I’ve heard one too many times from friends and family who complain that they lose weight when they are stressed. I’ve thought long and hard about it and I just can’t understand how they can say that, when it’s clear that the popular belief is that people that are constantly stressed usually gain weight and that I also gain weight during periods of high stress, professional or emotional. Since this is a factor that everyone takes into consideration when evaluating their weight, I’d thought I’d dig more into it and maybe discover a hidden secret…

Weight Gain and Stress

It seems that the weight gain and stress issue actually depends on the way each one can handle stress. For some, stress is a true motivation that helps them be more active and more efficient…those are my friends that constantly tell me how they lose weight when they are stressed, because they seem to work and function well under pressure. Others, like me, feel so overwhelmed by all those extra tasks and responsibilities that they feel unable to do anything at all…and they all probably do as I do: try to forget all about it while eating home cookies or barbecuing with friends. This means that the weight gain and stress are not always two related actions. The connection between stress and alimentation is more complex and it differs from individual to individual. The most important things I tried to find answers to are:” Is stress reducing my will to lose weight?”, “Is stress increasing my appetite?”, “Do stress periods trigger a favorable environments of developing diseases related to weight gain?”, “What actually happens when I’m stressed?”

After reading lots of medical publications that debated this problem in detail and not understanding a lot related to weight gain and stress, I turned to a friend’s nutritionist. Fortunately, he was willing to give me a few minutes of his time and he had such an easy way of putting things that I now feel like I’m an expert in the matter. So, the main idea is that the hypothalamus( which is a region of the brain) sends signal to the upper renal glands to release cortisol, which is a substance released by the body in either type of stress: emotional, mental or physical. The most important role this enzyme has is to help the body deal with stress, by realizing glucoses and fat acids which are meant to assure the needed energy until the stress period is over. If the cortisol quantity is too low it can lead to hypoglycemic diseases, and if it’s too high it will surely cause weigh gain and if this happens a lot will cause serious health problems, like diabetes.

The trick is that cortisol can actually trigger appetite therefore this is why I eat more when I’m stress and this is why weight gain and stress are closely related in my case. You may have seen the commercials on tv for cortisol blockers. Furthermore, the nutritionist explained that there’s stress and chronic stress. By this, hear meant long periods of pressure that we have to deal with, and in my case I’d have to say the pressure is felt almost everyday, because I’m always on the run and always feel like there’s no way I will be able to finish all my tasks that day. He said that in case of chronic stress the renal glands are over-solicited and we can encounter a hormonal unbalance that will trigger serious dysfunctions on the long run, including obesity. If the hormones are not in natural amounts, then the metabolism gets slower and slower, and even if we eat less, we will still gain weight.
The stress hormone is in fact meant to regulate the proteins’ metabolizing, it can affect the microcirculation in blood vessels and will modify the muscular tonus. It will also raise the arterial tension and will assure a good functioning of the immune system, will stimulate gastric secretion and produce enlarged stomachs and will cause weight gain and stress related tiredness. This means that stress will not only make us eat more by stimulating the appetite, but will also make us want to eat only foods that are rich in calories and poor in nutrients, because in stress periods the body is only trying to keep energy levels at the highest count.

So, in the end, it’s true that weight gain and stress are related. It’s a relief to find out that there’s a logical explanation for my sudden weight gains during busy periods, at least it not really my fault. As for those who lose their appetite when stressed, it can happened to anyone, at first. But if the stress continues and finally become an everyday emotion, at 6 weeks tops since it first appeared, those persons will also start eating a lot, and quite frequently. The end result will be the same uncontrollable weight gain.

Please be sure to come back and leave your thoughts and ideas in a comment.