We don’t eat it but it sabotages our waistline… Yes, the answer is stress makes you fat!

Doesn’t seem fair but it is the truth.  Stress creates a hormonal state that favors fat storage.  If  you can understand how stress effects the body you will be on your way to getting one step ahead of it’s negative effects on your belly.

Let me tell you  a story about how stress makes you fat

Once upon a time there was a little caveman named Grok living under a rock with his little cave-peeps.

One day, Grok went out to do man’s work and hunt for a big ol’ hunk of meat to feed his family.   While he was out looking to rope an antelope he was accosted by a lion! (Gasp!)  Grok’s intelligent body responded to this stressful situation in a number of ways.

• Blood flow  was diverted from his stomach to his muscles (because digesting his breakfast suddenly became unimportant)
• His pupils dilated  so he could see better for the impending fight.
• Adrenaline began pumping to get him ramped up just to make sure he didn’t decide to take a little nap right now.
• His heart rate increased drastically (kind of like a warm up for the running, screaming and arm flailing that was about to occur.).

Fortunately, this kind of thing was a typical occurrence in Grok’s world.  He was a pretty fit guy, having been chased by wild animals on a weekly basis and all.   By now you are probably on the edge of your seat wondering what Grok did on this fateful day!  There were no trees  to climb and playing dead would certainly not work in this case (lions NEVER fall for that) so Grok did what any reasonable and intelligent cave person would do…He ran. FAST!  And it worked.  Grok made it out safely.  He didn’t find an antelope on that day but he did find the elusive Beav-coon (that’s a special cross between a beaver and a raccoon, surely extinct by now 😉 to use for some tasty stew

I hope you enjoyed our little tale. It actually had a point and that is to teach you that our body was created with specific responses to help us out in stressful situations.  All of those things that happened in Grok’s body, the raised heart rate, the blood flow to his limbs, the pump of adrenaline, the dilated pupils and much, much more were like a gift to help Grok be completely prepared to get out of his dire situation.  The process of the intense movement to run away or fight is just what the body needs because that triggers the release of other  very beneficial hormones (HGH and testosterone).  Hormones that balance out the negative effects of cortisol. Fat burning, muscle building hormones. A-HA!  Grok manages to stay the lean mean hunting machine that he is because he responds by following the road map that his body is giving him –  he sprints and lifts heavy things.  Our bodies still respond this way today  even though our stresses are much different.

Have you ever heard the term “fight or flight?”  It is pretty amazing. In fact it is  exactly what kept Grok alive that day. In a fraction of a second the adrenal glands flood the body with hormonal signals like adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol whose job is to give the body the energy required to stay and fight or run like the dickens.    If you have ever been in a near car accident, you probably felt an intense surge of energy travel through your body that allowed you to slam on the brakes or swerve out of the way.  That is  the “fight or flight” response.  Whether you are being chased by a lion, under a severe deadline at your next drop off, facing financial uncertainty, or slamming on your breaks to avoid an accident,  your response to stress is exactly the same as far as your body is concerned.   Unfortunately, these days-  especially for those of you strapped into a seat most of the day, you can’t get up and sprint to give all those hormones a chance to do their job.  It is just not possible to get up and do 100 speed jumping jacks while chained to your seat.   We can only sit there with large amounts of cortisol surging thru our bodies with nowhere else to go and no job to do.   This is bad.

Now in the past we have mentioned that the belly has 4x more cortisol receptors (receptors are kind of like catchers mitts on each of the body’s cells for the different hormonal messengers that the body puts out.)  In the instance of stress, cortisol is sending the message to store fat.   So with 4x more “catchers mitts” on the belly cells, can you see how it is so easy for our belly’s to grow? Bummer.

Before we get into strategies to help you combat this there is one more piece to this puzzle that you need to know.   The combination of high insulin (created by the body when blood sugars are high such as after eating sugar, breads, potatoes and other starchy carbs)  and high cortisol is a bad mix and will  make you fat.

Now, let’s talk about some strategies to help reduce this problem:

1) This one is obvious but sometimes we just need to be told—reduce stressful situations, or work on a more positive perception of these situations whenever possible.

2) Do whatever you can to help your body to produce the hormones that balance out cortisol.  These are Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and Testosterone.  They are fat burning, muscle building hormones that are produced during high intensity intervals (such as Grok’s sprint), strength training and good sleep

3) Sleep:  If you don’t sleep, you have already created an unfavorable stress response and squelched your bodies natural release of the anti-stress hormone HGH (HGH is also a fat burning muscle—we want that guy around!)

4) Don’t fast or go too long (more than 4 hours) without eating.  Your body finds this stressful and the stress of going hungry will just add to your cortisol levels. Eat 4-6 small meals a day if you are chronically under stress.

5) Substitute protein for sugar. Stress drives us to eat sugar but taking in protein will release another hormone (glucagon) that counters the fat storing effects of insulin  and cortisol that we talked about earlier.

6)  Exercise can be a stressful too. Long workouts that are heavy on cardiovascular training and light on resistance training produce the wrong kind of hormones when you are already in a stressed state. If you are chronically stressed try relaxing forms of exercise such as  long slow walks, yoga, massage, meditation on most days and incorporate high intensity intervals and strength training just a few days a week.   A twenty minute workout that brings the body to full fatigue may be a better option to remove belly fat than a two-hour jog in the park  if you are in a place in life that you are under a lot of stress.

7) Breath!  It really is amazing what breathing can do. It can undo the effects of that “fight or flight” response.  Breath long and slow and continue to do so until you have returned to a calmed state.

Try some of these techniques this week and see which ones work for you.  There are lots of stress management techniques out there so search for more.  We hope that now that you understand just how stress effects the body with concern to fat storage it will really motivate you to take care of yourself. If you have dialed in on all the other aspects of fitness, nutrition and sleep and you are still struggling to get the results you want, it may very well be the stress component.  Don’t forget to check in on the Facebook page to let us know how you are improving!

So, with that, Be calm and keep on!

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