Cortisol slowing weight loss
Options
Roni_M
Posts: 717 Member
I recently read an article on one of the arthritis websites that explained how cortisol can effect weight loss. This was really interesting for people with chronic illness so I thought I would share with you all and see what you thought.
So the basics of it is that pushing yourself to exercise for long durations causes a "stress" response in the body that releases large amounts of cortisol. Your body also releases more cortisol when you are exercising and it detects inflammation. Prednisone, as most of you probably know, is synthetic cortisol. So the side effects of this release short term is sleepiness & hunger, long term is supressed immune function & weight gain around the middle (similar to side effects of prednisone). Hmmmm.... interesting.
My new years resolution was to get serious about exercise. I started using the treadmill 3 days a week for a little over an hour, and doing strength training for an hour twice a week. In the month of January I only lost 6.8 lbs. (previously I lost 14lbs in Jan and 15lbs in December). Now I would expect my weight loss to slow down as I go along...but also of note is that the last week of Jan I was sick and didn't exercise for the whole week and lost 3.4lbs that week (that's half of the weight from the whole month!!).
So how do you exercise and avoid this... shorter durations more frequently. So this week I am trying this and doing 30-40 minutes on the treadmill 6 days a week. I'm down 2lbs since Friday.... interesting!
Another thing of note...when I was doing an hour on the treadmill at about the 45 minute mark my hip and toes would start acting up...when I pushed through it after a few minutes it would feel a bit better... was this due to a cortisol dump?
Now I'm not saying this is a definite thing, but I find it interesting enough to give it a try! The other possibility of course, is I'm doing too much and retaining water due to swelling...so I'm not 100% sold on the cortisol theory. Anyone else having a slow down with loss even though they have really stayed on track with calories and ramped up the exercise? What are your thoughts?
So the basics of it is that pushing yourself to exercise for long durations causes a "stress" response in the body that releases large amounts of cortisol. Your body also releases more cortisol when you are exercising and it detects inflammation. Prednisone, as most of you probably know, is synthetic cortisol. So the side effects of this release short term is sleepiness & hunger, long term is supressed immune function & weight gain around the middle (similar to side effects of prednisone). Hmmmm.... interesting.
My new years resolution was to get serious about exercise. I started using the treadmill 3 days a week for a little over an hour, and doing strength training for an hour twice a week. In the month of January I only lost 6.8 lbs. (previously I lost 14lbs in Jan and 15lbs in December). Now I would expect my weight loss to slow down as I go along...but also of note is that the last week of Jan I was sick and didn't exercise for the whole week and lost 3.4lbs that week (that's half of the weight from the whole month!!).
So how do you exercise and avoid this... shorter durations more frequently. So this week I am trying this and doing 30-40 minutes on the treadmill 6 days a week. I'm down 2lbs since Friday.... interesting!
Another thing of note...when I was doing an hour on the treadmill at about the 45 minute mark my hip and toes would start acting up...when I pushed through it after a few minutes it would feel a bit better... was this due to a cortisol dump?
Now I'm not saying this is a definite thing, but I find it interesting enough to give it a try! The other possibility of course, is I'm doing too much and retaining water due to swelling...so I'm not 100% sold on the cortisol theory. Anyone else having a slow down with loss even though they have really stayed on track with calories and ramped up the exercise? What are your thoughts?
0