Evil Hormones That Hamper Your Fat Loss Progress

Your body has hormones that do all sorts of things both good and bad. Usually the bad things occur when the hormone levels are out of balance. Your lifestyle, exercise and nutrition plan, water intake, stress levels and amount of sleep all play huge roles in balancing your hormone levels and in turn your progress towards the sexy ninja body that you desire.

You can go on forever about hormones, what they do and so on. This is just to give you an overview and an idea of the complexity of the fat loss battle. Let’s go over some of the heavy hitting hormones and what they do.

Insulin: is a storage hormone released in response to eating with carbohydrates having the largest impact on insulin secretion, protein having the second greatest and fat having little to no impact on insulin secretion. Insulin sensitivity refers to how well or poorly the body responds to the hormone insulin. Individuals who are insulin resistant tend to have higher baseline insulin levels because the body is releasing more in response to try and overcome the resistance. Insulin lowers sugar levels to a normal state – when everything works right. If there is resistance then more insulin is released and the more insulin in your system leads to more fat storage.

Ghrelin: Your stomach makes ghrelin when it’s empty. Just like leptin, ghrelin goes into the blood, crosses the blood-brain barrier, and ends up at your hypothalamus, where it tells you you’re hungry. Ghrelin is high before you eat and low after you eat.


Adiponectin: is a hormone exclusively secreted by body fat. It curbs appetite and sparks the burning of fat, as does leptin. But unlike leptin, chronically overweight people don’t suffer from resistance to the hormone. They have an outright deficiency. Adiponectin helps muscle cells burn fuel for energy more effectively. It acts as a kind of super-charger for maintaining strong and active muscles when stored energy reserves are low. When fat stores drop, adiponectin rises, helping muscle cells take up more sugar from the blood and also enabling them to burn fat more thoroughly as fuel. As fat stores increase, adiponectin levels drop and the burning of fat as fuel actually becomes less complete. Increasing your levels of adiponectin may suppress type 2 diabetes. It tells your body to burn calories instead of saving them as fat and also has a powerful insulin lowering response.

Leptin: is made by adipose tissue (fat) and is secreted into the circulatory system, where it travels to the hypothalamus. Leptin tells the hypothalamus that we have enough fat, so we can eat less or stop eating. Levels decrease with body fat loss.

Cortisol: is a hormone produced by your adrenal glands. It falls into a category of hormones known as “glucocorticoids”, referring to their ability to increase blood glucose levels. Cortisol is the primary glucocorticoid. Your body produces cortisol in response to stress, physical, mental or emotional. This can include extremely low calorie diets, intense training, high volume training, lack of quality sleep as well as common daily stresses such as job pressures, fights with your spouse or being caught in a traffic jam. Trauma, injury and surgery are also major stressors to the body. Faced with a “life or death” situation, cortisol increases the flow of glucose (as well as protein and fat) out of your tissues and into the bloodstream in order to increase energy and physical readiness to handle the stressful situation or threat. Cortisol is catabolic and elevated cortisol levels can cause the loss of muscle tissue by facilitating the process of converting lean tissue into glucose. An excess of cortisol can also lead to a decrease in insulin sensitivity, increased insulin resistance, reduced kidney function, hypertension, suppressed immune function, reduced growth hormone levels, and reduced connective tissue strength. By itself, cortisol doesn’t make you fat but it’s a contributing factor.

 There are many hormones in our bodies, which in the proper amounts, maintain good health, but in excess or in deficiency, contribute to health problems. So the bottom line is that your lifestyle, fitness and nutrition plan directly impact your hormone levels. If you workout and eat right while maintaining a healthy lifestyle, your hormone levels will be good and everything should function properly. Once you throw a wrench into that concept, there are a thousand variable changes that can occur, most of which aren’t good and lead to obesity and disease. Workout hard, eat your food, burn fat and build muscle – and you will be a sexy ninja with stable hormone levels.

http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2010/03/adiponectin-supplementation-body-fat.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol

Eric
Dempsey’s Resolution Fitness

Get SEXY for Santa

A bunch of ladies have been talking to me about upcoming social events that require them to dress up in formal attire. So I decided to offer a special to help all the ladies who need to get into that dress in the next few weeks. Only 10 spots on this one. Let me know if you want in.

Eric

Dempsey's Resolution Fitness

The Meal Movement: Amy's Testimonial

 

Order The Meal Movement Now!

This is the real deal recommended by top trainers around the world to their clients. Meal planning, grocery lists, shopping, driving, unloading, preparing, transporting is sometimes just too much for busy people. So they go without and suffer the fat and out of shape consequences of not eating right. What if you could order real healthy food online and have a month's worth of meals shipped to your door. Unlike other meal shipment programs, these meals are real healthy frozen food that you picked off the menu.

One 28 Day Supply will contain up to 55lbs worth of food… No other meal delivery program on the planet comes close. Nutrisystem®: 25lbs / Medifast®: 17lbs. The food tastes great, is all-natural and you will love it.

These meals DO NOT include processed fillers like noodles, pastas, white rice, potatoes or preservatives. There are 3 plans which you may order. The foods are natural products: meats, vegetables, natural dairy and select nuts… and these meals are not TV dinners. You order individually bagged meats and vegetables to create your lunches & dinners.

Check out the Meal Movement
 Great healthy foods, shipped to your door. Being too busy is no longer an excuse not to eat right.

Eric
Dempsey's Resolution Fitness

Holiday Fat Blaster Special

DON'T WAIT UNTIL JANUARY - START NOW!

For new and returning clients.
Enroll now for up to 65 fat blasting bootcamp workouts that will cover you through thanksgiving to new years. You can attend as many workouts per week as you like - up to 13 a week.

And there are no excuses!

I’m so busy right now getting ready for the holidays.
I’m going on vacation.
I’m going to have to miss workouts so I’ll just start after Jan 1st.
I’m spending a lot on gifts and stuff so my budget is tight right now.

This special covers them all - dirt cheap, flexible schedule, max workout opportunities and it covers from now until new years so even if you miss a few days you can workout right up until you leave and start back up as soon as you get back.

While everyone else is packing on the fat this holiday season, they will be asking you your secret for staying lean through the holidays. Time is wasting. Enroll Now!

Eric
Dempsey's Resolution Fitness

Recipes: Lemon Tart With Chestnut Pastry

Check out this tasty recipe for Lemon Tart With Chestnut Pastry. All natural ingredients for a good tasting treat.



www.paleocookbook.com/newsletter/lemon-tart
Enjoy!

Eric
Dempsey's Resolution Fitness

Cardio Is Cardio Right? One Size Fits All? Hell No!

Around the Fort Benning Area, we live in a brain washed cardio heavy area. The Army is a cardio based organization, although I disagree with that concept, it is what it is. So we are inundated with cardio and endurance events touting everything from stellar fitness to weight loss miracles. And the extremes are in there also. Walks in the park with your baby to marathon and triathlon training will all get you in the best shape of your life. Well I'm here to tell you - No it won't.

Does cardio have many benefits -of course. But what I'm talking about is using the wrong type of cardio for a certain goal. I train people in primarily two realms of fitness goals - body composition and performance enhancement. The cardio portion of the training has overlaps but by in large- they are very different.

A soldier who has to pass the ranger 5 mile run and improve his 2 mile run time will train differently than the girl who wants to get lean and toned for her beach body. But many will tell you that you can do both at the same time. There is a limited overlap here, where that is a tiny percent true but not so much.

So the bottom line is that if you have a specific fitness goal, then the cardio portion of your training program has to be tailored to meet your needs.

I see people everyday doing the old classics - wearing the vinyl / plastic sweat tops, reading a book while going slow for hours, watching their heart rate monitor for their heart rate and calorie count, using different time splits and paces, and now of course you have to have 5 finger shoes, barefoot or one of the new barefoot style shoes. And you have to use the ninja Mayan Indian running method or the pose method -barefoot over hot coals with the new hybrid sweat recycling cooling system clothing -cause that's all that works and it's what the kool kids do.

I remember when I used to do my weekly 10 mile run, wearing an old school flak vest. I didn't run barefoot and I didn't have a new hybrid alien shirt or shoe. I didn't train for the half marathon that I ran in Hawaii, we just did it for PT one day. Mentality is a big part of the training. Easy doesn't work regardless of your goal.

Remember to work on your stride and rotate your shoes every 3-6 months. Train for your goal using the correct training method. The couch to 5k program is not a fat loss program, it's designed to help you run a 5k. It has limited value for anything else. Targeted fat loss cardio and metabolic conditioning training on the other hand, will work on your body composition, improve your cardio health and increase your run times and endurance. So choose your cardio program wisely.

And cross training is important regardless of your cardio goal or method. Mobility, flexibility, balance, stride, strength and conditioning combined with nutrition must be addressed with any program.

Run hard and smart and be safe on the road!

Eric
Dempsey's Resolution Fitness

Wrist Wraps And Grip Strength - What's The Deal?

You see a bunch of people in the gym using all sorts of wrist wraps when they lift weights. It allows you to lift heaviers weights which is always cool. But the issue is that depending on the type of training that you are doing, wrist wraps are good and bad. If you are bodybuilding and you are working on say back for example, wrist wraps allow you to get in heavier work on lat pulldowns, seated rows, chinups, and any barbell/dumbbell work. To get more intense work from the targeted muscle is the goal and wrist wraps allow you to do that.

But if you are doing general physical preparedness training or total body functional training, wrist wraps are not good. The wrist wraps prevent you from developing wrist/forearm and grip strength. I don't recommend using wrist wraps at all unless you are doing a specific type of training where it can be a benefit like bodybuilding. Everything I train clients with uses core and grip / forearm strength. A heavy sandbag has no handles or straps and is very hard to pick up. It makes you work your forearm and grip strength with every rep. Ultimately, your grip strength dictates how much weight you will be able to lift. It is the weak point especially with females. By not using any straps or wrist wraps, you must work those weak muscles and they will get stronger and be able to allow you to execute functional movements with greater weight.

So when I make you lift odd objects with no pretty handles and your forearms get smoked, you are doing the right thing. It is intentional. Not only will your forearms and wrists get stronger, your grip strength will increase and you will be able to lift heavier things. Then one day, when your out and about and something happens, you will be able to pickup or move an object without the fear of your grip failing you.

Practice grip strength drills by picking up odd objects and heavy kettlebells, barbells and dumbbells. Work on squeezing the object or crushing the weight bars. In time, you will notice the improved performance as your grip strength improves. In addition to traditional barbell / dumbbell wrist curls you should use a variety of odd objects like sandbags, rocks / stones, sledgehammer, rope and crushing tools like weight plates, pliable balls, grip squeezers and anything heavy you can pick up with one hand.  Train grip work specifically at least once a week.

Combined with the rest of the program like bench press and deadlifts, your grip strength will improve and your personal record will go up. So make grip strength part of your weekly plan and it will benefit you ten-fold.

Eric
Dempsey's Resolution Fitness   

Veteran's Day Special

Veteran's Day Special: For new and returning clients. All fitness levels welcome. Enroll now before Friday and receive unlimited bootcamp until Thanksgiving for $67. Can't beat this deal!

Eric

Dempsey's Resolution Fitness

Radiation And Your Food: Should You Be Concerned?

So with all the different food hazards out there, here is one more way that you are being poisoned. This is the symbol for irradiated food. Yes it's USDA and FDA approved. If you see this on the label, put it back and find a food that doesn't have it. Blasting your food with radiation is claimed to be a safe and effective way to keep your foods from being contaminated. Are you kidding me?

Irradiation was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1963, and today is used on more than 40 food products dispersed throughout 37 countries.

Are There Health Risks to Eating Irradiated Food?

The FDA claims, "Irradiation is an important food safety tool in fighting foodborne illness," noting that the sources and amounts of radiation applied to foods are not strong enough to cause the food to become radioactive. They also state that "food irradiation does not significantly change the nutrient content, flavor, or texture of food." However, as Sayer Ji, found of GreenMedInfo.com, states:

"The FDA presently supports and actively promotes the use of Cobalt-60 culled from Nuclear Reactors as a form of "electronic pasteurization" on all domestically produced conventional food.
The use of euphemisms like "food additive" and "pasteurization" to describe the process of blasting food with high levels of gamma-radiation cannot obviate the fact that the very same death-rays generated by thermonuclear warfare to destroy life are now being applied to food to "make it safer" …
This is not a hypochondriac's rantings, as we aren't talking here about small amounts of radiation. The level of gamma-radiation used starts at 1KiloGray (equivalent to 16,700,000 chest x-rays or 333 times a human lethal dose) and goes all the way up to 30KiloGray (500,000,000 chest x-rays or 10,000 times a human lethal dose)."

As you might suspect, exposing food to the equivalent of hundreds of millions of x-rays does not appear to be an innocuous act. Alternatively, evidence to date suggests it may be having a detrimental effect on the health of those who consume it.

It never ceases to amaze me to what lengths the food industry and government will go to in order to make another billion at our expense. Of course blasting your food with radiation, gamma rays and xrays are not safe. So educate yourself, read your labels and make healthy choices. Live long and prosper!

For more info go here:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/05/why-are-your-spices--seasonings-exposed-to-half-a-billion-chest-xrays-worth-of-radiation.aspx?e_cid=20111105_DNL_art_3

Eric
Dempsey's Resolution Fitness