Jonathan Steedman (00:01.059)
Hey food groupies, we need to talk about cortisol, because everyone else is talking about cortisol and a lot of people are talking about it wrong. So I'm here to talk about it as well. I'll just give you, it'll be, you know me, won't take too long. I'll just give you what you need. So if there's other questions that you've got that I don't answer, you know where to find me. But I just want to give you the rundown so you know what you need to know and you can ignore everything else.

Cortisol is a stress hormone, or it's called the stress hormone, I should say, rather. And yes, the irony is not lost to me that talking about cortisol is probably gonna raise my cortisol, but that's okay. It's one of the main hormones your body releases in response to stress. So the example that you probably have seen a lot, and it's not a bad example, is you're a cave person and there's a saber-toothed tiger, and you gotta run away from the saber-toothed tiger, or you gotta fight the saber-toothed tiger. Either way, cortisol helps your body do that.

cortisol causes a number of things to occur in your body once it's released and as it gets, you know, as more and more gets released, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up, blood sugar goes up, which sounds like a bad thing, but in stressful situations, it's actually helpful because increased blood sugar means like increased available fuel. So you're to be better at running away or fighting that thing. So that's good. Cortisol also slows down your digestion because you don't want your body like spending energy digesting food when you want that energy to.

fight or flight the tiger, right? So that's, that's one of the that's kind of the what I would say an acute so a short burst of high cortisol. That's its purpose. Now it also is linked with our circadian rhythms. So that means kind of just the general rhythms we have throughout the day of our sleep and wake cycle, right? So this is a very common theme that I see and I'm sure you've seen it with talking about hormones on social media, there's

It's just that the hormone is good or the hormone is bad, which is just dumb. That's not what hormones are. Hormones are hormones. And we want them at the right level at the right time. And often those levels fluctuate rhythmically or in response to certain things, and that's good. Okay. So for example, when I'm going to the gym, I want high cortisol because I want a good workout and high cortisol is going to help with that. Similarly in the mornings, I want my cortisol levels to go up because that wakes me up in the morning. It gets me able to

Jonathan Steedman (02:26.433)
do the things I need to do. All right, so this isn't a cortisol good cortisol bad situation. This is a, I have the right amount of cortisol at the right amount of time? Okay, so that's the first thing, don't be afraid of it. It's helpful and it's good. Okay, yes, where we run into problems is when cortisol is what is called chronically elevated, AKA, you sort of have this mild stress going on all of the time. So your cortisol levels, they go up and they go down, but they don't go

quite as down as we would like them to, right? And there's a whole host of reasons why that might be occurring. Oftentimes it is related to kind of chronic stress, whether that be family stress, financial stress, the state of the world, work stress, you know, there's a whole host of things that could lead to kind of chronically elevated cortisol and what a lot of kind of social media people are now claiming is a lot of us are struggling with elevated cortisol because of life and that's...

either causing body fat gain or stopping body fat loss. I think I've seen like cortisol face, cortisol belly, cortisol this, that, and the other things. So there is no evidence to show that increased cortisol levels increases levels of body fat. Okay. That is largely and almost entirely driven by overeating food. Now, of course, there are a whole host of reasons why someone may

be overeating food. I'm not trying to say it's that simple, but it's not cortisol's fault. Often we'll see both. We'll see someone overeating and maybe they're overeating because they're stressed and because they're stressed, they've got high cortisol. Those two things can be true at the same time, but they're not necessarily linked. So that's the big thing. Okay. Or the first big thing around cortisol and weight gain. Cortisol does not cause weight gain. Okay. What cortisol might do is change where your body fat is distributed.

So as a really rough example, what I mean by that is if you're not in a calorie surplus, you're not going to gain weight, even if you've got elevated cortisol. But if you are in a calorie surplus, you might gain some body fat. Let's say that you've eaten enough of a surplus to gain one kilo of body fat. Now person A who's gained one kilo of body fat but has low cortisol may gain that body fat around their hips or their thighs, maybe a little bit on their tummy, but their arms, like it could be anywhere on their body, right?

Jonathan Steedman (04:52.938)
that's largely gonna be driven by genetics and probably where their parents have gained the body fat, right? Now if person B also has gained one kilo of body fat, but they have kind of these chronically elevated cortisol levels, they might find that more of that body fat goes around their tummy versus other parts of their body. And I think part of the thing that's fueling this cortisol fear is the fact that tummy body fat is often one of the most obvious places to gain body fat. It's kind of similar to menopause.

tummy fat gain, which is a topic for another time. it can, I think it's really easy as a human being to feel like weight gain around your stomach is, what am I trying to say? I think we can overreact to it because a kilo of body fat on your tummy is a lot more obvious than a kilo of body fat on say your thighs. It's distributed differently. You look in the mirror, you don't always look at the back of your thighs. Like the tummy body fat is.

most visually obvious, okay? And so that is gonna fuel this cortisol fear because you're gonna feel like you're gaining all of this excess body fat. But remember, it's not, the body fat might be going to your tummy because of the cortisol, but you're not gaining that body fat because of the cortisol. That's due to what you're eating, okay? Which again, I don't wanna oversimplify, obviously losing fat and fat gain and all of that is a very complex thing.

but I also want us to make sure that we keep the main thing, the main thing. And I'm kind of jumping ahead here, but that's really the crux of this whole friggin' My main issue with all of the discussions around cortisol is they get people to focus on the wrong thing. They get you to worry about your hormone levels. think about what supplement should I take to manage my cortisol? Should I not have coffee on an empty stomach because that's gonna increase my cortisol? Should I not do high intensity training because I've heard that increases my cortisol?

and you just focus in on cortisol, cortisol, cortisol instead of like, how much am I eating? What am I eating? When am I eating it? Am I managing my stress? Like am I within to the best of my ability? Am I doing things that take care of myself? Am I doing some exercise and some general movement? Am I able to get some sun in sun safe ways? Am I doing something that fills my cup? Do I get to do some hobby stuff, some relaxation stuff? And once again, I know that unfortunately for some people,

Jonathan Steedman (07:13.235)
your capacity to do that is limited. But I would still say if body fat is something you're trying to change, something that you are wanting to lose, you do not need to worry about your cortisol levels. All right? You wanna focus on how much you're eating, what you're eating, when you're eating. You wanna focus on doing some movement, taking care of yourself and yes, managing stress, absolutely. You wanna focus on getting enough sleep and focusing on sleep hygiene. And those things will probably also bring your cortisol levels down.

but it's just not worth thinking about that. It gets you to focus on the wrong thing, it distracts you, you end up focusing on, you major in the minors and then you also very quickly fall into that social media wormhole of cortisol diets, cortisol detoxes, cortisol supplements, cortisol protocols and all of these things which are designed to help you lose money, not fat. So please just be very, very mindful of that and very, very careful with that. In summary, I...

Look, I should have just started with this, but then you wouldn't have listened to the rest of it. Cortisol is not something you need to worry about. If you have elevated cortisol, sure, that's something that we would want to influence, but it's not something that I would focus on. I would be looking at all of that other stuff I spoke about, what you're eating, when you're eating, how much you're eating, are you moving, are you trying to do some level of stress management, are you trying to improve your sleep duration and your sleep quality. Focusing on that stuff is way less sexy than a cortisol protocol. I totally get that.

but it's actually going to A, improve your health, B, probably improve your body composition, and C, ironically, bring your cortisol back into, it's not gonna lower cortisol, I would say it's gonna bring it back to the healthy range, because once again, don't forget, we don't want no cortisol, we want the right amount of cortisol at the right time. So, in summary, don't worry about your cortisol, worry about that other stuff. Any influence that starts talking about cortisol, just like, I don't know man, just delete them, you don't need them.

You're better than that. I'll chat to you next time.