Put down that brownie! Stress, fat, and understanding

   

The info I’m sharing here is culled from an article by Jillian Michaels and Katja Van Herle, MD, MSPH. I’m sharing the information from “Get to know the key hormones and the roles they play,”* for a couple of reasons. First, writing is an effective way for me to absorb and retain information.

  

Second, the article is pretty dense. Rewriting a section in my own words is a good brain work out. A fit person makes sure to fuel her body AND her mind.

Third, I know so many good folks dealing with incredible amounts of stress who are looking for ways to stay healthy.  Maybe you’re not likely to read a scholarly article written by a fit and firm exercise nut with millions of bucks and scads of state-of-the-art training equipment at her disposal. But maybe you’ll read this by yours truly, a doughier, middle class (barely), brownie –loving, back of the pack marathoner dealing with her own stress and weight issues. 

Proof I won't be vying for Jillian's job any time soon: This was last night's dinner.

Here’s a bit of the science behind our fight-or-flight hormones and the impact they have on our weight.   

How does stress make us fat?

1. We have three fight-or-flight hormones: norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol.

2. Epinephrine = adrenaline.

3. Cortisol helps our bodies store fat.

4. When we are stressed:

                A. Norepinephrine tells our systems to stop producing insulin. Why? So we have fast-acting blood glucose ready to rescue us.

                B. Epinephrine/ adrenaline relaxes muscles in our stomach and intestines, and decreases blood flow to these organs. Why? Your body is directing energy toward saving your life versus digesting your food.

Both these A and B responses can cause high blood sugar and give you tummy problems.

                C. Cortisol kicks in when the stressor passes. Cortisol signals your body to stop making norepinephrine and adrenaline, directs your body to resume normal digestion, and tells your body what fat, protein, or carbohydrates to burn, depending on the challenge your body is facing.

5. Epinephrine rushes suppress your appetite.

6. Cortisol can linger in your body long after the stress passes, and will increase your cravings for foods that are high in fats and carbs.   

7. If stress lingers, cortisol lingers.

8. If cortisol lingers, your body has trouble losing weight, but has no problem gaining weight. Why? Your body starts thinking in terms of starvation, and starts hoarding fat in order to cope.  

9. As cortisol stays, it redistributes fat from “healthier areas, like your buttocks and hips,” – peripheral fat, to areas around your central organs – visceral fat.

10. Your number of fat cells doesn’t “generally” change, but their size can.  

11. What makes fat cells grow: “continued stress, high cortisol, unhealthy lifestyle and diet.”

12. Why is visceral fat wicked bad? It can increase inflammation in the body, and is associated with insulin resistance. (Lots of other reasons too. For example, belly fat is associated with the heart attack body prototype, but this article doesn’t address this or other reasons.)

13. Excess cortisol and excess belly fat create more cortisol which creates more belly fat and so on.

What foods can keep cortisol in check?

There are many ways to manage stress (exercise, meditation, strengthening positive social networks, for example).  But I’m not writing about those things today because this blog post is a summary of the Michaels and Van Herle article, which focuses on what to eat/avoid in order to keep the stress hormone cortisol from taking over your insides. Here are some of their suggestions.

1. Avoid processed foods, especially those containing refined sugars and processed grains. High insulin levels can trigger increased cortisol production. 

2. Load up on high fiber foods: fruits, veggies, beans.

3. Take in protein every two to three hours to avoid “excess insulin output.”

4. Avoid potassium loading/ supplements unless advised to do so by your doctor. Excess potassium can increase cortisol levels.

5. Limit caffeine. Caffeine increases cortisol.

6. Look for foods containing phosphatidylserine, which might interact with cortisol to “help buffer the response to stress.” Suggestions: whole grains, green leafy veggies, brown rice, chicken, beef, pork, and some fish, including mackerel, herring, eel, tuna.

7. Look for foods high in vitamin C, like citrus fruits, green peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, turnips, leafy greens, white potatoes, cantaloupe. Vitamin C might “blunt” cortisol release.

8. Eat foods containing tryptophan, which can lower cortisol. In addition to turkey, tryptophan is found in: whey protein, egg whites, spinach, crustaceans.

Finally, regular me now, don’t be afraid to search out your own info. The above listing of good foods is by no means complete. The info that I’m sharing here is not the end all and be all on how to manage your stress and your diet. I’m not an expert. I’m just a sometimes laid back/ often stressed out teacher/ writer/ runner/ daughter/ mom/ finding my way, enjoying my journey, one hill at a time.  Hope you enjoy yours too.      

* I am not a licensed nutrition expert or a scientist or a doctor. All info in this post, in quotes and otherwise, is taken from the CEU Corner, “The Nature of Metabolism,” by Jillian Michaels, Aerobics and Fitness Association of America.

Here's a teacher gift

My pre-holiday email inbox was glutted with ads from every retail website I’d visited this year, maybe even this lifetime.  I got announcements about lighting sales at Pottery Barn, braided rug deals at L.L. Bean, top ten book lists from Amazon, cat toy specials, horoscope readings, pest removal deals, on and on and on. 

Most got deleted immediately but I couldn’t help reading a few, especially the ones that came with ridiculous stories, heart-tugging or just plain stupid, like how Jo Schmo bought this expensive  elephant legged/ cow-headed/ giraffe-necked end table for Blake Blah and how the table then saved their lives during a tsunami, earthquake, power outage, hangnail crisis, whatever. 

But I never read the emails about what to get your kid’s teacher. First, because my kids are grown. I haven’t bought gifts for my daughters' teachers for going on fifteen years now.  Second, I read one of those lists once, years ago, and it was about as pertinent to my life as an inner city school teacher as owning a Rolls Royce. 

A gift card to Starbucks? A Yankee Candle? A Crabtree and Evelyn gift set? Seriously? My kids don’t have that kind of money and if they did, I wouldn’t want them waste it on me anyhow. I don’t need or want anything from my students, except for this: that they become who they truly want to become, and maybe make the world a better place in the process. That’s a tough order and not something that comes wrapped up with ribbons.    

Many of my students don’t have crayons or books. Some don’t even have pencils at home. Many of my students are homeless. That is, they live in shelters or their families have moved in with other families. They bring their school crayons home when they need to work on projects because they don't have those kinds of things at home. They remind me that we need to pass out paper for homework, because when they don’t do their homework because they didn’t have the paper to write their essays or do their math, they’re not making excuses. That’s their reality.

Here’s a fact. Inner city school teachers rarely get gifts. Here’s another fact. I don’t want my students to give me gifts. I feel bad opening presents from the few that can afford to give something, because I see the reactions of the kids who can’t. They pretend to be suddenly busy reading or talking with their friends, or they ask what I got and their smiles are big and forced. It hurts them. It hurts me.

When my students ask me what they should buy me for Christmas, and they always do, I am straight with them: Spend your money on yourselves or on your family. If you want to give me anything, make me something. Draw me a picture of yourself, or make me a card. 

They say, “Really?” 

I say, “Really.”

But they’re sixth graders and self-conscious and tend to associate gifts with spending money not drawing pictures, so I’m not exactly overwhelmed with homemade stuff on the holidays. And that’s just fine too. I tell them the best gift they can give me is coming to school every day. Depending on the class and on my mood, I might roll my eyes a little or a lot.  They’ll groan and laugh and roll their eyes back at me too.

This year I got three gifts. Two were pretty standard and obviously parent-purchased: a box of chocolates, a scarf. The kids didn’t even know what they’d given me and stood by, more curious than me, as I opened their gifts.  

Then there was the third gift, brought in by a kid who wears the same pair of sneakers to school every day, who owns maybe four different T-shirts, who proudly showed me the two quarters he brought in on bake sale day because to have that much money at one time was a huge deal for him, who assured me just before we left for vacation that his best friend who just switched to another school is okay because he phones him every night to check on him. 

I found D’s gift on my desk that last morning before the holiday. It was in a small red gift bag with green wreaths, no identifying card or label.

I held it up. “Hmm. Look what I found.”

D had been hunched down in his seat, pretending to read. Now, he popped up, all excited, and made it to my desk in less than a second I swear. He said it was from him and insisted I open it right away. He hopped from one foot to another while I did.

I pulled out a small Christmas tin, and D informed me that there was a special surprise inside. There was. He explained as I showed the class. He spoke quickly and loudly so the entire class could hear. His cheeks were flushed.

  

“You know those bags of Christmas cookies you get at the grocery store? My mom bought those and we put some in here for you. We did it for a lot of people. We got those cans at the dollar store. They didn’t even cost a dollar. Isn’t that a great idea? You guys should all do it too.” Yup, he was teaching the class, gift-buying on a budget 101. 

Some of the kids said, yeah, it was a great idea. I assured him that it was too. Then he said the other present was even better. 

I fished around in the bag then pulled out a little candle, apple-scented.

D announced to the class that he picked it out especially for me. He got a real deal. It only cost fifty cents. “Can you believe it? Only fifty cents!”

I agreed that wow, it was a great deal. “You are such a smart shopper!” I said.

I told D I loved apples and complimented him on his thoughtfulness. I removed the lid. D and I took turns sniffing the candle.

“See? It smells just like apple,” D said.

“Wow, it DOES smell just like apple,” I said. 

A couple of kids came up to the desk. They wanted to smell it too. They said things like, “Wow! That smells really nice.”

You should have seen the smile on D’s face, the sparkle in his eyes, as he watched his classmates react to his presents. Now that was a gift.  

Here are the other gifts D gave me.