It may sound ridiculous but your exercise routine may be
causing you to store fat rather than lose fat. Next time
you visit the gym take a look at the guy that's always on
the same cross trainer for what seems like hours at a time
and yet he never seems to change his body shape.
Why is that? It is most probably due to the amount of
stress that person is under and the excessive amounts of
cortisol within their body. Your body produces cortisol in
response to stress, physical, mental or emotional. This can
include extremely low calorie diets, intense training, high
volume training, lack of quality sleep as well as common
daily stresses such as job pressures, or being caught in a
traffic jam.
What does cortisol do? Cortisol is part of the fight or
flight response. Faced with a "life or death" situation,
cortisol increases the flow of glucose (as well as protein
and fat) out of your tissues and into the bloodstream in
order to increase energy and physical readiness to handle
the stressful situation or threat.
Therefore, the body is forced to breakdown muscle and fat
to be converted to sugar. This may sound good ' breaking
down fat. However, unlike our ancestors who used all that
newly converted blood sugar hunting for food or running
from a bear, we stay sitting at our desks, in our cars or
on the couch.
All of this inactivity means our bodies have no need for
the sugar in the blood. As a result, much of it is
converted back to triglycerides to be stored as body fat.
So, although stress does cause the breakdown of fat, it
produces even more in the end ' leaving most people with
more fat and less muscle.
In an attempt to lose body fat, some people perform aerobic
exercises (like running, biking, swimming, etc.) For many,
this type of exercise won't decrease body fat, especially
if the diet remains unchanged. Exercise is a form of
stress. And, as with all other types of stress, cortisol
levels are increased.
The problem is that the blood already has high quantities
of cortisol and sugar. Exercising aerobically only further
increases the amount of cortisol and sugar in the blood
without creating enough demand by the muscles for the
circulating blood sugar. So, again, that excess sugar is
converted into fat!
Resistance training and some forms of yoga are two
activities that lower cortisol and raise the demand by the
muscles for sugar. The end result is less fat storage and
more muscle production. The ultimate goal, however, is
relaxation. Relaxation substantially reduces cortisol
levels and that alone can have a profound effect on weight
loss.
The two factors that cause fat storage are stress and the
break down of muscle tissue.
Stress does not make you fat. Stress may lead to increased
appetite& increased appetite may lead to eating too much&
Eating too much makes you gain fat. Make sense?
Reducing the amount of lean muscle tissue your body has
will in turn reduce your metabolism and your body's ability
to burn body fat. Simply put more lean muscle tissue =
faster metabolism, faster metabolism = less body fat.
----------------------------------------------------
David Osgathorp Owner, All About You Performance &
Wellbeing. Unit 3 Broadbent Close, Highgate, London, N6
5JW. Tel: 020 8348 9706, Mob: 07779 729122. If you would
like more information then pleas contact us via the
website: http://aayou.co.uk/default.aspx
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