Cortisol and Weight Gain The Insidious Effect of Stress

We've all seen the start of stress weight gain: you have a bad day at work, school or in life and you reach for a bag of chips, candy, beer or fried food. Stress and weight in women and men can be pinned back to this bad habit. However, what if you've kicked the bad food and only stress eat good food yet you're still gaining weight (or at least not losing it as quickly)? Cortisol and weight gain may be the problem this time and it still relates back to the effect stress has on your body. Hormones and the state of your waist have some links and by understanding them, you can have an easier time with your weight loss goals.
Cortisol is a hormone that controls your body's ability to survive under stressful situations. Part of this survival instinct will be to help your body better store sugars that can be used for quick boosts of energy. While this is useful in terms of things like hunting or running away, cortisol is not a picky hormone; any stressful situation will release it. Nowadays, that means stress from work, stress from traffic, stressful relationships, even stressful television! Indeed, stress weight gain in women has been linked to high levels of cortison; women with lots of abdominal fat also have more stressful lives than women with more weigh on hips or less body weight at all.
Because so many people simply 'live with' stress every day, it's often not linked to gaining weight and when it is, people are laughed off, called lazy or told off for it. Ironically, this can feed right back into the stress making it harder still for these people to lose weight. Obviously if you want to lose weight, exercise and eating right is important, but so is understanding the link between cortisol and fat as well as lifestyle habits such as stress eating which can also lead to weight gain.
Cortisol levels will not reduce on their own until they run dry, leaving you in the exhausted stage of the adrenaline rush. However, there are ways to prevent it from getting too high in the first place. Although it may seem impossible in a fast paced world, taking time out to relax and unwind is incredibly important. Simply spending as little as ten or twenty minutes a day relaxing is a great way to reduce cortisol levels. Another good thing that will reduce stress weight gain is to exercise. Not only will exercise burn calories, but it can also reduce stress.
Can stress cause weight gain? Not solely no, but it is definitely a factor, particularly if you eat more junk as a reaction to your stress. Stress weight gain in women and men is fairly common and is exacerbated by other factors like high fat, high sugar foods and low exercise. Weight gain and cortisol are linked and understanding this link is a good way to make sure you stay healthier and have an easier time with your weight loss goals.