Here is one reason that you may be having a hard time with that. My friend with metabolic syndrome said "you should really put that on your blog..." so here it is: Cortisol.
See the kidneys? Sitting on top of them like little fatty hats are the adrenal glands, which are small and surly for something so powerful. The adrenal glands make, among other things, cortisol, which is a very useful chemical.... if you're running from a bear.
A surprising number of things in the human body are honed for the running-from-a-bear scenario. You get a cocktail of chemicals that make your heart race, stop your digestive system from working (because you don't have time to stop and go to the bathroom when you're running from a bear), send painkillers running through your body, and release a sudden burst of sugar into your bloodstream.
All of these are great things if you need a sudden burst of energy to throw a punch or run away. They are not so good long-term, when the stress you're experiencing is not from mortal danger but just from Mort, the annoying fart at the DMV.
Let's talk about Cortisol, the chemical that makes a sudden burst of sugar go into your bloodstream and the chemical that acts like a painkiller. Over time, continual bursts of cortisol are bad for you, because of a cycle that goes like this:
1. You are in pain/stressed.
2. Cortisol is released.
3. Your blood sugar surges, a painkiller effect happens, and your digestive system (and your metabolism) slows down.
4. Your pancreas wakes up and says, "Hey, who dumped all that sugar in the bloodstream?" and responds with a surge of insulin.
5. Your blood sugar plummets.
6. You eat--usually in a cortisol craving, you want something salty, crunchy, and fatty.
7. The salty crunchy fatty thing you ate spikes your blood sugar again.
8. High blood sugar causes your pancreas to send out another surge of insulin and your blood sugar plummets.
9. You're hungry. You eat something salty, crunchy, fatty.
10. The stress of wildly fluctuating blood sugar and a sluggish digestive system registers as actual pain or distress in your body; you get headaches, joint aches, upset stomach, heartburn, etc.
11. You release cortisol.
Over time the swings and surges of cortisol in your body cause you to gain weight, and consistently having high blood sugar causes you to be more vulnerable to infection, which causes your body to be more stressed, and on and on and on it goes. When you pair it with high emotional stress and lack of sleep, you have a perfect recipie for metabolic syndrome-- or, as I like to think of it, cortisol poisoning.
So, what do you do about this?
Well, first of all, simple and commonsense things. Cortisol is meant to be burned up in physical activity--burn it off. Cortisol damage is repaired when you sleep--go to bed. And a healthy, high-functioning, humming-along-at-a-good-clip metabolism is much more resilient to cortisol than a sluggish, already-wrecked-through-bad-eating metabolism. So get your metabolism running on all cylinders: eat every couple of hours during the day and have a snack before bed. (Graham crackers and milk, half a sandwich, a bowl of cereal, that kind of thing.)
By bad eating I mean: lotsa calories, hours and hours of absolutely no calories, and then a whole lot of calories again before bed. By good eating I mean: whatever you put in your mouth has some use to it--it's got vitamins, minerals, and you can pronounce everything in it.
By physical activity (see the I-hate-exercise-I-really-do remarks in the previous post) I mean something like a walk or some yoga or even just parking further away from the store. By going to bed, I mean really going to bed and getting sleep--get medication to get to sleep if you have to, do all the nighttime hygiene things like making your room dark, avoiding alcohol, etc.
But whatever you do, don't use the pills that promise to reduce your cortisol levels from off the TV. If they work (which I doubt) they're dangerous--too little cortisol can make your heart up and stop. It's not something to screw with. If they don't work (which I suspect) they are a waste of money. Take care of your body and let it fix itself.
Cheers,
Breanna
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