Why Stress Makes Weight Easy To Gain And Tough To Lose

You’ve heard it before- chronic stress is bad for your health. But do you know why? And did you know that it can lead to unhealthy weight gain and make it hard to lose that weight, too? In this post I dive into how chronic stress can lead you to gain weight. With that knowledge, you can then make an informed decision about how you want to manage stress in your own life.

Understanding the stress response

Imagine this all-too-likely scenario: You’re late for a meeting. Someone cut you off on the road, and now they’re driving like your grandpa. You’re even more late.

In the rush to get to your meeting, you spill coffee on your blouse.

Fast forward a few hours later and the school calls: your kid is sick and needs to go home- now! You put everything aside to grab your child and when you get home, you realize there’s barely any food in the house. Your stress level today? Hovering around an 8 out of 10, maybe higher.

For many women, this is an average day, living in survival mode.

None of these daily events is life threatening. You’re not being chased by a lion. But small stressors can add up and your body doesn’t really care (or know) if there’s a lion or not. It responds just the same.

What’s “the Stress Response”?

Mental stressors- big and small- activate our body’s stress response. When your body senses stress, your fight or flight response kicks in (aka sympathetic nervous system), with the goal of protecting you from danger. A cascade of biological functions take place, including:

• Your adrenal glands release cortisol and adrenaline, giving you a boost of energy and so you can run away from that lion.

• Your blood sugar spikes, sending extra energy to your extremities, and your pancreas releases insulin in response.

• Non-essential physiological tasks like digestion and sexual reproduction come to a near halt- because as a rule, your body can’t rest and digest at the same time as it fights and flights.

It’s actually a brilliant system. When you need to run away from a lion- as our ancestors did- your body is biologically programmed to help you escape. And even in our modern capitalist society, the stress response can sometimes be good for us- like when we need extra energy and mental focus before a big presentation.

But chronic stress- the everyday, continual stress you experience at your job, from taking care of your family, from driving and doing all the things… that kind of stress is not good for you.

With chronic stress, your body is in a constant state of alert. And while if you were chased by a lion you’d actually use up all that extra energy that your body is producing, in the case of chronic stress, there is no release. Over time, you become exhausted and sleep deprived, which makes you even more stressed. It’s a vicious cycle.

But what does all this have to do with your weight?

Stress and your weight

When it comes to the relationship between stress and weight gain, we can break it down into three main factors, one of them obvious, and the other two not-so-obvious.

1. When you’re stressed out, you’re more likely to make poor food choices

   When you’re super stressed stressed out, what sorts of foods do you turn to? Is it green smoothies and salads? Veggie burgers and hummus? Or is it more likely donuts, muffins, and other sorts of carb- and sugar-laden treats?

   It’s no secret: stress makes you crave comfort foods that send you to your happy place. Back when I was living my stressed-out life in academia, I really loved indulging in vanilla lattes from Starbucks. They just made going to work feel a little more bearable. And on a Friday night, it was red wine time and snacks time. That’s what eased my mind.

   Can you relate?

   So the first way that stress leads to weight gain is the most obvious way: you crave foods that are comforting but not very nutritious.

   That said, you might be thinking, “Why don’t I have any willpower to make better choices?” But guess what? It’s not your fault! These cravings are not just in your head. Comfort foods are the exact kind of foods your body biologically craves when under attack: sugar, carbs, salt, fat. They’re foods that provide quick energy so you can escape that lion.

   In sum: when your stress is constant, you’re likely to regularly crave and indulge in nutrient-poor comfort foods, leading to weight gain.

2. Continuous Activation of Your Stress Response Leads Your Body To Conserve Fat

   Over time, the frequent release of cortisol into the bloodstream that happens when we are stressed will lead most women to gain weight, especially around their belly.

   Think about it: your body believes you are under attack. Literally, it’s in emergency mode. And it doesn’t know when the attack will end. Cortisol tells it to conserve calories for energy (just in case). Those calories are then converted into fat that, for the most part, is stored around your waist and surrounds your internal organs.

   (Side note: that means that two people could eat the same thing but depending on each person’s stress level, their body could process the calories from that food differently).

   That stress-fat accumulating around your waist is called visceral fat. And guess what else? Visceral fat secretes a hormone that tricks your brain into thinking you’re hungry- thus convincing you to eat more. That’s part of the reason why belly fat is easy to gain, but tough to lose.

3. Constant Stress Messes With Your Gut

   When you’re fighting off a lion, you need all your energy going to that task. So bodily functions like digestion are put on hold. In the short-term, you may feel constipated. But over time, a host of digestive problems can result, including irritable bowel syndrome and leaky gut (aka “intestinal permeability”, a breakdown of the intestinal lining).

   Chronic stress can also disrupt your microbiome- the flora/bacteria living in your digestive system that help your body make use of nutrients and can even control your appetite. In other words, when your microbiome becomes out of balance, you may end up eating more and/or making poor food choices.

What should you do?

If you’ve gained weight around your midsection, your body is telling you that something’s not right. And though your first instinct may be to alter your diet or exercise more, often that belly fat still won’t come off.

That’s where stress management strategies come in. Whether it’s meditation, yoga, or other forms of self-care, daily routines that help your mind and body de-stress can have enormous benefits.