Stress Is Killing Your Results... Here's What to Do About It!

When you think of losing fat and gaining muscle, I'll take a wild guess and say that the first things that come to your mind are nutrition, weight lifting, calories, cardio, protein... the list could go on for a while.

You might have left out perhaps the most important determinant of your results: stress.

In the hustle and bustle of today's society, where "hustling," "grinding," "no days off," and cheesy sayings of the like are ever-prevalent, it's easy to brush off stress as "normal."

Think about this for a second.

If I were steal your phone away from you for a few days, you would probably think the apocalypse is looming.

How are you going to keep up with work? How are you going to post gym selfies on Snapchat (before you come after me, I'm fully aware that I'm guilty of this, too)? What am I going to do when I'm taking a shit (this is a very real issue). Am I going to miss out on anything?

As a society, we've gotten to a point where we are chronically stressed, whether it's physically, cognitively (i.e. chemistry problem sets that make you want to rip your hair out), or emotionally. We're almost incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes at a time.

To get a complete understanding of why this can be an issue, let's take a few step backs and examine what exactly "stress" is.

What is Stress?

Stress is your body's way of responding to any danger or threat.

Another term for this is the "fight-or-flight" response.

See, our nervous system can be broken up into the autonomic nervous system and the somatic nervous system.

The somatic nervous system is responsible for voluntary muscle movements; for the sake of this topic, we can disregard it for now.

The autonomic nervous system is responsible for involuntary processes in the body that keep us alive. A good way to remember this is to think of these processes as "automatic."

Now, the autonomic can be divided into the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

Here's where stress comes into play.

Sympathetic Nervous System

The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the fight-or-flight response mentioned above. If your body senses any danger or threat, the sympathetic nervous system jumps into action to prime the body to respond.

As soon as your body perceives a threat, your hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA axis, for short) goes to work.

You might be wondering what the hell that even means. Let's clarify.

So, as soon as a threat is perceived, a part of your brain called the hypothalamus releases this hormone called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF).

CRF attaches to receptors on the pituitary gland (commonly called the "master gland"), which then releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH).

Next, ACTH causes the adrenal glands to release another hormone called cortisol.

If you're going to remember one of those hormone names, make it cortisol. First of all, it's the shortest; second of all, it's the main culprit behind your stress-related fat loss issues.

Cortisol essentially releases your body's resources (usually glucose and fat) into the bloodstream in an attempt to meet your body's energy demands in order to escape the impending doom that your mind perceives.

Something super important to realize is that stress, and the resulting cortisol response is not inherently bad. In fact, this stress response is what facilitates high levels of performance, both physically and mentally.

As mentioned before, cortisol also frees up triglycerides (fancy biochemist word for fat), to be burned as energy.

Not to mention, if there was an actual life-threatening situation, the stress response can very well save your life.

Here's the kicker: Your body doesn't know the difference between a legitimately dangerous situation, such as being chased by a bear, and psychological stressors, like your recent breakup.

In today's society, we are exposed to these psychological stressors on a daily basis. Cramming for an exam, forgetting an assignment, constantly being on your phone, road rage, being upset that Game of Thrones killed off your favorite character... the list could go on.

Considering the physical aspect, the most common form of stress is overtraining. When you overtrain, you subject your body to more training than you can effectively recover from.

Both of these forms of stress, if not managed correctly, can lead to chronically elevated levels of cortisol.

Effects of Chronically Elevated Cortisol

As mentioned before, cortisol is not necessarily bad. The problems arise when it is elevated for extended periods of time.

As mentioned, cortisol releases glucose and fat into the bloodstream for use. When it does this, it also inhibits their ability to enter the cells. By nature, it is catabolic, meaning it promotes the breakdown of your body's resources.

This makes sense; why would your cells release all their resources just to take them in again?

Given that cortisol lowers relatively soon after the spike, this does not pose an issue because insulin is not elevated during periods of acute stress.

Just to refresh your memory, insulin is the chief anabolic hormone that shuttles nutrients from the bloodstream into the cells.

In an ideal scenario, you probably don't want insulin and cortisol active at the same time if your goal is fat loss. If that is the case, then insulin would just shove the glucose and fat that cortisol mobilized back into your cells.

To make matters worse, it's been shown that cortisol promotes the reallocation of these resources to your visceral fat. Visceral fat is the excess fat that develops in your abdominal region... no bueno.

It's what gives you the "spare tire" and "love handles" look. Not only that, but it also tends to be the most stubborn fat to lose for most people, especially if your chronically stressed.

Cortisol also increases cravings for carbohydrate-heavy foods. If we remember cortisol's main purpose, to mobilize energy for the body, this makes total sense.

It's simply signaling your body to take in more energy in the form of food. This might be useful after an intense bout of physical activity, but it's the last thing you want to do if you're stressing out over your chemistry exam! The body fat adds up fast this way.

How to Manage Your Cortisol Levels to Get the Results You Want

So, now that we know exactly how your body responds to stress and the nasty effects that chronically elevated cortisol can have on your health and body composition, what can you easily apply to your routine to keep stress at bay?

Remember how we established that your autonomic nervous system is split up into two divisions. While the sympathetic nervous system is in charge of the stress response, the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for your recovery, relaxation, and digestion.

Notice how those traits are absolutely essential for fat loss, muscle gain, and overall health.

Despite what many think, gains are not made in the gym, they are made in a state of recovery. The workout itself is a stressor that breaks down resources, but in a healthy dose this stressor promotes adaptation in the form of muscle gain.

Digestion is also slowed when we are in a state of stress. If we look at this from an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. The last thing your body is worried about as you sprint away from a saber-tooth tiger is digesting the food you just ate. Hence, it is essential to get into a parasympathetic state when you eat to enhance your body's use of the nutrients in the food.

Let's go over a few tools that you can add to your toolbox that will make it much easier for you to get into a parasympathetic state.

Tool #1: Sleep

So often, sleep is pushed to the side when it comes to talking about fat loss and muscle gain. As little as one night of poor sleep can increase your cortisol levels, leading to cravings for less-than-ideal food choices. Not to mention the host of other implications that cortisol can have.

Ideally, cortisol spikes in the morning, waking us up. After this, it should slowly dip down throughout the day so we are able to fall asleep at night.

Aim to get at least 7.5 hours of quality sleep per night.

You might be wondering, if my cortisol is elevated, how am I supposed to fall asleep at night? You can get caught in this cycle of being "tired but wired." The key is to be able to shift into a parasympathetic state as you prepare to go to sleep.

The strategies mentioned in the rest of this section will help you do that!

Tool #2: Meditation

Yes, I know. When you think of meditation the first thing that comes to mind is probably some monks living in a secluded, mountain-top monastery seeking enlightenment.

While this technically is meditation, you don't have to take it nearly as far.

In today's society, it's nearly impossible for people to sit and be with their thoughts for more than a couple minutes. We're constantly overstimulated and overstressed by our phones, news, work, school, etc, that we are never able to get comfortable with stillness.

This can be a problem, as it leads to anxiety and the inability to quiet the negative talk in your mind.

To start off, simply set a timer for 3 minutes, sit, and breathe. Pay attention to your thoughts, but don't react to them. Don't make the mistake of trying to stop thinking. That's impossible; you'll just drive yourself crazy. Simply acknowledge your thoughts, and let them pass.

Aim to increase 1 minute per week, until you get to 20 minutes.

As you progress with this, you'll notice that you get a lot more comfortable and it actually becomes something that you enjoy doing.

If you need some help getting started, I highly recommend that you check out the app Headspace.

Tool #3: Journaling

So often, we keep our thoughts trapped up in our head and it drives us crazy.

An easy remedy to this is to simply write them down on a piece of paper. This externalizes them and allows us to examine them and take action, instead of unnecessarily stressing over them.

I like to do this at the end of each day before I go to sleep. In my notebook, I answer 3 very important questions.

What did I do well today?

What could I have done better today?

What will I do to improve?

Simply having an action plan for the next day makes it so much easier to get into a relaxed state and fall asleep. As you do this consistently, you'll probably notice one or two consistent answers that show up for that second question.

For me, it's social media use. As it's a very important part of my business, I find myself getting stuck on it for longer than I'd like. It wasn't until I started journaling that I really noticed this pattern.

Is it perfectly fixed? No, but I do have the clarity on what I need to work on and have a clear action plan to do so, reducing the stress of the unknown.

Try journaling for the next 2-3 weeks and watch it work wonders for you and your stress levels.

Tool #4: EAT ENOUGH CALORIES!

This is often overlooked as a cause of stress. If we think about it, lack of food intake would have been near the top of the list of stressors for our ancestors.

This lack of calories for an extended period of time paired with overtraining is a recipe for a cortisol overload. Paradoxically, eating more calories may actually help you to lose fat. This is why nutritional periodization is so important (future blog topic?).

Determining caloric intake is beyond the scope of this particular post, but check out a previous post I made for more detail.

Tool #5: Post-workout carbs

This one is pretty straightforward. Carbohydrates have been shown to blunt your body's cortisol response. This is likely because your body now has the resources it needs, so cortisol has essentially done its job.

After you workout, aim to take in 30-40g of protein along with 1g per kg of bodyweight in carbs. This will help to ensure that you get into a parasympathetic state as soon as possible after you work out.

The quicker you can get into a parasympathetic state, the quicker your body can get to work building muscle and burning fat.

Tool #6: Go for a walk

Not only is walking a great, low-intensity way to burn fat; it has also been shown to lower cortisol levels.

This is great especially if you're someone who just feels wrong not going to the gym every day. Walking allows you to get some exercise in while still maximizing recovery and results.

Aim to take a 30-60 minute walk daily, or as close to daily as possible. If possible, walk outside rather than on a treadmill, as this is another way to enhance the cortisol reducing effects of walking.

Tool #7: Take at least one rest day per week.

This one is so, so overlooked. In today's world, the "no days off" mantra is glorified among athletes and the average person.

It's well intentioned, but this attitude is pretty much guaranteed to stunt your results. Overtraining is an easy way to get on the fast track to burnout, injuries, and the dreaded plateau.

As we established, exercise itself is a physical stressor. While this stressor promotes adaptation, it doesn't work this way if we don't give our body time to recover!

The constant struggle of fitness and athletics is finding that balance between pushing yourself in a healthy manner and plain overdoing it.

An easy way to have some insurance against this is to implement at least one rest day per week. I typically make this Sunday.

Feel free to go for a walk on your off days, as this will help enhance recovery.

Tool #8: Create time blocks.

It's so easy to get swamped in all the work you have to do. Where do you even start?

A nice fix to this issue is to utilize time blocks. Google calendar is a great app for this. Set designated times for giving activities and work during your day so you can take the guess work out of it all.

It's been established that "perceived control" over a stressor can actual influence your body's physiological response.

By creating these time blocks, you have control over your day and are able to navigate through it efficiently and effectively.

As always, nothing ever goes exactly as planned. There will be conflicts and your time blocks won't always work out exactly as you planned.

This doesn't mean to ditch them. Having these time blocks in place makes it much easier to be adaptable and effectively handle unexpected circumstances.

Your project is due two hours earlier than expected? Swap it's time slot with your workout and just workout later.

Easy fix.

Create structure in your life, and you'll give yourself much more freedom.

Tool #9: Schedule in fun.

Building off of the time blocks, it's important that you schedule in fun time for yourself at least 1-2 times per week.

This will look different for everybody.

For me, it's playing FIFA (if you ever feel like taking an L, hit me up).

On the outside, it doesn't seem very productive, but it works wonders. It allows you to disconnect from work and school for a little while and just enjoy yourself (although it is a valid question how yelling at pixels on a screen to pass the ball correctly is "fun;" but hey, it works).

Take a few minutes and think about what you like to do for fun. Then find a couple times per week to include it into your time blocks!

Tool #10: The Brain Dump

This one's simple. Just set your timer for 15 minutes and start typing.

Whatever comes to your mind, just type it. It doesn't even have to make grammatical sense.

Much like the journaling, this will help get stressful thoughts outside of your head and onto a piece of paper. Often times, just writing/typing out your thoughts can help you get more relaxed and confident about your ability to handle a given stressor.

Tool #11: Create a morning routine.

This one is absolutely critical. It goes back to the concept of creating structure. If you have a routine, it takes the guesswork out of things and allows you to handle stressors one by one in a systematic fashion.

Also, it's much less likely that your morning routine will need to change on a daily basis.

Simply starting your day off on the right foot can work wonders for your stress levels as the day goes on.

Here's what my morning routine looks like:

-Wake up

-Weigh myself

-Meditate 15 minutes

-Drink 1 liter of water with apple cider vinegar

-Either go for a walk or go the the gym to workout

Don't make your morning routine too complicated too quickly. Start off with one thing, and master it. Once you have it down, then add something else.

Your morning routine should be something that decreases stress, not increases it!

Wrapping it Up

With that, you now have the rundown on stress and an arsenal of 11 tools that you can implement (one at a time!) to combat stress in your life.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

-Your body doesn't know the difference between physical and psychological stressors.

-Stress isn't inherently bad... chronic stress is.

-Chronically elevated levels of cortisol can lead to fat gain around the abdomen, as well as the "tired but wired" state

-We must be in a parasympathetic state to recover and make optimal progress

-Implement one of the strategies outlined above each week, mastering it before moving on to the next one.

I hope this helped! With school starting up soon and work being just as busy as ever, it's critical to be aware of and manage stress. With these tips I have no doubt you'll be on the right track.

Thanks so much for reading! I really appreciate your time. Please feel free to give feedback via email at tclarknutrition@gmail.com or shoot me a DM on Instagram @tclarknutrition. Thanks again!