Still can't lose the belly fat? This might be the reason

We all have stressful lives. We know that. But at the same times, we need some amount of stress in our lives. Otherwise, our lives will be boring as hell. Also, we will have low motivation in lives and thus, cannot fulfill our true potential completely.

However, too much stress in your life can be detrimental to your health. I believe you should know this. I cannot be wrong about this. BUT, what most people don’t know is how stress degrades their health. Even more people don’t know that stress can be the reason your body keeps holding to that stubborn belly fat.

I strongly believe you know that stress contributes to high blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease. AND THIS IS TRUE. Here is what actually happens. When your stress level goes up, more free radical compounds are formed in your body. Just as I said in “Cholesterol, VILLAIN or FRIEND?”, these compounds create inflammation within your body, particularly on arterial blood vessels. Consequently, this will require the cholesterol to action as a “band-aid” or a healing substance to cover and heal the inflammation (which also means it gets deposited on arterial blood vessel walls). Finally, this will cause a heart problem and hypertension. Again, don’t blame the cholesterol here, it just does what it does best, healing the inflamed arterial blood vessels.

The one thing to blame here is the formation of free-radical compound, which is caused by many factors, such as STRESS. So, that is one reason why you should limit your stress level. If one reason is not enough you, here is another one. STRESS MAKES YOU FAT, or at least, STRESS PREVENTS YOU FROM BEING LEAN AND/OR MUSCULAR.

Here is what happens when you have a high level of stress (and this is what most people don’t know, so your are privileged to discover this). High level of stress increases the production of, so called, “fat-storing” hormone, Cortisol, in our bodies. This hormone promotes fat storing in the body (which is not what we want to get lean and lose fat, right?).

There is a scientific explanation regarding this “behavior”. In the past, most stress our ancestors had was due to lack of food. Therefore, when they got stressed, their bodies naturally stored more fat by producing more Cortisol hormone, just in case they could not find any more food for a long time. Since we are their descendants and we belong to the same evolution line as them, we have inherited this behavior, although in our case, lacking of food is not the source of our stress for most of the time.

Even worse, not only this hormone promotes fat storing, it also creates “catabolic” environment in your body. Catabolic environment promotes muscle break down and prevents muscle building. Again, there is logic behind this.

Like I said in “How many crunches/sit ups per day is the best -> NOT IMPORTANT”, muscles are the most energy-inefficient to maintain. They require A LOT of energy to maintain. Since Cortisol is produced primarily because the body thinks there is a scarcity of energy (food), it promotes “Catabolic” environment in the body which will cause more muscles to be broken down and make the body more “energy-efficient”.

So, not only that stress causes us to store more fat, it also causes us to lose muscles. Since we lose muscles, we will store even more fat because we lose our fat-burning/calorie-burning machine in our bodies. This will soon become sick cycle.

Therefore, control your stress level. If you feel your work has already given you enough stress or you are stuck somewhere in your work, just stop for a while. Take a walk and relax, do something else for a while. Keep your mind off the work. Then after some time, go back to your desk and start working again with fresh and clear mind. And even better, sometimes, you can actually work more productively when you are relaxed and out of stress and more often than not, once your mind is fresh and clear, you can find that the problem you were stuck with before is actually simple and easy to solve. The key here is just to KNOW WHEN TO STOP, when things already get “TOO HOT TO HANDLE”

That is what often happens to me. Aside from working as a Personal Trainer and Sport Nutritionist, I also work as a full-time software engineer. As a software engineer, the primary task involves programming, which can be VERY VERY stressful when you find some problems in your code/script/program and you don’t know where the problems are (even one single problem is STRESSFUL ENOUGH). You have done everything you can think of but the problems are still there. You are stuck with them. But here is what I do. I say to myself, “OK. It’s time to stop now. This is getting out of hand. Probably, I just should not solve it now. Let’s stop, and do something else.” After that, I take walk (to the toilet most of the time), take some water, go back, try to do other office works (Quite hectic, isn’t it? I have more than one project to deal with sometimes). Once I feel ready, I go back to the “problematic” code and somehow, everything looks clearer and now I can see the problems and solve it.

So, are you stressed out right now? If you are, have courage to say, “OK. It’s time to stop. Let’s do something else.” That is where most people have trouble with, they can’t stop, they don’t know how to stop, and they don’t know when to stop.

Till next newsletter, keep working hard (at office and gym), BUT DON’T GET STRESSED OUT, instead, ENJOY LIFE.

TobiasKG
AMFPT Certified Personal Trainer
AMFPT Certified Sport Nutritionist
Creator of RoadToSixPack.blogspot.com

Don't get lost on your quest to six pack. Stay on the REAL one

Once you have taken your first step (see the previous post), you might ask, “And then what?”. You might have looked around in the Internet, trying to find the best workout routines and diet to get the abs of your dream. Let me guess, you find that each of them saying different things. Now, you don’t know where to go, which one to believe.


You are at the intersection and don’t know which way is heading towards six-pack abs, which one is the real “road to six pack”.


It is totally common to be confused at this point of time. Let me assure you this, There is actually ONLY ONE road to six-pack. It is with PROPER NUTRITION and CORRECT WORKOUT STRUCTURE. That’s it.


But conspiracy between body-building/health magazine and drug supplement manufacturers, with their multi-million marketing campaigns, keeps you from finding the right way. Even worse, they keep creating new “road to six pack” and claim that it is the only way.


It is their intention to make you confused and frustrated so that you don’t find the abs you want and keep buying their products, thinking their products are the way to your dream abs.


Still don’t believe me? Well, let me ask you this, do you really think professional athletes and coaches read body-building/health magazines and follow the advice in the magazine? HELL NO. If they don’t even follow it, why should you? Still not convinced? I will tell you the ultimate proof personally if that’s what it takes to convince you (because this proof is quite sensitive).


The road to six pack is actually only one and it is easy. But they make it looks difficult for you, INTENTIONALLY. You do not need drug supplement such creatine, DHEA, or liver tabs like they say.


All you need is guidance, so that you won’t step into the false “road to six pack” and I AM READY TO BE YOUR GUIDANCE.


I have been to the false road before, probably just like you. But now, I have found the right one and I will make sure, you don’t take the false one.


The picture above shows you the result of the REAL road to six pack (10% body fat reduction in less than 3 months. ABSOLUTELY NO DRUGS. Now the key is, WHETHER YOU LET ME BE YOU GUIDANCE. And IF YOU DO, LET ME KNOW. If you don’t, I hope you can find other guidance yourself and stay on the true road to six pack.


Till the next newsletter, don’t get lost on your quest to six pack. Stay on the road to six pack

Tobias KG
AMFPT Certified Personal Trainer


PS: If you like this notes, you can pass this to your friends or people you think might find this useful.

Take your first step towards six pack & lean body

We live in a busy world. We all know that. All of us are extremely busy with our things. Family, school, jobs you name it. So busy until we can’t (though we do) care about our health and how our bodies look like. In other words, we give up, we sacrifice our own health just to keep in pace with the world. No wonder obesity keeps increasing as the world getting busier.

Well, I was one of those people who give up on personal health just to follow the world (see my picture above, 19% body fat). Guess what? I was no different than any other people. Eating more fast food/junk food, getting fatter, slower, lower in energy, easier to get sick, building up fat, and all that. Not that I did not care about my health, I just couldn’t because of my jobs, schools, etc. At least I thought I couldn’t. And ironically, this is the common believe people have nowadays. They just don’t have time/strength to take care of their health.

The key is not whether you can or you can’t. Everyone can care and do something about their health, given the time/energy constraints. That’s the fact. Now, it’s just the matter of effort, courage, and discipline. It took quite a while for me to have enough courage to say to myself, “Dude, you are getting fatter. It has to stop. Something’s got to change.” There you go. That is the turning point everyone needs. Courage to say to oneself, “I have to make a change”

So now, collect your courage and say to yourself, “I have to make a change. I must not give up on my health and just accept this lifestyle because this is just NOT ACCEPTABLE” Make commitment to yourself, “I am gonna make a change. No more excuse. No more I can’t do it, no more that’s the way it is, no more I have no time excuse, because I CAN do it, and I WILL” And to this I would say, “YES YOU CAN and YOU WILL. Take that first step towards the healthy lifestyle with six pack and lean body as the prize”.

Till the next post, stay on the road to six pack and lean body.


Tobias KG
AMFPT Certified Personal Trainer

PS: If you like this post, feel free to forward it to your friends or people that you think might find this useful