Weight Loss Continues to Be Unreachable - Is Stress One of the Factors?

I was recently at the grocery store and took notice of how the struggle for weight control is failing miserably in our culture. There was a lovely woman who was very overweight and struggling even to walk across the store. If you saw her from the waist up she looked like a healthy weight, but from the waist down she would be considered obese. It was a reminder that the simple formula of calories in vs. calories out does not work for many women and men who have been fighting this battle for years and years.

There has to be something else going on! A metabolic imbalance? A gut imbalance? Toxic overload? A hormone imbalance? Where do we begin?

In last month's article, I gave you tips on ways to manage stress during the holiday season. Certainly the holidays can be a time of year when our stress levels are at full throttle. In this article, I want to focus on the physiological changes that occur with the chronic stress that many of us experience every day and how that may be impacting the struggle for a healthy weight.

Fight or flight -nature's life saving responseThe fight or flight response is the physiological reaction that occurs during times of perceived danger - a threat to our survival. Throughout history when being chased by a wild animal the human body needed to evolve to gather all the energy needed to win that chase. Many systems will be altered to allow for the muscular action needed to flee. Some of the changes that will occur include:

Increased heart rate and blood pressure to get blood to the muscles and other organs.
Increased rate of breathing to allow adequate oxygen to the brain and muscles.
Blood sugar and fat are released from storage to provide needed energy.
A cascade of hormones ultimately leads to an increase in cortisol to allow the body to stay at high alert.

Again, these are all important processes when we are running from a wild animal. But today in our high stress environment, it is the daily stressors that cause these changes to be chronic. Not only can this stress response increase cortisol levels it can ultimately disrupt the natural cortisol rhythm in the body.

Tweet