Charlotte Roycroft-Davis explains how chronic stress raises cortisol, triggering belly fat storage, and recommends restoring nutrients like magnesium and B-vitamins through foods like avocado, broccoli, and spinach. She offers a 28-day A-B-S superfood challenge and a super-salad recipe, plus stress-reduction practices like meditation and sleep.
Lockdown has been super stressful for most of us, hasn't it? We've just been through the double whammy of winter and a pandemic. Work lives have changed for lots of people and we've been cut off from family and friends. Many people have been homeschooling as well as working and we've just been denied so many of the normal pleasures of life. All the time the threat of that scary virus has been hanging over us, so it's natural that so many people have been seeking comfort from food and drink, and probably not so much of the healthy salads and water. Please don't underestimate the effect all this has on your body and your hormones such as cortisol and insulin. It's a big, big deal. Cortisol and insulin are fat storage hormones. They literally prevent fat from leaving the body and it's stored around the belly instead, which of course means you put on weight. But now we're hopefully coming out of all the restrictions, in the UK anyway, and slowly getting our freedom back, and it's time to begin to repair some of the damage that cortisol may have done over the past year. Looking at the food you eat, but not in a diet way, is one of the best ways of doing this. Food has enormous power over us. Eating the wrong stuff affects the body's hormone system in a dramatic way, which upsets the balance that's vital for happy and healthy life. Food can change how we look, how much energy we have, what mood we're in, how much sleep we get, how well our brains work as well. If you're going to get your hormones in balance, then look at food as one of the main things to help you. Don't look on food as calories, but as information for your brain. Yes, food is information. It sends messages to the part of the brain that controls your cells and your hormones. Food can tell you to burn fat or to store it. It can tell you to be happy or to be sad. It can make you feel more energetic or it can make you feel lethargic. It can change how your brain functions and it can even switch on the genes that cause disease. When you're in a constant state of stress, your body produces cortisol, which has a powerful effect on every part of our well-being. So now is the time to seize back the power and stop cortisol from running rampant. I speak a lot about using things that can calm everything down, which is why we include the Chillpod stress buster in the Slimpod programme. And of course, meditation and improved sleep can also work wonders. But one of the quickest and most powerful things you can do is to restore nutrients to your body, because the adrenal glands glands use up a lot of nutrients to keep pumping out the stress hormones, and the supply needs to be replaced all the time. The best nutrients are oats, nuts, seeds, leafy vegetables, meat, fish, and dairy. These contain the B vitamins. Then of course the C vitamins are crucially important. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg, especially bell peppers, kiwi fruit, citrus fruit, and green leafy veg. And magnesium is also super important and is found in dark green leafy vegetables, avocado, brown rice, dark chocolate, and again, most fruit and veg. Or you can take supplements. And here's my stress-busting, fat-burning challenge to you: for the next 28 days, add healthy superfoods to your shopping trolley. It's as easy as A-B-S: avocado, broccoli, and spinach. Then every day, make a superfood salad that will boost your entire system and help create more of the natural chemicals like glutathione, which encourage the body to burn fat instead of storing it. Start with a handful of spinach, add some chopped carrots, cucumber, and maybe some shredded lettuce. Sprinkle a teaspoon of flaxseed over it. Chop some beetroot if you, if you like that, and then add a touch of mayonnaise and try topping it all off with half a pear or apple and half an avocado and a Brazil nut. And then add a twist of salt and you've got a wonderful super salad, and it's so easy to do. You can have it for lunch or you can have it just before your main meal. Simple. The most important thing now is to prioritise yourself. During the past year, we have been all things to everyone, and we often come way down on the list. But please take some time now to look after yourself. If we're not looking after ourselves and our mental health, we are no good to anyone. Take care, and I'll see you next time.
