Part 2: The Slowdown Syndrome: STRESS

The other day I wrote about what I call the "slowdown syndrome" and it's effect on fat loss and your overall fitness goals.

In the first article I mentioned about outside factors besides exercise and nutrition that can impact your progression in a negative way. I mentioned 3 of these: SLEEP - STRESS - GROUP ENVIRONMENT.

Today we will focus our post on STRESS. If you haven't read how lack of sleep can prevent you from losing weight, burning fat and making gains in the gym, read it here.

I guess the question is can stress make us fat? In my opinion stress alone doesn't makes you fat. But too much of it can force a response on your body that can lead to weight and fat gain. In essence because stress may lead to an increase appetite and hormonal changes which can then affect your blood sugar levels, energy levels, ultimately slowing down your metabolism, etc, etc.... Basically it snowballs out of control and leads you to gaining weight, fat and feeling crappy.

When stress levels are high you may find yourself lacking energy and craving all sorts of unhealthy foods, and/or just an increase appetite that leads you to eat everything in sight. I know of what too many people when stressed out tend to reach for chocolate, alcohol and many other foods... heck I'm even guilty of doing it.

But stress also disrupts your sleep pattern, of which how we learned in part one of this discussion can too lead to weight and fat gain.

Too much stress and your body releases excess cortisol (a stress hormone), which in turn makes you release and store more fat and breaks down your muscles as an energy source. I don't intend to make this a science discussion, so I won't bore you with all the lengthy terminology. However, you must understand that high levels of cortisol have been linked to low levels of testosterone which can be detrimental to your muscles, as it may lead to muscle breakdown, impaired immunity, vitamins, minerals and nutrient depletion, among other things.

Cortisol tends to promote visceral fat storage, A.K.A. your gut. So then not only does cortisol promotes fat storage around your belly, it increases your cravings and the overeating of many unhealthy foods, all while disrupting your sleep and killing your muscles. That leads to weight and fat gain.

The key then is to stay on top of it by feeding your body the proper foods day in and day out, improving your sleep and controlling your stress level. Easier said than done.

I won't go into nutrition on this post, and we already covered how to improve your sleep on our first part of this discussion.

HOW TO CONTROL STRESS?

Start by looking around you and the things that provoke your stress levels to go high. Is it your daily commute, your type of work or the environment at work, are you experiencing problems at home - be it in the relationship, financial or health related? Are your kids struggling at school? Do you have past deep emotional issues that you are dealing with?

Listen life is not a joke, our lives are all crammed up with pressures, obligations and crazy schedules. Sure for some its boils down to bad behavior and being irresponsible; but for many this is deep shit. We are constantly faced with our deepest fears, regrets, disappointments and many other things that brings us down and makes life extremely stressful.

I honestly believe that if you wish to control and reduce stress you must work on your state of mind. Just like physical exercise can help improve your mood, amp the endorphins, improve self esteem, confidence and give you that kick ass feeling; having the proper mindset can have the same effect.

Think about it? How do you feel when you are next to people who suck the life outta you with their negative ways? They bring you down, they make you feel bad and overeat.

Don't let this happen, make the decision to better yourself and stick to it. Get all the negative junk out of your life.

Create a home environment where it is pleasant to go to just "chill and relax". I'm not going Tai Chi on you but this stuff works, there's a connection between how you feel and the things you chose to surround yourself with.

Take time to organized your life, work, family.... 

Eliminate fear and doubts, rather focus on the positive things you can control and the things you can change for better.

Exercise!!! This is such as stress reliever. Its the place where you can toss weights around, kick, grunt, lift, push yourself and beat yourself (as weird as that sounds) but also to meditate in good things and to fight inner demons; it's a time when you connect with others who are just like you, but also a time where you can focus solely on you. Its a time and place where you can let your emotions out, all in a safe and control way that leads to a better body, a better mindset... a better you.

Finally I believe you must laugh more, learn to forgive, and always pray.

Don't let stress get the best of you.

Always be better.

In my next post I will talk about how your GROUP ENVIRONMENT can be a factor that either contributes to your overall fat loss goals or on the contrary one of the factors that leads to weight gain.

3 Day Project Boot Camp: Strength & Conditioning

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How To Avoid The Slowdown Syndrome

As of today, we are now about 14.5% into 2012. The question is are you 14.5% closer to your goals?

If you are kudos to you and keep working hard towards achieving excellence. If you are not, you still have time to get things headed in the right direction.

Sometimes what I've noticed that slows your progress, is that many people tend to skip on their workouts and take too many cheat meals sabotaging their own efforts.

Other times, however, even with the best intention and sticking 80 to 90% of the time to your plan, you still find it hard to see any progress made in your fitness quest.

The truth of the matter is that as much as being compliant with your training and nutrition program, there are many other factors that can impact how much you progress. Often time some of these are out of your hands and some you can actually manage with a few tweaks here and there.

Lets talk about at least 3 of these factors: SLEEP - STRESS - GROUP ENVIRONMENT

Today I will focus this post on SLEEP only (I'll cover the rest on the next couple of days one topic at the time).

SLEEP is essential for you to lose weight and maintain or grow your muscles. When you sleep, your body goes to work by helping you recover and rebuild muscle tissue. When you don't get enough sleep your immune system gets weak, you tend to gain weight and store fat and your overall performance, mood and energy is affected.

This occurs because your body has a hard time balancing hormones. Lack of sleep will affect how these interact.

Lack of sleep increases cortisol: when you don't sleep enough your body releases too much cortisol (a stress hormone) which in turn makes you release and store more fat and breaks down your muscles as an energy source.

Lack of sleep reduce testosterone: This in turn creates a significant drop in testosterone (men or women it doesn't matters) which leads to loss of muscle gain, strength and performance.

Lack of sleep reduces human growth hormone production, which mainly occurs when we sleep. An important natural occurring hormone for muscle repair and growth.

Lack of sleep affects insulin levels. It causes a demand for more insulin which leads to you gaining more fat and could lead to diabetes.

In short a drop of sleep hours below 6.5 to 7 hours a night leads to muscle loss, your metabolism slows down, and you will gain weight and store fat.

You should aim for at least 7 hours a night of proper sleep to insure your body gets what it needs for optimal performance.

If you have a hard time sleeping, consider the things that take place during the night that leads just before to bed time.

Avoid:
- as much stress as possible, especially within the hours prior to going to sleep.
- caffeine, at least 5 - 6 hours before bedtime can interrupt your sleep or keep you awake, robing you from precious sleep time
- alcohol can also interrupt your sleep, not to mention that in its self too much of it leads to muscle breakdown. Limit the amount you drink as much as possible. 
- if you have a sleeping partner, I can't recommend much that would be healthy in case they are the reason you are not getting proper sleep... So try to at least make sure your bed is comfy enough that will help induce your body to rest.

If you follow the above advice and get your Zzzzz in, you are off to saving your precious muscle, losing fat and feeling good. Of course like I mentioned above there are other factors you must consider in your quest for fat loss and muscle gain, outside of exercise and nutrition.

In my next post I will talk about how STRESS can affect your weight loss and muscle building goals.