Cortisol my best friend or my foe?

Cortisol

What is it?
Cortisol is a steroid hormone or glucocorticoid produced by the adrenal gland and is release response to stress and involve in regulating our body metabolism.

Functions

1. Cortisol increases adipocyte LPL levels and reduces adipocyte hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) activity which could potentially lead to preferential deposition and maintenance of triglyceride stores in this adipose depot.

2. Cortisol promotes adipogenesis and abdominal adipose stromal cells are more responsive to this effect of cortisol than stromal cells from the femoral adipose site.

3. Cortisol increases the levels of serum NEFA and LPL activity

Key point

Insulin decrease cortisol . à first 30 minutes after consumption of food, cortisol increase at 60^th minute and slowly decrease in3 hrs.

Insulin decrease growth hormone -à lowest at around 30-60^th minute and fluctuate and peaks at 3 hrs.

Insulin decrease NEFA à decrease in first 2 hrs and reaches lowest peak at 120^th minutes and peaks at 240^th minutes.

High Cortisol directly stimulates NEFA  

 

High Cortisol = Growth hormone due to non-availability of insulin.

Application

1. Morning cardio when fasting burns more NEFA due to availability of high amount of NEFA in blood

2. However, intensity might be not that high due to lack of glucose for doing HIIT.

Explaination : Due to lack of glucose stored in liver glycogen, body response by producing hunger signal. At extreme low blood glucose level, hypoglycemic occurs, muscle trembles even without workout and fatigue is seen occurring too fastly.

Overcoming : By consuming caffeine or black coffee 20 minutes during workout, it increase cortisol level to a higher level where more NEFA is directly produced.With it function as a stimulant, it activate fight or flight response to produce our body with sudden burst of energy in response to dangerous situation or when we need the energy. However, prolong caffeine consumption with workout time increase fatigue even more due to hypoglycemic effect as caffeine lowers blood glucose level. Therefore, 20 minutes preworkout coffee and 20minutes of intense cardio can be done with ease to maximize fat burning.

3. Muscle catabolism is fear since cortisol stimulates release of amino acid from muscle to blood.

Explaination : Cortisol functions as initiate flight or fight response to give further burst of energy to the body. However, if the lack of glucose in body, cortisol will increase production of NEFA and also uses free amino acid generated from the breakdown of muscle.

Overcoming : This can be prevented by not performing more than 30 minutes of intense cardio or low intensity cardio during fasting mode. Although some opinion had been given that, consuming protein shake will prevent catabolism. It is actually true as it contain BCAA which will help to reduce the catabolism of the muscle. However cortisol is a different hormone where it will act to breakdown muscle to obtain free amino acid rather than using it from the availability of amino acid. However, we must not forget that our body keep breakdown muscle and rebuilding it every single sec, so as long there are + nitrogen level in the body, it can be safely conclude that it will rebuild the muscle to adapt with the resistance training . Our body adapts constantly to satisfy the need or strength, therefore it will undergo homeostasis to replace the current size of muscle for the workload and hyperthropy. Since amino acid will only present in our body for 2-3 hrs with the absorption of 5-9g/hr , therefore, the body should be fed with protein around 10gm à 30gm every 2-3 hrs. MORE doesn’t means better and it will damage your kidney as albumin will break the glomerulus filter leading to kidney failure.

4. After cardio, a post workout meal should be given, consisting of good carbohydrates and protein and if possible, a little of healthy fats.

Explaination : After exercise, insulin sensitivity will increase drastically. Our body will also be low in glycogen level. It is appropriate to spike insulin with high GI carbohydrate for example dextrose . To improve muscle recovery, amino acid should be incorporated into the meal. Insulin production will allow shuttle of glucose and also amino acid into muscle to help in recovery. At this point, the insulin production will reduce the cortisol level to its minimum as it is elevated to peak during exercise.

Overcoming : By consuming roughly 0.5g/kg of protein to 0.75g/kg of carbohydrate upon finishing exercise will help recharge your body.

Choon's SCBM plan

1. Upon waking, consume caffeine 20 minutes before a cardio training for 20 minutes.

2. Roughly around 2 hours -3 hrs, do some 15 minutes exercise, which include pushups,chin-ups, squats, situps, which can elevate your heart rate.

3. Have a resistance training incorporated with a schedule programme.

4. Before sleep, enhance your body meta with another 15 minutes exercise which can be anything.

Conclusion : This means that you will have 3-4 exercise a day. Morning cardio, short exercise just before lunch time, after tea time, and before sleeping.

Explaination : Morning cardio is explained at the top, as for the 15 minutes exercise, a research has been done where an hour exercise which is done separately rather than at the same time will causes more calories to be burned, leading to increase daily expenditure. This is highly due to Increased oxygen consumption after exercise and increase of BMR. It is believed that very straining exercising which include tabata interval could elevate one’s metabolism to a length of 24 hrs, however normal exercise will only increase it to 3-4 hrs depending on the person body.