cortisol’s fat-burning effect will be shut down, and it will
only exert its catabolic effect on your muscles—clearly, not
a desirable scenario.
While skipping an early breakfast may help cortisol
fulfill its job, should you choose to eat a morning meal it
should consist solely of fat and protein and fibrous veggies
—not carbohydrates. This is contrary to the popular dogma
of starting the day with a hearty bowl of oatmeal or cereal—
to say nothing of the bagels, muffins, pancakes, pastries,
and more that are so commonly consumed in the morning.
CORTISOL’S DARK SIDE
National Geographic journalist Dan Buettner has discovered
and studied the five places in the world—dubbed Blue
Zones—where people live the longest. The lifestyles of
people in these zones provide examples that we can use to
form hypotheses about what promotes healthy aging. For
example, many of these communities build nonnegotiable
intermissions from work into their days—and I’m not just
talking about a lunch break. “The world’s longest-lived
people have routines to shed that stress,” Buettner writes in
The Blue Zones. He continues:
The Okinawans call it ikigai and the Nicoyans [of Costa
Rica] call it plan de vida; for both it translates to “why I
wake up in the morning.” In all Blue Zones people had
something to live for beyond just work. Research has
shown that knowing your sense of purpose is worth up
to seven years of extra life expectancy.