You’re stressed out lately and you’ve been comfort eating like there’s no tomorrow. Then “tomorrow” comes, and your belly is a little bigger. Is it just the result of extra calories you’re consuming or is there something more to stress and weight gain? The answer is a bit of both.
Stress can take a toll on your body in more ways than you might realize, and weight gain is one of them. Discover how stress can lead to weight gain in this guide.
“Stress provides the perfect storm for gaining weight and having difficulties losing weight down the road,” explains Dr. Bartolome Burguera, an endocrinologist and chairman of Cleveland Clinic‘s Endocrinology and Metabolism Institute.
Stress and the Body
Stress can have a significant impact on your overall physical and mental health. In fact, prolonged and chronic stress may increase your risk for various health complications, including:
— Heart disease or high blood pressure.
— Anxiety.
— Insomnia and sleep disorders.
— Gastrointestinal disorders.
— Binge eating.
— Weight gain and obesity.
If you’re experiencing acute situational stress, like due to the death of a loved one, you’re not as likely to experience adverse impacts on your health. However, if stress is persistent and beginning to impact everyday life, “at some point, especially if you already have a coexisting disease, you should see your physician,” says Dr. Theodore Strange, chair of medicine at Staten Island University Hospital, a division of Northwell Health, in New York City.
Stress and weight can can lead to a multitude of health complications. When you’re not eating proper food because of stress — so that you’re putting foods in the body like cholesterol and fats — gaining a significant amount of weight can put a lot of strain on your blood vessels, and that goes along with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and heart attacks, Strange says.
He adds that your doctor will help balance out what is necessary to treat acute stress versus looking long term at treating the underlying stress, along with other potential side effects and risks that go along with diseases that may need further treatment.
[Read: Best Exercises to Ease Stress and Anxiety]
Ways Stress Causes Weight Gain
Here are five ways that stress makes you gain weight:
— Chronic stress triggers food cravings.
— Chronic stress makes insulin less effective.
— Chronic stress leads to more belly fat.
— Chronic stress leads to insomnia.
— Chronic stress sabotages your workout.
[READ: How Hormones Can Sabotage Weight Loss.]
1. Chronic Stress Triggers Food Cravings
When you’re stressed, you may want to chow down on junk foods. Certain people have a sweet tooth, and for others it may be ease of access, lower cost items and ease of binging, Strange says. “The bag of potato chips is easier than grabbing some healthier foods at times.”
Unhealthy cravings could be due to increases in the stress hormone cortisol and the “hunger” hormone ghrelin, which stimulate appetite and promote the intake of fat and sugar (carbohydrates). So there you are, instinctively reaching for pizza, burgers or mac-n-cheese — and you may find you enjoy it.
“Ghrelin plays a big role in hedonic food behavior (pleasure eating). It makes you feel better after you eat,” Burguera says.
Plus, high-sugar foods may contribute to increased levels of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin, inhibiting activity in brain regions that produce and process anxiety, and literally staving off stress. Unfortunately, the effect is brief, typically resulting in one junk food binge after the other. That can drive up blood sugar, reduce satiety (a feeling of fullness), decrease metabolism (your energy expenditure) and pack on pounds.
2. Chronic Stress Makes Insulin Less Effective
Insulin is a vital hormone that helps regulate your body’s blood sugar. Insulin helps to get blood sugar into cells so that it can be used for energy.
But insulin may not work as well when you have chronic stress, which can lead to fat storage, obesity and an increased risk for Type 2 diabetes.
“Studies show that prolonged physical and even mental stress can lead to an accumulation of harmful inflammatory compounds called free radicals in our bodies, damaging cells and leading to a decreased release of insulin as well as an overall inability to accept and use insulin inside of our cells,” says Gabrielle Gambino, a registered dietitian with Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.
[Read: Vitamins for Stress: Do They Work?]
3. Chronic Stress Leads to More Belly Fat
If you’re looking at a bigger belly, it might be due in part to increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
“Cortisol increases the accumulation of fat,” Burguera says. In particular, cortisol contributes to abdominal or visceral fat — the kind deposited around your vital organs. “Visceral fat is more prone to cause insulin resistance and diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, increases in cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease.”
Ghrelin also contributes to fat formation.
“In the hunting and gathering times, this was a great thing for human survival. Fat stores could be used in long times of fasting, so increased nutritional intake due to stress was beneficial,” Gambino adds. However, these days, not many people are going to be hunting and gathering for days at a time, she says. “The closest I get to this is navigating the aisles of my grocery store on Sunday mornings.”
4. Chronic Stress Leads to Insomnia
Cortisol isn’t just a stress hormone; it helps regulate other aspects of health, including sleep. Healthy cortisol levels help wake you in the morning. But high cortisol levels are associated with interrupted or decreased sleep and increases in fat storage and hunger. One study by British researchers, published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggested that people who were partially sleep-deprived consumed almost 400 calories more per day than people who were not sleep-deprived — the equivalent of about four and a half slices of bread.
Meanwhile, sleep deprivation contributes to chronic stress, creating a vicious cycle.
5. Chronic Stress Sabotages Your Workout
If you’re tired from not sleeping, you may not feel like being physically active, either.
“We may not be moving as much as usual due to fatigue from not sleeping, and this also drives down the amount of fuel burned during the day, leading to weight gain,” Gambino says.
Stress also shortchanges the effects of your exercise routine. In one study published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, researchers with the Yale Stress Center at the Yale University School of Medicine found that psychological stress inhibits muscle recovery following strenuous resistance exercise. This may be in part because cortisol is a catabolic (muscle-degrading) hormone, blunting the effects of anabolic (muscle-building) hormones such as testosterone and human growth hormone.
[Read: Foods and Drinks Linked to Anxiety.]
Foods That Reduce Stress
It takes a multi-faceted approach to lose the pounds you’ve gained from chronic stress. One strategy is to eat a healthier diet.
“Because stress revs up inflammation, we want to maximize the intake of foods with antioxidants that lessen levels of inflammation and protect cells from damage,” Gambino says. “Aim for the rainbow of fruits and vegetables.”
She also suggests eating more fiber to help keep your blood sugar as stable as possible.
Rich sources of fiber include:
— Whole grains, such as quinoa or brown rice.
— Whole-grain bread, such as whole wheat or oat bread.
— Nuts, such as almonds, cashews, pistachios or walnuts.
— Seeds, such as flaxseeds or chia seeds.
— Green leafy vegetables, such as broccoli or kale.
Alternatively, it’s important to avoid low-nutrient, high-calorie foods that may increase your stress levels, such as fried foods, foods with added sugars like cakes and cookies, and refined carbohydrates like white bread that can cause your blood sugar levels to spike. Also aim to steer clear of caffeine when you’re stressed, as it can disrupt your sleep patterns and cause overstimulation in the body.
How to Lose Stress Weight
Maintaining a well-balanced diet is just one key component to losing and keeping off stress-related weight.
In addition to eating a healthy diet, Burguera says you’ll need to:
— Get more sleep. Aim for at least seven hours per night.
— Exercise. Aerobic exercise, like a brisk walk, can help lower your stress hormones and blood pressure.
— Practice stress reduction. This can include meditation or yoga.
And above all, try to eliminate the causes of stress.
“Write down your stressors,” Burguera advises. “What can you do about them? Who can help you? If you can control your stressors, cortisol and insulin will go down and your weight will improve.”
Are you still asking yourself, ‘Why can’t I lose weight?’ Well, sometimes tackling the problem on your own just isn’t feasible. “Start with the primary care doctor and let them know the concerns,” advises Dr. Mir Ali, a bariatric surgeon and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California..
Depending on the magnitude of concerns, Ali says your primary care doctor may recommend varying courses of action, such as:
— Referral to counseling to help manage stress or work through an underlying mental health condition.
— Referral to a registered dietitian to help guide healthy eating.
— Testing to rule out any underlying physiological problems, such as thyroid disease.
The Bottom Line
Long-term and chronic stress can lead to weight gain, which can become a vicious cycle. Ultimately, “stress is in all of our lives, and we all have to deal with it,” Strange says.
Getting to the source of the stress and finding a way to cope with, reduce or eliminate the cause of stress is the best way to combat stress-related weight gain. However, reducing or eliminating stress isn’t always possible; in that case, be mindful of the food you’re consuming, how much physical activity you’re getting and the amount of restful shut-eye you’re banking at night. And when in doubt, schedule a visit with your doctor for help losing weight or to check for any underlying health conditions.
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5 Ways Stress Makes You Gain Weight originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 10/18/23: This story was previously published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
