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Metabolism – What it is, How You Can Make It Work For You Part 7

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Welcome Back !

As different as we all are there is one area that affects us all the same way – Sleep or rather the lack of it. Two of the things that have the greatest blunting effect on your metabolism are stress & a lack of sleep.

Stress and Lack of Sleep can affect your Metabolism

As mentioned earlier your BMR & RMR both decrease as you get older. This means that it is harder for your body to burn calories and harder for you to lose fat. A daily routine of conscious, challenging exercise not only improves your health and fitness, but it increases your RMR.

Stress has both positive and negative impacts on our metabolism.

In reaction to any stress our body initially increases our metabolism, but when the stress becomes prolonged or chronic then the opposite occurs and our metabolism slows down.

The famous ‘Fight of Flight’ response is our body’s reaction to stress. But this heightened physical state can only be sustained for short periods before the body exhausts its stores of the main hormones it responds with.

During periods of stress, your hypothalamus (sort of the hormone control centre – see the Lose 20 in 30 Hormone Primer) instructs the adrenal glands to release three chemicals – epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine and cortisol – into your bloodstream. Initially these three chemicals act to speed up your heart rate, your respiration, your blood pressure, and your overall metabolism.

Epinephrine breaks down glycogen into glucose in the liver, and both it and norepinephrine

increase the amount of circulating free fatty acids for use as a readily available fuel source. However once these have hormones have done their job and we have not used the fuel available then the cortisol kicks in and acts in its role as the belly fat storing hormone. The more prolonged the stress the higher your cortisol levels & the more belly fat you store.

Cortisol serves many important functions, including the rapid release of glycogen stores for immediate energy. But persistent cortisol release requires that other vital systems effectively shut down – immunity, digestion, healthy endocrine function, and so on. Among other stress-health associations, the link between elevated cortisol and weight gain has already been clearly established.

Chronic stress, largely through your hormone system, can disrupt your digestive system resulting in a lower uptake of nutrients and to the stomach producing higher than normal amounts of digestive acids on a prolonged basis. This can lead to IBS – Irritable Bowel Syndrome which definitely lowers nutrient uptake. Stress can often cause our abdomen to become bloated, creating cramping, constipation or even diarrhoea. Even worse studies suggest that stress may make a person more susceptible to the bacteria that cause peptic ulcers.

All of these conditions lead to a lowering of your RMR.

The good news is that if the stress is removed, the body quickly improves and your RMR is raised.

How to de-stress? – Get your sleep!!

Inadequate sleep interferes with nearly every aspect of your fitness & fat loss program. The negative effects of lack of sleep cannot be overstated.

Tired people burn fewer calories because they lack the energy to exercise or work out intensely. Some studies show that even if sleep deprived folk exercise for the same length of time as rested individuals they burn far fewer calories / kilojoules.

Lack of sleep not only makes you too tired to exercise, but it negatively affects your hormone system by altering the hormone levels in your body. Miss enough sleep and you’re effectively disrupting your biological processes, especially those that control & regulate your metabolism.

Lack of sleep affects the levels of cortisol, leptin and ghrelin, three hormones linked with muscle catabolism, belly fat storage, appetite and eating behaviours. Researchers at Stanford University found that when you are sleep deprived, your body decreases production of leptin, (the ‘I’m full & don’t need to eat any more’ hormone) at the same time it increases levels of ghrelin, the hormone that triggers feelings of hunger, and our old friend cortisol – which exists to store fat around your belly and increase the catabolism (tearing down) of your muscle tissue.

The researchers found that nearly three-quarters of the people they studied slept less than

8 hours per night, and that the increase in obesity was directly proportional to the decrease in sleep.  This goes a long way towards explaining why very sleep-deprived people are nearly twice as likely to be obese.

Lack of sleep also causes levels of growth hormone to decline. Growth Hormone naturally blunts & counteracts the effects of cortisol so lowering it raises the effects of cortisol. This reduces your muscle mass, your strength, decreases your recovery ability, increases your fat tissue stores, and weakens your immune system.

Too little sleep also raises your Insulin levels increase. This, as we now know, increased insulin makes fat control difficult due to its effect on storing blood sugar as fat. Sleep deprivation also leads to low energy levels which often bring about the dreaded candy / cookie / chip cravings which turn into binges which in turn lead to more insulin release and fat storage – especially if your glycogen stores in your liver & muscles are full. There is even some research which suggests that lack of sleep reduces your body’s ability to store as much glycogen as when it is fully rested. This means that even more blood sugar has to be cleared from your blood stream and with less glycogen storage available, it gets shunted into fat cells.

About 25% of the adult population are insulin resistant. This means that your pancreas

has to pump out a lot more insulin to achieve that same blood sugar clearing effect. It turns out that excessive insulin reduces the ability of your body to burn fat for energy even after the glucose is cleared. Insulin resistance also typically leads to an increase in under the muscle, “visceral fat” around the organs, particularly in the abdomen, and this increases the risk of heart disease. Insulin resistance is even more common if you have diabetes in your family, or if your diet has been high in sugars and other processed carbs, and saturated fats.

Fortunately, by keeping your carbohydrates low-glycemic, and by exercising you reduce the need for this excessive output of insulin, and you keep your fat-burning in high gear. By itself Exercise improves insulin sensitivity.

Even better news is that is improving your sleep immediately reduces the negative effects on your hormone levels & their effect on your body. If you reduce the amount of stress in your life and get more sleep each night, your normal BMR will return. This is not easy in the modern world, with its fast pace, work commutes, paucity of easily available good foods and the general demands on your time, but it can be done.

As for the number of hours of sleep, there’s no one-size-fits-all number of prescribed hours. The right amount for you is based on your individual sleep requirements, although there’s some evidence indicating that somewhere around seven hours a night is ideal from a general health perspective.

Still, numerous factors can influence the amount of sleep you need, such as pregnancy, illness and stress levels, for example. As a general guideline, if you feel sluggish and foggy-headed upon waking, you’re likely not getting enough sleep, or the quality of your sleep is not very good.

Unfortunately, many people are quick to jump on the pill wagon once they start having

sleep problems. But sleeping pills come with numerous side effects and can cause more harm than good – better by far to try to reduce the stressors in your life. At the very least a solid exercise program not only helps burn fat but has been proven to lower the levels of the ‘stress’ hormones in your body.

Bottom line for a healthy metabolism you need at least 7 hours of sleep a night.

See with part 8 next week…

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My Gym Program to Shed Fat – Fast!!!

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Welcome Back!!

Last time I listed 30 something reasons to get in shape if you are over 30 and this time I want to look at the use of exercise as a major component of getting into shape  – or staying there once you’re happy with how you look.

The first type of program uses barbells & dumbbells and pretty much needs a gym so you can access enough weight to really challenge yourself. If you are already set up at home so much the better….

But what if I don’t go to the gym I hear you ask? Don’t worry – I have info on how to use body weight workouts in the next blog post.

Not many of us can afford to set up a home gym with this much equipment

We all know that diet is 80 – 90% of fat loss and that you cannot out-train a poor one.

So let’s assume that you’ve reduced your calories and are eating nutrient dense but calorie sparse foods. That you are eating clean – lots of protein and low GI carbs, few processed foods, no transfats and you’ve come as close to eliminating High Fructose Corn Syrup from your diet as humanly possible. You’ve also added spices like cinnamon & capsicum to your diet, drink green tea and use protein shakes as a means to keep your body feeling full and also staying in positive nitrogen balance. In other words you’ve got your fat loss diet sorted.

Now we need to get the exercise part firing, this is one of my preferred routines.

Now as we have discussed in previous posts – once our bodies sense a cut in calories it immediately begins to preserve (and if possible) add to fat stores. It also begins to burn muscle for fuel once glycogen stores are depleted – result; a slower metabolism and more body fat.

You can combat this though – by convincing your body that it needs to maintain if not add to your muscle if it is to survive. And we do that by lifting heavy weights and then following this up with a Metabolic conditioning / HIIT style workout.

No more than hour is needed to get great results

The total workout should take no more than an hour with 30 minutes spent on the strength / muscle preservation side and the final 30 spent on reconditioning & firing up your metabolism with some HIIT circuits.

Your goal has to be to maintain lean muscle and to max strength when you are reducing calories. The best exercises to use for this are compound (ie multijoint) ones like Squats, Deadlifts, Overhead Presses and weighted Chin Ups. (You’ll note the absence of the bench press – this is deliberate as I & many others believe that it is not as effective as overhead presses, creates strength imbalances in the shoulder girdle and often causes shoulder injuries)

So in order to preserve your muscles and build strength you use this program:

  1. 1. Deadlifts paired with Overhead presses on Day 1
  2. 2. Squats paired with Pull ups (weighted if possible) on Day 2

The reason that pullups and deadlifts aren’t paired together is that they’re both challenging to your grip and will weaken it. A weak grip means that you can do fewer reps or use less weight so by splitting them apart your grip only gets ‘hit’ with 1 exercise each session. (Note – if you can’t do weighted chin ups don’t worry – do as many as you can in each set. Once you get strong enough to do 10 from ‘dead hang’ with good form then add some weight and drop your reps back to 3 or 4 and work back up)

On each day you do the following metabolic condition workout:

You WON'T be using any of these - they don't work!!

  1. 1. Dumbbell Squat and Presses
  2. 2. Jumping Jacks
  3. 3. Dumbbell Bench Step-ups with Bicep Curl (do reps for each side)
  4. 4. Squat Thrusts
  5. 5. Dumbbell Walking Lunges (do reps for each side)

Go through 10 – 15 reps of each exercise pausing only long enough to swap weights until you’ve completed one circuit. Rest long enough to get your breathing down ( 2-3 minutes) and repeat 3-5 times.

The goal of this style of training for the second 30 minutes of each workout is to get your metabolism really ramped up so that you create a strong EPOC and continue to burn fat as fuel for hours after the workout is done.

Execution:

Firstly warm up with some Jumping Jacks followed by walking lunges, then shoulder swings, some push ups and some body weight squats. Not a lot, just enough to get the blood flowing and the joints lubricated.

Then set up your barbells for the deadlift and the overhead press. Put enough weight on each bar so that you can only do 5 -6 fast reps of each exercise with good form.

Don't forget to warmup first

Speed is important as it engages more muscle fibres, fires up more mitochondria ( the fat burning furnaces in each cell) and builds more strength. Good form matters as injury will slow if not halt your progress. Always err on the side of caution.

Then do 3 – 4 sets in circuit fashion (3 reps of Deadlifts, rest long enough to get your breath back, then 3 reps of Overhead Press, rest long enough to get your breath back then back to Deadlifts again and repeat for 3-4 times)

That is the first part of the workout on day 1, next you move to part 2 which is the metabolic circuits.

For these you need to set up several sets of different dumbbells. You need different weights as you will be able to handle different ones depending upon the exercise. For example you can hold a larger weight for the walking lunges than you can curl on the step ups. Again aim for speed with good form.

Put your equipment back and go home and eat a meal high in protein, moderate carbs and low fat. Because you are trying to drop bodyfat you should NOT go the high carb route. That works when you are already lean and certainly enhances muscle growth, but if you are carrying body fat your metabolism is still primed to store carbs as fat…

Then you come back on day 2 and do the squats & Chin Ups followed by the same metabolic workout.

For best results, and if you are up to it you should workout 6 days a week, alternating Workout 1 with Workout 2.

Over a week it would look like this:

Day 1- Deadlifts & Overhead Presses + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 2- Squats & Chin Ups + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 3- Deadlifts & Overhead Presses + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 4- Squats & Chin Ups + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 5- Deadlifts & Overhead Presses + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 6- Squats & Chin Ups + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 7 – Rest

Follow this program for 6 weeks with a clean metabolism boosting diet and you’ll see great results. Make no mistake though – this is hard work and should be challenging!!

Results come to those who work at it!!

If however you are just starting out you should aim for working out 3 days a week with a 2 week program that looks like this:

Day 1- Deadlifts & Overhead Presses + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 2- Rest

Day 3- Squats & Chin Ups + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 4- Rest

Day 5- Deadlifts & Overhead Presses + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 6- Rest

Day 7 – Rest

Day 8- Squats & Chin Ups + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 9- Rest

Day 10- Deadlifts & Overhead Presses + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 11- Rest

Day 12- Squats & Chin Ups + Metabolic Conditioning Exercises

Day 13- Rest

Day 14- Rest

If you use the 14 day cycle aim to do it for at least 8 weeks then switch to the 6-days a week one foe another 4.

Well there you have it – follow this program with a clean diet and the fat will certainly disappear.

See next time when we’ll look at why bodyweight workouts can deliver excellent results – even without gym equipments.

Be well.

Sleep, Cortisol, Insulin Resistance & Fat Loss

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Hi & Welcome back!!

Today i want to look at how lack of sleep affects your fat loss.

It doesn’t matter who you are the suggested minimum amount of sleep for adults is 8 hours. (Teenagers need more as do babies & toddlers) Some adults need less some need more but the average requirement is for 8 hours.

Lack of sleep increases snacking...

However current research in Australia & the USA shows that as much as 37% of the adult population aged over 30  is getting 6 hours or less sleep on a regular basis. Not only is this no good for your overall health & energy levels but it is disasterous if you are trying to cut your body fat levels.
Research is showing that long term sleep loss is related to an increase in obesity and diabetes. In other words just as you can’t out-train a bad diet, you can’t reap the benefits of eating smart and exercising tactically if you don’t get enough sleep. A chronic lack of sleep wastes all of your other good fatloss focussed work.

Lack of sleep affects a number of metabolism influencing areas: your energy level, your resting metabolic rate, your appetite control and your insulin sensitivity. The research shows that even partial sleep deprivation can manipulate some of the key hormones that impact fat loss . In particular when key hormones are affected it predisposeyou to fat storage and obesity by causing insulin resistance.

A non-hormonal sleep loss efffect...

Not only can nsulin resistance  lead to Type 2 diabetes, but it has been proven to increase fat storage. Regular readers of this blog know that when you suffer from increased insulin resistance your body must produce extra insulin to rid your blood stream of glucose. The reason your body produces extra insulin is because the insulin receptors in your cells have become les sensitive to the effects of insulin requiring more to do the same job. In effect it creates an override and over storage situation. In extreme cases the situation becomes so bad that your body cannot produce suficient insulkin to clear glucose and you end up needing to start taking insulin medications. In any case you fat loss stops and fat gain is an almost certainty.

Sleep loss  increases both your appetite and your cravings for high GI carbs along with creating insulin resistance. Lack of sleep not only affects your insulin sensitivity but it also affects other hormones like  cortisol and ghrilin. This means that insufficinet sleep sees you battling an increase in appetite when your blood sugars are not in control.

Cortisol is a stress hormone that directly influences blood sugar levels and is associated with increases in  belly fat.  When cortisol levels rise, fat loss stops. Dead.  Some research has shown that even just 1 sleepless night can increase your cortisol levels.  A study has shown that 4 hours sleep results in a 37% cortisol rise above baseline.

Muscle is an important part of having an efficient, fat buning metabolism. At rest muscle is a voracious consumer of calories. The more muscle the higher your resting metabolic rate. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone – it breaks down muscle for fuel and by this action it also elevates blood glucose levles which results in insulin spikes and so the Merry Go Round turns leading to a slower metabolism and increased fat storage. In a sense muscle CAN turn into fat…

Not getting enough sleep can lead to this..

Ghrelin is another hormone that lack of sleep affects as is our old friend Leptin. Ghrelin basically makes you hungry, leptin tells your brain when you’ve eaten enough. Not getting enough sleep raises ghrelin levles so you get more hungry and lowers Leptin so you don’t stop eating when you should.

If you stay awake longer you also have more opportunity to eat more, and because your energy levles are lagging you tend to go for the quick sugar fix. Which leads to insulin spikes etc etc…

Studies have shown that people actually eat more on average when they get less sleep, and they eat less healthily.

So you’ve got to get more sleep, not just for your health, but for your fat loss and metabolism. If you know you lack sleep then you need to begin to taking saction to improve the amount of sleep that you are getting.

Don't drink this too close to Bed Time...

Try these: aim for a regular bedtime, avoid alcohol for at least several hours before bed, ditto for coffee or tea, have a low GI snack with some protein close to bed time, try to keep your bedroom cooler rather than hot, read fiction if you are bed reader not non-fiction,  make your to-do list in the early evening rather than late at night, exercise sometime during the day – just not close to bed time, have a bath or long hot shower and lastly avoid watching TV when lying in bed.

Sleep Tight!!