Curb Your Cortisol

Most bodybuilders know that cortisol is a stress hormone that can cause your body to devour its own muscle for energy. So if you want to hold on to and build more muscle, keep your cortisol count down. One way is to eat small, frequent meals. According to Pauline Harding, M.D., “Worse than having a high-glycemic meal is having no meal at all. Any time during the day that one does not eat within five hours of the previous meal or snack, the cortisol level tends to rise. A rise above the normal range during the day almost guarantees that the nighttime cortisol will be high and thus disrupt REM sleep.” The bottom line is, don’t miss meals—and make sure each one has protein so you can stay in an anabolic state. Another thing you can do is take a phosphatidylserine supplement. According to Harding, “[PS] taken at 6 p.m. can help bring high cortisol down to normal by bedtime.”

—Becky Holman
www.X-tremeLean.com