You will not lose weight until you get rid of stress

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Often a person struggles with being overweight without noticing the real reason - constant stress and dissatisfaction with life.

How stress increases body fat

Psychologist Melanie Greenberg, in her article on the dependence of stress and overeating, claims that stressful situations provoke the release of several hormones: adrenaline, corticoliberin and cortisol. In this way, the brain and body are prepared to fight.

In the short term, adrenaline reduces hunger. Blood is redirected from the internal organs to the broad muscles: the body prepares to fight or flee. You probably experienced this during times of great stress, for example, before an exam, when you could not even think about food.

However, this does not last long. When the effect of adrenaline disappears, the main role is given to cortisol, the stress hormone.

Eliza Epal, a psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, argues that raising cortisol levels in response to prolonged stress increases our appetite and makes us choose fatty foods.

Stress is a double-edged sword. It can make you feel better at first, but in the long run, stress can cause problems like visceral fat, diabetes and heart disease.

Psychologist Eliza Epal in an interview with Beet. TV

Under the influence of cortisol, the body begins to accumulate visceral fat surrounding the internal organs.

Stress increases the risk of metabolic syndrome and, as a result, obesity and cardiovascular problems.

Metabolic syndrome - an increase in the mass of visceral fat, a decrease in the sensitivity of peripheral tissues to insulin and hyperinsulinemia, which disrupt carbohydrate, lipid, purine metabolism, as well as arterial hypertension.

A review by the New York Institute for Obesity Research confirmed the link between chronic stress, changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system (a hormonal regulation network that is activated in response to stress) and obesity in animals.

For example, a study of monkeys showed that stress directly affects fat storage. Monkeys on an atherogenic diet (low in animal fats and easily digestible carbohydrates), placed in flocks at high risk of aggression, had more visceral fat than those who lived in quieter conditions on the same diet.

As for humans, researching them proved to be quite challenging due to the modern lifestyle of overeating, lack of mobility and lack of sleep. However, earlier research by scientists showed a relationship between stress and the amount of visceral fat.

Thus, chronic stress not only affects appetite, due to which you gain extra pounds, but also directly increases the amount of body fat.

How to determine if you have such an addiction? Several factors need to be assessed.

How to understand that excess weight does not go away precisely because of stress

First of all, being overweight is improper eating behavior. It is equally likely to be caused by both stress and poor eating habits.

If you are used to exceeding your daily calorie intake and are sedentary, stress may not have to do with it. To be clear, use this formula to calculate your daily calorie intake and estimate the cost of being active throughout the day. If you consume more than you spend, then the reason for the extra pounds is in the diet.

But if you keep within the norm, but you still have excess weight, or it is psychologically difficult for you to refuse to consume such an amount of food, then you should think about how often stress factors appear in your life. This does not only mean violent shocks. Here is a rough list of such factors:

• Lack of respect, acceptance, normal communication in the family or work team.
• Constant fear or stress caused by work, family quarrels, and other factors.
• Self-destructive behavior patterns are persistent internal discomfort caused by low self-esteem, guilt, or other attitudes.
• Constant lack of sleep, hard physical labor, emotional burnout.

If these factors are present in your life, it will be much easier to gain weight, and more difficult to lose weight.

How can you get rid of stress and can you do it by changing your diet rather than your environment?

How to get rid of stress

If you are consuming too many calories and are sedentary, the first step is to change your eating habits. However, it will be extremely difficult to do this without eliminating stressful situations. Moreover, you run the risk of developing an eating disorder. Overeating will be replaced by fanatical calorie counting or such serious problems as bulimia and anorexia.

Therefore, first of all, you need to deal with stress - to change the environment in which stress factors are present. For example, a job that makes you very nervous about deadlines.

If there is no opportunity to act radically - change jobs or leave the family - you can start small. For example, ask for a remote job or transfer to another department, try to be at home less - sign up for a gym or find another hobby.

There are also simple and effective ways to deal with stress: physical activity, reading, meditation, communication with people you like.

Remember: constant stress is a problem that not only prevents you from losing weight, but also provokes the onset of illness and shortens your life.