THE MAGNITUDE OF MAGNESIUM
Some of the ads on telly as old as your dad used to begin with a question? This might be, ‘are you feeling tired and listless’, or ‘are you experiencing stress or sleep problems.’ OK, so it’s now about as old fashioned as the Test Card or England winning a match at the World Cup, but those previous two questions could still be vital to you personally. And by the way, you’re probably too young to remember the last two examples as well!
SO WHAT IF I AM SUFFERING IN THIS WAY?
Given the statistics, it would seem likely you could be suffering from a deficiency of Magnesium, as this affects two out of every three people, according to the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Others believe it’s more than 80 per cent. It’s one of those things you probably don’t even think about, but if you add symptoms like stomach cramps, irritability, depression and high blood pressure, this can become quite serious. And we need magnesium to help perform more than 300 functions within the body.
BUT HERE’S THE RUB
Many people take up boot camp training because they want to lose weight, and there’s nothing wrong with this. But a shortage of magnesium in the body will without question, work against you over time. Despite the effort you put, you’ll probably get that feeling of chronic fatigue, have the odd muscle spasm, have high blood pressure or have cold hands and feet no matter how hard you warm up. But the crucial factor here is, Magnesium is required by the body to give you enough energy to exercise in the first place. This is because the mitochondria in your muscles produce a kind of energy called ATP, and In order for this energy to work properly it needs to bind with Magnesium.
But there’s much more here, as magnesium is needed to help convert the amino acid tryptophan into both serotonin and melatonin. The former is one of the hormones required make you feel happy with the latter helping you get enough sleep. So if you’re feeling happy and getting a good night’s sleep, you probably won’t feel the need to binge on high fat and high sugar foods.
The long and short of it is, Magnesium also helps the metabolism or fat burning machinery within the body. It helps create the necessary proteins needed to burn fat and help the liver function to its optimum, so waste isn’t stored in your fat cells. Without it, losing weight, even at boot camp will be much more difficult. But there’s another vital role Magnesium has to play, and its link with insulin is crucial. A bit like X factor contestants getting the Nod from Simon Cowell.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INSULIN AND MAGNESIUM
You probably know insulin in simple terms helps transport sugar from the blood into our cells. But it can’t do this adequately without the assistance of Magnesium, and it also plays a huge role in storing magnesium in our bodies. In fact, Magnesium is totally necessary for both the action and production of Insulin.
At the Gonda Diabetes Centre at the City of Hope Medical Centre in Duarte, California, Dr. Jerry Nadler and his colleagues placed 16 healthy people on magnesium-deficient diets. And guess what? Their insulin was much less effective at getting sugar from their blood into their cells, where it’s burned or stored as fuel. They had become less insulin sensitive or insulin resistant. This in fact, opens up the road to both diabetes and heart disease.
IMPORTANT POINT TO REMEMBER
Soft tissue containing the largest concentrations of magnesium in the body include the brain and the heart. Because these two organs produce a large amount of electrical activity, they can be especially vulnerable to magnesium insufficiency. This can also affect weight loss it many ways.
THE CORTISOL CONUNDRUM
It might sound like a Tom Hanks film, but actually, when you get stressed as we all do from time to time, cortisol is the hormone responsible for increasing blood sugar levels. This of course, decreases the possibility of insulin resistance and prevents the body from gaining weight. But don’t think this is the route to losing those pounds, because stress needs to be balanced, and magnesium counteracts the Cortisol and stabilizes the levels of blood sugar. Stress decreases levels of magnesium. So you can see the scales need to be perfectly balanced. We can’t have one without the other, and cortisol works with the many other factors needed for healthy weight loss. There…….Dan Brown would be impressed with this explanation we hope.
Green vegetables are a fantastic natural source of magnesium but the quality supplement we provide, can ensure your levels stay perfectly balanced. Remember? Deficiency in magnesium can cause cardiovascular problems, diabetes and hypertension. Likewise If you’re gluten-intolerant or have other digestive issues, the chances are you’re simply not absorbing enough magnesium from your food.
But in terms of training Malfunctioning of nerves and muscles is often linked to magnesium deficiency.
Weight loss and boot camp success – that’s the magnitude of magnesium.
If you think you may have a Magnesium deficiency? CLICK HERE to find out about my brand new supplement MULTI-REPLEN
Darren Tyrie, Personal Trainer and Biosignature Practitioner