Cortisol

erjones11

Hi-

I read in another post about how stressing your body with too few calories or too much exercise can increase cortisol. Some of the reading thus far suggests having a higher calorie day or taking a break from exercise can bring your cortisol back down.

I don't know much about cortisol; how to measure it; how to manage it or if I should really care.

Of course I do some of the bad things mentioned in the link below especially drinking gobs of coffee. I don't eat sugar and keep my carbs low so that might help.

https://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Cortisol

Interested in informed opinions, please share what you know from real experience.

lorrpb

Wiki How is not an "informed" source. It's whatever anyone wants to write, supported by click-bait.

amusedmonkey

Eating low carb can increase cortisol as well, by the way. Why are you looking into this? Are you just curious or are you feeling stressed or wish to see if you're stalling (retaining water) due to cortisol increase? This may help steer the discussion.

snickerscharlie

erjones11 wrote: »

Hi-

I read in another post about how stressing your body with too few calories or too much exercise can increase cortisol. Some of the reading thus far suggests having a higher calorie day or taking a break from exercise can bring your cortisol back down.

I don't know much about cortisol; how to measure it; how to manage it or if I should really care.

Of course I do some of the bad things mentioned in the link below especially drinking gobs of coffee. I don't eat sugar and keep my carbs low so that might help.

https://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Cortisol

Interested in informed opinions, please share what you know from real experience.

Always vet your sources carefully. For example, taking Rhodiola rosea is recommended on that link you posted. There is currently zero credible studies done on it, even though it's being touted as the newest miracle supplement.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3541197/

Conclusion:

"Research regarding R. rosea efficacy is contradictory. While some evidence suggests that the herb may be helpful for enhancing physical performance and alleviating mental fatigue, methodological flaws limit accurate assessment of efficacy. A rigorously-designed well reported RCT that minimizes bias is needed to determine true efficacy of R. rosea for fatigue."

heybales

erjones11 wrote: »

Hi-

I read in another post about how stressing your body with too few calories or too much exercise can increase cortisol. Some of the reading thus far suggests having a higher calorie day or taking a break from exercise can bring your cortisol back down.

I don't know much about cortisol; how to measure it; how to manage it or if I should really care.

Of course I do some of the bad things mentioned in the link below especially drinking gobs of coffee. I don't eat sugar and keep my carbs low so that might help.

https://www.wikihow.com/Reduce-Cortisol

Interested in informed opinions, please share what you know from real experience.

Those things, lack of sleep, disease, life in general - all can elevate cortisol with side effects - most brought up here is retained water weight.
Many had stress levels that with no diet didn't cause an issue, but throw in that new stress to add to the stack - now you got problems.

Oh, it's not the too much exercise for that aspect - it's the lack of recovery. So perhaps too much for current diet or sleep provided for full recovery.

Spikes of cortisol from exercise is fine and beneficial - it's the constant elevated that's not good. You can't measure it (test could), only attempt to discern effects.

Should you care - Besides the negative of slowly gaining water weight, I personally think it's a negative anyway, because it means your body is stressed beyond a certain beneficial point.
Workouts are likely not as beneficial as they can be then.
Because it's not the workout that causes the changes really, it's the rest for recovery and repair that does. Cut that short and workouts usually become mediocre. They'll feel hard sure, but not doing the damage that requires improvement. So spinning wheels.

It does take a longer term observation though, to get outside the noise of daily fluctuations from differences in sodium intake, water retained for repair in muscles/joints worked, changes in stored muscle glycogen with attached water, ect. And if a woman, even more difficult monthly changes to try to see through.

Since without having a bunch of tests over time to tell you where your personal line is to be below it, just have to do several things right.
Best just to confirm you have a deficit appropriate for amount to lose to healthy weight. Disease can lower this from reasonable for others to lower for you.
Appropriate sleep.
Appropriate protein for recovery.
Daily stress kept low, some are naturally more stressing - so may have to balance with other stresses you can control more, like diet.
Observing progress (problem with this is you can make non-optimum progress slowly eeked out, and until you can compare to unfettered progress, most would never realize it).

Just my thoughts on it, though the reasons for it are common I mentioned.

You'll find some reasons for my thoughts/ opinion here in several articles.
https://bodyrecomposition.com/?s=cortisol

erjones11

I was just curious as someone else put in another form post that cortisol is a big deal. I'm not sure if it is or is not. I am neither stressed or stalled.

I would not know if my cortisol is high or not. From what I can tell the only way to check it is with a blood test and it changes throughout the day.

heybales

erjones11 wrote: »

I was just curious as someone else put in another form post that cortisol is a big deal. I'm not sure if it is or is not. I am neither stressed or stalled.

I would not know if my cortisol is high or not. From what I can tell the only way to check it is with a blood test and it changes throughout the day.

Normally it would change through the day. This is fine, and if stress that caused it was workout, great.

But not if constant elevated because of bad constant stress.

amusedmonkey

erjones11 wrote: »

I was just curious as someone else put in another form post that cortisol is a big deal. I'm not sure if it is or is not. I am neither stressed or stalled.

I would not know if my cortisol is high or not. From what I can tell the only way to check it is with a blood test and it changes throughout the day.

Observe common sense stress minimizing habits like good sleep, appropriate recovery, not undereating...etc and you should be fine. I wouldn't worry too much. You can find out your numbers by requesting a test if you're curious, but it's not necessary.

AnnPT77

erjones11 wrote: »

I was just curious as someone else put in another form post that cortisol is a big deal. I'm not sure if it is or is not. I am neither stressed or stalled.

I would not know if my cortisol is high or not. From what I can tell the only way to check it is with a blood test and it changes throughout the day.

It can be a factor. A big factor? Maybe depends on how we define "big".

That helpful heybales gave some good background on the technical side of things. I think there's also a practical interpersonal side, in how it gets discussed on the forums.

I think you tend to see relatively more discussion of cortisol in replies to OPs that - metaphorically, if not literally - have too many caps and exclamation points, where OP is obviously freaking out because they were losing OK then stalled for a whole week (or two) and then they panicked and cut calories and started going to the gym twice a day to do HIIT for two hours at a time, and started drinking that weight loss tea (in gallons) that their cousin's hairdresser's sister-in-law's old roommate used with such great success, and now they for sure have DAMAGED THEIR METABOLISM and are in starvation mode, and should they go low carb or paleo or confuse their muscles or WHAT??!??!

For that OP, water weight nonsense (and maybe bad logging) are a pretty big deal, and cortisol is not only potentially actually part of the issue (maybe even a big deal), but talking about it, and about the influence of over-stress, is also sometimes a good way to get them to calm down and do something sensible and patient for a change. Often, they will not answer questions about their logging practices in any sensible way until they are calmed down, IME.

The rest of us (i.e., those with normal amounts of caps and exclamation points) should maybe think about cortisol if we're stressed or stalled. Stress is almost always counter-productive (for happy life, not just weight reduction). Stress is one potential cause of water weight weirdness. Water weight weirdness can make us think we're stalled. Anecdotally, some of us do seem to benefit from maintenance breaks as a plateau buster (if plateaus happen). Cortisol is one possible reason why that might be so. Others of us get through long periods of deficit with no plateaus and no diet breaks. Less stressed? Who knows.