Hormone optimisation – for fat loss and performance
Everyone has heard the word hormone, and if you have not then you should really get out more! In brief, hormones act as messengers in our body. They get sent from one part of the body to tell another part to do its thing. For example, your pancreas releases insulin to tell your cells to open gates and let glucose in to make energy. Most people don’t understand the importance of having an optimal hormone profile to get the most from our bodies, but when things get out of wack all sorts of bad things can happen.
For example, if something goes wrong with either insulin production or reception then you can no longer regulate blood sugar properly. The system then falls into dysfunction; this is more commonly known as insulin resistance and the different forms of diabetes.
Your body is living moment to moment for survival, it does not think very much about the long term and is always trying to get things back to ’normal’, problem is that with external pressures what your body sees as ‘normal’ might actually just be stable and safe, but is actually a long way off normal in the long run.
Let’s say genetically you don’t have very good insulin sensitivity. You also eat a heap of sweet foods like candy and high glycemic load foods like pasta and bread. Every time you eat those foods a rush of glucose enters the body and your pancreas go “ok boys it’s on!” and dumps a heap of insulin into your blood to tell your cells to open the gates and make lots of energy. Problem is that your cells cannot cope with the influx of fuel and your insulin receptors act like the jerk bouncer at a fancy nightclub, closing the doors and stopping the glucose from entering the cell. Now those cells are what you call insulin resistant, but your fat cells, which are like the seedy strip joint just down the road that will let anyone in the door, are still open for business and you start storing all this excess energy for later making you fat.
This, though a very simplified explanation, is your body’s way of protecting itself from damage in that scenario. That is, it is doing its best to survive. This is just one way that things can go wrong in the body, and you will need to change the external factor, food choices, to begin to correct the issue.
Another big issue that comes up with general population as well as athletes is stress. People often associate stress as being a bad thing, but it’s not. When it is bad is when it becomes chronic and uncontrollable. Stress is a good thing, we need to stress our bodies to allow them to become bigger stronger and faster, but then after the initial stressor is over we should soon return to baseline levels.
The problem is that things like injuries, gut health, and daily stressors like traffic, money, work and family can all add to these stressors and they have a cumulative effect. Our bodies have evolved to deal with a large stressor, like running from a bear, then things go back to normal and we chill back out. However, the constant stress of daily life like mentioned above cause this system to operate abnormally in an attempt to deal with this additional stress. Chronically elevated stress levels can then affect insulin sensitivity, sex hormone production as well as gut function and your body’s ability to repair/maintain bone and muscle tissue; it also makes you dumber.
Now that is all well and good but how the hell do you know if things aren’t going right? Well if you are fat, tired, confused, unmotivated, craving crappy foods, can’t sleep or cant wake up then that’s a pretty good sign something is wrong, and that’s where someone like myself comes into the picture. As a coach my first point of call is a detailed questionnaire and Biosignature Modulation, this gives me a solid overview of what is happening in your life as far as nutrition and lifestyle factors and how they are effecting your hormones and metabolism. From there, blood panels, salivary tests and blood glucose monitoring may be required. Once the issue is/are identified we can make modifications to nutritional, lifestyle, training or supplementation to correct them, and this may include referring you out to a medical professional that specialises in correcting the problem.
If you would like to optimize your training and performance by mastering your hormones and metabolism, then contact me today and join the growing numbers of people making the Actionsport Performance difference to their lives and health.
Train hard and be safe.
Your strength coach,
Cam
