“Is stress making me gain/lose weight?” 😩
Picture this- have you ever been so overwhelmed and stressed that you can’t eat?
How about a work deadline that’s left you avoiding regular meals, instead reaching for quick sugar fixes or the bottle of red 🍷 to get through it?
Stress or emotional eating, is often the most common reason people give when asked what influences their diet & food decisions.
In short, ‘stress’ on its own, isn’t the reason you’re seeing increases/decreases in weight. It’s the affects that stress has on our hormones & physiology that can have a knock on effect.
Some people won’t eat at all, others tend to overeat or grab more calorific options.
For some people eating is a coping strategy whereas others, go into hyper focused mode where they completely lose their appetite. Stress can also affect our bodies ability to digest things properly or absorb what we eat. 👎
When we’re stressed, we see spikes in cortisol which CAN increase appetite, craving for sugar/carbohydrates or leave us wanting comfort foods. If we’re stressed for prolonged periods of time OR regularly, these cravings, overeating phases & high calorie choices put us in a surplus, leading to weight gain ⚖️
We also see spikes in adrenaline, which affects blood glucose levels. The body release glucoses to give us blood sugar & energy to cope with the ‘stressing factors’. This can confuse our body to thinking it’s not hungry, which means we can avoid eating totally. 🙃
Fantastic…
Whilst we can’t get rid of stress totally, we can try to change our food response. Here are some tips for coping with “stress eating”-
Identify the behaviours, trends or scenarios that cause us to eat in a certain way.
Have coping mechanisms in place for these times (distraction techniques, practice mindful eating etc).
Being proactive. If we know we have a stressful period approaching at work, having a strategy in place (snacks, meal prep, reminders on our phone, allocating specific mealtimes etc).
Avoid having certain foods in the house. If you’re unable to resist certain kinds of foods & having it in the house causes you even moreeeee stress, avoid buying it.
Make a food/stress journal. Make notes of what things you turn to when you’re overwhelmed & how it makes you feel after eating/doing it (half of the time, you’ll realise that it makes you feel no better or even worse. Eating the full pack of cookies doesn’t provide the comfort you thought it would).
Try to keep an element of routine as much as possible. Things such as sleep, hydration, regular exercise.
With stress, it's important to remember that we are individuals. Coping mechanisms that work for you won't necessarily work for someone else.
Your personal triggers won't always affect other people.
Take time to formulate these strategies; setting time aside to do it now, will have pay off when it saves you time, stress & energy further down the line!
Do you have anything that helps you when you're stressed??
Let me know in the comments!
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