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Lose Weight or Fat, Part 2

Hi,

The last post we saw that most people, in order to lose weight, stop eating as much and start some aerobics exercising.

We talked about the aerobics or low intensity exercising and saw that it was efficient at losing weight.  As long as you continue it.

Once you stop, for that session, the weight loss stops.  Once you stop exercising at all, the weight will come back quickly.

Even if you are on a reduced diet.  In fact, being on a reduced diet while doing aerobics is probably the worst way to keep weight or fat off for the rest of your life. 

Here is the problem with restricting your diet too much.   Once you reduce your calories, your body reacts. 

It reacts by first noticing that not as much food is coming in.  At first it is okay, but after a few days (time will vary depending upon the individual and how many diets they have gone on) your body says, hey I have to do something. 

I was planning on getting so many calories to function.  Now I am getting less.  I have to slow down.  So your body’s metabolism drops. 

One reason is because your body is concerned that it won’t survive.  So it slows down to match the caloric intake. 

The other reason is because your body recognizes that it doesn’t need as much energy for the smaller you. 

If you lose 30-50 pounds you are going to be smaller.  You don’t need as much energy so your body slows down. 

Now you might think that your low intensity aerobics will help keep your metabolism raised. 

Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.  Aerobics will not help you with this and the first article in this series showed you how that worked.

The next post in the lose weight or fat series will talk more about macronutrients in your diet and how that works. 

Thanks

woman training

The last two posts have talked about cortisol and muscle gain and how to manipulate the cortisol wave with the type of exercise you do.

Today we will look at how diet plays a role in this.

But, first a quick clarification. I mentioned that you shouldn’t exercise for more than 45 minutes – and preferably less – in order to maximize your anabolic hormones.

After 45 minutes the anabolic hormones have peaked and start to decline pretty rapidly. So any exercise after that is not productive and might be counter productive.

Unless… yes, there always seems to be an exception to everything. Part of that is because our understanding of the human body changes as we learn more.

Okay, so if you prime your body by eating at the proper times, you can indeed continue exercising for longer periods of time.

This is a very individual thing and depends on what you are eating, how much you currently weigh, what kind of shape you are in and your individual metabolism.

It is very easy to fall into an overtrained state. It took me awhile but I figured out that I was in an overtrained state or close to it by checking my heart rate.

On my intense cardio days my heart rate will usually fall almost 20 beats per minute during recovery. If it only falls 10-12 beats in a minute I know I am in an overtrained state.

Then I take a few days off to recover. If I try to push I almost always will get sick or feel run down.

Okay, back to diet. A cycle of undereating balanced by a period of overeating will affect your cortisol levels also. Undereating actually raises your levels of cortisol and androgens.

Problem is that constant undereating will weakon your body and keep your cortisol levels high. This will cause muscle weakness, and an overall energy loss which will keep you tired all of the time.

Not something you want. And another reason why diets are so hard to stay on.

So you need to balance your undereating and intense exercise with relaxing and overeating. This is similar to how our cavemen and cavewomen ancestors ate and lived.

And they didn’t have much in the way of body fat. Of course they didn’t have stores, cars or the internet back then either.

But, you can still follow some of their living style by eating more naturally and exercising in bursts of high intensity.

Gradually incorporate more of this into your lifestyle and training and you will find that cortisol is your ally in muscle gains.

woman training

One of the things I mentioned before was that cortisol was important for muscle gain.

Now almost everyone associates muscle loss with cortisol, however – as you have found out – when dealing with hormones, it is not quite that simple.

When the body is under stress, and this can be from exercise, your cortisol levels don’t just rise. They actually rise and fall in a repetitive manner, sort of like a wave.

The idea then is to use this cortisol wave to help with your muscle gains.

Your anabolic hormones (androgens) and cortisol work together in a synergistic and antagonistic way. This depends upon the type of exercise you do, the amount of time you spend exercising and the foods you eat.

Get all of those right and your muscle gains will improve and your fat loss will increase.

Cortisol levels do rise as stress increases, but it only goes so high – otherwise it would be destructive. Your body has a negative feedback loop which keeps the levels of cortisol from rising uncontrollably.

Both cortisol and androgen hormones rise with exercise. The trick is to take advantage of the up and down nature of cortisol so that the androgens “win”.

The best way to take advantage of this cortisol wave is to use intervals in a specific way. That is a period of intense exercise with supersets.

The idea is to cause a spike upward in cortisol so that as it comes back down you are exercising in a way to take advantage of the higher levels of androgens combined with the lower levels of cortisol.

So here is what you can do. You need to prime your body to raise your cortisol levels. You can do this by – after you warm up – doing a few minutes of sprints or other overall exhausting body exercise.

My favorite is to find a chinup bar that is high enough that I have to jump up to reach it. I squat, jump up and do a pullup or chinup while pulling my knees to my chest.

Do that as many times as you can and you will be thoroughly ready for the next phase.

You will have primed your body to use cortisol for muscle gain.

What to do next follows in the next post.