Is managing stress the key to weight loss?

I know people mean well, but weight loss isn’t as simple as ‘calories in versus calories out’. There are many things that can impact your calories in, and this is never addressed. This blog post will be looking at the impact of stress on your weight.

If you missed last week’s post on how sleep impacts your weight, you can find it here.

The science of stress: 

Stress is a state of worry or tension. It often occurs when we feel under pressure or are going through a difficult situation. It's completely normal to feel stressed during tough times. The stressor could be anything from a big presentation at work/school, having financial difficulties, or a even growling dog.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase ‘fight or flight response’ and this is what happens when we get stressed. Our body releases hormones that will help us prepare for the danger or to run away from it. During the fight or flight response, the hormones that are released are cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline.

Here’s a quick summary of what the stress hormones do:

Cortisol is the main stress hormone. It increases the amount of sugar in your bloodstream so that your muscles will have access to quick energy to help you fight or run away. It also improves your brain’s ability to use glucose, so you can make quick decisions. Cortisol also supresses non-essential functions in the body like digestion and our reproductive system.

Adrenaline plays an important role too. It increases your heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure. This allows blood to be moved around the body quicker to the muscles that need it so you can respond appropriately.

Noradrenaline increases your alertness and attention, this boost in mood will help when tackling the stressor. 

As I said earlier, it’s normal to feel stressed at times, and there’s nothing wrong with experiencing the fight or flight response. However, if you’re constantly faced with stress and going through the fight or flight response too often then it can be harmful. Chronic stress can increase your risk of mental health issues, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, poor immune function, and obesity.

How does stress impact our weight? 

As I mentioned above, chronic stress can increase the risk of obesity. This can happen in 2 ways. One is the effect of the hormone cortisol, and the other is the eating behaviours people tend to use to manage stress. We’ll look at cortisol first.

Cortisol and weight gain: 

When cortisol is released, it increases your blood sugar to allow you to have the energy to tackle the stressful situation. But once the threat has gone, your blood sugar levels will drop. This will increase your appetite and cause your body to crave sugary/fatty foods to bring your blood sugar levels back up again. This cycle will repeat itself every time you experience a stressor.

So, if you’re always stressed and have cortisol being released, you’ll be more likely to be eating sugary fatty foods that are calorie dense. This will contribute to weight gain. 

Having a high cortisol level can also make it difficult to sleep at night. And if you’ve read my previous blog post, you’ll know that a lack of sleep doesn’t help weight loss either.

Eating behaviours and weight gain: 

Another way that stress can contribute to weight gain is the way that we choose to manage it. A lot of people will use food for comfort when feeling stressed. Whether it’s having a glass of wine, grabbing a chocolate bar, or munching on some crisps to get you through, it’s common to use food to help handle our emotions. And while the food brings temporary relief, it doesn’t solve the problem.

If you’re snacking frequently on calorie dense food to help you cope, then this won't have a positive effect on your weight loss journey.

When stressed we also tend to go for foods that are quick and easy to avoid having something else to deal with. And often the most readily available and quick meals tend to be less nutritious. Like a ready meal or ordering a takeaway for example. These foods tend to be higher in calories and fat, so won't help if you eat them often and you're trying to lose weight.

As you can see, while weight loss is about energy in vs energy out, there are many hormones that influence our energy in. So, it’s not as simple as trying to cut down your calories. You need to address the reasons for your intake.

Tips for managing stress: 

Feeling stressed is inevitable at some point in your life, but having a toolbox of methods to manage it can help so it doesn’t stop your weight loss journey. Here are some tips for reducing stress:

Find a relaxing activity to do: some people may find it helpful to have a warm bath, do meditation, read a book, knit, draw, light a candle, or do some deep breathing exercises to help reduce stress. Finding a way that works for you to calm yourself down will be great to bring your cortisol levels down and let your body know that everything is okay.

Practice mindful movement: gentle exercise like yoga, stretching, or going for a walk can be useful to reduce your stress and relax your body. It can also be difficult to fit exercise in when you’re chronically stressed so doing some light exercise that will calm your body down and also mean you’re getting some activity in is a great two for one.

Journalling: writing down your thoughts and reflecting on the day can be helpful to relieve yourself of stress and worry. There’s no set way to journal, you can use whatever structure you like to write down whatever is on your mind. It’s a useful way to clear your head, especially before bed.

Work on your sleep routine: more stress can mean a worse sleep which could also lead to more stress as you’re worried about not sleeping well. Working on your sleeping habits is a good way to ensure you’re getting enough sleep each night and it'll help regulate your hunger hormones. I’ve got more sleep tips in my previous post here. 

Find other things to do instead of eating: if stress eating is something you struggle with, it’s helpful to come up with alternatives. This could be by preparing healthy snacks in advance, so that when you feel the urge to snack you’ve got nutritious options. Or it could be doing something not food related to manage your stress. This could be a relaxing activity like I mentioned earlier like going for a walk or reading. 

A useful way to prepare for these situations is with ‘if/then’ scenarios. This is where you think about a situation you’ll encounter and think of a solution you can do. For example: if I feel stressed about work, then I’ll do a 5 minute deep breathing exercise to calm down.

 

Finding ways to manage stress is important for everyone, regardless of if you’re trying to lose weight or not. So, I hope you find some of these ideas a useful starting point for developing your own stress management techniques.

Key points: 

• Stress is a normal bodily reaction that triggers our fight or flight response. The fight or flight response releases hormones called cortisol, noradrenaline, and adrenaline.
• The stress hormones can impact our weight as they increase appetite and make us crave sugary/fatty foods.
• Finding ways to manage your stress will be helpful if you’re trying to lose weight. Some ideas include: find relaxing activities to do, do gentle exercise, journal, and snack on healthier foods.

I hope you liked this post and found it useful!

Bye for now 👋

References:

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/stress

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/stress/what-is-stress/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27345309/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28849612/