Chronic inflammation can be a big hurdle for those training for fat loss, hypertrophy and to improve health and performance. Getting inflammation under control is a vital step to help accelerate results from a nutrition or training plan. From experience, a large number of our personal training clients initially present with some signs and effects of high inflammation and we have achieved great fat loss results by managing inflammation throughout their personal training program.
So What Is Inflammation?
Inflammation is a biological response from the body in response to pathogens or injury. Inflammation is a vital part of health and is a process that is there to remove the ‘bad’ and begin the process of healing and building new tissues. If you have ever suffered a broken bone, allergic reaction or a twisted ankle, the swelling and tenderness associated with those conditions are an example of a normal cause of inflammation. A normal inflammatory response is great and is involved in building new muscle tissue from training. Inflammation becomes an issue when it is chronically elevated and not being signaled to turn off which effects all aspects of the body, particularly making fat loss and hypertrophy much more difficult than it needs to be.
What Causes Inflammation To Become Chronically Elevated?
The body regulates inflammation through pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory signals, meaning that inflammation has a switch can be turned on and off. Lifestyle, nutrition and training all have a huge effect on whether the switch is turned on or off. Things that can cause chronic inflammation are:
– Smoking/ Excessive Alcohol Intake
– Poor sleep
– Vitamin/Nutrient deficiencies
– Hormone imbalances
– Unbalanced Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratios
– Toxin / chemical / allergen exposure
– Gut health issues
The goal is not to eliminate inflammation but to instead create a healthy balance of inflammation. The issue is when inflammation is chronically high.
So How Does This Effect My Fat Loss / Muscle Building?
How well your body utilizes insulin will be a huge dictator in how successful you will be with your fat loss or muscle gain.
Have a guess at one of the major things that is effected by elevated inflammation?
That’s right, insulin.
Chronically elevated inflammation makes your cells less responsive to insulin, meaning that it becomes harder for your body to regulate blood sugar levels. This is a huge issue for fat loss and muscle growth. High inflammation can lead to elevated blood sugar and insulin levels, resulting in higher body fat mass, which will then further increase inflammation. It’s a vicious cycle and is one that needs to be managed for optimal fat loss.
How Do You Fix High Inflammation?
The first thing is to address potential issues that could be causing elevated inflammation. The causes mentioned above are what we look for at Real Results when helping a personal training client with inflammation. Increasing the intake of the following nutrients can also have a great impact on inflammation:
– Magnesium
– Vitamin D
– Anti-Oxidants
– Turmeric/Curcumin
– High EPA Fish Oil
– Probiotics
These nutrients will have a great impact as long as proper nutrition and exercise are also in place. Like with fat loss, there is no ‘magic bullet’ for inflammation.
Fat loss, building muscle and especially improving health isn’t just a matter of eating less calories or exercising more. Addressing issues such as inflammation will allow the body to function better which will have a great impact on body fat and muscle muscle levels.
