People often attribute weight gain to physical factors such as an unhealthy diet or low metabolism. Our attention rarely turns to stress as a cause of gaining those extra kilos. Stress due to finances, relationships, work, or any significant life changes.
This can affect not just your mental health but also have a spillover effect on your physical health as well. Stress can trigger food cravings more often, propel you to consume comfort food, and is likely to hamper the hormone production in your body as well.
Here are the top five ways in which stress causes weight gain.
Likely to trigger food cravings: When a person gets stressed, they frequently eat junk food. This is because of the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which stimulates appetite and encourages the body to consume fat and sugars. It increases blood sugar, reduces satiety, decreases metabolism, and hence causes weight gain.
Reduces the effect of insulin: Insulin helps take blood sugar into the cells. However, chronic stress can reduce the efficacy of insulin, causing the body to increase storage in fat cells. Stress also increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Raise blood sugar: Stress can push you to consume more and more junk foods as they provide temporary relief from stress. Consuming such foods elevates the blood sugar level of the body. Consequently, the body stores away the excess sugar in fat cells to avoid any organ damage. This leads to weight gain.
Suppresses thyroid function: The high cortisol levels in the body suppress thyroid function. As a result, metabolism and digestion slow down. This causes weight gain despite food intake remaining the same.
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Suppresses progesterone: Another impact that cortisol has is suppressing progesterone function. Because of this, symptoms of estrogen dominance become clear and visual. One of the physical effects of estrogen dominance is enhanced fat storage in the body.
It is imperative to determine the cause of stress and deal with the root of the problem if you want to control impacts such as weight gain.
