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Shape Up Fitness & Wellness Consulting can help reduce your stress level

5-Strategies To Alleviate Stress

The short version

  • Even a few minutes of meditation can help you reduce your stress & anxiety levels
  • Deep breathing activates relaxation in the body
  • Scheduling 7-8 hours of sleep can help normalize your hormone household and stress levels
  • Cardiovascular exercise can have a relaxing effect on the body
  • Mindfulness reduces anxiety and stress.

What is stress?

Stress is normal. We all experience it. It is a physical response to triggers that upset you, unbalance you or threaten you. It is our body’s response to a perceived threat and puts us into the ‘fight or flight’ mode. It prepares us to protect our life.

In today’s world most of the stressors we experience are not of the ‘flight or fight’ category but rather an angry boss, family member, work, traffic, etc. Our bodies cannot differentiate between those different queues and because of the often chronic stress situations we are stuck in we start feeling the negative side effects of prolonged stress exposure.

What you can do to alleviate stress:

The number one goal is to eliminate stressors. If we can clear the air with our family member or boss we have problems with, change our jobs, leave home a little bit earlier etc, we are making good progress.

Sadly, we do not always have that option. At times we are unable to make immediate changes. In that case the following steps might help you reduce your stress level:

  • Meditation, even a few minutes a day can help you with restructuring neuronal pathways and reduce stress and anxiety.
  • Deep Breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for relaxation, digestion, etc. Try it out! Breathe deeply in through your nose, filling your belly and lungs with air. Then breathe slowly out. Repeat this 3-6 times and you will feel significantly more relaxed.
  •  Sleep: Our society is often proud of the fact that we need little sleep. Little do we know. Sleep is necessary to process what we experience and reset our hormone household. Sleep deprivation is definitely not the way to go. Now everyone has different needs and the older population among us often has trouble sleeping. Make sure to schedule sufficient time, reduce light pollution in the evening hours and get rid of the TV in the bedroom.
  • Cardiovascular exercise can also stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (after you are done, that is). Try 20-30 min of an easy to moderate walk, jog, etc and see how you feel afterwards.
  • Mindfulness – We are often caught up in the future or the past. Exercises like meditation, tai chi, yoga etc, can help us focus on being more mindful and in the present. You can practice that with almost anything that you are doing.

I am looking forward to helping you! Check out our specials to get started.

Michael

Sleep deprivation can lead to loss of fitness - Shape Up Fitness & Wellness Consulting

Fitness & Weight Loss Through Sleep

Things You need to Know

  • Sleep deprivation can affect your body’s insulin sensitivity
  • You will feel an increase in appetite
  • You will feel a decrease in satiation after taking in food
  • Cortisol levels don’t change in total numbers but you have more exposure throughout the day.
  • Testosterone production can be reduced by 10-30% after just a couple of days with sleep deprivation.
  • Sleep cannot be ignored if you want to be successful

Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Insulin

Even one night of partial sleep deprivation can have a negative impact on your body’s insulin sensitivity. What does that mean for you? If your body does not respond well to insulin it is more likely to store energy in form of fat. Secondly your body will increase the insulin output which could lead to an early exhaustion of the pancreatic beta cells, the ones producing insulin and bring you one step closer to being a diabetic.

Increased Appetite, Increased Hunger

Sleep deprivation can lead to a decrease in leptin. Leptin is a master hormone in charge of hunger feelings and satiety. It being reduced can lead to an increased appetite while at the same time just not being able to get satisfied. The next time you are burning the midnight oil and are ravenous the following day, remember that the lack of sleep is what did it to you.

In comes another player, Ghrelin. Ghrelin is responsible for hunger. If you have foregone sleep for a while your ghrelin levels are elevated. Higher levels of ghrelin are associated with higher levels of hunger. In combination with lower levels of Leptin you are in for a day of uncontrolled feasting.

Cortisol

A hormone that is connected to increased visceral body fat distribution (belly fat and organs) is an important stress hormone. We are usually exposed to higher levels in the morning and it tapers off throughout the day. Sleep deprivation will not increase the cortisol levels necessarily but reduces the peak in the morning and increases the exposure during the day, changing the normal hormone rhythm. This could lead to

  • decreased cognitive functions
  • decreased muscle tissues
  • decreased bone density
  • blood sugar disbalance
  • compromised immune system.

 Testosterone

If you are trying to get stronger or gain some lean muscle mass, you need all the testosterone levels you can get [naturally]. Losing sleep can really reduce testosterone levels. There is no conclusive data on how much exactly but at the moment it is about 10-30%. This reduction happened within 24 hours of sleep reduction.

Conclusion

If you really want to be successful you cannot ignore sleep like it is something for pantsies. Quite the opposite, sleep is something for people who want to be successful. The effects described here are just a few. There are many more. If you want to kick some butt in any aspects of life, you cannot disregard sleep as an important factor.

Check us out at www.charlottepersonaltrainer.org if you want us to help you accomplish your goals!

 

Michael

Karen at Shape Up Fitness & Wellness Consulting training with personal trainer Troy Groce

Fitness Is Like Building a House – 4 Essentials to a Fitter You

We live in a society that craves the instant fix. Fitness on the other hand

has nothing to do with an instant fix and everything to do with building a house.

Just like in constructions there are short cuts that can be taken. The problem is though that the house of cards can fall apart pretty easily.

The essential building stones for success in fitness are pretty straight forward:

  1. Stress Reduction: I cannot emphasize it enough. Negative stressors are big when it comes to influencing our success negatively. If you are a procrastinator, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you struggles in your relationship, in your job or other personally important areas, don’t wait until tomorrow until you address it. Make a positive change today and see yourself take off in your journey to a slimmer, fitter, or stronger you!
  2. Sleep Deprivation: I feel like this one is in every blog post of mine. Well, there is a reason for it. Sleep is important for brain function, hormone levels, healing processes, etc. It also messes with our appetite and feeling of satiation. Most people need at least 6.5 hours of sleep.
  3. Food Preparation: Most people eating 200-400 kcal more a day if they eat out at some point during the day. Over the course of the week that is up to 2800 kcal of additional food intake. If you are unable to prepare your own food, or you simply don’t like it, you can always use food preparation services like “Custom Fit Meals” or “ModPaleo”.
  4. Training: Someone trying to lose weight / BF will have optimum results by working out 5-7 hours per week.

If you are looking to gain muscle mass and usually struggle with it, then cardio training should be at a minimum. If you are looking to lose weight then you need to focus on a good mix of strength training, combined with high intensity interval training can melt the fat right off.

The more effort you put in, the more success you will have in the long run. Time to get started today. Let us help you get on the right track!

Have a great day,

Michael

 

5 Foods That Might Add to Your Waist Line

We strongly encourage our clients to eat a diet consisting of whole foods, as unprocessed as

Nutrition at Shape Up Fitness & Wellness Consulting
Natural can still add to your waistline!

possible. Almost always clients are really successful in transforming their bodies, losing body fat, gaining lean muscle, looking healthy and fit.

When eating healthy foods goes wrong

Sometimes though it does not work. Even though they are eating as we suggested (or so I think) our clients transformation seems to stagnate or slow down. When this happens we recommend our clients to write down what they eat by using a site/app like MyFoodDiary. It is an easy way to find out what our clients exactly eat and it is simple to use.
The results are astonishing: Here are some of the foods that turned out to be Waist Busters:

  1. Honey: Even though honey is a natural product and in its raw form can have healthy qualities, it still is primarily sugar. Excessive amounts of honey definitely can add to your waistline and mess with your blood sugar if you are pre-diabetic or diabetic. Keep the total amount of honey to 1-2 Tbsp per day at the most when trying to lose weight or body fat.
  2. Dried Fruit: Fruit is fruit, right? Nope, dried fruit has a higher density of carbohydrates, lower number of phytonutrients and can have lead to the same problems as honey. When losing weight we recommend to stay away from dried fruit. We had a client who ate 3 lbs of dates in a week and he was wondering why he was not losing any weight. After getting him off his dried fruit diet, the weight came off as well.
  3. Protein Bars, Lara Bars, etc: Even though some of the bars are not a bad, they all have one thing in common, they are fairly nutrient dense but often don’t satisfy for as long as real foods. If you do not have a choice but to eat a bar because you are stuck in meetings, then go for a bars like the quest bar, who have a relatively small amount of carbohydrates but high protein content
  4. Organic Agave Syrup. It is 2-3 times as sweet as regular table sugar. Therefore a smaller amount would be needed. In the end WebMD recommends the use of honey if sweetener is necessary because it has marginally more health benefits.
  5. Fatty Meats: I don’t particularly have a problem with you eating fatty meats, since cholesterol in your food does rarely impact serum cholesterol in your blood. In addition the whole cholesterol debate is rather controversial by now anyway. The problem you are going to run in though is, extremely fatty meats will contribute to your overall caloric intake. Even though some representatives of the overall pretty healthy paleo diet claim that you can eat as much as you want, it is simply not true. If you are an chair-warrior who moves very little you can overeat.

Just because you eat a healthy, whole foods diet, does not mean that you can go out and eat as much as you want…I mean, you can but your waist will have a tendency to expand.

Having decent portion sizes are crucial for success. Here are some rough guidelines:

  1. Eat Until you are 80% full
  2. Eat 1 fistful of veggies with each meal, 2 if you are a man
  3. Eat 1 palm sized piece of protein with each meal, 2 if you are a man
  4. Eat 1/2 thumb size of fat with each meal, 1 if you are a man
  5. Eat 1 cupped handful of carbohydrates (2 if a man) directly after working out.

If you are interested in breaking through your barriers then find out more about us and get started by clicking here

Michael

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