In regards to fat-loss; most clients initially need to learn to manage insulin. We measure this with body fat around the love handles and / or upper back fat via the BioSignature method.
The love handle site measures short term carb consumption, and the upper back is more genetic (and therefore considered more long term). The short-term site allows us to identify if the client is eating too many bad carbs. We call this our lie detector – because it goes up if the client has been eating carbs.
The upper back fat allows us to know genetically how someone will respond to more or less carb consumption over time. We have our parents and grandparents to thank for this one. Meaning that if your parents or grandparents have or had body fat issues then more often than not it can take more time to be able to manage carbs efficiently and therefore get lean in certain areas. If they are lean; then that puts a better chance on your side to get leaner fast.
It’s a vicious cycle that is important to understand.
Most hormones have an impact on other hormones in the body – so it’s important to look at the big picture. If sleep isn’t optimized, then insulin won’t be optimized even if the nutrition is optimized. At night is when the body regenerates itself – allows you to burn fat and build muscle. If you’re too stressed during your day (either because of work or due to personal reasons for example) then you won’t sleep well. We now know that if you don’t sleep well you’ll have a harder time managing insulin. If you’re stressed, you’ll have more belly fat because the stress hormone (cortisol) increases belly fat. If cortisol is too high; then the body will secrete insulin to try to manage the cortisol – increase upper back fat and love handles even when reducing carbohydrates…
Basically, you need to learn to sleep well by managing stress during the day and developing good habits to allow you to sleep better. Optimizing nutrition can also help optimize sleep.
So, if you still think that you can just go to the gym and train your ass off and get results without addressing sleep and nutrition – forget it. You won’t be putting your chances on your side because you simply won’t have the drive and energy to have good workouts that yield results and you won’t be able to optimize your recovery. If you’re not recovering well, and you’re pushing to train hard then you’ll burn yourself out. This results in increased risk of injury, lower energy during the day, and of course few visible results.
Related post:
100% of the time, the belly fat disappears
