropriate to our purposes here, it will also facilitate in getting rid of lower body fat.
I should mention something here to alleviate any concerns: it is NOT possible to produce a detrimental amount of testosterone through training. So ladies, you don’t have to worry about any masculinizing effects.
Instead, training produces what we would term a ‘high’ amount of testosterone from a physiological perspective, relative to what your body normally produces. For the guys, this means that such training will help you put on a bit more muscle--just not steroid muscle.
Insulin Resistance vs. IGF-1
As I mentioned in the video above, insulin resistance is combatted very nicely by a hormones called IGF-1, or Insulin-like Growth Factor one.
Producing extra IGF-1 via training will help you (and me!) improve insulin sensitivity and begin to rid ourselves of love handle and lower back fat.
Insulin resistance is very common, particular in people who were previously overweight; so if you have lost some fat and you’re now struggling to lose a bit more, and that fat happens to be in your love handles, I’m willing to bet you’re suffering from some degree of insulin resistance.
In order to get rid of that fat, we have to do fat burning workouts (obviously) and increase insulin sensitivity to the greatest degree that we can through the training effect. To that end, we need to employ what I call Dynamic Training.
Dynamic training is pretty much the over-arching concept of how I design fat loss training programs--it consists of using fast-paced movements to teach the body how to move more efficiently such as combination movements, like the squat-to-press or "thruster" I demonstrated below.
Because this style of training is extremely expensive in terms of energy (Calorie) demand, by and large dynamic training is excellent as a general fat loss modality.
Perhaps more importantly, however, is the fact that utilizing these types exercises and setting them up in a non-competing circuit fashion under the dynamic training umbrella is an incredible way to produce IGF-1--and that is one of the most effective methods to mitigate insulin sensitivity.
Cortisol vs. Growth Hormone
We have touched on cortisol a bit, so I won’t rehash that too much. Suffice it to say that the higher your cortisol levels are, the more fat you’re going to be storing on your belly. Given that fact, it stands to reason that if you store fat primarily in the abdominal region, you’re a victim of high cortisol.
Never fear, though: Growth Hormone is here.
Also known as the “fountain of youth”, growth hormone is the single most effective compound your body can produce to affect both fat loss and muscle gain. The more you produce, the faster you’ll lose fat and build muscle. It’s just as simple as that. Now, in addition to that awesome little fact, growth hormone is going to whoop cortisol’s ass and help you burn belly fat.
Also, you’ve probably heard that one of the ways to reduce your cortisol levels is to get more sleep. That’s something you hear on nearly all the medical TV shows. What you don’t hear is the reason.
You see, sleeping is one of the main ways by which your body produces growth hormone. Or, saying it another way, while you're asleep is your body’s primary opportunity to produce growth hormone.
And, as I stated previously, growth hormone is one of the main hormones that reduces the effects of cortisol.
Sleep more and you’ll produce more GH. Produce more GH and you’ll have less cortisol. Therefore, sleeping more results in lower cortisol levels. Got it?
Of course, I’m not suggesting you can just sleep your way past a fat loss plateau; although getting more sleep does help. I’m merely illustrating the relationship between cortisol and growth hormone.
Which leads us to the production of growth hormone as it relates to training.
While nearly all forms of exercise produce both growth hormone and cortisol, some types are better than others. Cortisol, as I mentioned in the previous article, is produced heavily in long duration cardio sessions--so let’s not do that.
Instead, we’re going to utilize a style of training that produces more growth hormone.
To do that, we’re going to employ a training method known as Lactic Acid Training.
In order to get to the growth hormone, you must first produce lactic acid.
Lactic acid, by way of a definition, is a byproduct of the chemical reactions that take place during exercise. This substance is wildly irritating to the nerves, and your body responds.
Think of lactic acid as sort of a type of oil igniting fires as it flows through you--your body will call the fire department to put those fires out.
And your body will do that by dousing them with soothing, cooling growth hormone.
Okay, maybe I’m being a little simplistic with my metaphor, but it gives you a general idea.
In any event, we must structure training to produce the most lactic acid possible. And, because lactic acid is primarily produce in the concentric (positive) phase of anaerobic exercise, we extend that period, and decrease the eccentric period.
What that means is that we lift the weight very very slowly, and lower it very very quickly so that we can have a fast turn around.
As an example, if you’re doing a squat, you’ll descend to the bottom the squat very quickly (drop down fast, but still controlling the weight somewhat) and then lift the weight sloooowly, oh so sloooowly--over a period of 4-6 seconds.
This will create tremendous amounts of lactic acid, which will intern send GH production into overdrive. I must mention that training in this way necessitates the use of lighter weights than you normally would on any given exercise. Therefore, if you’re interested in lactic acid training, I suggest you reduce the weight you’d use on any exercise by about 30% in order to be both safe and effective.
With traditional training methods, you’d lift the weight pretty quickly and lower it slowly. Here, we’re doing the opposite, in order to produce the most lactic acid possible, which will then lead to a corresponding increase in the production of growth hormone.
This will result in not only reducing cortisol, but also reducing cortisol related fat storage in your belly. On top of it all, it’s great for fat loss in general!
In my last post, I shared with you the reasons why you aren't losing fat, particularly in the LAST few pounds. It seems that everything stops working the way it was for the FIRST few pounds.
As promised, I'm going to share with you the 3 hormones causing fat stoage. Read on.
Back Got Back: Low Body Fat Storage
One of the most common types of fat storage that we see in women is the “pear shape” –fairly thin on top but heavy on the bottom (and IN the bottom, if you know what I mean).
This is so common that we often refer to a “pear shape” as a body type. This is true to an extent, but this type of fat storage is also heavily dependent on the female sex hormone estrogen. This is one reason why you see this type of fat storage primarily in women.
High levels of estrogen are awesome for enjoying Grey’s Anatomy and makin’ babies, but terrible for fat loss, which makes it obvious that women usually have more trouble losing fat than men.
However, anyone—male or female—with high estrogen levels will have trouble losing fat, especially from the lower body. In essence, the higher your estrogen levels, the greater the likelihood you’ll store fat in your lower body; mainly in the hips and thighs.
And yes, it IS possible for men to have high estrogen levels. Unfortunately, outside of having to deal with a declined rate of fat loss and lower body fat, these guys ALSO have to deal with the ignominy of man-boobs.
On the whole, estrogen related fat storage is a pain in the ass (get it!?) but it is not completely unmanageable. You see, you can offset this phenomenon with certain types of training.
In addition to helping you lose fat stored in the lower body, these specifically designed workouts will also be great for fat loss in general. Essentially, they’re great for burning calories and for shedding lower body fat through estrogen management—combine the two and the result is rapid fat loss, with a heavy concentration on lower body fat stores.
Muffin Tops: No Love for the Love Handles
Probably my least favorite incarnation of regional fat storage is love handle and lower back fat. On top of making me fat in that immediacy, it also completely had a pretty negative effect on the way my body processes and handles insulin period.
The degree to which you ae able to process and respond to glucose (sugar) in your body is called insulin sensitivity. The higher this is, the easier and more efficiently your body utilizes carbohydrates for energy, and the less like you are to store carbs as fat.
On the other hand, insulin resistance is the opposite: you don’t deal well with carbs, and anything other than a low carb diet pretty much means you’re gonna hang on to some fat.
And, to make matters worse, as I mentioned previously, there are regional effects. It’s been shown that people who store fat in the love handles are generally very insulin resistant—and therefore it can be reasoned that insulin resistance leads to love handle and lower back fat storage.
Which means, of course, that insulin resistance makes it very hard to lose fat from that area as well.
I’m sure many of you out there who have been heavy before are experiencing much the same problems that I used to have.
The good news is that insulin resistance (and the resulting regional fatness) can be mitigated with certain types of training. For example, with careful planning and selection of exercises, you can start to whittle away at love handle and lower back fat while you increase insulin sensitivity.
The better news is that I’ve figured out a specific series of training sessions that will do just that.
The One, The Only: Belly Fat
Without question, the most common type of regional fat storage is belly fat. If this isn’t you, it’s someone you know.
Abdominal fat storage obviously has a lot to do with your diet and overall body fat level; that should be obvious but it never hurts to touch on it.
Outside of that, it’s hormones baby, hormones.
The one we’re talking about here is cortisol. This hormone has been in the media a lot the past few years, and I’ve talked about it a bit, so by now you know that cortisol is sometimes called a “stress” hormone.
Basically, that means your body will produce cortisol (and encourage belly fat storage) under conditions of nearly any type of stress—both emotional and physical. Instead, it is of far greater effect to combat cortisol through resistance training.
Now, if you’re observant, you may have noticed what seems to be a contradiction.
As I said, cortisol is also produced through physical stress. In fact, training is actually one of the primary means through which your body will produce this sneaky little hormone. Additionally, because cortisol has been linked to overtraining and has a catabolic (muscle wasting) effect, producing too much of it through training is certainly counterproductive.
It’s important to note, however, that long duration cardio and extended lifting sessions are what produce the most cortisol, and I always recommend against those.
Instead, short, intense training sessions using a particular type of training modality will help to counteract the effects of cortisol; both the muscle-wasting effect, and the cortisol related belly fat storage.
In the next post, I'm going to teach you how to fight hormones with hormones. I’ll show you how to use specific types of training to combat the nefarious three hormonal nemeses by producing hormones that offset the effects of estrogen, insulin and cortisol.
When we're stressed out, we tend to craze for sweet and greasy foods to make us feel good. Many people pig out on high-carb, high-fat, high-calorie but low-nutrient-value foods.
Eat, Eat and Eat More
By the time you realize it, you mindlessly shovel two bags of chips plus a jar of salsa, or munch a double cheeseburger along with a large order of fries and a supersized soda, or perhaps gobble six packs of beer with all the high-fat, high-calorie finger foods while watching TV all night. Enjoying a few drinks at night to unwind your stressful day could turn into an overeating disaster.
You Can't Stop Eating?!
You just cannot seem to stop eating 'til you really feel full and stuffed. That's very likely 1000+ calories of "feeling good" junk food. You rationalize that, "since I feel better now, I'll go to gym to work out tomorrow." You know that probably won't happen since your life spins around again with the same stress cycle. No wonder you've gained all the fat, particularly around the belly. That's why it's called "beer belly."
Does this stress eating sound familiar to you?
Does your stress sabotage your diet and make you fat?
Does the cold weather and winter blues make you feel depressed and feel like eating more?
You know your weakness in food. You know you have to stop it but simply cannot help it.
Tips for Taming Your Stress, Emotional and Impulsive Eating
I have the following tips to share with you as to how to use food to fuel your body, replenish your energy and soothe your stress while enjoying the food and eating mindfully to manage your weight.
Recognize your stress triggers and signals. Your body releases a stress hormone cortisol that triggers the release of two neurotransmitters. These two brain chemicals make you increasingly crave for sugary and fatty foods.
Take your time, sit down for at least three meals to eat mindfully. Enjoy the healthy, nutritious foods. Savor the tastes. You'll feel fuller and more satisfied than eating mindlessly. You'll eat fewer calories. Some natural herbs or their essential oils such as pepperment may help curb appetite and eat less.
Keep healthy snacks in your home, office and car. When you're hungry and ready for snacks, you have all the healthy snacks in your reach. You won't run to the vending machine or drive through fast food joints to pick up the sugary, high-fat foods.
Watch out for the few drinks, particularly during and after dinner, and in special occasions. The calories do add up. Don't "drink" your calories. Try to replace the sugary drinks with tea. Keep the alcohol to a glass of wine with dinner. Alcohol disturbs sleep pattern, which makes sleep-deprived you even more stressful.
Eat a balanced diet by eating high-fiber, low-sugar breakfast and a good balance of complex carb, lean protein, healthy essential fats for other meals. Your blood sugar will be more stable throughout the day, leaving you less stressful and less likely to overeat mindlessly.
Some nutrients are helpful in soothing stress such as B vitamins, folate, omega-3 fatty acids and magnesium.
Eat antioxidant-rich nutrients or supplements to help absorb or neutralize superoxide free radicals generated from oxidative stress. The superoxide free radicals were proven to be causes of many diseases, health problems and aging.
Learn and practice self-care and stress management techniques. Seek alternative or preventive methods beyond the traditional fix-it approach.
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