Why Stress Makes You Fat

Are you one of those people who work out all of the time but cannot seem to get that last 10 pounds off of your belly? Do you hit the gym morning, noon and night, in between meetings or before you head off to work, eat well and yet, that last couple of inches on your belly just does not want to budge?

If so, stress may be making you fat.

The culprit is Cortisol, the hormone responsible for putting your body into fight and flight.

Cortisol is released from the body when you feel as though you are under stress. Now, stress can be both good and bad, and while good stress can motivate us to move through the current situation, bad stress can leave us unhealthy and frustrated. How our body responds to stress is biologically driven. Here are just a few examples of what your body perceives as stress:

• Grief/loss
• Unemployment/Job promotion
• Moving house
• Having a baby
• Lack of sleep/fatigue
• Feeling hungry/low blood sugar levels
• Relationship/marriage difficulties
• Workplace stress
• Over-exercising

Cortisol gets released into the bloodstream in response to what your body perceives as a stressful situation and launches a series of metabolic reactions that, in small doses, will help you survive say a war, or a natural disaster. However, long-term stress will actually just cause you to gain a beer gut, and here is how:

• Cortisol increases release of triglycerides into bloodstream
• Cortisol tells liver to release cholesterol into bloodstream
• Cortisol thickens your blood and clotting factors
• Cortisol increases blood pressure
• Cortisol inhibits insulin therefore your body cannot assimilate glucose appropriately

When we are under chronic stress, even mild stress, such as sitting in front of a computer 8 hours a day, worrying about finances, fighting traffic jams to and from the office and then hitting the gym in an attempt to burn off that steam by over-doing it in a spin class, we are increasing our cortisol levels. What this does is creates an environment where all of those things that is contained in the list above occurs. Everything that cortisol does is to release easily useable energy, in the form of glucose and triglycerides, just in case we have to fight or run away. When those levels of cortisol do not peter out and they are maintained at an elevated level, our bodies start to adapt and compensate. The fat starts to deposit around the abdomen. The suppressed insulin levels continue to tell the body that it cannot absorb the glucose and instead, causes blood sugar imbalances that increase fat deposition around abdomen. In addition, this excess fat around the abdomen is biologically active, meaning that it releases its own hormones, namely estrogen, that tells all other fat cells to continue depositing around the abdomen. A vicious cycle is formed. And a beer gut never leaves.

The key to tackling those last few pounds may not be about hitting the gym harder or more often. In fact, it may actually be a sign that you have to start switching up the type of exercise that you’re doing into a form that depresses the cortisol levels, such as Yoga, Tai Chi and meditation. Taking a walk in the woods or the park may actually be much better for your belly in the long run than that last 20 minute all out spring on a treadmill.

If you are unable to shift those last few kilograms, it might be a good idea to consider what stress levels are like in your life. You can contact your friendly neighbourhood naturopath to get your cortisol levels tested and see if there is, in fact, a hormone imbalance there. Not all exercise is considered equal, and sometimes it just takes a little tweak in your regimen in order to make that difference.