Stress and Weight Problems

Because of the actions of stress and its associated hormones on the body we can be prone to weight gain and develop the inability to lose weight.

Cortisol and adrenaline are used to balance your blood sugar when it drops and your blood sugar drops due to not eating regularly, and eating the wrong foods. If the adrenals are exhausted (due to stress) they are unable to produce enough cortisol or adrenaline to balance your blood sugar and it will continue to drop!  This brings on sugar cravings, hypoglycemia, PMS, inability to focus, ADD and weight gain. Bloating, indigestion, heartburn, reflux or any of the other irritable bowel problems add to the stress on your adrenals.

When your digestive system is irritated and inflamed, your body’s natural response is to eliminate the inflammation.  Cortisol, produced by the adrenals, is generated to reduce inflammation.  So, the continual irritation in your digestive system causes your adrenal glands to produce more cortisol.  This is more work for the adrenal glands and contributes to the overproduction of cortisol and adrenaline racing through your body.
This contributes to the vicious cycle, because elevated levels of cortisol begins to erode the intestinal lining. This  leaves you susceptible to hidden food allergies, yeast, fungus, and candida overgrowth.  These all contribute to digestive difficulties which further inflames the intestines and causes more work for the adrenal glands, more production of cortisol to counteract these problems and the extra cortisol causes further inflammation.

Are you beginning to understand why you’re finding it difficult to lose weight?

How can we prevent the stress:

1. Avoid low calorie diets for prolonged periods. This may seem strange when all you want to do is lose weight but when you starve the body you send a message to your sub-conscious saying that your survival is being threatened. The main function of your sub-conscious is your survival and the sub-conscious will nearly always win in a battle against the conscious mind. So if you threaten one of your basic survival needs your sub-conscious goes into high alert and does several things to protect your survival. In the case of low calorie diets it will: 1) make you think about food more until you give in and eat. 2) If you are able to resist eating, it lowers your metabolism making the body require less calories in order to survive, thereby slowing down any weight loss. 3) It triggers your stress response (remember lack of food threatens survival which is stressful) which triggers the release of cortisol, slowing down your digestion and encouraging fat deposits in the abdominal area. When on a low calorie diet you are putting your body under constant stress triggering high levels of cortisol in your body at all times… a bit counterproductive for anyone wishing to lose weight.
2. Avoid cardiovascular exercise for periods longer than forty five minutes. Exercising at that level for too long puts the body under stress which encourages cortisol production.
3. Get plenty of good quality sleep. You want to work with your body’s natural processes… remember cortisol production decreases in the evening to prepare you for sleep and you need to encourage that.
4. Avoid stimulants in the evening… you want to sleep, not wake up so no coffee or alcohol and the only tea allowed are herbal teas, preferably chamomile.
5. Avoid sugar in the evening. Sugar provides energy and that is the last thing you want before bed. However it can be difficult to ignore sugar cravings so please look at my ‘how to deal with cravings’ page.
6. Don’t stress… learn how to switch off. Worry helps no-one, guilt helps no-one, time to switch off!
7. Simplify your life.

Yeah right!!! ...I hear you say and I don’t blame you because doing all of the above is a big ask however if you are determined to get well and stay well you are certainly going to have to do some if not all of these things. Changing a little bit at a time is the key. Little and often is the way!

If you are living your life in constant stress and always on the go, you are constantly in the “fight or flight” mode which triggers your body to burn calories from carbohydrates and proteins (lean muscle), and NOT stored body fats. Redressing this balance encourages the burning of the excess fat which will allow you to become slimmer.