Why Stress & Cortisol Are Destroying Your Fat Loss and What to Do About It (Molly McNamee) | Ep 265
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Why does your body hold onto fat even when you’re training hard and eating right? Could chronic stress be sabotaging your metabolism, sleep, and recovery? How can small, manageable habits drastically change your stress levels and fitness results?
Philip (@witsandweights) is joined by stress expert and fitness coach Molly McNamee. Together, they unpack the science of chronic stress, its impact on your hormones, metabolism, and body composition, and the small but powerful lifestyle shifts you can make to feel and look your best.
Molly McNamee is a fitness coach specializing in stress management and its connection to body composition. With years of experience in understanding the interplay between chronic stress, the nervous system, and fitness goals, Molly provides evidence-based strategies for restoring balance and achieving results.
If you’re stuck in a plateau, feeling burnt out, or just want to optimize your fitness journey, this is your blueprint.
Today, you’ll learn all about:
2:15 Stress isn’t all bad: The case for balance
05:41 How chronic stress disrupts fat loss and recovery
12:14 Understanding exercise stress and cortisol
18:34 High-intensity training and your stress response
20:42 Small habits for stress resilience
26:37 Understanding stress and diet effects
31:06 Stress management through routines and play
40:17 Reframing negative self-talk and using your name
44:51 The power of small pauses
50:38 Outro
Episode resources:
Download Molly’s free Conquer Your Cortisol ebook
Instagram: @mfit.workouts
How Stress and Cortisol Impact Fat Loss and What to Do About It
If you’ve been pushing yourself in the gym, tracking your food meticulously, and still not seeing fat loss results, stress might be the missing piece of the puzzle. Chronic stress can wreak havoc on your metabolism, disrupt your sleep, and leave you spinning your wheels no matter how dialed in your fitness routine seems.
In this episode of Wits & Weights, I sat down with Molly McNamee to break down the science behind stress, cortisol, and how they impact fat loss. We also explored actionable ways to manage stress without turning your life upside down.
The Role of Stress in Fat Loss
Stress is a natural part of life, and in small doses, it can actually help you perform better. Whether it’s powering through a big presentation or setting a new PR in the gym, short bursts of stress can drive results. But when stress becomes chronic, it’s a different story.
Your body’s stress response, also known as the fight-or-flight mechanism, can lead to:
Increased fat storage (especially around the belly).
Decreased metabolic rate.
Poor digestion and nutrient absorption.
Interrupted sleep and recovery.
Understanding these effects is key to breaking through fat loss plateaus and optimizing your results.
What Is Cortisol and Why It Matters
Cortisol is a hormone released during stress that helps regulate energy, metabolism, and other essential processes. While cortisol gets a bad rap, it’s not inherently harmful. The issue arises when chronic stress keeps cortisol elevated for too long.
High cortisol levels can lead to:
Difficulty losing fat despite being in a calorie deficit.
Loss of muscle due to impaired repair and protein synthesis.
Constant fatigue and poor energy levels.
It’s important to focus on the root cause of elevated cortisol—chronic stress—rather than the hormone itself.
The Connection Between Stress, Training, and Results
Exercise is a stressor, and not all stress is bad. However, the type, intensity, and frequency of your workouts can either help or hurt your stress levels.
High-intensity training: Powerlifting, HIIT, and long-duration cardio can spike cortisol, especially if you’re already dealing with chronic stress.
Low-intensity movement: Activities like walking, yoga, or mobility work activate your parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation and recovery.
Balancing your training intensity with restorative activities is critical for stress management and sustainable progress.
Signs That Stress Is Stalling Your Fat Loss
Not sure if stress is the issue? Pay attention to these signs:
Poor sleep or difficulty staying asleep.
Constant cravings for sugary or high-fat foods.
Feeling rundown or unable to recover from workouts.
Digestion issues, including bloating or irregularity.
Fatigue or lack of motivation.
If any of these resonate, it’s time to address your stress head-on.
Practical Ways to Manage Stress
Pause Between Activities
Take 30 seconds to reset between tasks—whether it’s after a workout, before eating, or transitioning between meetings. A simple pause can help calm your nervous system.Create Flexible Routines
Consistency with sleep, meals, and movement helps your body feel safe. Build routines that align with your schedule, but allow room for life’s unpredictability.Focus on Play and Fun
Engage in hobbies, laugh more, and prioritize activities that bring you joy. Smiling and laughter can naturally lower stress hormones.Reframe Negative Self-Talk
Talk to yourself using your name, as if coaching a friend. For example, “Philip, you’ve got this!” This small shift can help you approach challenges with a more positive mindset.Track Biofeedback
Keep a simple journal to monitor sleep quality, digestion, cravings, and energy levels. Spotting patterns in your biofeedback can guide your approach to stress management.
The Bigger Picture
If you’ve been struggling to lose fat, build muscle, or simply feel your best, chronic stress could be holding you back. But the solution doesn’t have to involve a complete lifestyle overhaul. Start with small, intentional changes—like taking a few deep breaths, adjusting your training, or adding more fun to your day—and watch how your body responds.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
If you've been tracking your food, training consistently and seemingly doing everything right but still can't lose fat, or if you're dealing with constant fatigue, cravings and poor recovery despite your best effort, this episode is for you. Today, we are revealing how chronic stress affects your entire system, from your nervous system to your metabolism, to your hormones, including cortisol, and why understanding this connection could be the key to breaking through some of those plateaus. You'll learn exactly what happens in your body during chronic stress, how it impacts fat loss and muscle gain and, most importantly, what you can do about it. If you're feeling burnt out, stuck or just wanting to optimize your results, today's episode will help you work with your biology instead of against it. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique.
Philip Pape: 0:58
I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm discussing the science of stress, metabolism and body composition with Molly McNamee. Molly specializes in understanding that complex relationship between chronic stress, the nervous system and even your physique results. She spent years studying how stress affects our entire hormonal cascade including, yes, cortisol, but many others as well and developing evidence-based strategies to help restore balance. Today, you're going to learn what happens in your body during chronic stress, why this matters for fat loss and muscle gain, and practical strategies that work. We're going to explore how different types of training affect your stress response, what lifestyle factors make the biggest difference and specific techniques to build stress resilience. Molly, welcome to the show.
Molly McNamee: 1:45
Thank you for having me here. I'm really excited to be here today.
Philip Pape: 1:49
I'm excited as well. We were talking before we started recording about the fitness space and the fitness industry and how sometimes cortisol is made out to be the big enemy of X fat loss, whatever, and I wanted to start from that opposite end just to set context with the question. Is there a case where stress is good? What is stress good for, so we don't think it's just a boogeyman to everything and then we can look at the opposite and what we're really concerned about.
Molly McNamee: 2:15
Yeah. So I talk about stress a lot with my clients and on my platforms and I always have people come to me saying, okay, well, there's stress in my life, I'm trying to get rid of this, I don't know what to do about it. And then I tell them the goal is not no stress. That is impossible to not have stress in your life. Instead, the goal is really just to help manage your body's stress response better and make sure stress isn't consuming every part of you.
Molly McNamee: 2:40
So, yes, you can have stress in your life and stress can be really good. I mean, if you think about, like, giving a presentation at work, for example, or if you're a performer, like it's good to feel some of that stress and anxious energy before you get going, it can help you perform better. So stress in itself is not just bad, but what is bad is how stress often then consumes our body and then makes it hard to you know, live and function and act the way that we want it to. So, as we have this conversation, yeah, saying that right off the bat of the goal is not no stress is super important. It's just figuring out how to balance that stress and manage that stress better so that it's not all consuming.
Philip Pape: 3:22
Yeah, fair point and we're going to definitely get into that better so that it's not all consuming. Yeah, fair point and we're going to definitely get into that. So if related to that, if there was a myth or trend out there right now, on Instagram, on social media, wherever people are following, you could like, snap your fingers and just like, put the kibosh on it, just get rid of it. What would that be?
Molly McNamee: 3:38
Well, like, one of my biggest pet peeves with the fitness industry as a whole is just the all or nothing mentality, and that can be applied to pretty much any trend that I see.
Molly McNamee: 3:48
So there are a lot of trends that I would like to snap my fingers and have it go away, but it's mainly that mentality of this is the only thing that works. You're going to follow exactly this and this is going to get you that dream body, and if you do anything else, it's not going to work. I would like for that to go away. I also would really like, just from a stress point, the mentality that the only way to get in shape is to feel absolutely dead after your workouts. I would like for that myth to completely go away, because for a lot of people, pushing your body to an extreme is making their problems worse. So that extremist nature of the fitness industry as a whole I would like that to go away. And then I'm sure, if I thought deeper, there are a lot of like little stupid training and things that I would like to go, but it all comes down to that extremist of this is the way and it has to be extreme and that's all that works.
Philip Pape: 4:41
It's not true. No, no, you're right and you hit me really close to the heart on that one. Only because when the trolls come out on YouTube, it's the videos that are triggering people's. You know, latching on to almost a cult-like adherence to one thing right, like intermittent fasting is the only way to do this and it's we're going to work for everybody, or this one thing is the only way to do it. So that's important because people are listening. It's the nuances and it's the personalization. We're going to talk about that.
Philip Pape: 5:06
As far as training goes, I do want to get into. You know why don't we jump right into that? Because people are listening, care about primarily their body composition and their energy levels and just feeling and looking great as a human being, especially as we get older. So when someone's dealing with chronic stress, the standard advice is sometimes cut back on everything. Sometimes, like you said, it's do more of something. So when we talk about workouts, intensity activities in your life, I feel like it's oversimplified. What does the research say, or what do you say about how stress affects our results in the context of just doing too much?
Molly McNamee: 5:42
Yeah, and, as you said, it is totally convoluted, like in the space, because people are hearing things from every different angle and every body is different is really the baseline statement that I go into when I work with clients. I'm like, how I'm going to train you is going to be different from like the answer someone else needs Because it's interesting, because my story I can share a little bit of. I find that a lot of people who have a similar story to me need similar advice to me. People who don't have a similar story to me don't need advice same advice as me. So I would say that I have had high functioning anxiety for my whole life, so I'm always running a bit higher than other people. So what I need from a workout routine is far different from someone else who is not always running on that high end where they're always feeling a bit anxious. They can handle a bit more intensity, but someone who has a baseline level of anxiety in their body they can't handle the same amount of intensity. So, as you said, the answer isn't okay. You need to stop doing everything if you're feeling anxious or if your nervous system is a wreck. It's just finding the right things to do and tweaking things slightly.
Molly McNamee: 6:51
So I find a lot of people when they hear, oh, you're dealing with chronic stress, you should do less. They then jump to the extreme of doing basically nothing. But when I tell people you should do less, it really just means like you're taking two steps backward. So if you're doing cardio every single day, it's okay. Can we take out one cardio session? Can we take out two cardio sessions? And then the other extreme is true. If they're currently doing nothing and they're being told that they should start being active for their mental health or for their stress levels, the answer isn't start working out every single day. It's baby steps forward and baby steps back. So, wherever you're currently at, it's hard for me to say oh, there's one answer for you. Wherever you're currently at, it's going to be either a little step forward or a little step back. Is the answer of do more or do less?
Philip Pape: 7:39
Yeah, and it sounds like, since it's a spectrum, there could be people who are doing, let's say, the right amount of clock time of something, but not the right thing for that clock time right. So it's not just a matter of more or less time doing something. Let's take a step back now so we don't get too far down that rabbit hole and just talk about chronic stress, what it is, how it affects the body, so that people can understand the signs as we move forward, because we're trying to empower people, not just like here are your 20 solutions and here's your decision tree. It's how do I recognize this in myself so that I know something needs to change?
Molly McNamee: 8:12
Yeah, absolutely. Well, our bodies are really cool, like they have this whole stress response system that's there specifically to keep us safe and that's amazing. We don't want that to change. No-transcript. Look and feel the way that you want to Because, as I said, your body's trying to keep you safe when it's stressed.
Molly McNamee: 8:51
So that means it's going to start to hold on to body fat because it's saying I need as much as I can on my body to keep this body safe, so it's going to store as much as it can. Your metabolism is going to slow down because your body is going to say we need to burn fewer calories because we need to keep this body safe for as long as possible. You're also going to find you can't really sleep because your body doesn't think it's safe to. You're not going to be properly digesting food because your body is rushing that process because it doesn't think it has time to do. That is rushing that process because it doesn't think it has time to do that. So that is fine in small doses. Like I said before, stress is fine to have in your life, but when you're constantly in that state, you're just going to find your body's working against you. So if you're actively trying to build muscle or actively trying to lose weight and you are dealing with chronic stress. It's going to be impossible because your body is doing as much as it can to keep your body existing as it currently is. So a lot of people will feel like, oh, my body is like something sabotaging me. My body's doing nothing that I want it to do, and that, of course, makes sense, because if you're trying to burn a bunch of calories and your body is trying to not burn a bunch of calories, that's going to be kind of frustrating.
Molly McNamee: 10:06
So, like I said, it's amazing how our bodies operate and they, like, have these systems that keep our body functioning.
Molly McNamee: 10:14
But because of the way we all kind of live our life right now, we're jumping from one stressful thing to the next stressful thing, to the next stressful thing, and then that stress response is just constantly activated and that's going to make it hard to exist in the way that you want to exist.
Molly McNamee: 10:28
I mean, I experienced that firsthand where I could gain 20 pounds without changing anything about my exercise routine or my lifestyle and I was like, well, why is this happening? This doesn't make sense at all. But it was just that stress sitting in my body. That was making it hard for my body to do what I wanted it to do. So it's very frustrating, but it's also I'm not saying that to scare anyone because there are easy ways to kind of navigate out of that. But yeah, I find a lot of people who come to work with me are saying I've been trying stuff for years like nothing is working for me and that's just because they've been upsetting their nervous system for years and now their nervous system is saying you're not going to do what I want you to do.
Philip Pape: 11:12
Yeah, I think it's an important message. You're right, because there's this like stress stack that's just built on top one on top of the other, on top of the other, and you just talked about how it's a vicious cycle of. You know, if your stress is higher, then sleep can be poor, Then digestion can be poor, then gut health, you know. Then, then then right, and at the end of the day, right. We talk about energy balance.
Philip Pape: 11:33
I just posted something this morning on threads about like the root cause of obesity isn't the overeating, it's what's causing the overeating, and stress is among those many, many factors. And, like you said in your personal story, it's not even overeating like you're eating more, it's just your body is clamping down more and more and now you're eating more than your body needs in the moment because it's stressed. So you mentioned muscle building just briefly. I do want to touch on that. How does this chronic stress affect both the muscle repair that occurs after we work out and also new muscle protein synthesis? And let's talk about people who aren't even dieting, because dieting is its own stress. Let's say you're just kind of at maintenance. How does stress affect that process?
Molly McNamee: 12:14
Yeah. So stress affects a few things that would influence how you're able to build muscle, and one you touched on it before sleep. So if your body is stressed, you're not getting good sleep and you need good sleep for your muscles to repair and change and grow. So you may feel like, oh, I'm lifting the heaviest weights, then you're not sleeping and then your muscles you're just feeling constantly sore and your body's not changing the way that you want it.
Molly McNamee: 12:41
Another thing is digestion, as we talked about. You could feel like, oh, I'm eating protein, I'm doing the things, why aren't I feeling stronger? But if you're eating stressed out, your body's not really going to absorb those macronutrients and those vitamins and everything the way that you want it to, because your body's stressed and again, it's rushing that digestion process. So to build muscle, you need the proper recovery, like you need to be training those muscles and you need to be feeding those muscles. And if your body is stressed, it's hard to get the recovery or the nutrients or like to feel strong in your workouts because, energy wise, you're going to feel tired and you're going to feel weak.
Philip Pape: 13:22
Yeah, yeah, it's important, yeah. So, again, it just all connects together. You mentioned soreness. I think that's a good point because, again, one pet peeve of mine is the people chasing soreness for its own sake, and oftentimes soreness is a an indicator of something that needs to change right. Like you said, it's either recovery there's good soreness, like when you start a new lift. Uh, these are all signs and we're going to get into some of that biofeedback later so that people can understand. Okay, maybe here's a checklist they can go through. But I want to touch on cortisol now, because cortisol has a place in this big picture and, at the same time, we don't want to hyper-focus, I think, on just cortisol because maybe it's a downstream indicator of something rather than necessarily root cause. What are your thoughts on all that?
Molly McNamee: 14:03
Yeah, it is very rarely the root cause. It is like cortisol is being released in your body when your sympathetic nervous system is activated, which is that part of your nervous system that is creating that fight or flight response in your body. So it's often the case of your nervous system is causing the cortisol to rise and not your cortisol is the mystery of where did this come from? Why is this happening? So I do often think there's too much simplifying when it comes to cortisol or hormones or, honestly, you could think of a lot of topics. There's a lot of simplifying of like oh well, this is the result, so this is the problem and I need to fix it somehow. It's same with people who are bloated. They're like oh, I'm bloated, Bloating is my problem. Bloating isn't the problem. Bloating is the result of something else. That's a problem, and that is what cortisol is. It's the result of something else. That is the problem and going on in your body.
Philip Pape: 15:03
Yeah, cool, yeah, because again, there's lots of tests you can get suckered into. I heard about them, some better than others. There's the Dutch test and there's I don't know if that one covers cortisol, but there's like different hormonal panels people get and in some cases I wonder if people are overreacting to their cortisol curves when something's completely normal for them In other cases it's a sign so let's talk about the different things that then affect our stress response that we can do something about, starting with exercise and training, which we've alluded to. How do the different types of movement and exercise affect this chronic stress?
Molly McNamee: 15:38
Yeah, so every workout is going to trigger some stress response in your body. Exercise is a stressor and again, that's why we were saying stress as a whole is not bad. Some stress is good, but some workouts will stress your body out more than others. So something that is more high intensity, that is pushing your body to an absolute max whether that's with cardio or whether it's with powerlifting and you're lifting the heaviest weights you possibly can or you're running as fast as you possibly can and you're doing highly intense workouts. That's going to cause your nervous system to spike more than other workouts would. Also, long workouts keep your nervous system spiked in that stressful state for much longer.
Molly McNamee: 16:23
Obviously, every workout is a stressor. So if you're working out for two hours straight, your body is stressed for two hours straight and, as I said before, that's not saying endurance workouts are bad for everyone. But if you're currently in a place where you're having active panic attacks multiple times a day and you're not sleeping and you're feeling these effects of stress going off, and then being like I'm going to run this stress away by running for two hours is not actually going to help you at all. So it's just knowing kind of what workout to prescribe to you based on what your stress levels are that day that week at that point in your life. So yeah, as a whole, all workouts are going to stress you out.
Molly McNamee: 17:06
Some Some workouts are going to stress you out more, and those are going to be the more highly intense workouts where you feel like something that I think is good to do is the talk test, where, while you're working out, if you feel like you can't say a sentence without stopping to take a breath, that workout is probably more on the high intensity scale. So for someone who's not checking your heart rate or really familiar with what high intensity is supposed to feel like, that's a good way to kind of gauge how intense is your workout. Can you speak in a sentence before taking a breath or are you gasping for air after every word? And if you're gasping for air, then that means it's a more highly intense workout, and that can be with cardio or strength training Again powerlifting I consider high intensity for a lot of people.
Philip Pape: 17:51
Okay, so you triggered me twice by saying that. So the powerlifting I do want to touch on that because, again anecdotally, I've seen what you've seen, where it's going to depend highly on the person and like in the context of everything they're doing. And I say that because, just to challenge it a little bit, there are cases where, for example, I had a client who she was stressed to the max, stressed to the gills, doing a lot. She was mountain climbing like a massage therapist Peloton and she was trying to lift and we just stripped everything away except the lifting and then her lifting became more intense but I think the net change was lower and I think that's important to understand. Like for her, four days a week for 90 minutes was a super low stress way to train for the week because she wasn't doing a lot of anything else.
Molly McNamee: 18:35
Yeah, it circles back to what I said before, where my solution for everyone is what is two steps forward or two steps back? So it's not okay. You're fully going to eliminate all of these things that I'm talking about from your workout routine or from your life. It's just dialing it back a touch. So that could even be like if, for instance, I worked with a client one time and she told me she started having panic attacks and they feel like they came out of nowhere. But this was when she started working out from home and she was doing 50, five zero minute hit workouts. She was doing long hit workouts and I was like you know what? You probably would have been okay if it was 20 minutes, but the fact that you were doing 50 is a big problem, but she was like in a bad place. So we needed to fully eliminate that high intensity from her routine.
Molly McNamee: 19:28
But that is just an example of just dialing it back a bit can be helpful. So it doesn't have to be oh, you're removing all of these things from your life. I have a friend also who is going through perimenopause, or hormones are kind of a mess, and her nervous system is reacting to all of that and she's also training for a marathon and I'm like, oh, what bad timing, because those long, long runs that you're going on are definitely not helping this. So then I'm just encouraging her to, a couple of days, change her training, not stop training for the marathon. So it can just be small changes.
Philip Pape: 20:05
Yeah, so that's, that's good. Let's segue then on the small changes, because you've mentioned sleep, you've mentioned recovery, you've mentioned um. I mean, we haven't even really talked about the life stress that we're all under. That causes a lot of this stress as well. I guess my question is obviously where would someone start? That's kind of the general thought here. But what's the big low-hanging fruit for most people when they do an inventory audit of their life, like just in general, for people listening, like, okay, let me start with the movement or start with the life stress or whatever. Later on I want to talk about unavoidable stress and what we can do about it. But like, here are the things we can control.
Molly McNamee: 20:41
Yeah. So I would always say, instead of thinking what can I remove from my life, think what can I add to my life. And so the easiest place for people to start, I would say, is not even exercise. It's not even what you're eating, it's just little little habits that you have in your day. Can you fix your posture regularly throughout your day? You could start there. Fixing your posture is going to help you breathe more deeply because your lungs are expanded. It's going to help you feel more confident and it's going to help your body feel I know we're all fixing.
Philip Pape: 21:11
I'm like I want to fix my posture right now. I stand, I'm standing, though.
Molly McNamee: 21:14
I'm like I want to fix my posture. Right now I'm standing, though, yeah. So it's small things like that. That is what I help people start with. It's not okay. Who can I break up with from my life to remove a large amount of stress? It's not that it's not okay. How can I overhaul my exercise routine? It's not that. It's what tiny things. Can you do? So with posture? One thing that I encourage my community to do is, anytime you get a notification on your phone, fix your posture.
Molly McNamee: 21:41
That's an easy place to start. Within your first hour of waking up in the morning, can you go outside and take some deep breaths. Start there Like little, little things are going to be the best place for you to start, instead of thinking what big thing can I change, what big thing can I remove? It's really. What small thing can I do to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, that part of your nervous system that's helping you relax and rest and digest? What can I do to activate that regularly, throughout the day, so that stress isn't consuming me? So it's not what to change, it's what to add really.
Philip Pape: 22:18
I love that and I didn't expect that answer, which I'm pleasantly surprised, only because in the nutrition world we talk about that as well. People are always trying to restrict and cut out right and we're like, no, just add in protein, add in fiber, add in some things you like and start crowding the other stuff out potentially. And, by the way, your cortisol guide you have, just so everybody listening. Molly didn't tell me to do this, but she shared it with me and we're going to talk about where to get that. It has some of these tips in there and I saw those ahead of time like, oh, that's interesting, Like little simple things that you don't often think about. So okay, Beyond that, there are some scenarios, I guess, that are of interest to people, and I've had some of my community reach out with questions ahead of time.
Philip Pape: 22:57
For someone who's managing their stress well, let's just say, like they have great sleep and they've balanced their nutrition and their training, but they're still not seeing progress. Like it could stress over the issue Are they missing something? Is there something they're overlooking?
Molly McNamee: 23:13
So, yeah, I used to think stress is just my interactions with people and the world and stuff that I can see. But there are a lot of things that can cause your body to feel stress that you can't even see and you may not even feel and again, I'm not saying that to scare people, but just like raise awareness to it. But things like the products you're using to clean your house or the air quality of the town you live in those types of things can start to stress out your body. You could have an infection that you don't know about, which is something that actually happened to me.
Molly McNamee: 23:48
There was a time where my anxiety and my stress was at an all-time high and I was examining my life and I was like, why is this happening? And then it turned out I had a yeast overgrowth in my gut that was just wreaking havoc on my nervous system. So if you feel like, why is my body not responding, it could be worth investigating like, okay, what potentially unseen things are happening. Not saying that's the right solution for everyone. I'm not saying if you're not losing weight or you're not building muscle, it means something is wrong with your body, but it could mean something is wrong with your body, and I also feel like we all are used to a certain level of stress in our life.
Molly McNamee: 24:29
Like we get used to things and we wake things off as being normal that aren't really normal. So that's where it can be really nice to like have an outside perspective, maybe speak to a friend, maybe speak to a coach or a therapist and just be like so this is what's going on and they may be able to tell you okay, that's actually not super normal. I have a client right now who like literally says oh yeah, things are totally fine. But he's also a single parent. He has three jobs and two are his own businesses and he's like this is all fine, nothing's strange. I'm like there's so much stress in your life that you are just used to this stress, now Normalized it yeah.
Molly McNamee: 25:07
Normalized it. So I would also, I guess, challenge those people who are saying I'm dealing with everything perfectly, but my body's not changing, to potentially examine is that the case? And then also, are there unseen things that could be stressing out your body? Something I think is really helpful for everyone to do, at least for a week or two, is to keep a little vibe check journal in your phone or keep it by your bed and just keep note of how you're feeling each day. Keep track of how are you sleeping? Are you bloated? Do you have a headache? Do you feel anxious? Is your heart racing at all randomly? Just keep track of those things and you may start to see if there are some things actually happening that you weren't aware of.
Philip Pape: 25:54
Yeah, no, you mentioned some great things, the first being that there are lots of things in our environment that could affect us and we don't need to like fear monger it per se, but it's good to be aware. I knew a guy who worked in an office environment and something wasn't right, and there was. He was allergic to some form of mold or something that didn't affect most people you know, and he went and worked from home and all of a sudden it cleared away. So, yeah, I like the Vibe Check Journal. I mean, I talk about biofeedback all the time and it sounds like there are some nice granular levels of stress measures that you can track and maybe, if there's time, we can get into that. But I like that idea Kind of maybe a little bit related to this or not is how often is the case where somebody is just trying to diet too much and that's the cause of their stress?
Molly McNamee: 26:37
That's very often, if not the most common.
Molly McNamee: 26:40
It's potentially the most common.
Molly McNamee: 26:42
I mean, when people are actively trying to lose weight, like the first thing they think is, oh, I should exercise more or I should eat less, like those are the two things people instantly jump to.
Molly McNamee: 26:53
And you can do that again to a degree. You probably do need to maybe eat a little less or move a little bit more, but people often take it to the extreme. So if you have been dieting for a long time, that is a stress in your body Absolutely, and that's like, if it's prolonged and if it's been extreme, that's going to start to upset your body. And also, just like from a metabolism standpoint, when you are stressing out your body with that diet, like I said, your body's going to start to burn fewer calories through existing because it's thinking we're in survival mode. Now You're telling us we're stressed, you're telling us we can't eat, so we're going to keep you safe, don't worry. And you're just not going to burn calories anymore, or you're not going to not burn calories, but you're not going to burn as many calories through existing and then that can make it extremely hard to then actually be in a calorie deficit.
Molly McNamee: 27:46
If you think you are, you may not even be in one, which is annoying. So I would say abusing or over dieting is a huge cause for stress for a lot of people, but also just food in general is a stressor and a trigger for a lot of people, especially like I mean, people who are actively trying to lose weight have probably had some times where they're a bit upset with food and they're a bit upset how they're eating. So just having that kind of negative relationship with food itself can be a stressor. So then it could be anytime you think what am I going to eat for dinner? That could be stressing out your body just itself. Even the fact of like just thinking about food Dieting itself is a stressor, but thinking about food can be a stressor for a lot of people.
Philip Pape: 28:31
Yeah, it makes sense. I mean there are so many causes of overconsumption, related to stress and also appetite regulation and hormones, that they're all tied together. I'm curious. Just recently I learned how there was some study on the thyroid that showed a roughly average 6% reduction in thyroid production during a 500 calorie deficit, right? So like roughly on average, somebody who goes into a diet, their hormones downregulate we know that's part of metabolic adaptation and then it comes back. So it's not like you're damaging it, right From a stress perspective. And maybe it's cortisol specifically. Do we have any sort of numbers or like measures of what happens to cortisol where it's normal but it's going to happen when we diet and then it kind of comes back, do we?
Carol: 29:21
do you have any details like?
Molly McNamee: 29:21
that.
Philip Pape: 29:22
Number-wise. No, I can't spit out numbers for you.
Molly McNamee: 29:22
They would all be a lie and things that I am making up off the top of my head, off of assumptions, but absolutely it's kind of, as we talked about before, where stress in small doses is not a bad thing.
Molly McNamee: 29:29
So if you are the rare person who has never dieted before and you don't have a negative relationship with food and you go on a diet, that can be initially helpful and that initial stressor, as it said, it's not going to be a prolonged effect. Where I find this is a problem most is people who are repeatedly dieting over and over and where they bounce back and forth between dieting and not dieting and they're just kind of flip-flopping through those two extremes over and over, and where they bounce back and forth between dieting and not dieting and they're just kind of flip-flopping through those two extremes. That's where dieting affects cortisol in your nervous system the most. But if you're just occasionally going on a diet, if it's not something you're repeatedly going back and forth with, if it's not something you're over-abusing, then it's not bad. 're over abusing, then it's not a it's not bad, uh and it's. You are going to see those initial effects of maybe your hormones get a little out of whack, but then they do normalize, yeah.
Carol: 30:25
Yeah, no, that's a great point.
Molly McNamee: 30:26
The feed offenders and the the over I was going to say over under eating, which is such a silly thing to say Extreme extreme dieters.
Philip Pape: 30:35
Yeah, extreme dieters A big calorie deficit way beyond what it should be. Yeah.
Molly McNamee: 30:39
Exactly, yeah, that's uh. That is always going to be negatively impacting your body, especially if you do that for a long time like a week, I mean maybe whatever, Uh, but if you're doing that for a while, that's yeah, definitely.
Philip Pape: 30:57
I mean, folks need to hear that. That it's. There are different variables, right, there's how fast you go, there's how long you go, and then how many times you do it and how everything else is set up for that.
Molly McNamee: 31:05
And that's exactly why it's anytime I have conversations with people I say I wish it was black and white, like I wish I could be that coach who presents things as like a black and white thing because it's much easier to sell. But for most people it's not. It's like when I first start working with someone, there's a whole conversation of what is your life looked like up until now, because that influences then what your body is willing and able to do in this exact moment.
Philip Pape: 31:33
For sure. There was a recent study that looked at fat cells and again showed how our history of dieting affects the fat cells kind of resilience and ability to store fat faster and more easily. Right, not necessarily that we produce more. I know that used to be a prevailing thought. I think that's much more rare. We've seen in the evidence that we create more fat cells. But it's epigenetics at its finest. So that's cool. Now what about the opposite end, where we have people who have lots of life stress, like shift workers? I just had someone before this. I said hey, molly's coming on, do you guys have questions? And he's like yeah, I've got 16 hour shifts in a truck and like sleep cycles all over and they can't change it. Like we're talking caregivers. And like sleep cycles all over and they can't change it. Like we're talking caregivers, you know, moms and just nurses. Like there's so many people that have that stress. What's the most realistic? Like no excuse, advice that you'd give them to help make progress anyway, if that makes sense, yeah.
Molly McNamee: 32:30
So, depending on what the extreme is like, if you are working 16 hours and that type of thing, first advice would be you need a routine that you stick to, like you need to stick to it as regularly as possible, and then those people I would especially say those smaller things are going to be really powerful for you.
Molly McNamee: 32:53
So if you are working 16 hour shifts and it is like a highly stressful 16 hours, again, anytime you hear a phone ring can you fix your posture or take a deep breath, like what small things can you incorporate into your kind of hectic day so that you are keeping that stress balanced in your body and it's not getting out of hand?
Molly McNamee: 33:15
But the biggest thing is you need to have a set routine of like okay, this is what I'm going to go to sleep, this is when I'm going to wake up, this is like how I'm going to wake up, this is my morning routine, this is my nighttime routine. Having those routines in place is going to be incredibly helpful because I find for a lot of people because I've definitely worked with some people before that have hectic three-month periods and they're like okay, this three-month chunk in my life is absolutely chaotic and it is every year, but I just suffer through it. You need a routine instead of just suffering through something. So if you're waiting for your next vacation, if you're waiting for your next break to get back on track, set the routine. Make it work with the chaos.
Philip Pape: 34:00
I love it, and is the reason for that the simply having the consistency, and or is it because our bodies respond better to predictability?
Molly McNamee: 34:10
Both a bit. I mean, our bodies feel safer with that predictability and a lot of times where stress becomes a problem is your body does not feel safe anymore. It's just always kind of on edge. So our bodies feel safer with that predictability. Also, having that routine is going to help you sleep better. It's going to help you digest food better. It's just going to help your body function a little bit better.
Molly McNamee: 34:34
Because, especially with like a nighttime routine and stuff like that, I always compare it to toddlers how toddlers have to have like a set list of things that they do or they won't sleep and their nap time and everything Like if we have a routine, our body is going to respond to that routine more effectively versus if we're just like trying to survive and get through it.
Molly McNamee: 35:02
That makes it difficult and I know like I have lots of clients who are parents and they're like, yeah, well, I can have a routine and like it's the best of my intentions to stick with that routine, but then a kid can throw me off of that routine to stick with that routine, but then a kid can throw me off of that routine.
Molly McNamee: 35:18
Allowing your routine to not be so hard and rigid is also an important thing where it's like, okay, well, I have to wake up and I have to do this 10 minute meditation or my life is ruined, like there needs to be some flexibility. There needs to be routine, but there needs to be flexibility within the routine. I hope that makes sense. I even encourage people to kind of have a plan A and a plan B even with their exercise routine, where it's have the thing you want to do and then have a plan B in place, so that it's not the end of the world if you can't do that initial plan A. So maybe having a couple of options for your routine is also a good idea.
Philip Pape: 35:57
Yeah, the kind of not rigid flexibility, but flexibility with guardrails or guidelines, whatever you want to call it, is super empowering, because I know the sleep side of it. People often have random sleep times, even though their wake times are consistent. That's a problem, right? Everybody knows about an alarm in the morning, but nobody sets an alarm at night, right? It's pretty common. So, thinking about those things, you called us all toddlers, which I appreciate, because I have two kids, 10 and 12, two daughters and part of my personal journey of wanting to be fit, as I'm 44 now, is to play with them and to be a kid with them. So let's talk about play for a little bit. I wasn't even going to bring this up but, like, I think that's a huge part of it, whether it's play or hobbies or just really fun diversionary things and where that fits into stress management. What are your thoughts?
Molly McNamee: 36:48
Oh, it is so helpful. I mean even just like if you were to Google, actually I'm not sure if this would be the first thing that you could Google, but if you were to ask what's one of the easiest ways to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, smiling, laughing, like those things are super helpful for helping your body feel safe. So doing things in your life that allow you to smile and laugh and enjoy and feel relaxed are so important, and I also say the same for your workout routine as well are so important, and I also say the same for your workout routine as well. Like if you're having fun with your movements, that's even more beneficial, versus if it just feels like you know 40 minutes of torture, then that's less enjoyable to your body. But yeah, and I find as adults it can be tough to make time for those hobbies and make time for that quote unquote fun, but it is super important too.
Molly McNamee: 37:38
So something I do in my own life is and I know maybe this sounds a bit crazy to people listening, but I write a schedule for everything. So I have a to-do list that includes my work to do, my personal chores and also my fun. I put my fun on on my to-do list and I'm a big advocate for putting yourself on your to-do list instead of just being like, okay, I got to do all of this stuff and if I have time for me I'll get to me. But add yourself and add your fun and add your self-care to your to-do list. Literally, if you need to set aside time for it, like have an alarm go off at like two seven and just know you have five minutes to do something fun at that time. Like literally plug yourself into your to do list, whether it be fun and play, whether it be a hobby, whether it be taking a bath, like it could be, whatever you want it to be. But plugging yourself into your schedule is super important and whether it be play or relaxation, it's important.
Philip Pape: 38:35
That's a good one, Cause we talk about prioritizing all the things we have to do and that are important to us, and it's all serious Like that's, but why not put in the fun time? Uh, even just nothing. Time like just put in time where you're like this is reserved to do whatever I want and we'll see what happens.
Molly McNamee: 38:51
And I know for a lot of people that could be like oh, that's so impossible, like I need to be showing up for all of these things. But I think it's important to remember that if you're not feeling your best, you can't show up 100% for all of those things. Like it's going to take you longer to read an email. If, like, you're experiencing like some brain fog, if you're kind of sleepy, like if you take even just five minutes out for yourself, you may find you get your tasks done faster and more effectively because you gave some of that time back to you and you're feeling more energized because of it.
Carol: 39:25
Before I started working with Philip, I had been trying to lose weight and was really struggling with consistency, but from the very beginning, philip took the time to listen to me and understand my goals. He taught me the importance of fueling my body with the right foods to optimize my training in the gym, and I lost 20 pounds. More importantly, I gained self-confidence. What sets Philip apart is the personal connection. He supported and encouraged me every step of the way. So if you're looking for a coach who cares about your journey as much as you do, I highly recommend Philip Pape.
Philip Pape: 40:05
Now, for those of you listening to this, I don't know if you can hear our smiles and Molly's like bright face, but if you want to watch the video, you should watch it because I think, like the smile, you're right. The smiling is like so important and so kind of um. Related to that is positivity in general. Well, I mean, one thing that I encounter all the time with people frustrated and struggling is negative self-talk and negative framing on things, and I was again, wasn't even going to ask about this, and I'm thinking just again us smiling with each other here and making it a positive thing. How can people use one of those techniques reframing or some behavioral technique that you use with clients to help with their stress, to help reframe the situation?
Molly McNamee: 40:44
Well, one of my favorite things to do currently actually and I started incorporating this into my life over the last month and I have found it to be weirdly, really, really helpful is I talk to myself using my name. So I'm like Molly, you're doing great today. Like I literally say my name out loud, and that because you can hear that like oh yeah, positive self talk, like be kind to yourself, that kind of thing and I would always try that and not really feel any different. But actually saying my name and feeling like I'm talking to myself has been incredibly helpful for me for reducing some of my anxiety. Like I have my things that I get stressed about, where it's like, oh, if I am hopping on a call to be interviewed for this podcast, before I like take a deep breath and I'm like, molly, you got this and it can just be as simple as that.
Molly McNamee: 41:35
But that positive self-talk is super powerful and it is on the opposite end, like how you talk to yourself in general is very powerful. So if you're also talking down on yourself, your body's going to start to feel that. It's really going to start to feel that. So, if you're like, why are you doing this? If you're like constantly like criticizing your body and constantly being like why are you doing this? To me your body's going to be like a scared kid, like again we're talking about toddlers Like if you say something mean to a toddler, it's going to they're going to feel kind of bad and your body's kind of the same. I didn't mean to call us toddlers so many times today but we kind of are.
Philip Pape: 42:13
I don't mind at all, and you weren't nervous before coming on right.
Molly McNamee: 42:16
That was just an example, just an example, just an example, but it is interesting, as you do your self-talk. Talking to yourself, using your name can be super helpful. And then also the tone that you're using with your self-talk is also very powerful, like if I'm feeling anxious for something and I'm like pull it together. Molly, you got this. If I just said that a little kinder, my body would have taken it as more of a kind thing instead of a mean thing. So your tone and the words you're using as you talk to yourself and I know maybe I'm strange, maybe I'm the only one who speaks to myself, but you should try it if you have it.
Philip Pape: 42:55
No, you're not the only one. Yeah, but using the name specifically is a really nice twist on it, because we all might. I'm assuming most people talk to themselves. I always joke, as long as you don't argue with yourself, but using your own name is a nice trigger because we respond so emotionally to our name. So I love that. And who else is there to do it for you? I mean, occasionally you have, obviously, people you're interacting with, but you're by yourself, majority of your existence, if you think about it. Yeah, I was just working out this morning and a guy, a friend of mine, would send me these reels of this guy yelling lightweight, lightweight, like when it's super heavyweight to make it feel lighter. So I started doing that and like what if I throw my name in there? Now, philip, you got this.
Molly McNamee: 43:33
This is super light, go for it Right, Like how's that going to affect that Exactly? It is strange, but it is effective and I would love to hear if it helps for you Exactly.
Philip Pape: 43:43
All right, cool, yeah, cause I am a fan of positive psychology, which is a whole separate field. If you haven't gotten into it, molly, look it up. It's like uh, it sounds the same as psychology, but just putting the word positive in front of it, it's a whole separate field of where and I'm not trying to like mansplain, it's just something I'm excited about. Sorry, molly, is that? Um, like, psychology looks at what's wrong with our brain and positive psychology looks like what looks at what we can do positively in our life, and they're not considered opposites. It's like they're two independent things, just like you talked about adding in things to your life. It's not that we're trying to have opposites and cancel things out, right, we're trying to add things to our life.
Molly McNamee: 44:19
So oh, that sounds cool. I'm going to look that up as soon as we're done here, because I'm so fascinated.
Philip Pape: 44:26
It's only like a 30 year old field. I think it started in the 90s. It's pretty recent, only like a 30-year-old field. I think it started in the 90s. It was pretty recent, amazing. Okay. So I think we're starting to wrap up here. As far as strategies, I don't know if people are like hey, molly, there's so many things that you still haven't covered with. What can I do? Is there any one or two big things that stick out that you love to share with people that I haven't specifically asked you about?
Molly McNamee: 44:50
Yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm all about starting small. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, that's so small and insignificant, like the small and insignificant things are actually really, really powerful for your nervous system specifically. So one of the things I just recommend everyone do and this may sound a little silly but just pause between activities. In your day.
Molly McNamee: 45:11
We're all often kind of running from one thing to the next, even with our workout. So I'll say this as an example I know a lot of people rush their cool down so that they can hop in their car and get back to their life. But can you take an extra couple of minutes to just lie down on your back and breathe after you finish your workout? Can you literally pause and just breathe and relax for even 30 seconds would be helpful if you're not doing anything like that right now. But so many of us are going from one thing that's stressing out our body right into the next thing right into the next thing. So another example if you're driving and you're rushing and you're in rush hour traffic and you're feeling kind of stressed in your car, you park your car, can you just sit for 30 seconds? Literally just pausing between activities can be a really good way to tell your body it's, it's cool, we're, we're safe. Now you can relax, um.
Philip Pape: 46:01
So I think that's another really easy thing that people could start doing and applying into their life yeah, I can see how powerful that would be, because I'm reflecting on my own most of my days, where it's like one thing to the next, to the next, even when you don't have it. I say even when you don't have it scheduled. I mean, if you're listening to this, think about it, think about your own life every day, even when you have time. How often do we just keep filling in that time and go, go, go yeah.
Philip Pape: 46:26
Right, it's like the next thing, next thing go do the chore over here. Oh, now I have five minutes to do this, Let me go do this. It's just constant.
Molly McNamee: 46:32
Yeah.
Philip Pape: 46:32
And you're saying take a break, yeah.
Molly McNamee: 46:34
Eating is a good place to do this as well. A lot of people will just like have the meal in front of them and start digging in. But if you could stop and take like two deep breaths before you start eating your meal, that's going to help your digestive system feel calmer so it can work better as you eat that food. And it may again sound small and significant, but if your body's feeling calmer while you're eating and you are maybe following a certain diet where you've maybe increased your protein or you've increased something because you have these physical goals, feeling calmer while you eat is going to help you absorb that food and those nutrients better so that you can get the results that you're looking for. So those small pauses again they seem small, they seem silly, but especially like right before mealtime, it can really make or break how effective that meal is for you.
Philip Pape: 47:23
All of these little stress snacks or stress management snacks or whatever are really great, because the typical advice is like start a meditation practice or do yoga, right, and it's like these big things that you're like, no, I'm not going to do that. No, that sounds like where you've come from to get to this point. So things that actually work for people.
Molly McNamee: 47:40
Exactly. I mean, I am someone who is an overachiever, so it is kind of funny for me to like always be advocating for the small things. But I know, like meditation, you said, for example yeah, when you look up how to relieve stress, it's often oh, journal for 30 minutes, meditate for 30 minutes, and I'm just like can you talk to yourself out loud for 15 seconds? And that's your journaling. Can you just close your eyes for 30 seconds and that's your meditation. Like, can it be simpler? So, with everything, if you're trying to incorporate a new habit into your life and you're having a tough time sticking with that habit, I would always ask yourself how can I make this simpler? Because as you try to incorporate new things into your life, it should not feel impossible or that's going to start to stress out your body. So make it simpler for yourself and then just build on that.
Philip Pape: 48:31
It's a great message and I appreciate your perspective on all this, as well as your positivity and your smile and helping me de-stress through this conversation, because I always love talking to great people, so where do you want listeners to find you, Molly? And also I know we're going to throw a guide in there for folks, so feel free to talk about that.
Molly McNamee: 48:48
Yeah, I mean, I know the topic of stress and hormones and all of that is like taboo and kind of dramatic. But, yeah, if you have been listening to this and you've been relating and you're thinking, ok, stress is relevant in my life, what do I do about this, then I have written an e-book that I would love to give your listeners for free, and it's all about mastering your stress hormone, cortisol, and it's filled with a lot of practical and personalized tips that'll just help you figure out really what cortisol is first of all and why it matters. How to identify if your body is producing too much cortisol. There's a really big symptom checklist in there that may be helpful for some of you, and then it also gives even more of these really simplified tips and lifestyle changes and habits that you can start to incorporate into your life to keep your stress hormones happy. So if anyone wants that, it is on my website, which is just my name, mollymcnameecom forward slash cortisol.
Molly McNamee: 49:42
But I'm also all over the social medias. If anyone wants to connect with me, I'm on Instagram under my business name, which is mfitworkouts, and I post stuff on there all the time that's more just like simplified tips, like I've been talking about today, but also if you just need someone as a part of your support system, feel free to message me, and I'm always just down to chat. So if you're feeling kind of lonely I know how lonely it can be when you're trying to lose weight or you're going through some mental health struggles so just reach out. You don't have to be alone.
Philip Pape: 50:13
There you go, if you appreciated Molly's effervescent attitude or appearance today and all her great stuff and, by the way, I did take a look at the guide. I always ask for guests ahead of time to share it with me and I think it's awesome Totally subscribe to everything she's saying. So definitely go check it out. Follow her on IG, reach out seriously. Send her a message, please do. I know I asked for people to reach out to me and few people do it because I know you're afraid or maybe not sure if they're going to respond. Molly's going to respond. Reach out to her and then we're going to do an IG live in January, right? So follow her page just for that Page feed. You know what I meant profile.
Molly McNamee: 50:55
All right, so, molly, thank you so much for coming on. We're going to put those in the show notes. And it's been a blast. Yes, thank you so much. This has been really fun.
