Are you a person that works out but still has trouble losing body fat and/or gaining muscle?

If you search the web for how to build muscle, you are likely to find a lot of talk about eating plenty of protein.   But I have found that while boosting protein intake may be needed and is sometimes helpful, if you do not respond well to exercise, very often there is a metabolic imbalance somewhere.

One factor that people almost never think about when it comes to building and maintaining muscle is SLEEP.

A few months ago, I had a fitness instructor ask me if I might know why he wasn’t able to build muscle. Despite the fact that he used protein shakes, had a very regular workout routine and had worked out for years using the best of equipment, he just couldn’t build muscle.  He was also a little overweight with too high a percentage of body fat.  A 30-something male fitness instructor can’t put on muscle?   Something is desperately wrong!

The first question I asked him was “Do you sleep well?”   His answer was no; in fact he told me had sleep apnea.  Strike one!  When you lose sleep, you lose growth hormone production.  In childhood, growth hormone makes you grow in every way.  In adulthood, it’s most important function is to make you build and maintain your muscle. 

If you aren’t sleeping well as an adult, your growth hormone production will be reduced and your ability to gain muscle from exercise will be greatly compromised. So make no mistake, getting your zzzzzz’s is very important for your fitness.

If taking simple measures like reducing your caffeine intake and trying a natural sleep aid like melatonin or Seditol (an herbal extract we really like) are not effective, the most likely suspect is elevated evening cortisol, which most often occurs from chronic stress.  To get the full benefit of a sleep aid, you also need to down regulate your daytime stress response, or address any other potential sleep confounders. 

For sleep apnea, food allergies can be involved.  So, we find switching to an elimination diet (low in common food allergens, especially wheat and dairy) is helpful.  And it was for this trainer.  So, first things first to improve his muscle mass — we got him sleeping better.

The next thing we did for this trainer was look at his fasting blood glucose.  It was on the high end of normal indicating he had some insulin resistance.  Insulin is an anabolic hormone, so it can help muscle building.  But if it elevates too high for too long after meals, it also builds fat stores.

To address that we advised changing to a low glycemic index/glycemic load diet.   We also recommended blood sugar supportive nutrients like alpha-lipoic acid, chromium and magnesium (which also helps sleep).  

It wasn’t very long at all and he was losing body fat like crazy and building lean mass.

Had these measures still not worked very well, I would have dug deeper.  Other problems I might typically find in a person who doesn’t respond like they should to exercise are things like sex hormone imbalances and suboptimal thyroid hormone levels.     

For instance, this trainer could have been low in testosterone.  Testosterone is not only supremely important for muscle building, it also influences insulin and glucose regulation.  Thyroid hormones drive the rate at which cells burn fat and glucose for fuel, so they profoundly affect a person’s ability to burn fat. 

We also evaluate GI health because it can be a source of inflammation and very disruptive to metabolism.  In some instances, when people are just not responding well to anything we do, we test for heavy metal levels, which can affect thyroid function and insulin resistance.

So you see we have a whole host of things that could be involved in the inability to lose fat and gain muscle:

1. Thyroid levels
2. Sex hormone levels
3. Food allergies
4. Neurotransmitter levels
5. Chronic stress
6. Blood sugar and insulin regulation
7. GI health
8. And possibly heavy metals

Why is this important to understand? We are told that to lose weight and become fit, we need to eat less and exercise more.  But it is not that infrequently that I see people doing just that, but it doesn’t work like it should for them.  They struggle in vain, exercising hard and often, and still they don’t respond appropriately to the exercise. 

These people need to realize it’s a sign that something is wrong. If this is you, get to a practitioner that can help you evaluate possible underlying causes.  It may take some digging, but you can get to the root of the problem, and not only help your fitness, but improve your overall health and vitality.

[Ed. Note: James LaValle is the founding Director of the LaValle Metabolic Institute, one of the largest integrative medicine practices in the country.  Dr. LaValle is the author of 14 Days to Less Stress and Better Sleep, a revolutionary program to improve your sleep and banish stress for good.  To learn more, click here.]

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