This is negatively affecting YOUR efforts! 06/03/14
Today my friend, I want to talk to you briefly about stress (coffee), how much you’re drinking and why it’s negatively affecting your fat loss efforts…
You see coffee, like stress, triggers an ADRENAL RESPONSE! You ever heard of FIGHT or FLIGHT?
It’s basically your body’s reaction to a threatening situation. To either put your dukes up and try to overcome said situation (fight), or to scream, run and hide (flight). Either way you require a sudden burst of energy to do so. This is provided by the adrenal glands as they: signal the body to release stored sugar for energy, pump blood to skeletal muscles and force the heart and lungs to work harder and faster etc.
It’s an instinctive reaction that’s been programmed into us since BC, potentially one that could save your life at any given moment; jumping out the way of a speeding car, running from a burning building, or in prehistoric times evading a grizzly beast.
The thing is!
Your body doesn’t identify the difference between real life stress (being attacked) and artificially stimulated stress (drinking a coffee)/work stress/family stress etc.
I’ll presume you usually pay for your starbucks!
So that fight or flight response is going to waste. (Just to clarify! I’m not suggesting you stealing your morning coffee to justify the adrenalin response)
ANNNYWAAAY!
A lot of coffee and stress equates to a lot of adrenalin released! This constant state of stress and alertness leads to a permanent and unfavourable existence known as adrenal fatigue (alota ups and downs)
The body gets so used to having that adrenalin, that it needs more and more to operate in the same way, even to feel normal… This, my friend is addiction and you will develop the same relationship with sugar if you have too much of it.
Ever heard of insulin resistance?
Pretty much the same thing… The body gets so overwhelmed with continuous sugar spikes that its functions for dealing with them become exhausted – Did somebody say DIABETIS?!
Adrenal fatigue wreaks havoc with your hormones. Sky rocketing stress hormones (mainly cortisol) and plummeting anabolic hormones (mainly testosterone and human growth hormone), these little beauties are the ones responsible for keeping you lean, young and healthy. So these being waaaay down low ISN’T GOOD.
It’s not all bad!...
When you exercise, this sort of adrenalin response is inevitable! But is should only ever be this way as a temporary state, e.g. until the workouts over.
Your body reacts like this to fuel the activity, it makes sense right?! So the only time coffee will work in your favour is right before a training session. Once you’ve finished training, your post workout (protein) meal and a hit of vitamin C will work to clear cortisol and return your body back to a state of building (anabolism) – getting you back onto the road to recovery, creating an optimal hormone balance and ultimately getting you the results that you’re after.
THE BOTTOM LINE - cos’ Stone Cold said so (ignore that if you don’t get the reference)
If you feel tired all the time, struggle with your fat loss goals and constantly crave coffee and/or sugar… kick the caffeine! Save your coffee for pre training only and your adrenalin for when you really need it, it could be when you least expect it. Drinking less coffee could seriously save your life in more ways than one!
Replace coffee with green tea. It’s great for fat loss as it contains antioxidants called catechins. These speed up your metabolism, meaning your burn more calories on a daily basis… if you drink it regularly.
And yes, green tea does contain a little caffeine. But nowhere near as much as there is in coffee. If you feel you have trouble sleeping switch to a herbal tea post mid-afternoon (ginger, mint etc.)
Tom ‘kick the stimulants’ Kynaston