Stress Balance

I believe I first read the stress/tub analogy from Alwyn Cosgrove. I'm not sure, but since he gets credit for everything else in our industry, we'll go with him.

Let's imagine that your stress tolerance is a large (or small) tub with many faucets flowing into it. Each faucet represents a form of stress. Sleep deprivation, work, dietary habits, relationships and even exercise. Now imagine that your tub can only drain so fast. If you were to increase the flow from one faucet, you would need to decrease the flow from another to keep your tub from overflowing. Example: If you are sick, your physical stress faucet is on high and you'll need to reduce your flow from other areas like work or exercise. Makes sense right?

As an industry, I think we ignore this theory as it relates to weight loss. Think about it..the typical prescription for weight loss involves a reduction in calories and an increase in exercise. Both of which are stressful to our system.

We know that weight loss is 80% nutrition so we should first focus our efforts in this area. You can even lose weight without exercise! It is not ideal nor lasting but it works in the short term. At the same time we need to exercise but not too much. Yes, I am suggesting to NOT increase your total exercise time (stress) during a weight loss phase but to be smart and efficient.

We have already established that strength training is the most effective weight loss exercise. This means that we should spend the bulk of our exercise for weight loss on weights. 3 days of weight training and 2 days of short/intense cardio is plenty during a calorie restricted phase.

Some may argue that you can strike a balance between increased exercise and reduced energy intake and in an ideal world they would be correct. We just need to be aware of how all of the components interact with one another and how to best manage them all.

Don't let your tub overflow!

Rick Mayo