5 Ways Stress Prevents Weight Loss
Tis the season when many of us are focusing on losing weight.
Whatever you do, please don’t go on a diet. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: diets don’t work. If you are tired of yo-yo dieting, then you know what I mean.
95 to 98% of dieters regain the weight they lost. Does this ring true for you?
Stress and anxiety are huge, huge contributors to:
1. Inability to lose weight
2. Weight gain
3. Inability to keep weight off
4. Inability to maintain ideal weight
5. Overeating
Let’s look at the top reasons why…
1. Emotional Eating
We are actually hardwired to eat when we’re under stress. So stress and emotional eating are often major contributors to inability to lose weight.
This comes from the brain’s evolutionary process; from a time when fight-or-flight was a necessary daily survival skill for cave people. The energy gained from the extra food calories could help the body react and survive in the threat of sabertooth tigers.
Your brain still has that ancient wiring which unconsciously tells you to eat when you feel stress or anxiety.
Food is often used for many reasons completely unrelated to physical hunger: distraction, boredom, avoidance, comfort, love, filling a void, control, anger, anxiety, depression, avoidance of emotions, body image worries, shame. The list could go on and on.
Until you resolve the underlying emotions and related stress, emotional eating will always sabotage weight loss.
Are you an Emotional Eater? Take this QUIZ.
2. Worrying, Sleeping… Leptin and Ghrelin
Stress and anxiety alter the hormone leptin (“the satiety hormone”) which is supposed to tell your body to stop consuming food when you become full. Stress creates an imbalance which prevents that message from coming through, thus causing overeating and bingeing.
Conversely, stress and anxiety cause increases in your levels of ghrelin (the “hunger hormone”). Ghrelin is produced in your stomach and is supposed to signal you that it is time to start eating. Stress and anxiety cause ghrelin to send excess hunger signals… this stimulates appetite, increases food intake and promotes fat storage.
Sleep More and Worry Less
Studies show that shortened sleep time is associated with decreases in leptin and elevations in ghrelin. According to a 2004 study, people who sleep less than six hours a day were almost 30 percent more likely to become obese than those who slept seven to nine hours (from WebMd).
Sleepless nights have a direct impact on brain regions that control decision making and make us more inclined to crave fast food rather than healthier options (from 2013 research at UC Berkeley, from Psychology Today).
Furthermore, a study published in the journal “Appetite” found that worry – just thinking about a stressful event in the future can cause you to eat more by increasing your levels of ghrelin.
3. Cortisol, Metabolism, and your Thyroid
With chronic stress or anxiety, your adrenal glands produce a cascade of hormones connected to your fight-or-flight response. You end up with an excess of adrenaline and cortisol (the main stress hormones).
High cortisol levels signal to your brain that it is time to go into fight-or-flight mode. Then three things happen:
1. Hunger increases.
2. Your thyroid reduces its hormone production and thus slows down your metabolism.
3. Energy, fat, and calories are stored to avoid starvation, and also to conserve energy (in case you need to fight that sabertooth).
[pullquote]Stress ==> more cortisol
==> hunger and increased appetite =
no weight loss and more belly fat[/pullquote]
4. Stress, Insulin, and Blood Sugar
Another part of the hormonal cascade that occurs due to stress or anxiety is imbalance in insulin levels. Did you know that insulin was a hormone?
Increases in cortisol caused by stress also can cause higher insulin levels. Insulin regulates your blood sugar. When insulin levels are off, your blood sugar drops and you crave sugary, fatty foods.
[pullquote]Stress ==> blood sugar drops
==> food cravings =
weight loss sabotage
[/pullquote]5. Stress and Mood – Tryptophan and Vitamin B
Stress and anxiety are both very correlated with low mood and depression. And those things are correlated with weight gain. It creates a vicious cycle.
The more stress and anxiety you have, and the lower your mood, the more likely you are to have food cravings and eat foods that will actually perpetuate the problem.
You might benefit from a boost in serotonin, which is the brain’s feel-good chemical. What most people don’t know is that 95% of your body’s serotonin is produced and stored in your gut.
You can help your gut produce serotonin by increasing a particular amino acid called tryptophan. Foods high in tryptophan can help with mood and are also stress-reducing.
When people feel stressed or anxious and their blood is measured, they tend to have high levels of lactate in their blood. Foods high in B vitamins help stabilize the body’s blood lactate levels, and have a calming effect on your nervous system.
Tired of Diets that Don’t Work?
If you are tired of yo-yo dieting, try a different approach.
Focus on one of the biggest root causes of the problem: stress and anxiety. Read about HOW on my blog:
• Emotional eating, Top 5 holiday sabotages, why diets don’t work, what does work
• #1 most effective solution for stress and anxiety, the one and only resolution you ever need
Remember…
If you always do what you always did…
You’ll always get what you always got.