As a fat loss specialist, the biggest and hardest message I try to get across to my clients is that they need to control their stress levels and increase their rest time in order for successful fat loss.

Many clients come to me saying how hard they work out in the gym and go for a run every morning, then have a hard day at work then hit the gym in the evening, then deal with the family, eat their healthy dinner then I ask them what they do.

As opposed to the answer I want to hear, they tell me they needed to just finish off that bit of work on the laptop or they talk with friends on Facebook to chill out on their i-pads, phones, or laptops, or fall asleep watching TV

Is that you? I would say this is very typical of our busy lives

in this modern technological era we have forgotten to say ‘No’ and not feel guilty about it. We have forgotten how to truly switch off from everything and relax at night.

Due to stress in our modern lives is it any wonder that we are struggling to do the very thing we want to do?

The reason those clients are doing everything right but not losing bodyfat is because they are not relaxing orgiving their bodies chance to properly recover.

We are not machines, although some of us like to think we are. As a society, we need to be saying no to other pressures and stress and properly relax. Both our bodies and minds need rest.

Stress comes in six forms:

1. Physical stress - over/under-exercising and poor posture.

2. Chemical stress - synthetic chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers.

3. Electromagnetic stress - over-exposure to sunlight, televisions, computers, TV.

4. Psychic or mental stress - negative thinking, verbal abuse, over-studying, worrying.

5. Nutritional stress - over/under eating, consuming processed/artificial foods.

6. Thermal stress - over/under heating.

A good night’s sleep isn’t just important from the perspective of giving your body a physical rest, but it also gives time for your mind to be in a good place when you wake up.

You will need a good (preferably) eight hours sleep, otherwise your body will not react well on this plan.

Your body and mind will need the rest as you combine this hard exercise and radical nutrition plan. Otherwise the molecular structure within your body will go into meltdown and not react as it should do, leading to muscle strain and tears.

After a good night’s sleep you should feel refreshed and exhilarated and ready for the day’s challenges that lay ahead.

If you quite often wake up feeling sluggish or tired, then it will primarily be down to 3 things:

  1. Poor nutrition and under or over eating from the day before making you feel sluggish.


2. Too many electrical impulses interfering with your brain through stress or through being on the laptop too late at night or watching TV till the early hours. So try not read or watch TV in bed as this will just stimulate your mind.

3. Lack of activity levels, and a sedentary lifestyle leading the body into a state of general shutdown.

So, do the following:

  • Get to bed before 11pm. Avoid stimulants after lunchtime, and do a relaxing activity 30mins before bed. If you struggle to get to sleep this early make adjustments to wind down earlier or go to bed half an hour earlier each week until you have re-trained your body clock.

• Avoid stimulants e.g. caffeine or sugar after lunch (altogether would be even better).

• Write down anything that is on your mind before you get into bed. This will help get these thoughts off your mind until the morning and stop your mind racing. Also write a long list of everything that you are grateful for.

This is probably the best bit of advice we could give you. Being in a state of gratitude removes anxiety and we have helped countless people sleep well with just tip alone. Act as though you already have it now. Not only will this remove anxiety it will also make it much more likely to come true.

• Take at hot bath 30 minutes before bed, as heat relaxes the body.

Moreover, the problem with not getting to sleep on time can be illustrated by a quick guide to hormone release.

Whenever light of any source stimulates your skin or eyes your brain and hormonal system think its morning. This results in the release of the activating hormone cortisol.

Cortisol prepares the body for movement, work or whatever is needed for survival.

This is perfect in the morning to help us kick start the day. When the hormonal cycle is working correctly cortisol will remain elevated through midday but will begin to drop in the afternoon and as the sun goes down.

As cortisol decreases, the growth and repair hormones elevate.

A natural sleep/wake cycle means that we should start to wind down as cortisol levels drop and fall asleep by around 10pm.

Problems arise if internal or external stressors cause cortisol to remain elevated. Elevated cortisol levels means that the growth and repair hormones will not be able to rise and the immune systems valuable repair time is therefore inhibited.

Physical repair takes place between 10pm until 2am and we repair mentally between 2am and 6am.

This all means that if you do not get to bed until 1am you only have 1 hour of physical repair time left. How much repair time do you give yourself?

This may begin to help you see why you constantly suffer from aches and pains or easily pick up colds even though you see to live a healthy life.

Lack of sleep could also be the cause of your stress levels or your difficulty in losing bodyfat and changing your physique.

Yes that’s right poor sleep could stop you losing bodyfat and here’s one reason why- elevated cortisol causes the body to release stored glycogen which results in a rise in blood sugar.

This is great if we are moving because our body can use this glycogen as energy. If however, we are not exercising then glycogen will quickly get stored or showed away often as fat.

Did you also know that waking to go to the toilet is abnormal and shows adrenal dysfunction or that if you regularly wake at 1am you may be suffering from liver toxicity?

We try to make sure that, on most nights, our clients are in bed by 11pm but are often told that they cannot possibly get to sleep by this time.

This is because it takes us as little as 7-21 days to train our bodies to be dysfunctional. This means that if you go to bed after 1am every night for a week your internal body clock may begin to delay the rise of repair hormones until 1am. Once your body gets used to going to bed late it will not like to be told to sleep by 10 or 10:30pm.

So, please make sure you get a good night’s sleep and this will also help with keeping a positive mental attitude.