Weight Loss
Can Stress Levels Affect Weight Loss?
Do you take the weight of the world on your shoulders for your loved ones? Do you hold down a full time job, look after the family and all the household chores? You maybe a victim of chronic stress. The chances are if you have belly fat you are a victim of stress and this can seriously affect your weight loss.
Research has shown that constant chronic stress triggers a hormone called cortisol in your body. Cortisol is often referred to as the stress hormone because your adrenal glands start pumping it out when you’re under stress. On a good day cortisol helps to regulate blood pressure, cardiovascular function and metabolism. But when stress levels rise and then stay there, your body is flooded with cortisol constantly. As a result your immune system suffers, your blood pressure rises and your belly gets fatter and fatter.
The main reason for this is that cortisol stimulates your appetite and signals your body to start storing fat. This fat is stores in your belly as your belly loves cortisol. So basically no weight loss plan is likely to work if you don’t reduce your stress and cortisol levels first.
So what are the signs of a stressful life? Well a good example is chronic back pain or neck pain. Another symptom is often digestive problems.
The good news is that stress induced belly fat is not that difficult to lose. Get rid of just a little bit of your stress and weight loss will start to happen very quickly. Stress fighting foods can have a dramatic effect on your overall stress levels as can moderate exercise and freeing yourself of accumulated guilt.
There are many misperceptions around the weight loss conundrum. Many old wives tales (and some new ones) have dominated peoples thinking. At the end of the day most weight loss facts have quite a deep scientific/physiological background. They are logical and make far more sense when you really look into the meaning behind them.
There is no simple answer so it is worth considering the other aspects that need to be taken into consideration. Stress certainly has a negative effect on the body in a general sense so it is not too difficult to believe that it may have an effect on the body’s ability to gain belly fat. Weight loss is about unearthing these gems of information so that we can use them to our advantage.
Janet Matthews
+44 7815614557
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