Insulin and Cortisol, a basic understanding by Jessie Casteel

Well it seems as though no matter how many questions I get on any given day there is always one that always seems to find it's way into conversations and if you are into fitness it is easy to understand why. If not it will be quite clear after this segment. I understand that most trainers like to speak over their clients head when they explain things to make the appearance that they know what they are talking about but that's not me. I am gonna keep this simple and as short as possible. This segment will be based on a presentation I plan to give soon and once those details are worked out I will post to let you know. The topic is Cortisol and Insulin and I will explain how both are necessary and if managed properly can break you through any training plateau you may be encountering due to mismanagement of these critical hormones so enjoy.

First to fully understand cortisol you must understand what cortisol's purpose is in the body. Cortisol has gotten a bad reputation due to the fact it is a stress hormone and even worse it is a catabolic hormone. AHHH yeah I can hear the gears turning and you are looking at the screen thinking "but Jess, I thought you said Cortisol was necessary." Yes it is or it wouldn't be produced by the body. Ok I will not get all religious on you but lets face it, our bodies where created by a grand designer that is unparalleled and what is in or bodies is there for a reason so lets look at what purpose this hormone has. First Cortisol is a stress hormone as I mentioned before but the reason for that is when the body comes under a stress load the body produces Cortisol which is shuttled to the "storage cells" (liver, kidneys, muscles, etc...) which trigger a reaction causing the said storage cells to open releasing BCAA or Branched Chain Amino Acids, Fats, Carbohydrates and other nutrients into the blood stream to be used as a sudden burst of energy. Kinda like an adrenaline rush to supply power or speed in a stressful action. Now when you are stressed from work or even fast foods puts the body under stress just because it is so processed. anyway I wont go off on fast food since every time I do I have to go all U.F.C. on a Clown in yellow with red hair, A little talking Chihuahua, and a freaky looking King that likes to wake people up with an air horn but the fact is this food is barely food at all and is nothing more than Spackle for the colon walls. When is Cortisol useful? HA now you are getting somewhere and I have the road map. When we workout especially if you are working out right with near maximal weight or at minimum 70% of your one rep max which is the optimal fat burning rate, you will produce cortisol as a burst of energy but that's good since you need these nutrients at this time. The good news though is since you are working with set and rep ranges you can control the amount of Cortisol by taking brief rest periods between sets. I'm not talking about taking 20 minutes to talk to the hottie on the exercise bike. you hit the gym to train not flirt so get to work. Now here is where Cortisol gets people, If outside stress gets to you then you are producing Cortisol and not using it. So what happens to the cortisol at this point? That's right, you store it as fat and guess where it stores. Yup, right again my friend. Right around the belly button. Take for instance, Say a lion is chasing you and you need to leave in a hurry. Boom! you have cortisol to give you a boost to get out of dodge. Now when you are stressed from work and all you do is flip channels while sitting on the couch you don't burn the cortisol so it is stored in the umbilical area. Does that make sense? I hope so.

How do we control Cortisol and when do we need to focus on control? That is the question and here is the answer. There are mainly 2 times we should focus on first and foremost. Breakfast, and post workout. when we sleep we go into a fast so before bed have a slow digesting protein like casein from cottage cheese or as I take it in powder casein form via protein shake. now this should take care of roughly 6 of the 8 hours you better be getting for sleep and don't lie because all i need to do is a skin fold test on your inner calve to see how well your sleep patterns are. Upon waking you want to take in simple sugars fast to spike Insulin to blunt Cortisol and once I explain Insulin you will know why. next you need to take your whey protein and supplements and then take sustainable quality carbs like oats or wheat serial. Post workout is the same except for your selection of simple sugars should consist of a banana for the rich source of nutrients and or an orange for the vitamin C to fight free radicals produced while working out.
As far as stress control you can take Siberian Ginseng, Yin tonics if you can muscle them down, Holy Basil, Forskolin, Etc.... What I cant give all my tricks away. Go find a good chiropractor as well. Alignment of the spine will free up the Central Nervous System to work properly and this will help with the ability to deal with stress. Start a fitness routine which will help you produce serotonin, And go treat yourself to a massage or relax on the beach or something soothing to your soul at least once a week.

Now how does Insulin work? Insulin is the exact opposite of Cortisol and that is why they blunt each other in the body. Insulin is a highly anabolic hormone and from the research I have studied is only in the shadow of one other hormone. Yep you guessed it, Testosterone. This explains why synthetic Testosterone is so popular in the bodybuilding world but this isn't a steroid article. Now for those who don't know what anabolic and catabolic means let me explain: anabolic means in a muscle building state and catabolic means a muscle breakdown state. Catabolism is bad and you can think of cannibalism internally. think about it, the more muscle we have the more calories we burn so if we are catabolic we get fatter and a slew of bad things happen. This is why protein is crucial. so anyway Insulin's role is to shuttle the nutrients from food to the "storage cells" to resupply them for the next time they are needed. the proper nutrients and nutrition with an Insulin spike can refill said "storage cells" but you have to pay attention to what your taking in because if you take in a high fat meal you will basically be refilling the "storage cells" with fat. Also if your receptors are more sensitive to fat you will store fat easier so eat lean with high protein at this point. Say you have a high sugar meal, now you want to blunt Insulin to keep from storing the sugar as fat so here is a tip. Take no less than 3 grams of fish oil and this will keep insulin from spiking because believe me you don't want all that sugar stored because you don't want the extra work in the gym. Remember the golden window of weight training is the one hour post exercise when we need to pay very very close attention to what we ingest. I hope this clears the topic up some because I have to be honest, I'm kinda tired of typing all this out. God bless and go lift weights.