It was a typical Wednesday in February of 2014. I was working as the Assistant Athletic Director at a small Maine college, our women’s basketball team was winning their way through the playoffs, and I was settling into what I thought was going to be a long career in college athletics. 

Until the dean of students pulled me into her office for a conversation.

“We've done the budget for next year,” she said “And your job isn’t in it.”

She talked for a few more minutes, trying to soften the blow, but all I heard was the murmur of Charlie Brown adults as the news sunk in.

Finally, I interrupted her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I need to go have a meltdown in my car.”

And that’s exactly what I did.

I chased that with a further meltdown into a draft of Miller Lite, trying to figure out exactly how, after years of searching for meaningful work in Coastal Maine, I was going to find not just a job, but a career-focused job.

A few days after the news, in preparation for both additional time on my hands and the impending depression that was sure to follow, I decided to hire a coach, not just for strength training, but for nutrition as well. I wanted something to focus on besides my unemployment, and despite the expense of a coach (200 bucks a month), I felt that I couldn’t afford to not have some guidance and accountability. And quite frankly, structure to my days.

One of his requirements was that I take a “before” picture. 

Here’s that picture, which I swore that I’d never ever share. 

You KNEW I had a Steelers sports bra.

I was about 158lbs here, and somewhere around 28% body fat.

For the most part, my diet was 70% compliant, and I was working out three to five days a week in the months before this photo was taken.

Below is a photo from last November. 

I weighed in at 135lbs and 23.5% body fat. My workout regimen is about the same as it was three years ago and now I’d say I’m closer to 80% compliant with my diet.*

The biggest difference between then and now?

Stress.

My stress level in the months leading up to the time the first photo was taken three years ago was as high as I can ever remember. I’d been married a few months prior, had finally gotten around to coming out to my family, and had just lost my job. 

Basically, I’d just checked off three of the top five life stressors in a matter of eight months. And my body showed it.

Now, I’m happily employed in a career, and while I still have the day to day stresses we all have, I’m managing them a little better. I’m meditating, putting more emphasis on quality of sleep and yes, I have a therapist I see who helps me keep things in perspective. 

When clients come into our gym and fret over their lack of results, we first talk nutrition, and then fitness, and then we go right to sleep and stress. Because if your diet and exercise are on point, but you're still carrying that little extra around the middle, then it might be time to look at other lifestyle factors.

There are a lot of different pieces in play when it comes to understanding stress. But for now, let's talk about cortisol. 

Cortisol - the stress hormone

I think about what my life looked like during the days and months when I was unemployed. The first thing I noticed every day when I woke up was that vague sense of worry and anxiety that was percolating in my body. I was chronically worried.

I was chronically stressed. 

Cortisol is good in small doses. Produced by the adrenal glands, which are right atop the kidneys, cortisol is designed to help us handle certain situations. You may have heard cortisol referred to as the fight or flight response. 

If you are being chased by a saber-toothed tiger (I'd speak to the zoo manager first of all), your adrenal glands cover your body by releasing both cortisol and adrenaline into the body. These hormones provide extra physical energy and strength from stored carbohydrates and fats. (And if you watched the "Incredible Hulk" back in the day, they help you pull cars off of people).

But that's small doses. 

When we spend our days worrying, about money, our kids, relationships, jobs, whether or not the Steelers' secondary will improve next season; our adrenal glands are still kicking in like we're being chased by that saber toothed tiger. And now our body is all out of whack. (As I've said before, we want to be in whack. Whack is where it's at).

Those chronically elevated cortisol levels can also trick bodies into believing we've burned more calories than we've actually burned, and so we're hungry. We look for ways to relieve our stress, so we turn to comfort foods that are high in sugar and fat and alcohol to wind down at night. These high levels of cortisol also cause our blood sugar to rise, so insulin is produced to control this by turning the sugar to fat - and it's the high levels of insulin that cause the build up of belly fat (also known as visceral fat) 

Aside from what your body craves, your defenses are down. In other words, when I’m tired, stressed and sleep deprived, I’m much less likely to reach for a banana, quite frankly because I just flat out don’t give a sh**. I want a comfort food. I’ve suffered, I’m suffering, and I want what I want because I want it.

Check back later this week for part two on ways to manage chronic stress. 

*I do spend more time on my feet now than I did when this photo was taken, and I’m sure that’s a factor in my current build.

I don't fall into the category of people who rise and grind. Unless we're talking about coffee beans. I rise and grind my coffee beans. 

Actually, I program the coffee maker the night before, because it’s a bad idea for me to operate machinery first thing in the morning, heavy or otherwise. A Starbucks barista once advised me, when I I arrived at 6:00 a.m. for my coffee, to drink it before driving my car.

I’ve never slept particularly well and I’ve NEVER been a morning person.

You'll notice my cleverness with headlines has not improved. This article was about, yes, you guessed it; morning people. So witty.

On the first day of a new job a few years ago a co-worker said, "One of your references said your only weakness was mornings."

In fact, in that picture off to the right, I wrote a newspaper column (Job no. 4) about how much I disliked morning people. Those perky, chipper, "the day's a-wasting" folks who can get up at 5:00 a.m. and not only remember to use shampoo and soap in the shower, but actually do things like...I don't know...write books and work out.

These people often say things like "I do more before you get out of bed then you'll do all day." And, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

Good for you for not punching these people.

In the article, I rail against these people (this was 15 years ago), but what I was also saying was...I can't sleep. I can't fall asleep, I can't stay asleep and so when morning comes around I've got nothing in the tank to start the day.

At 23 years old, I could get away with not sleeping. Now? Well, not so much.

Because I struggle so much with sleep, I’m drawn to most any kind of article that provides insight into my struggles with Mr. Sandman. This post, from the CEO of Athletic Greens, really got my attention. Because in it, he links a lack of sleep to belly fat.

Wha???

Yes, there is a scientific link to a lack of sleep AND chronically elevated levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, and fat around your mid-section.

So many of us go through great care to eat well and exercise often, and find ourselves unable to drop inches from our middle. As it turns out, sleep, and specifically quality sleep, might be the missing element. If you’re burning both ends of the candle it won’t matter if your diet and exercise are on point. 

You'll still carry excess abdominal fat.

According to a Nurses’ Health Study, researchers followed roughly 60,000 women for 16 years, asking them about their weight, sleep habits, diet, and other aspects of their lifestyle. At the start of the study, all of the women were healthy, and none were obese; 16 years later, women who slept 5 hours or less per night had a 15 percent higher risk of becoming obese, compared to women who slept 7 hours per night. Short sleepers also had 30 percent higher risk of gaining 30 pounds over the course of the study, compared to women who got 7 hours of sleep per night.

So now, when someone comes to me and says that they are working out six times a week, and watching everything they eat, my first question is how is your sleep? How much do you sleep?

Sleep and hormones

When we don’t get enough sleep, our hormones are thrown completely off kilter. And we all know we need to be on kilter. Kilter is where it’s at.

The hormones ghrelin and leptin both influence your appetite. Ghrelin, know as the hunger hormone, stimulates appetite; the higher the ghrelin level, the hungrier you feel. I call this the gremlin hormone because I’m terrible with pronunciation. 

Leptin affects your appetite in the opposite way, letting you know when your stomach is full. So normal leptin levels regulates those gremlins, keeping your hunger in check. But a lack of sleep can cause your leptin levels to lower and your gremlin levels to rise. 

I would also offer that on those nights when I sleep three hours, and those have been happening a lot lately, I’m too tired to actually care what I’m eating. That lack of sleep impacts my decision making process when it’s time to feed the inner gremlin. 

I don’t want a hard boiled egg when I’m tired. I want Doritoes. All of them. In my face. 

Studies have shown that just a week of sleep deprivation can cause significant alterations in glucose tolerance (i.e. how readily your body's cells can recognize glucose floating around in your blood and pull it into the cells of the body where it will fuel activity.) Impaired glucose tolerance can make you more likely to develop diabetes and cardiovascular disease. 

There's also evidence that a lack of sleep can turn you into a raging b**ch. True story. 

Probably half of the clients I work with will point to a couple of areas in particular where they want to lose weight, (though there is no such thing as spot removal when it comes to fat.*) But for many people, abdominal fat is a target area. 

Sleep and cortisol levels

As a side note, in doing my research I discovered that elephants only require three hours of sleep. In case that comes up in trivia next week.

Cortisol is released in response to fear or stress by the adrenal glands as part of the fight-or-flight mechanism. So way back in the day when you were being chased by a saber toothed tiger, you had mad levels of cortisol going on. And it helped you survive. Cortisol also cues your body to hold on to fat. So what we're getting at here is lack of sleep = increased cortisol levels = increased abdominal fat.

During a typical day, you want your cortisol levels to be higher in the morning, so you can brush your teeth with toothpaste and not hemorrhoid cream, and lower at night, so you can fall asleep. Have you ever tried to shut your racing mind off at night? You're mind is going in all different directions and so you try to not think about this, and then not think about that. 

And all of these things are only the tip of the iceberg. 

Check in for the next post on strategies to maybe, just maybe, help you sleep better and longer. 

* I alluded to the thigh master in one of my recent posts - if you recall there was a photo of Suzanne Somers; but you can't actually spot remove fat.