There’s nothing better than a really good spin
class first thing in the morning—it’s a great sweat and an
incredible endorphin boost.
But sometimes it seems like cardio has
overtaken every other fitness activity. More and more of my
patients are turning into serious aerobic exercise junkies, and
I’ve begun to see a pattern of women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who
are spinning, dancing, and running three, four, even five times per
week. They all tell me that they feel like they should be in
incredible shape—but they’re not.
Despite being so active, these women commonly
describe being tired and anxious, having trouble sleeping, and
finding it difficult to shed “the last 10 pounds.” Many also have
hormone imbalances such as PMS, irregular periods, Polycystic
Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), and even infertility.
What’s behind this trend of cardio junkies
sweating to exhaustion?
Take the case of a 33-year-old patient of mine
I’ll call Liz.
A successful tech VP, Liz was gaining weight
despite spinning five times a week. She was exhausted at the end of
the day but when she lay down in bed, her heart would race and
she couldn’t fall asleep for another hour or two. Her periods were
bouncing around every one to two months—sometimes not coming for
over 60 days. She also had sporadic acne she couldn’t figure out
but blamed on her hormones.
We tested her cortisol levels throughout the
day and showed her that they were high after her evening spin class
and still elevated at bedtime. Cortisol, the major stress hormone,
should be high in the morning and low by afternoon, staying
down through bedtime. When cortisol is high, your blood sugar
and blood pressure go up, you store more calories as fat—especially
around your abdomen—and your immune system is suppressed. You may
also have a hard time sleeping and can experience anxiety or that
“wired” feeling at night.
If it’s chronically high, it can increase
hormones like testosterone and subsequently estrogen, while
simultaneously decreasing hormones like progesterone, causing
disruptions in the menstrual cycle and acne.
In the morning, Liz was having oatmeal or
cereal for breakfast, loading up on carbs when her cortisol was
also naturally high. After spin class, she was typically
starving because she’d gone there straight after work.
Sometimes she was showering at spinning then
heading out for dinner—where she’d usually enjoy a glass of wine or
two. Other times she’d stay in at night and have a fruit and greens
smoothie—sounds healthy, but without any fat or protein, it was a
recipe for weight gain and hormone imbalances.
Unwittingly, she was setting herself up
for another common health issue cardio junkies suffer from:
high blood sugar. We tested her hemoglobin A1C, which was 5.7. Liz
was shocked to find that, despite all the cardio, she was
borderline for Metabolic Syndrome, an imbalance in the body’s
ability to handle blood sugar.
Hoping to get pregnant in the next year, Liz
knew she had to figure out some of these issues in her body out
first. At her day 21 (AKA her luteal phase in the ovulation
cycle), her progesterone level was only 0.2, meaning she wasn’t
ovulating on time, and her balance of estrogen to progesterone was
off for a healthy cycle, leading to her irregular periods and
likely her acne.
Much to Liz’s disbelief, I asked her to only
spin one day per week, and to replace the other four sessions with
two yoga classes, and twice-weekly 20-minute weight training
sessions.
Within two months, she had lost her belly fat,
her acne went away, she was sleeping again, and her periods hit a
normal 31-day stride. Also, her Hemoglobin A1C went down to 5.4, in
the normal range.
The extra time Liz put in on a stationery bike
did nothing to build muscle (which increases resting
metabolism) or calm her nervous system and relieve
stress. She’d been overdoing it—spiking cortisol and
depleting her body’s energy, hydration, and mineral
balance through so much sweat.
Research shows that cardio is not usually that helpful for weight
loss, either. The body becomes “used to” the calorie deficit
from long aerobic sessions and stores energy as fat to compensate.
In addition, studies show most people eat more after exercise,
and overestimate how many calories they burned while working
out.
But the answer isn’t starving yourself or
hyper-focusing on calories—it’s looking at the kinds of exercise
you’re doing and the kinds of foods you’re fueling with.
1.
Replace
Swap two spin or long-haul cardio classes with weight training
sessions. Lifting weights and building muscle increases your basal
metabolic rate, which accounts for 60–75 percent of calories burned
daily (another 10 percent goes to digesting food while, for, most
people, only 10–20 percent goes to physical activity of any kind).
Resistance training has been shown to boost basal metabolism and
fat burning for 24-plus hours—something cardio doesn’t do.
2.
Restore
Doing restorative exercise like yoga isn’t
“useless” for weight loss; it both strengthens and lengthens the
muscles and connective tissue, while simultaneously reducing stress
and, therefore, cortisol (one of the major reasons for weight gain
and hormone imbalance).
3.
Eat
Don’t starve, just up your protein, fat, and fiber intake. In particular, axe carbs/sugar/alcohol after a workout. You’re probably
undoing that workout in five minutes with a juice or a night
out at the bar. The way the body metabolizes a cup of
broccoli isn’t the same as how it metabolizes a cup of soda.
The veggie, for example, is metabolized slowly—which means
that you’re avoiding the insulin spike that leads to sugar being
stored as fat.
So it’s not about counting calories, it’s about eating the foods
that give you a slow burn, instead of a sugar spike.
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