Smoking And Fat Loss: Do they mix?

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This morning one of my trainers forgot to get one of his clients to sign a form, so he raced out of the studio in an attempt to catch them before they left the car park. To his (and my) surprise he found them crouched down behind a tree having a cigarette.

Clearly they know smoking is bad for them, otherwise why were they attempting to hide from public view? Both of them are trying to lose body fat, so this begs the question, does smoking help with fat loss?

It is clear that smoking is addictive, it kills, harms your baby and others, it causes heart disease, lung cancer and worst of all, IT KILLS. I mean for goodness sake, IT’S WRITTEN IN HUGE LETTERS ON THE PACKETS.

smoking warning labels But how does it affect you if fat loss is your goal?

In order to lose body fat, your body, which is a highly tuned system of systems, requires a huge number of physical, chemical, biological and physiological processes to take place millions and millions of times per day. These processes all require certain elements to function and the body works at maintaining a fine line or balance in order to perform these functions.

For example, when the body is subjected some form of external stress, hormonal changes cause a number of physiological changes to take place immediately in order for the body to deal with the stress. An example of this would be if a dangerous dog found itself wandering the streets and you found yourself staring at it from only metres away, growling and baring its fangs at you.

That feeling you suddenly get when the hairs on your arms stand on end, your pulse rate, blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate suddenly sky rocket, that’s your body getting yourself ready to either run like the clappers, or stand and fight.

How many times a day have you been confronted by a dangerous dog? I suspect not many. But in the 21^st century we suffer from lots of stressful events on a daily basis. Whether its road rage, being late for work, a messy relationship break up or even simply sleeping in, these are all stressful events that your body has to deal and it does so in exactly the same way as if you were confronting that dangerous dog.

So what you ask? I’m trying to lose body fat, why should I care about my stress levels? Well the short answer is this: it all comes down to hormones. Cortisol is one, but there are a number others that are affected when you smoke. Cortisol in particular plays an important role in body fat loss and body fat storage.

Every time you encounter a stressful event in your life, the body’s self defence mechanism sends your body into BODY FAT STORAGE mode, thanks to the intricate balance your hormones must play to keep you safe from harm. The more you interfere with this balance by choosing to do activities that purposely elevate these hormones that create the perfect body fat storage mode, the harder it will be to achieve your fat loss goals.

So those two clients that had an awesome workout this morning in an attempt to elevate their metabolism to lose body fat, they undid all the hard work by having that cigarette because the added stress on the body upset the fine balance and sent it into BODY FAT STORAGE mode.

The short answer is this: SMOKING AND FAT LOSS DO NOT MIX!

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