Cortisol, Stress & Body Fat
Straight Answers To The Top 20 Questions
About The "Stress Hormone"
How can you lower your cortisol levels naturally?
You can lower cortisol naturally. In fact, if you are overtrained, unnatural cortisol suppression may be nothing more than a "band aid," and continued overtraining can lead to adrenal exhaustion, which could take months to remedy. Sometimes the best thing you can do is take a rest or decrease your training volume and intensity rather than artificially attempt to suppress cortisol. Symptoms of overtraining include elevated resting pulse, sleep disturbances, fatigue, decreased strength and decreased performance.
Avoid very low calorie diets, especially for prolonged periods of time. Low calorie dieting is a major stress to the body. Low calorie diets increase cortisol while decreasing testosterone.
Use stress reduction techniques (stress, anger, anxiety, and fear can raise cortisol)
Avoid continuous stress. Stress is an important part of growth. It's when you remain under constant stress without periods of recovery that you begin breaking down.
Avoid overtraining by keeping workouts intense, but brief (cortisol rises sharply after 45-60 min of strength training)
Avoid overtraining by matching your intensity, volume and duration to your recovery ability. Decrease your training frequency, and or take a layoff if necessary.
Suppress cortisol and maximize recovery after workouts with proper nutrition: Consume a carb-protein meal or drink immediately after your workout.
Get plenty of quality sleep (sleep deprivation, as a stressor, can raise cortisol).
Avoid or minimize use of stimulants; caffeine, ephedrine, synephrine, etc.
Limit alcohol (large doses of alcohol elevate cortisol).
Stay well hydrated (at least one study has suggested that dehydration may raise cortisol).
How do you spot a weight loss pill scam?
The cortisol pill is just one in a long string of bogus weight loss products, and it won't be the last! Why? Because weight loss supplements are big business! Eight or nine figure fortunes have been made from the sales of a single product, which was later proven to be a total farce.
How do you protect yourself? Do your homework! Don't take anything unless you know exactly what's in the product, why it's in the product and how much is in the product. Review the scientific research. Don't buy a weight loss product just because a radio personality says it works! Don't jump on the phone with your credit card in hand after watching a thirty-minute infomercial! In this day and age, you have to be smarter than that!
Conclusions
Excessive cortisol is not good. But cortisol is not inherently bad; it's a vitally important hormone and part of your body's natural stress response. Cortisol does not make you fat. 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?
Cortisol suppressing agents may have some practical uses. But rather than thinking of cortisol supplements as a weight loss miracle (which they most surely are not), get yourself on a solid exercise and nutrition program and seek natural ways enhance recovery and reduce stress. By doing this first, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that you're losing fat and gaining muscle and there isn't even a need to take a supplement at all.
For more information on how to lose body fat safely, permanently and naturally without supplements or pills, check out Tom's e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle at http://www.BurnTheFat.com
About the Author
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer, certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book in Internet history, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. Tom has written hundreds of articles and been featured in IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Mens Exercise. For info on Tom's e-book, visit www.BurnTheFat.com. To get Tom's FREE Fitness Renaissance monthly newsletter, visit: www.fitren.co
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