Cortisol: the Stress Hormone’s Effect on Your Health and Weight Loss

Stress is simply a part of life. Stress can be a positive thing: It can save your life in a fight or flight situation, or it can be the kick in the butt you need to finally finish that project at work you’ve been putting off. Too much stress, however, can have a negative effect on your mental and physical health. In today’s society, where we are moving faster, taking on more responsibility and are constantly technologically connected to the demands of work and home, our lives are becoming more overwhelming, and it may be taking a toll on our waistlines.

Cortisol, dubbed the “stress hormone”, is an important hormone secreted by the adrenal glands, responsible for many functions in the body including regulating metabolism and blood pressure, immune function, inflammatory response, and releasing insulin, which maintains blood sugar levels.

Cortisol isn’t only secreted when the body is under stress, but it is secreted in higher levels during the body’s “fight or flight” response to stress (think of when something pops out and scares the crap out of you. That surge you get is your body’s fight or flight response- you either jump and run, or start swinging.) The stress we encounter on a daily basis isn’t always so obvious or sudden, but daily stress, i.e. a jam packed schedule the next day or not knowing how you are going to afford next month’s bills, isn’t immediately remedied, so your stress levels stay elevated for an extended period of time until the stressor is remedied, or more often than not, until another stressor comes along and takes over.

Just as with everything in life, too much of something is never a good thing. Elevated cortisol levels cause many physical, negative changes to the body, including impaired cognitive function, blood sugar imbalances, high blood pressure, and lower immunity, causing you to feel slow and drained of energy, or even come down with an illness.

This is why when you are stressed, you may experience redness in your face, neck and ears due to higher blood pressure, increased appetite due to out of whack blood sugar levels and just generally sluggish and irritable.

Perhaps the most frustrating side effect of elevated cortisol levels, however, is weight gain. Physically, your appetite may increase causing you to overeat, which is often referred to as stress eating or emotional eating, but of course, if you don’t eat the calories, then you won’t gain the weight- simple solution. The deeper culprit to weight gain is that cortisol can decrease your muscle tissue, which will slow your metabolism, causing you to burn less calories in a day and an increase in belly fat, which not only isn’t attractive, it carries a host of health risks all its own.

Increased abdominal fat is more dangerous to your health than fat deposits in other areas of your body. Excess belly fat puts you at risk for heart attack, stroke, high cholesterol and metabolic syndrome.

Lower Your Stress Levels with a Healthy Lifestyle

Most of your stressors can’t simply be eliminated by delegating out your responsibilities or avoiding the situation completely, so finding ways to cope with your stress is the most practical way to keep your cortisol levels down. Fortunately, the best ways to reduce stress are also good for your health.

Yoga

Practice Yoga Breathing to Promote Balance

Workplace Yoga Reduces Stress and Improve Sleep

Yoga Keeps You Calm in the Midst of Chaos

A Consistent Yoga Practice Reduces Stress

Meditation

How Meditation Can Help Conquer Stress and Extra Pounds

What is Active Meditation?

Start a Meditation Practice in Five Steps

Manage Stress with Simple Relaxation Techniques

Sleep

The Importance of Sleep for Good Health

Sleep and Relax to Prevent Diabetes

Staying Up Late Harmful to Your Health

June 14th, 2011

Posted in: belly fat, cortisol, emotional eating, exercise, homepage, hormones, meditation, relaxation, sleep, stress, Yoga

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Stress Less, Weigh Less

Stress Less, Weigh Less is a book written by Holly Mosier. This book allows you to follow Mosier and receive an increase in energy and an ageless body all while eating the foods that you love. This book is focused on a new approach of primarily reducing your stress. Mosier offers her expertise as the owner of a boxing gym and a yoga teacher to this weight loss program. Included are exercise and nutrition guidelines that have been tested and proven to work. This book will teach you how to use your mind and body connection to achieve results.

The food included in this book is delicious and the workouts are easy to implement. The program is one that you will implement over 30 days to change your habits and get you going on the right track. Stress Less, Weigh Less is broken into four different parts including stress to weigh less, revamp the way you’re eating, revamp the way you’re exercising and follow Holly. Each section offers several chapters to guide you through the program. If you stress easily or suspect that stress causes you to eat emotionally and want to lose weight, this program might work for you.

Deals with stress as a factor in weight lossIncludes quick and easy meals and recipesEncourages working out Program changes your habits to healthy ones in just one monthAddresses lack of activity and other causes of obesityWeight loss plan is result of author’s research and resultsFocuses on the part that the mind plays weight loss

One of the first steps to your nutrition with Stress Less, Weigh Less is to determine how much you should eat. This part of the book along with all others is based on the research of the author and is meant to make the program easy to follow. The food chapters of the book discuss how to achieve your weight loss and maintain it. Another thing you must do is choose your happy weight. Then you can learn the correct daily calorie amount you need to eat to reach your happy weight. This program does go along with the logic that you must burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. There is a chart included in the book to guide you to how many calories should be consumed each day depending on your current weight and activity level. You are encouraged to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and one snack each day. You are also encouraged to balance your meals with the right amount of fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Mosier offers guidance based on what she has had success with. There is another chart that calls out common foods and if they fall under the protein, fat or carbohydrate category.

Choosing foods that have a lower glycemic index is also encouraged. Mosier takes the time to explain how protein, fat and carbohydrates affect your level of hunger so that you can balance things out to avoid spikes in hunger and blood sugar levels. While on the program you should weigh yourself at least once per week and keep a daily food journal. Many people fall victim to guessing inaccurately on their portion sizes. To avoid this you should measure things out. Some of the other tips included that focus on the diet portion of this book are drink plenty of water, try to have a late-afternoon snack, don’t skip meals to speed weight loss, have a beverage with meals and schedule one pig-out meal per week. Below is a sample menu for a day on the Stress Less, Weigh Less eating plan:

Breakfast: Holly’s Cheese Blintzes; coffeeLunch: Holly’s Turkey and Cheese Pita; carrot sticks; hot teaSnack: AppleDinner: Holly’s Cinnamon Salmon; Holly’s Roasted Veggies; Holly’s Salad; Crystal Light lemonade

In Stress Less, Weigh Less Mosier focuses on making your workouts more efficient for results rather than telling you to exercise longer. There are a few chapters that focus on yoga and utilizing yoga poses for stress relief. You can incorporate these yoga workouts with your other workouts. You don’t have to spend hours at the gym to be effective. There are several guidelines to follow in order to be effective with exercise. Mosier admits that she looks for every opportunity to move and does little things like parking far from the door at the supermarket and taking the stairs instead of the elevator. These are the things you can do in addition to your workout each day. To get lasting results you are going to have to put in the work and exercise. Below are some of the guidelines to follow where exercise is concerned:

Exercise everyday for 45 to 60 minutesVary your activities and workoutsDo both cardio exercise and resistance trainingAim to burn at least 250 to 350 calories each day with exerciseUse a heart rate monitor for the most efficient exerciseUse interval trainingDo not over trainHave a cup of coffee to boost your workoutsCalendar your daily workouts

Mosier includes some workout routines for you to follow if you need them. You can always choose your own workouts if you have something fun that you enjoy doing. She also has some recommendations for exercise classes that may be available at your local gym. If you prefer working out at home, there are instructions for completing a home boxing workout.

Stress Less, Weigh Less offers a plan that will work. If you follow the recommendations of reducing your calorie intake, eating meals regularly and exercise as advised, you will see results. Stress Less, Weigh Less takes the work out of figuring things out and gets you started on the road to weight loss. This book lets you know that you will have to put in the work to be successful. Following this program can lead to lasting results and help you reach your happy weight and stay there.

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