Stress makes you fat. Get your stress level down to lose weight naturally.
When we feel threatened, our stress response kicks in. Cortisol is one of the chemicals our body releases to respond to that threat as part of the fight/flight response.
Our bodies are very much built to survive the conditions we have lived in for thousands of years – not the conditions we live in today.
So when we get stressed out, our body pulls energy from the core of our body and sends it to our limbs so we can run away or fight off our attacker. That’s fine in a short term situation where that response is helpful, but today, most of the threats we face are long term and mental or emotional, not short term or physical.
That means our bodies end up having energy pulled from the core of our bodies, which is the area responsible for digestion and for our thyroid, amongst other things. This is part of why so many women have digestive issues and thyroid problems – due to the long term effects of stress.
Cortisol also increases blood sugar, which again makes sense if we were in a situation where we needed physical energy. Instead, most of us eat too much sugar and already have too much circulating in our bodies, so the cortisol response just adds to that.
Cortisol assumes we’ve burned energy escaping our attacker and wants to make us refuel, so it makes us crave high calorie foods. It also leads to irritability, difficulty concentrating, and belly fat, which as we all know is the least cute kind of fat.
Guess what? I help clients deal with stress so they can lose weight just by changing their hormones. Schedule a time to get started by clicking here.
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