The effects of chronic stress on appetite and body weight

Stress- the modern-day health problem

How does stress store fat? And how would I go about supporting a reduction in both within a nutrition plan? Read on to find out.

Stress. Some is beneficial, it can boost work performance, support the immune system, and strengthen the neuron connections within your brain improving memory and attention.

But I am talking about when we are chronically stressed and our poor little adrenal glands (sat on top of each kidney producing our stress hormones) become fatigued from constantly pumping out cortisol and adrenaline into our bloodstream.

Within our autonomic nervous system, there are two divisions known as the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system, you may however be more familiar with the terms ‘rest and digest’ or ‘fight or flight’.

We can rest, and digest our food when we are calm but in the presence of stress and in ‘fight or flight’ our heart rate increases, we begin to sweat, our pupils dilate and the blood flow is taken away from our digestive system and shunted to our brain and our muscles.

This happens because thousands of years ago, in the days of sabre-toothed tigers roaming the land, we would’ve had to run for our lives had we come face to face with the toothy big cat.

The trouble is, our stress response has remained the same and our bodies perceive all stress as the same. It doesn’t know that our stressful job, mounting bills, and all of the other stress that comes with juggling family life is not in fact a sabre-toothed tiger. Adrenaline and cortisol are pumping through our veins 24/7 wreaking havoc on our hormones and our health, and sadly no matter how well you are eating, if you are constantly stressed your health will suffer, and bothersome symptoms will remain.

So let’s dive into exactly how stress causes weight gain.

Our stress hormone cortisol has many jobs within the body, one of which is to increase and regulate our blood sugar levels by counteracting the effects of insulin.

Insulin is released by the pancreas when we consume sugar to shuttle the glucose from the blood into cells of the liver, muscle, and fat.

 But when cortisol is released it needs that sugar for our alerted stress response, so what does it do… It breaks down our muscle to obtain it! And if that wasn’t bad enough the muscle that gets broken down is converted to fat and stored around our middle. So here you can see that despite the fact you may be avoiding sugary foods, if cortisol is present it is unhelpfully ensuring its supply of sugar to the detriment of your muscle mass!

This is a vicious cycle because skeletal muscle is necessary for efficient metabolism and is responsible for the ‘mopping up’ of 80% of the glucose (sugar) from each meal, so we really want to build muscle and not lose it!

Another problematic piece to this puzzle is that chronically elevated blood sugars and adipose fat can lead to insulin resistance, whereby the body’s cells no longer respond to insulin, and blood sugars remain elevated. This eventually leads to the development of type 2 diabetes.

Stress has also been shown in studies to cause an imbalance in our ‘hunger hormones’ Ghrelin and Leptin. Stress increases Ghrelin, a hormone that favours food-seeking behaviour, with a higher and prolonged increase in those overweight or obese according to their BMI.

Leptin helps to regulate our energy balance by suppressing hunger. Long-term stress-induced elevation of cortisol results in the over-production of leptin from adipose tissue and insulin from the pancreas, thereby reducing the sensitivity of leptin and insulin in the brain leading to leptin and insulin resistance and a loss of appetite suppression.

So what can we do regarding our diet and lifestyle to lower cortisol and bring our body back into a calmer state of ‘rest and digest’ and prevent unwanted weight gain?

Stress reduction is key, calming internal stress within the body is as important as external stress (job, bills, etc.) We will never be able to completely avoid all external stressors, that’s life unfortunately, but what we can do is support our nervous system and bring it back into balance so that we are not constantly running on adrenaline and cortisol.

We can do this by balancing our blood sugar, cutting out sugary foods, and ensuring we include protein and healthy fats with each meal, particularly breakfast, don’t skip it! A good example of a blood sugar-balancing breakfast would be a veggie omelette or Greek yogurt with nuts and seeds.

A balanced breakfast is crucial. When we wake we are in a fasted state and our blood sugar will have dropped, when our blood sugar drops too low cortisol is released to bring it back up, something we want to avoid! This also applies to lunch and dinner to stop those dips throughout the day and to prevent cortisol from being released.

Have you ever skipped breakfast and then wanted to reach for the biscuit tin by 10 am? Your low blood sugar would have caused the cravings for sugary foods, but what happens after you have eaten the biscuits? Your blood sugar soars only to come crashing back down again causing you to crave more sugary, carb-heavy foods and you end up on this blood sugar rollercoaster all day long.

Acutely, cortisol possesses anti-inflammatory properties, but in cases of chronically high levels, it has been shown to increase inflammation due to stress system activation, leading to a release of pro-inflammatory proteins and activation of immune cells.

Adopting an anti-inflammatory diet will help to counteract the inflammatory effects caused by chronically elevated cortisol and prevent further damage and hormone disruption.

Include plenty of fruit and vegetables in your diet. Diversity of plant foods is also key to supporting good gut health which further lowers inflammation so mix up your fruits and veggies each week.

Increasing foods that contain antioxidant-rich Polyphenols that possess anti-inflammatory properties and neutralize free radicals which cause inflammation and damage to our cells. Polyphenols can be found in colourful fruit and veg such as blueberries, blackcurrants, pomegranates, red cabbage, and legumes, herbs, and spices.

Polyphenols can also help to lower blood sugar levels by slowing the conversion of carbohydrates into simple sugars so win-win!

Include plenty of oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, and sardines (ensure these are wild-caught) rich in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.

Meditation has often been seen as a bit ‘woo-‘woo’ in the UK, it originated during the ancient Vedic times of India and is one of the modalities used in Ayurveda, a natural health care system also known as the science of life.

At times when I suggest meditation to clients as part of their holistic plan I sometimes get a funny look, but hear me out. The benefits meditation has on regulating our nervous system are worth giving it a go, even 5 minutes per day can help to calm and bring us back into a state of parasympathetic nervous system dominance or, ‘rest and digest’ and there are now plenty of apps making it easy to do either first thing when you wake up, when you get into bed, or both!

Box breathing can also be hugely beneficial in helping to bring the body back into balance if you are feeling stressed or have had a stressful encounter.

Breathe in, hold your breath, breathe out, and hold your breath, holding for a count of 4 at each of the 4 steps.

The levels of stress I see in my clinic each day are profound, and I believe incorporating these practices into our daily lives can go a long way in supporting our health. Many say ‘I don’t have time for that’ but ask yourself this, would you have time to be ill?

 I hope this has helped you to see the link between how stress causes hormone imbalance and weight gain.

Burnout is almost seen as a badge of honour these days, but as someone who has experienced this, I say let's show our bodies some love and nourishment, after all our health is everything.