Weight Loss
When you train as many people as we do, you start to notice some very strong similarities of what works and what doesn’t. For most people, the path to fitness can be as easy as just getting active again. For others, it seems like you need to move mountains in order to make the scale move down.
In our experience, we have noticed one monumental obstacle to weight loss that holds true with every client that has it: stress. When we first started SmartFit, we realized our method didn’t work very well on highly stressed clients. It took us a while to really figure out what was going on, and why it made it nearly impossible to lose weight.
Stress is a survival response. It’s an old (like 100,000 years old) biological system meant for the days of Lions and Woolly Mammoths. “Stress” as we know it, was to prime the body for either “fight” or “flight” –either running from a threat (like a Lion) or standing your ground and potentially risking your life. In either of these circumstances, the body requires a surge of fuel and hormones to be able to see it through. A normal, relaxed disposition will surely get you killed when these circumstances arise. Stress forces the body to action in an intense manner. One of the ways it achieves this is by forcing the body to use sugar as a fuel source, as sugar works well in conditions when a human being is out of breath.
Nowadays, we no longer face the threat of Lions, but our minds still perceive threats in the form of mortgage payments, abusive bosses, over-bearing family members, and the like. Our stress response system treats this as the same as being chased by a Lion, and unfortunately again forces our body to use sugar as a fuel source.
When you’re trying to lose weight, the goal is to get your body running on body fat. Fat and sugar are two different fuels and only one can operate at a time. For those deeply stressed out, their bodies will never allow them to burn fat, as they are always in a “fight or flight” mode that forces them to burn sugar. When they run out of fuel, the body won’t turn to using body fat to make up the shortfall; it will instead make you ravenously hungry for sugar-rich foods.
Understanding this model allows us to accurately design a fitness training and lifestyle plan that will get your body running on body fat again. As you progress through our stress-oriented weight loss plan, you will start to finally drop the weight and feel better. For each person, their particular plan will be highly customized to their individual circumstances. Please contact us if you would like any more information.