If you are wondering as to why those fat cells in your body are behaving stubbornly, this may be a reason you may have been ignoring. And yes, you may not be intending for the same. You may say that I am not stressed at all, I am able to complete my work in time, and I practice yoga every day, so how can I be stressed?
We would advise you to look more closely at your lifestyle, your eating practices, and your sleeping pattern, there must be something that may be causing that stress, unknowingly so.
Chronic stress can have an impact on your health long term. Stress can make it harder to commit to changes in your behaviors and cause you to abandon better eating and regular exercise.
We all experience differing amounts of stress in our lives, often related to our work, relationships, families, or financial situations. A lot of these sources of stress may feel out of your control; however, there is a lot we can do to better manage stress and reduce its effect on our body (1).
Read further to understand what may be the reasons for your stress, how it affects your fat loss journey, and what you can do about it.
What Is Stress?
Stress can be defined as a negative emotional experience accompanied by biochemical, physiological, and behavioral changes. It can be induced not only by many factors, including insecurity in personal, social, and professional life but also by factors such as impaired or insufficient sleep. These factors are called “stressors”.
These stressors can be certain major life events like parents conflicts/separation/divorce or loss of a parent or some relative during the lifetime, recent life events experienced within the last 12 months like job-related stress or unwanted pregnancy, life trauma like emotional or sexual abuse or perceived chronic stress like chronic health/medical problems, legal problems, etc.
Whether or not people might experience stress primarily depends on the meaning and importance assigned to such potential “stressors” (2).
How Does Stress Affect Your Body?
Your body reacts to different types of stressors in different ways. It is called the stress response, or “fight or flight” response. It is an emergency reaction system of the body to keep you safe. The stress response includes physical and thoughtful responses to your perception of various situations.
When the stress response is turned on, your body may release substances like adrenaline and cortisol. Your organs are programmed to respond in certain ways to situations that are viewed as challenging or threatening (3).
Your nervous system is a delicate balance of several features — there is the central nervous system which includes the spinal cord and brain and the ―peripheral division which involves the autonomic (ANS) and somatic nervous systems. The autonomic system is divided into the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).
The SNS is mainly responsible for creating the fight-flight response during stressful times. It is also responsible for causing changes in various bodily systems — from the release of stress hormones to an increased heart rate and digestive system (4).
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Cortisol, Stress, And Weight
Talking about hormones Cortisol plays a major role in the body’s reaction to stress. It is widely known as the body’s stress hormone and is synthesized from cholesterol. Cortisol can affect nearly every organ system.
It plays an important role in regulating metabolism by stimulating gluconeogenesis (a process that transforms non-carbohydrate substances like amino acids into glucose) and activating anti-stress and anti-inflammatory pathways in the early fasting state. In the late fasting state, cortisol increases glycogenesis (formation of glycogen, a storage form of glucose). Elevated levels of cortisol if prolonged, can lead to proteolysis (breakdown of proteins) and muscle wasting.
Cortisol also prevents the release of substances in the body that cause inflammation (5) and triggers processes that lead to weight gain. First, it promotes eating by reducing the brain’s sensitivity to another hormone leptin. Second, cortisol directly promotes fat deposition, particularly in the abdominal region (6).
Stress And Weight Gain Behavior
Stress when experienced for a prolonged time can interfere with our fat loss goals. Committing and sustaining healthy behavioral changes becomes difficult when you are under stress. Indulging in unhealthy practices when under stress is quite common. Let us have a look at a few of these habits.
Emotional/binge eating
Binge eating under stress is a very frequent phenomenon. Studies have also shown that you tend to eat an excessive amount of food when under stress due to the increased cortisol level (6). You may find that snacking often gives temporary relief from stress but this makes weight management difficult.
Click Here to know more about Emotional Eating
Eating fast food
The foods that are eaten during times of stress typically favor those of high fat and/or sugar content. It is also studied that humans turn to hyper-palatable comfort foods such as fast food, snacks, and calorie-dense foods even in the absence of hunger and lack of need for calories when under stress (7).
Less sleep
Stress is associated with sleep disorders in two ways: stress provokes sleep disturbances, and disturbed sleep provokes stress and increases the risk e.g. of cardiovascular disease. Sleep deprivation decreases metabolism and thus contributes to weight gain (8).
Skipping food
Food takes a back seat when you are dealing with many things at a time. It is very often seen that under pressure you may not eat a meal or skip breakfast. This leads to hunger pangs during which you tend to eat anything and everything that you lay your eyes on thus going reverse on your weight loss journey.
Less exercise
Just like food exercise or taking care of yourself when under stress is the last thing on your to-do list. Then not getting time for a workout becomes the most common excuse. This combined with all the above factors leads to weight gain.
How to manage stress for progressing on your fat loss journey?
Following are a few tips to keep yourself stress-free so that you do not lose out on your progress towards fat loss just due to the stress.
RELATED: Stress Management
Acceptance of stress- There are some stressful aspects of our lives over which we may not have a lot of control. Yet there is a great deal we can do to improve our lives outside of those. Accepting that you do not have control over these things is the first step toward stress management.
Some stress management strategies for health and well-being are-
- Mindfulness and meditation (using an app or youtube for guidance).
- Yoga and stretching.
- Make more time for yourself (e.g. get a massage, go to the movies, read a book, listen to a podcast, etc.).
- Be organized and manage your time effectively.
- Consider support from a counselor, therapist, or psychologist.
Your health is in your hands. Always remember the 5×5 rule if you come across an issue take a moment to think whether or not it will matter in 5 years. If it won’t, don’t spend more than 5 minutes stressing out about it!
Keep looking at this space for more such blogs on health nutrition and fitness.
References:
Leigh J, Salomone PJ. FAT LOSS.
Geiker, N.R.W., Astrup, A., Hjorth, M.F., Sjödin, A., Pijls, L. and Markus, C.R., 2018. Does stress influence sleep patterns, food intake, weight gain, abdominal obesity and weight loss interventions and vice versa?. Obesity Reviews, 19(1), pp.81-97.
Center for integrated healthcare (2013) ‘The Stress Response and How it Can Affect You’, VA health Center, pp. 1–3. Available at: https://www.mirecc.va.gov/cih-visn2/Documents/Patient_Education_Handouts/Stress_Response_and_How_It_Can_Affect_You_Version_3.pdf.
Borikar, D.K.N.S. and Sheth, D.K., 2016. Stress and Human Body System Reaction-A Review. Int. Multidiscip. Res. J., 3(12), pp.1-6.
Sanjeevani D, W. P. (2016) ‘Role of cortisol in stress , fat deposition and weight gain in women’, Life Sciences, 4(4), pp. 599–601.
Tomiyama, A. J. (2019) ‘Stress and Obesity’, Annual Review of Psychology, 70(June 2018), pp. 703–718. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102936.
Yau, Y.H. and Potenza, M.N., 2013. Stress and eating behaviors. Minerva endocrinologica, 38(3), p.255.
Morselli, L., Leproult, R., Balbo, M. and Spiegel, K., 2010. Role of sleep duration in the regulation of glucose metabolism and appetite. Best practice & research Clinical endocrinology & metabolism, 24(5), pp.687-702.
Author: Dr Pooja Nilgar (Content writer and editor)
