Today I wanted to share with you a
couple of concepts that are currently at the forefront of my personal journey
towards health. This week I’ve been
thinking a lot about Cortisol, and the causes of elevated Cortisol. Why, you may ask? Well, I can’t seem to get my body fat below
13%, and the body fat that I do have is contained in a spare-tire I have at the
level of my belly-button. Now, being at
13% is certainly within the range of healthy and carrying my body fat in a
small spare-tire isn’t inherently a problem, however I have some competitive
goals I’d like to pursue and that spare-tire could potentially hold me back
from reaching those goals. Also, storing
your fat in your mid-section can be indicative of things like carb-sensitivity,
gluten-sensitivity, and (you saw this coming right) elevated Cortisol. I already don’t eat gluten, and eat a low
carb diet, so Cortisol is the most likely cause of my inability to get below
13% body fat.
So, what is Cortisol??? Well, Cortisol is a hormone that the body
releases to help you become more alert and focused by increasing metabolism, blood
sugar, and suppressing the immune system.
It’s always being produced in the body at some varying level. Cortisol levels should be elevated in the
morning (to help us wake up), and should decrease during the day (so we can
sleep), bottoming out in the middle of the night. Cortisol should also elevate when we are
exposed to stress, as it is the “fight or flight” hormone. Herein lays the problem with Cortisol levels
in modern life…
When our caveman brethren had
stress, it was because they were being chased by an animal that wanted to eat
them or they were chasing an animal they wanted to eat. In that setting being more alert and focused
can mean the difference between life or death (or eating this week). The caveman didn’t have to deal with worry
about whether or not he could pay his mortgage this month, or whether or not one
of his Facebook friends was mad at him (after all he didn’t read my
blog!). Modern life presents low-level
chronic stress, instead of the high-level acute stress our bodies are designed
to deal with.
So, if you’re concerned at all
with your Cortisol levels like I am (and you should be!), the first step is
taking stock of the stress in your life.
I previously addressed this topic in http://timstrainertalk.blogspot.com/2013/08/sleep-more-exercise-less.html
, but I’ll hit it briefly again here.
Modern day stress comes in many forms, and here’s a list to get you
thinking about the forms of stress in your life:
- Emotional Stress: Anxiety, Worry’s, Job Stress, Relationship Stress… It all adds up.
- Physical Stress: It you’re recovering from an injury, surgery, or illness you’re body is stressed! Exercise also falls in this category… too much exercise could be more harmful than too little.
- Sleep: If you sleep less than 7 hours a night (or your quality of sleep is lacking) you’re sleep deprived and stressing your body!
- Diet: Eating too many calories, or too few calories are both stressors on the system. Likewise eating a diet of crap is a stressor too…
- Caffeine Intake: This could fall under diet, but it needs its’ own bullet point. Caffeine is a stress on the system like any other… If you have too much caffeine you could be doing more harm than good.
- Alcohol Use: Alcohol intake is a stress… period…
Now honestly take stock of how
you’re doing in each of these areas, and consider that they all affect your cortisol
levels. If you know you’re not doing so
well in one or two of these areas you need to make sure you account for that
when you consider the other areas in the list.
IE- If you don’t get enough sleep and have a bunch of emotional stress,
it’s time to tighten up the diet and back off in the gym.
Circling back now, I told
you I was going to share some of the things I’m working on in my own journey
towards health… As I said I have a good
reason to think my cortisol levels are (at least) somewhat elevated and that
the elevated cortisol is holding me back from reaching the leanness I currently
want to reach. So, #whatareyougonnadoaboutit!?!? Here’s what I’m doing over the next 6-weeks
to address my elevated cortisol levels:
- Redouble my efforts to sleep more: The next couple months I’m only coaching classes 2 week days during the work week, so in theory I should be able to get in bed earlier more often. I’m going to make every effort to sleep more than 7 hours per night.
- Cut my caffeine intake: I LOVE coffee!! No, I mean I REALLY LOVE COFFEE!!!! This isn’t gonna be easy, but I’m cutting coffee out for a little while. This week I’m reducing my intake to one cup a day, and next week I’ll switch to decaf for 4-weeks.
- I’m meditating: I’m going to make a solid effort to spend 10 minutes a day meditating. This has been proven to do great things for stress management, but I haven’t been able to get into the habit. We’ll see if I can this time…
- No cardio: I’m going to walk when the weather isn’t too terrible, but otherwise I’m not doing any cardio. 3 Days/week of strength training is my exercise for the next 6-weeks.
- Explore tanning: There’s some good science suggesting that small amounts of tanning can do great things for vitamin D levels and help with stress management. I’m going to investigate options, and potentially integrate a tiny bit of tanning into my weekly routine.
Basically, I’ll try these things
for the next 6-weeks, and reassess. If I
haven’t seen improvement then I’ll go back to the drawing board. And by the way, I TOTALLY recommend this sort
of approach for you. As Robb Wolff
always says try something new for 30, 60, or 90 days, and if you don’t look
feel and perform better, try something else.
Finally, I’ll leave you today with
a hot tip on some fantastic music. If
you don’t know already, I’m a HUGE fan of a band called The Avett
Brothers. I love them and
their music for many reasons, but this quote nicely sums up a few of the
reasons:
“…they
craft alternately stompy and swoony music that's rooted in a desire for
self-improvement. Take their body of work as a whole, and it forms the outlines
of a makeshift guide to life, and to being fundamentally decent in the pursuit
of something even better.”
As you already know, I love self
improvement, and the struggles that The Avett Brother’s music is so often
about, are the struggles I identify with so well. It’s amazing music! Today, in the interest of stress management,
I’m going to spend my lunch break in a quiet dark room listening to The Avett
Brothers new record Magpie and Dandelion.
It will be released next Tuesday October 15, but you can stream it NOW
on NPR (http://www.npr.org/2013/10/03/228941827/first-listen-the-avett-brothers-magpie-and-the-dandelion). Take some time to check out the stream, then
buy the record next week! You can
thank me later for turning you on to this life-changing music!
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