Cavewomen Don't Get Fat (19 page)

If you suspect you're intolerant, you can ask your nutritionally oriented physician to help you determine what foods are the main culprits. The LEAP MRT (Lifestyle, Eating, and Performance Mediator Release Test) is a comprehensive blood panel that tests your immune system response to 120 foods and 30 different chemicals and additives. MRT is a functional live-cell analysis that identifies foods and chemicals that provoke the release of mediators that cause pain and inflammation.

You're Not Managing Your Stress.
In chapter 3, I explained how stress is the underlying culprit for hormonal imbalances, heart disease, chronic ailments, and anxiety and depression. Take a good, hard look at the people you surround yourself with, and then purge anyone toxic from your life. Abusive people who suck you dry emotionally or waste your time can stress out your system and cause you to hold on to fat, especially in your midsection. Many of us are resistant to getting rid of toxic relationships or just can't do it at all. Do the best you can to keep toxic people out of your life and you'll be not only happier but also healthier.

You Need to Work Out Smarter.
If you're like me, you don't have hours to spend working out. I have other things to do. So when I do, it has to be an all-out scenario. Most of us either don't understand what our bodies are capable of, or just don't like feeling like we're going to cough up a lung during a workout. But to change your body composition, you have to push your body to places you never thought possible. You will need to silence the voice inside your head that tells you to stop before your designated sets are finished. You
just have to suck it up and work harder. It's not about the quantity of time you spend in the gym; it's about the quality and the intensity of your workouts. If you want to be a cavewoman, strength training is essential for maintaining muscle mass while losing body fat.

You're Overdoing Cardio.
Hopping on the elliptical machine like a hamster on a wheel or taking two spin classes in a row won't make a dent in your fat loss. Excess cardio jacks up your cortisol, the hormone that instructs your belly to store excess fat and keeps your stress hormones elevated for hours after a workout. Over time, this can interfere with your insulin metabolism and adversely affect the thyroid and the adrenals. Funk that! The best forms of cardio are walking, hiking, yoga, sprinting, jumping rope, and plyometrics—explosive, fast movements that build maximum power in functional movements. If you lift weights but crave cardio, then lift them faster! Thirty minutes of sprints twice per week is plenty, and walking can be done until you can't put one foot in front of the other. Just get outdoors, enjoy the fresh air, and watch your cortisol, stress, and body fat levels fall effortlessly.

Scaling back on cardio also gives you the chance to boost your levels of growth hormone. Growth hormone stimulates growth and regeneration and supports the production of lean muscle mass. Its level is highest when we are young and growing; as we age, the level drops naturally, and we produce much less (though women do produce more than men). Some people try to prevent the effects of aging by injecting themselves with growth hormone, but eating clean foods and strength-building exercise are the best things you can do to produce the juice naturally. Sleep and exercise also play huge roles in the production and release of growth hormone. Sprinting at your maximum threshold and engaging large muscle groups during lifting sessions will give your body the greatest rise in growth hormone.

You're Eating Carbs at the Wrong Time.
If your body fat is above 20 percent, chances are your body isn't as sensitive to insulin and
carbs as you'd like to think. This red flag can prevent you from reaching your fitness goals. I suggest that you eat 75 to 100 grams of carbohydrates from sweet potato or winter squash (1 cup cooked) with your nightly meal or postworkout, and eat carbs from vegetable sources the rest of the day. Another option is not to eat starchy carbs for three days and then on Day 4 load up with four starch servings throughout the day and postworkout. As previously mentioned, you should eat carbs only after a workout or at your evening meal. Eating plenty of protein and fat throughout the day provides your noggin with pure, gorgeous, brain food that will keep your mental focus sharp as a tack while hammering away at your daily tasks. Then, at night, a dose of carbs will help jack up your serotonin levels so that you can relax, rest, and repair while having a delicious night's sleep. Bliss!

You're Eating Too Much Fat.
Whoa, cavegirl! Esther said
what
? “I thought I could eat a lot of quality fat in my diet?” Yes, you can, if you're totally sinewy and lifting heavy weights and burning body fat like crazy. But if you're sitting on your tush all day at work and flopping down on the sofa at night to watch three or more hours of television, you're not burning as much fat as you think you are. So no, you may not snarf down 2 cups of nuts at one sitting or add a stick of butter to your steamed vegetables. Be reasonable and be accountable for what you put in your mouth. Eat 10 nuts at a time or a heaping teaspoon of nut butter. If you don't see changes in your body composition, then you'll need to eat less fat.

You're Not Eating Enough Protein.
Oh, cave sister, how I can relate to this one! When I was in my twenties, I ate a bagel with cream cheese and coffee for breakfast, beans and rice or sushi for lunch, and pasta for dinner. Although I was thin at the time, I didn't have any muscle definition or any energy. Like most women, I wasn't eating enough protein. We tend to suck down whatever carbs we can get our hands on as a quick fix to battle hunger. When we crash and
burn later, the whole cycle starts again. Women need to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight every day. So a woman who weighs 140 pounds should eat 140 grams of protein, which equals 20 ounces of protein (there are 7 grams of protein in one ounce). This shakes out to an average of 5 ounces of protein at meals, plus another 2–3 ounces of protein at two snacks throughout the day. Protein will keep you sailing through your day with energy and will help you get lean.

You're Drinking Too Many Protein Shakes.
I'm all about replenishing your body with some postworkout protein, like a shake. But some women rely on them too frequently throughout the day instead of eating real food. Drinking protein shakes while on a travel day beats eating the junk food available in airports, but don't make it a habit. If you're struggling to lose body fat, and you're having more than one shake a day, cut back. Whey protein raises the body's insulin level, which is exactly what you want to accomplish immediately following your workout. A surge of insulin will activate the release of growth hormone to help you build lean muscle. The trick is to keep that surge encapsulated within a thirty-minute window postworkout. Having a shake midafternoon will only raise your insulin level and stand in the way of your fitness goals. We also must remember that chewing and digesting food burns calories. Drinking our food requires much less work from the gut because shakes are more easily digested, so you'll burn fewer calories as a result. Chew your calories as often as you can.

You're Eating Too Much Fruit.
Say it isn't so! It's easy for me to give up many foods, but fruits are a tough one for me to eliminate entirely. Yes, fruits have antioxidants, fight diseases, clean your intestines, and satisfy a sweet tooth. Most of the fruit we eat today are sugar bombs compared with the tart (and sometimes bitter) ones that our ancestors ate. They are rich in fructose, which can not only prevent you from burning fat during a workout but also lead to fat
gain if you're eating too much of it. The liver processes fructose, and once the liver has reached its glycogen storage limit, excess glycogen gets converted to triglycerides and stored as body fat. So limit your fruit to 1 or 2 servings per day to get lean, and make sure you're consuming plenty of dark, deeply pigmented vegetables to reach your nutritional needs.

You've Fallen Off the Paleo Pony.
Diet will dictate 80 percent of your fat loss. It also requires razor-sharp focus and self-empowerment when we make our food choices. Second in line to diet is your exercise program, which will help you maintain lean muscle mass. If you're not sticking to your clean Paleo diet, and your cheat meal has become an all-out food orgy, you can sleep twelve hours a day, exercise your heart out, and still not see results. Diet is truly that important.

You're Not Getting Enough Sleep.
Sleep is a fat-loss nutrient and rules the hormonal roost. Think of sleep as a dictator of its citizens, which are your hormones. Under conditions of sleep deprivation, your insulin sensitivity decreases while your cortisol shoots up. Trying to budge your body fat under such conditions will result in a failed mission. Sleep—a long restful night's sleep of seven to nine hours—improves everything: muscle gains, appetite control, fat loss, mood, and cognitive function. So make it a priority.

Intermittent fasting (IF) is a huge buzzword among those living the Paleo Chic lifestyle. The guidelines for IF are that you eat the same number of calories every day, but you consume those calories in fewer hours during the day. Some people choose to eat only when they are hungry and don't have their first meal until ten or eleven o' clock in the morning, while others eat only between the hours
of eleven and five. The premise is that human beings evolved to survive under suboptimal conditions when food wasn't readily available, so the body is designed to fast for long periods of time.

I know some strength coaches and colleagues who find that IF works well for them and helps them maintain a lean physique. But it depends on your body composition and how you feel. Typically, pear-shaped women feel better and lose more fat with IF than apple-shaped women do, but this is not a cut-and-dry statement. Many women suffer from insomnia, anxiety, irregular periods, and hormonal imbalances as a consequence of IF. Much of the research on IF has been done on men, which isn't helpful in determining the effects it has on us girls. Out of seventy-one peer-reviewed studies on the benefits of IF, only thirteen used female subjects and those did not delve into the potential metabolic consequences of IF for a woman. My concern is that these sex-based oversights can overlook the potential damage to a woman's metabolism, fertility, adrenal fatigue, hormones, and circadian rhythms in the long run. So if you are of reproductive age and considering IF, be mindful of the potential strains it can put on your system and err on the side of caution. There isn't enough scientific evidence out there to justify fasting.

Since you're already investing in yourself by eating the healthiest foods in the world, it's important to protect that investment by storing your food in quality containers. Stainless steel and glass containers make excellent choices, since both are chemically inert. If you must store your food in plastic containers, look for “BPA-free” on the label and use plastic containers with recycling labels numbers 1, 2, or 4, which do not contain the chemical BPA, or bisphenol A. Steer clear of the number 7 label, which often does contain BPA. I advise you not to microwave your foods, but if you must, please do so in a glass container; microwaving plastic will cause BPA and any
other inert chemicals lurking around to seep out into your food. The same goes for drinking bottles; stick to glass or stainless steel bottles, both of which are BPA free. If you must drink from a plastic bottle, make sure that you do not leave the bottle in the car or exposed to bright sunlight, or the chemicals present in the bottles may seep into your drinking water.

I travel and eat in restaurants a lot, and I don't find it difficult to stick to the Paleo Chic program. When possible, ask that your food be steamed, poached, or grilled without any sauce. Use lemon wedges, hot sauce, or mustard as condiments. Try to substitute a vegetable or salad instead of the potatoes or rice.

In a pinch, give the following options a whirl. Even if your options are not perfectly Paleo, they'll still be great choices because they're Paleo style. Don't beat yourself up if one meal isn't perfect. The rise in your cortisol levels just isn't worth the stress!

Vegetable omelet with a side of berries and a side of bacon

Steak and steamed broccoli with a large salad

Hamburger (no bun) with tomato and avocado slices

Grilled pork chop with sweet potato fries and a side salad

Grilled chicken over a salad

Grilled salmon and sautéed spinach

Seared lamb and asparagus

Beef carpaccio and steamed artichokes

Grilled chicken, plantains, guacamole, and salsa

Many restaurants now offer gluten-free menus, so don't be shy about asking! Also request that your food be cooked in olive oil or
butter, and ask for olive oil and vinegar or lemon juice to dress your salad.