Fix this before trying to lose weight
Don’t worry, I’m not going to repeat you all the “how to lose weight” mantras — I’m sure you know the basics already. The truth is that if you implement those basics into your daily life, you will probably lose some pounds.
However, there’s a but.
If your body is under stress, it might be hindering your efforts. Stress might be acting like a lousy personal trainer that has understood your goals terribly wrong.
The more sugar and fat the better, cortisol says
Does the following scenario sound familiar to you? You had a healthy breakfast and lunch, and everything went oh so well — until the late afternoon. Then it hits like a wrecking ball. All you can think about is a chocolate bar, a tasty doughnut, or a delicious burger. Resisting feels almost impossible.
It might be your stress and hormones that are causing that craving and possible overeating.
At first, stress response draws the focus on surviving and pushes hunger away for a while. But if the stress button stays on, our adrenal glands keep pumping cortisol into the system. High cortisol level, together with higher insulin level and dropped blood sugar, can make us very hungry.
The unfortunate part is that instead of “I’d love to have a salad” kind of hunger it makes us crave for sugary and fatty foods. Cortisol tells our brain to replenish the energy we consumed due to our stress response, even if we didn’t use that many calories during the day.
Hunger hormone wants to eat in the evening
A recent study published in International Journal of Obesity found out that stress may increase ghrelin, the ‘hunger hormone’ and decrease the ‘fullness hormone’ levels in the evening. According to Susan Carnell, Ph.D., from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the impact of hormones can be even stronger on people who are prone to binge eating,
In the worst case, not only we crave for too much food in the evening when we’re stressed, but we also don’t really know when we’re full. It doesn’t make losing a couple of pounds any easier, does it?
Junk food or stress —for the gut it’s the same
As we all know, a bad diet is unhealthy, and it doesn’t do any good for the gut. However, according to an interesting paper published in Nature Scientific Reports, stress caused the gut microbiota to shift as if the animals were on a high-fat diet. Interestingly, the researchers discovered differences between genders: the changes were found only in female mice.
So, ladies, we’re screwed. Next time someone questions my looong hot bath or any other stress relief method, I’ll tell him off by saying that I don’t want my gut to look like I’m eating junk food. (Worth trying, right?)
First things first
Stressed people often sleep and exercise less, so eating is not the only variable. Nevertheless, by understanding and managing stress and cortisol levels, it’s easier to get the binge eating under control.
To wrap it up: In case you’re hoping to lose some pounds, start with a reality check with your stress level, and fix that first. Find your stress management methods, and stop the vicious cycle of stress.
Without excessive cortisol messing things up, everything will be a lot easier.
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed reading this, you’ll find more wellness and stress-related articles on my profile and INME Health Publication. Oh, and a couple of claps make me always happy! Feel free to comment, discuss or disagree — interaction is where the learning happens.
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