The second best way to put on weight and fat…
In this video:
00:03 – Doing long steady state Cardio is the second best way to put on body fat
00:20 – People think the longer they train, the better results they’ll get
00:40 – High cortisol + high insulin = low blood sugar
01:26 – A drop in blood sugar causes craving for sugary foods
01:47 – The Insulin-Cortisol seesaw
01:57 – High Cortisol levels results in fat storage and muscle loss
02:21 – Split your training to two sessions per day
Hi! This is Stephen from TheDVCC.com
People Think the Longer They Train, the Better Results They’ll Get
Today, I’m going to be talking about the second best way to put on body fat. Now, this might seem a little bit funny to a lot of people, but my second tip to put on body fat is to do long steady state cardio or to train aerobically for a long period of time. So, a lot of people have the opinion that the more they do, the better results they’re going to get. So they’ll do sessions – I was just speaking to a lady just this morning who does an hour-and-a-half sessions in the gym. She trains for an hour-and-a-half. And I was explaining to her how hormones and things like that take a turn for the worse when you go past sort of 42 minutes.
High Cortisol + High Insulin = Low Blood Sugar
So, really, you shouldn’t be training past an hour because what actually happens is a hormone called Cortisol, which is your stress hormone which actually produce fat storage, particularly around your waist, that raises up when you train for a too long period of time or do aerobic type style training for too long. That will actually increase. Now, your body doesn’t actually like to have high Cortisol for too long. So what it actually does is to drop it, it will increase a hormone called Insulin. Now, so basically, your body can’t have high Cortisol and high Insulin at the same time. It’s either one or the other. So to drop the Cortisol, your body will raise its Insulin. So what then happens is by raising your Insulin, you’re actually going to get rid of any sugar. It will cause sugar, for simple terms, from your blood. So basically, it will drop your blood sugar.
The Insulin-Cortisol Seesaw
Now, what that then means is your blood sugar drops, and I’m sure a lot of people have had that feeling of low blood sugar where really all you want to do is eat something sugary. So what you’ll naturally do is turn to the most sugary thing near you, and that often is poor food quality choices. So you’re going to have some sugary foods, which in turn can often be processed foods, which will raise your Cortisol. So you’re actually going to what we call an Insulin-Cortisol seesaw, which actually is a really great way to store fat and actually a really great way to store fat around your stomach. So, it makes complete sense when you actually think of it this way. That by doing too long steady state cardio, you’re doing something that raises Cortisol. You’re actually going to be encouraging your body to store fat, and actually, to lose muscle. So I hope that makes sense and it makes things a little bit more clear that the second best way to put on weight and fat is actually to do large amounts of long steady state cardiovascular training.
Split Your Training to Two Sessions per Day
So actually, another quick tip there is if you do want to do more exercise, the best thing to actually do is to do two split sessions. So, for example, people who come to our personal training studios in Bedford and Milton Keynes often do a personal training session in the morning or a transformation camp session in the morning and a second session in the evening rather than doing too long at once.
So this is Stephen from TheDVCC.com I’ll speak to you soon.
