“No Salt after 7 PM”, “No Carbs after 6 PM”, “You just got to eat all bland boiled stuff to get your Dream Body!”
Have you heard these common statements that are being used on almost everyone who’s trying to lose fat and get aesthetic?
Whenever it comes to losing fat or losing weight, irrespective of what you want to lose, CICO (Calories In Calories Out) is the most important thing you need to take care of.
When it comes to getting aesthetic (Toned, Muscular and Lean), still CICO remains the prior most thing. Of course, after that, we need to take care of our ‘macro differentiation’ too, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what you eat, what matters the most is how much you eat.
Now, I want you to know about these hormones known as ‘Aldosterone’ and ‘Cortisol’. Aldosterone is responsible for telling the kidneys to retain the salt that your body needs and Cortisol is the hormone that surges stress levels in the body and signals the “Fight/Flight Mode”.
When we decide to cut the salt intake, for the first few hours, depending on the sodium levels of the individual, the kidneys would start excreting out water along with essential electrolytes like sodium, potassium, taurine and magnesium.
Once the depletion has completely occurred, any further abstinence from salt can lead to lack of sodium, which then would cause the brain to send signals to adrenal gland to increase the release of hormones responsible of water balance. Cortisol is one of those hormones.
Further, the beginning of a vicious cycle would have already begun. Cortisol, if stimulated properly, can do wonderful job for the body to burn fat but not when it is made to be released all the time.
Cortisol, the ultimate Stress Hormone, spikes up when the body senses some sort of danger. Sodium/Water Depletion is one of those stressors. When the body senses that there’s a scarcity of Sodium and Water in the body, Aldosterone increases further to preserve the sodium levels and even increase them while excreting Potassium Levels and hence, storing more water in the subcutaneous layer of the skin instead of saturating the muscle with water.
Yes, all this time you were thinking of abstaining from salt to get a tighter and leaner look where you ended up looking puffy and bloated.
Now this isn’t necessary that everyone out there would face the similar effects of abstinence from sodium. There could be another worse effect of Aldosterone on the body and that could be, drop in the tolerance of absorption and saturation of sodium and hence, retaining more water.
Once the tolerance is reduced, you can expect an ugly bloat whenever you increase your sodium intake at any day.
Instead of leaving or minimising sodium intake, you must work on your Hydration and increase your Water Intake. Trick your body by providing it water in abundance so that it starts excreting it and along with it would excrete excess sodium too.
So, eat salt to your heart and according to your heart of course (take care if your heart health is not optimal), and stay hydrated.
I promise you’d be great to go and you would look superb!
Talking about “No Carbohydrates in the evening/at night and eating the right kind of carb”, I would just want to state one important point i.e. ‘Quantity’ is the thing that matters the most. Now surely, if I get 300 grams of papaya for 130 calories vs 1.5 pcs of FERRERO ROCHER chocolate for the same amount of calories, the selection depends on the amount of Hunger I have vs the amount of Cravings I have at that time.
Sometimes, we just crave for certain food items and rather than just having some portion of that food item and killing the craving on the spot , we tend to find the alternative that would try to substitute its taste and help us skip on that food that our taste buds craved for.
Sometimes, it is just our ‘Leptin’ (Hormone that signals Pleasure) which is low. Due to this, our ‘Ghrelin’ (Hormone that signals Hunger) makes us feel hungry. That is Pseudo Hunger!
If I want to have that Ferrero Rocher at that time , I would get satisfied with 1.5- max 3 pcs of that chocolate that would further calm my LEPTIN and GHRELIN and I’d be good to go VERSUS if I decide to eat Papaya thinking that it would fill me up at that time, I’d eat 1kg of papaya and still feel the need to eat more and eventually when one day, I’m allowed to have ‘junk’ , what would I do? I would BINGE!
Binging is the deadliest thing you can do to yourself as it hampers your psycology way more than you can think of. So, if you crave for Pizza, don’t let that craving increase day by day. Instead, go and have a slice or two and balance it out in your Total Calorie Allowance.
And as far as eating late in the evening or at night is concerned, all of it is gut specific and some people simply can’t digest, say, high fibre food at night and some can’t digest high sodium food and some get bloated the next day if they eat sugar at night, whereas, there are some who can eat any kind of food at any hour, even if it is 3:00 AM and they would still be able to digest it properly and wake up fresh the next day. So, it is all individual specific.
Therefore, before believing into mythical statements stated by someone who has no knowledge, is as wrong as stating it. Keep yourself updated and know the complete picture instead of knowing just a part of it.
Enjoy your Salt, enjoy your Carbs and Enjoy your Life!
About The Author
Ekansh Taneja is a government accredited Level 4 and ISSA certified Level 2 Personal Trainer. He is a certified Strength and Conditioning Coach. He is pursuing ISSA Certified Le..
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