Stress is a natural part of anyone’s life, but too much of it can have very negative effects on your health one of which is weight gain. But why does stress cause weight gain? When you are put under high levels of stress your body triggers a number of different things one of which is the release of cortisol which can slow your metabolism and mess with your blood sugar levels.
Cortisol is important to your body and it will always be present in your blood stream because it helps maintain proper glucose metabolism, it regulates your blood pressure, helps fight disease, and it also helps maintain correct insulin levels. So you might be wondering that if it’s so important, and does all of that how does it cause weight gain?
Whether you’re in a life threatening situation or you’ve got a hectic and stressful lifestyle your body reacts the same way. By triggering your fight or flight instinct which gives you a small boost of energy so you can either fight or run. During this process though your digestive system shuts down, and your body starts producing cortisol to help regulate your blood stream, and to supply your muscles with energy.
This isn’t an issue if you are actually in danger and you need to fight because I’m sure you would use the excess energy, but long gone are the days where we hunted for our food so usually you’re stuck with too much excess energy which typically just gets turned into fat. This is a big problem for people who work in offices where there is high stress but little physical activity. This coupled with your shut down digestive system leads to a gain in weight.
Here are some of the biggest factors attributed to stress and weight gain:
- Increased levels of cortisol slow the metabolism down meaning you’re burning less energy through the day.
- Increased levels of stress can also lead to food cravings and emotional eating.
- If you remain in a prolonged state of stress the excess cortisol messes with your blood sugar resulting in a loss of energy, mood swings, and a number of other health concerns which will cause you lots of trouble as you get older.
There are things you can do though to help combat the effects of stress and weight gain though.
The most important thing you can do, if you find yourself under constant stress, is to maintain correct and healthy eating habits. Maintaining healthy eating habits helps balance any imbalances that come from excess cortisol. Here are some of the best ways to maintain healthy eating habits.
Planning: One of the best defences you have against overeating is proper planning. It’s important to plan out your weekly meals and to only visit the grocery store once a week so you only buy what you have on your shopping list. Under times of high stress you’ll find you will have an increased appetite this can lead to you buying a lot of unnecessary and unhealthy foods.
So basically if you find yourself under a constant level of stress you need to be mindful of the harmful side effects. Just remember that under these circumstances the best thing you can do is maintain a healthy and well balanced diet.