Biosignatures
Poliquin biosignature modulation is a new way of looking at your bodily make-up. It's the brain child of Charles Poliquin (Canadian Strength Coach), and holds that hormonal imbalances are often the culprit of stubborn body fat storage and other health concerns including poor sleep, low energy, impaired cognitive function, training plateaus and more.
Therefore the best way for you to lose weight and hit your goals is to go beyond the simple statistics of calories in versus calories out, and instead correct your hormonal imbalances through tactical tweaks to your lifestyle.
A quick self MOT can give you a rough idea of your possible issues.
Strip down to your underwear in front of a mirror and assess your wobbly bits by just looking - and also getting a friend or partner to pinch each of the sites listed using their thumb and forefinger. If your partner pinches you and you can't immediately gently pull away and disengage easily, you've got too much fat in that site.
5) Midaxillary
This is the fold of skin just under your armpit on the back of the ribcage and fat in this site means you may have an underactive thyroid, which can affect your energy levels.
Your thyroid glands produce thyroid hormones which kick start your metabolism to break down your food and absorb nutrients. Insufficient thyroid fluid means a sluggish metabolism, which can result in a host of symptoms such as poor skin, stomach cramps, constipation and having to train while feeling knackered, dehydrated and heavy legged.
ACTION: If your fat deposits aren't excessive (you can only pinch a little between thumb and forefinger) there are three steps you can take
- Switch from 3 large meals a day to 5-6 small ones. A large meal equals a large release of thyroid fluid. Too many large meals mean your thyroid tank will eventually fail to replenish itself in time. Keep the fire topped up by eating little and often.
- Take a vitamin D supplement. The vitamin is needed to produce thyroid fluid.
- Cut out gluten. This is a protein present in wheat, barley and rye. A recent study showed that gluten can irritate the gut lining and has adverse effects on production of thyroid fluid, so switch to rice for your main carb hit or buy gluten free versions of your favourite carbs.
4) Umbilical (Belly)
Stomach fat isn't all down to too many treats; stress levels also play a part, and excess stomach fat is an indicator of too much of the stresshormone cortisol in your system
Cortisol is essential - it stresses your body and encourages you to adapt to your training load. If you are doing interval training and running flat out, cortisol prompts you to push that bit harder. Without it you hit a plateau. But too much and you start to store body fat and feel sluggish.
ACTION: Consume green tea, vitamin C and omega-3 (fish oil) supplements, antioxidant rich foods such as broccoli, cabbage, kale, berries, grapes, garlic, onions, herbs and spices.
Do - go to bed earlier, take up a gentle hobby such as yoga ot T'ai Chi, find 30 minutes each day to cut yourself off from all people and gadgets and have some all important "alone time".
Training - regular endurance training leads to excessive cortisol production in athletes. This can lead to fat storage, so switch to interval and circuit training.
6) Pectorals and Triceps
,These sites are an indicator of testosterone levels. If you can grab any fat on your chest (for women just at the top of the chest next to the armpit), you are not producing enough testosterone. If you have a high triceps fat but low chest fat then you are producing it, but the body is not using it effectively.
ACTION: A combination of food and supplementation is the way forward.
Eat more lean protein, eat liver and oysters (a good source of zinc), take a zinc supplement. It is estimated that 98% of the population are zinc deficient. The reason being is because zinc is also used to support the immune system and because modern life is stressful and toxified, our bodies are always using zinc to keep illness at bay rather than being used to make testosterone.
2) Quads and Hamstrings
Just as testosterone is not solely produced by men, so oestrogen is not the exclusive preserve of women. And whatever your gender, these two sites tell you about your levels. If you have wobbly inner thighs or saddlebags (fat on outer thigh), your oestrogen levels have gone into overdrive.
For women oestrogen is important for fertility, but too much - caused by too many toxins in the body - has been linked to depression, poor immune system, low energy and slow recovery from training.
ACTION: Change your toiletries and beauty products to organic ones. Use glass containers instead of plastic, Drink only bottles or filtered water. Eliminate toxic foods such as artificial sweeteners and flavourings and ingredients you can't pronounce. Reduce or eliminate alcohol and caffeine.
1) Love Handles and Shoulder blades
These two sites are directly linked to carbohydrate consumption. The size of your love handles shows how much carbohydrate you've been eating, and the fat on your back indicates your ability to process it. The fatter your back the less adept the hormone insulin is at processing carbohydrate sugar. Pasta, baked spuds and so on may be easy energu sources, but if you overdo it you risk becoming insulin resistant.
Muscles store energy like a fuel tank, if you've trained, they become empty. Then, when you eat carbs, the pancreas releases insulin to move sugar out of the blood and into the muscle cells ready to be used as energy. If you haven't trained, or eat too muchcarbohydrate, the muscles are full and the sugar has nowhere to go, but the body still keeps pumping out insulin and moves glucose into existing fat cells and creates new fat cells to house it.
ACTION: Damp out the sugar fire by cutting down on carbs and fan the fat fire by eating good fats such as oily fish, full-fat butter, olive oil, avocados and nuts, and over time the body will start to use the fat fire as its go-to guy for fuel.
3) Knees and Calves
This is your growth hormone site. Excess fat on the kneecap and inside of the calf reflects low levels. If you don't generate enough of this hormone you'll be slower to recover from training sessions. You'll also suffer from muscle soreness for longer, and if you are doing strength training to gain muscle mass, your muscles simply won't grow or develop.
ACTION: Spend more time in the land of nod! Your body repairs itself at night and growth hormone is particularly stimulated between 10pm and 2am. For every hour you sleep before midnight is worth two after that time, so it is better to sleep from 10pm to 6am, than 12 to 8am.