Stress and Body Fat talk with Rob

I haven’t quite started my BodyAware programme with Rob as yet…been quite busy (and stressed I dare say) with work! I did, however, get the opportunity to join in on his ‘Stress and Body Fat’ talk in the Piano Bar today. I love the fact that The BodyHoliday has sessions like these which provide benefits that you can take home with you!

The turnout for his session was good; we huddled comfortably to soak in what Rob was going to tell us. His first question was simple, yet able to bring meaning to the whole session: ‘how many of you are stressed?’ The hands shot up and it was clear that we all live stressful lives in one way or another.

“When we’re faced with stress”, he began, “our bodies release hormones. The first is adrenaline which gives us the energy to ‘fight’ or ‘fly’ and cortisol which kicks in after the stressful event and stimulates appetite”.

In today’s world, stress is a major issue and can come from a number of sources, both physical and emotional. Our jobs are highly stressful; then we go home to highly stressed families; nature has dealt us some serious life threatening blows lately; in fact some people think that to just be alive is to be stressed. Stress causes a hormonal response in the brain and as a result cortisol is released which stimulates appetite. Basically, when you’re stressed, Rob said, there’s a tendency to eat more.

When the body chooses fight or flight mode, energy lasts in muscles for five to ten seconds. When you’re stressed, sugar (carbohydrates) goes to working muscles. The body then releases insulin to control the sugar which gets stored in our fat cells when we are normally inactive.

The best way to deal with stress is exercise. We’ve seen that stress leads us to eat more and exercise burns those calories that we built up. Even more relaxation based exercises like yoga and meditation can help, because they de-stress and lower stress levels as well. What’s also key is always eating a balanced breakfast to start the day and eating regularly. Why? Leaving long gaps between meals causes a drop in the sugar level. Rob’s last piece of advice – we need a combination of relaxation, exercise and a balanced diet. Ultimately, we should try, where possible, to reduce stress and the causes of stress. Of course we could just plan to stay longer at LeSPORT…