Is stress killing your progress?

Without doubt, one of the biggest obstacles that people face when looking to get in shape is managing stress levels.

You might not think it, but high levels of stress will massively hinder both your fat loss and muscle building efforts.

It will also really reflect in your look, causing you to appear ‘soft’, ‘flat’ and ‘watery’, largely due to the fact that we retain and hold on to a ton of fluid when we are stressed.

Now hold on a second and bare with me as I use some fancy words, it will all make sense in a second. :)

To optimise results, be that fat loss or muscle gain, the goal should be to be in the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system more often that not.

What does that mean?

It essentially means rest and digest mode. Relaxed and stress free. That is where the magic happens and we drop body fat / gain muscle tissue.

The only time that we should look to be in the sympathetic branch (fight or flight mode) is when we are actually training and placing the body and central nervous system under physical stress.

Unfortunately, many of us spend far too much time outside of training in this sympathetic branch (fight or flight mode) due to the stressors of everyday life. Work stress, financial stress, relationship stress, you name it!

Being sympathetic dominant NEGATIVELY effects EVERYTHING including digestion, sleep, appetite, energy levels, motivation levels and important metabolic processes. It has HUGE knock on effects to all of these important variables that are at the foundation of our body composition progression.

Even if you are nailing your diet, training, cardio and expenditure to the letter in alignment with your goals, the environment for progression within the body will simply NOT be the same and far from optimal when stress is high, that is how BIG an impact we are talking here.

This is why headspace and making some time for YOU outside of work and training is SO IMPORTANT and something I recommend to all of my clients do. It is essential self care on a very basic level.

Something as simple as a trip to the cinema or a long walk listening to a podcast can massively reduce stress levels.

Stress management should be a huge priority of yours if you want a responsive body to work with.

#TeamInfluence