Is stress blocking your weight loss? and 10 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight!

Is stress blocking your weight loss?

Feeling stressed? It could be impacting your weight loss. Here are 7 ways to reduce stress and boost your weight loss

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I am frequently asked about the relationship between stress and weight gain. In truth, stress and excess fat storage go hand in hand – one triggers the other. When you are under stress, your body releases a stress hormone called cortisol from the adrenal glands. Unfortunately, an over secretion of cortisol will lead to weight gain, typically in the abdominal region.

If you feel like you are under prolonged, chronic stress, you could be at the highest risk for excess weight gain.

Researchers have identified that an over-secretion of cortisol can cause excess weight gain in these three ways:

1. Slowing metabolism
Too much cortisol will slow your metabolic engine, making weight loss much more difficult. If you're trying to lose weight, this decrease in your metabolic function may make the process frustrating.

2. Increasing cravings
When you are stressed and craving something to eat, do you crave an egg or a piece of celery? Of course not. Most people crave a sugary or starchy goodie in an attempt to improve their mood and boost their energy. Unfortunately, treats like cookies, cakes, muffins and fancy coffees are high on the glycemic index and will trigger the excess secretion of the pancreatic hormone insulin. In a nutshell, excess insulin is stored as excess fat (especially around the mid-section) and it will cause the vicious cycle of cravings to continue.

3. Fat storage
An excess secretion of cortisol promotes abdominal fat storage, which has been linked to a greater risk for heart disease, cancer and stroke. Ideally, a man’s waist circumference should be less than 40 inches and a woman’s should be less than 35 inches.

Decreasing cortisol levels naturally 
Since cortisol levels play an important role in regulating blood sugar, fat storage and energy production, it is important to practice techniques that can keep cortisol levels low. Here are seven ways to de-stress and keep cortisol under control:

1. Exercise
Regular cardiovascular workouts will greatly help to reduce stress and cortisol levels.

10 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight

Stress and weight gain (or lack of weight loss) go hand in hand. Though you may not be aware of it, being under constant stress can increase production of the hormone cortisolwhich can cause an increase in appetite as well as extra fat storage around the abdominal region--a big no-no since abdominal fat is linked to diabetes, high cholesterol and other health problems.

Dealing with stress can be as simple as taking a few minutes a day to relax, scheduling a massage as often as you can or cutting down on work hours and increasing play time. Get started with these excellent resources:


Lack of sleep can contribute to weight gain, though experts aren't exactly sure why. In her article, Sleep More to Lose Weight, Mary Shomon discusses a recent study that found that women who slept 5 hours a night were more likely to gain weight than women who slept 7 hours a night.

The reasons? Some studies have shown that losing sleep could affect metabolism by making you feel hungry, even if you're not. Sleep deprivation may affect the secretion of cortisol, one of the hormones that regulates appetite. There's also a theory that we move around less when we don't get enough sleep, which means we burn less calories.

Getting enough sleep is crucial if you're trying to lose weight, not just because of how it affects you physically, but mentally as well. Sleep deprivation makes you cranky, confused and can even make you feel depressed or angry.

Make sleep a priority by trying to get to bed at the same time each night, shooting for about 8 hours, if you can manage it. Having some bedtime rituals such as a hot bath or some time writing down your worries can help you unwind before bed. You can also try power napping, which can be a great way to reduce stress and increase your productivity.

The one thing that's so hard about exercise and weight loss is this:  It's hard to burn enough calories with exercise to make a serious dent in your weight.  In fact, the workouts that aremost effective for weight loss are the hardest ones:  High intensity interval training, tabata training or metabolic conditioning. 

If you're a veteran exerciser, you might enjoy torturous workouts on a regular basis.  If you're not?  You may find any amount of exercise hard to accomplish.  Unfortunately, that may end up hurting your weight loss efforts.

So, how much exercise do you need and how can you fit it in?  Use these tips below to make the most out of your exercise time.

Cardio

For weight loss, you'll need to do at least 5 days of cardio at a moderate intensity for at least 30 minutes but, the frankly, it usually takes more than that to really burn calories.  Your best bet: Interval training 2-3 days a week and more moderate workouts on the other days. By alternating high intensity segments with recovery, you'll burn more calories and build endurance more quickly.  You'll also get a great afterburn.  You don't have to be an experienced exerciser to try interval training.  

This may seem obvious, but unless you're tracking your calories each day, you may be eating more than you think. Portion control is one culprit, especially with restaurants providing enough food in one meal to feed several people.

If you're really serious about losing weight, you need to get serious about your eating. Start by keeping a detailed food journal for one week, without changing any of your eating habits. Be as specific as possible, measuring when you can, looking up your calorie and nutrient content and adding up your calories for each day. You'll be surprised how those calories can sneak in when you're not keeping track. These resources can help you get started:

10 Ways to Control Portions
Keep a Food Diary
FitWatch Fitness Tracker

Something else to think about is metabolism, which can drop as you get older if you don't preserve your muscle mass. Some estimates show that muscle mass declines about 4% each decade from age 25 to 50. If you're still eating the same number of calories as your metabolism drops, your weight may creep up over time. Start exercising and lifting weights now to keep your metabolism in check.

If you find your workouts are hit-or-miss and that you give in to temptation a bit too easily, your weight loss may hit the skids. For exercise to work, you have to do it on a regular basis. Once your body adapts to your program, you then need to change it to keep your body challenged. If you skip too many workouts, it's almost like starting all over every time.

Sticking with exercise starts with finding a program you enjoy and that fits in with your lifestyle, goals and needs. That means being realistic about what you'll really accomplish each week rather than going by what you think you should be doing. 

Having some treats now and then is fine, but if you find you do very well during the week only to eat yourself silly on the weekends, you may be hurting your weight loss goals.

To lose one pound of fat in one week, you would need to cut 500 calories with diet and exercise for 7 days. If you only follow that for 5 days, then eat way over your limit for two more days, you're taking two steps forward and one step back. The trick is to plan your indulgences so that you can have some fun while staying on track with your weight loss goals. Try these tips for a healthy weekend:

• Avoid a free-for-all weekend. Instead, choose one or two treats to enjoy and continue eating healthy the rest of the time.
• Avoid rewarding yourself with food. If you've been eating healthy all week, it's natural to want to reward yourself with a yummy treat. That kind of thinking can set you back (much like a smoker who rewards himself for staying smoke-free with a cigarette). Instead of food, reward yourself with a calorie-free treat--a trip to the movies, a massage or a new pair of shoes.
• Keep moving. If you like to rest on the weekends, why not make your rests more active? Spend time taking a long walk with your family or tossing a football in the backyard.

While experts generally recommend losing 1-2 pounds a week, most of us probably don't get that close. Remember: to lose one pound, you have to create a 500-calorie deficit every dayfor a week. It's fairly easy to cut calories from food since you can keep track by reading labels and measuring. The problem comes in when trying to determine how many calories you're burning with exercise. You can use a calorie calcuator, but that's often overestimated. How many calories you burn with exercise often comes down to things we can't measure such as how hard you're working and your fitness level.

Add to that the fact that there are many factors that affect weight loss which, again, can't always be measured or accounted for with the tools we have to track progress. In that sense, your body may be making changes that can't yet be measured with a scale or a tape measure.

Give your body time to respond to what you're doing. It may be weeks or months before you see significant changes so don't freak out if you're not seeing results after only a few weeks. Being patient and taking it one day at a time will allow you to enjoy the journey instead of focusing on the destination.

Some medical conditions and medications can contribute to weight gain. While not everyone will find this to be true, it's important to explore every avenue if you're genuinely following an exercise program and a clean diet and still not losing weight.

One condition known to affect weight is thyroid disease. A thyroid deficiency can cause a decrease in metabolism and may lead to weight gain.

Almost everyone reaches a weight loss plateau at some point. As your body adapts to your workouts, it becomes more efficient at it and, therefore, doesn't expend as many calories doing it. You may find that after your initial weight loss, your progress will slow down and eventually stop.

Some common reasons for plateaus include:

• Doing the same workouts over and over. Your body needs to be challenged to progress, so make sure you're changing some part of your program every 4-6 weeks.
• Not eating enough calories. If your body doesn't have enough fuel to sustain your level of activity, you can actually stop losing weight.
• Overtraining. If you exercise too much, the body sometimes responds by decreasing the amount of calories you burn during the rest of your day.

Learn more about whether you've hit a plateau by keeping an exercise calendar and tracking your workouts, how often you change them and whether you're working too hard or need to boost your intensity. Get more tips at Understanding Weight Loss Plateaus.

Despite what you hear on the news or read in popular magazines, not all of us need to lose weight. In fact, many of us have unrealistic ideas of what a healthy weight and body shape is. We all have different shapes and, though we can make changes to our bodies, we can only improve on the bodies we have--not turn them into someone else's body.

I have a challenge for you: Take away all the reasons you want to lose weight that have anything to do with how you look. Now, look at what's left...are there any other reasons that you need to lose weight? Are you at risk for medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease? Is your BMI in an unhealthy range? Are you within your ideal weight range? If you're at risk, losing weight may be important for staying healthy. But, if you're very close to your goal and can't seem to get rid of those last few pounds, ask yourself if you really need to lose them. Would it be possible to be happy at your current weight?

Is Weight Loss Stressing You Out?

There’s no doubt about it: trying to lose weight can be a stressful thing! There’s nothing like trying to stick to a “simple” weight loss plan for bringing you face-to-face with the frustrating complexities of human nature and the limits of our rationality and will power. And even when we do manage to do what we know we should, often our bodies seem to operate according to a different kind of math—where a 3,500-calorie deficit doesn’t always equal one pound of weight lost.

The unfortunate part is that this constant stress can make losing weight more difficult than it needs to be. Research shows that chronic stress can affect your metabolism, promoting fat storage, and increasing cravings for sugary, high-fat “comfort foods.

There are lots of things you can do to manage this stress, ranging from yoga and meditation to a hot bath or a pleasant walk in the park. In this article, however, we’ll focus on how certain (very common) expectations about weight loss can cause stress, and how you can adjust your expectations so that you’re not stressing out about your own weight loss (or lack thereof).

To find out whether your expectations about weight loss may be increasing your stress levels, take the following brief quiz. Indicate whether you think the following statements are true or false. To benefit from this exercise, your answer should reflect how you honestly feel most of the time, NOT what you think the “correct” response might be.

1. I have taken a careful look at my eating and exercise habits, and I have a good idea of what I need to change and how I want to do it.
2. I have accepted the idea that I need to make permanent changes in my lifestyle to lose weight and keep it off permanently.
3. I will feel successful only if reach my weight loss goal.
4. I know that it took time to gain weight, and I believe it is best to try to lose the weight slowly.
5. I am working on weight loss now because I really want to, not because someone else thinks I should.
6. If I can manage to lose the weight, I think many other problems in my life will be solved.
7. I am willing and able to do a significant amount of physical activity on a daily basis, including planned exercise.
8. I can lose weight successfully with no slip-ups.
9. I am ready, willing, and able to spend enough time each day planning and tracking my food intake and exercise activities.
10. If my weight loss slows down or stalls out, I usually lose my motivation and stop my program.<
11. When I am having problems sticking to my plan, I usually get on the message boards or the phone and talk about it with other people.
12. I have many stressful situations in my life right now, but I'm determined to be successful at weight loss.

Scoring the Quiz
Look at your answers to questions 1,2,4,5,7, 9 and 11, and give yourself 1 point for every True answer, and 0 for every False. For questions 3,6,8,10 and 12, give yourself 1 point for every False answer, and 0 for every True. Add your total points up to get your score.

A high score (7-12 points) shows that your expectations about weight loss are more realistic, and you are more likely to reach your goal.

Each question you scored a zero for represents a misconception or unrealistic expectation that might be adding unnecessary stress to your weight loss efforts.

For example, a zero on Question 11 (you don’t talk to others when you have trouble sticking to your plan) may indicate that you tend to keep problems to yourself, which can add even more stress to the difficulties you are already having.

Scoring zero on Question 8 (believing you can lose weight successfully without slipping up) may mean that you are unrealistically expecting perfection. Slip-ups are inevitable, but they also help you learn from your experience. Expecting to be perfect creates more stress when things don’t turn out as desired. Plus, you will learn less about what does and does not work for you in different circumstances.

Likewise, a zero on Question 12 (determination for weight loss despite high stress in other areas of your life) may indicate that you don’t fully appreciate the difficulties of trying to lose weight, or the importance of modifying your weight loss expectations when other aspects of life become difficult. Sometimes, just holding your own and not gaining (or regaining) weight is a very significant accomplishment!

Finally, the most important concept—if you scored a 0 on Question 6 (believing that weight loss will solve many other problems in your life), you may be expecting more than weight loss can deliver, setting yourself up for problems both now and after you reach your goal.

At least two negative things can happen when you start looking at weight loss as the “magic” solution to everything. First, this puts an awful lot of pressure on the daily ups and downs of your weight loss journey. Every slip-up or bad day, every weight plateau, becomes magnified in importance because, in your head, it is linked to so many other important things. You can imagine how much extra stress you generate if going over your calorie budget or skipping an exercise session has come to mean that the career or the relationship you want is that much further away.

Second, the belief that you have to lose weight before you can start living the life you want only keeps you from creating that life right now.

When healthy eating and exercise are just a small part of what you do to care for yourself, you'll likely decrease stress and progress towards your weight loss goal. A big part of making a successful lifestyle change is putting your weight in meaningful perspective—and you can start doing that right now!

Weight Loss and Adrenal Stress

We go through periods of time in our lives when the demands are greater and the stress load is heavier. Regardless of the reasons – illness, relationship difficulties, work struggles, caring for an aging parent or ailing child – there can be a physical impact. We may turn to food for comfort, or we may not nourish ourselves adequately. During times of stress there are actual physiological changes that happen in our bodies, one of which is weight gain. It may not happen overnight, but if we do not pay attention to our body’s needs, over time we may notice we are putting on the pounds.

Our adrenal glands govern our stress response, by secreting hormones relative to our stress levels. They actually help control many hormonal cycles and functions in our body. When the adrenal glands are overworked, the body prepares for disaster, by storing fat and calories. We crave foods, we lose precious energy, and we gain weight. So how can we keep the heavier stress load from equaling heavier bodies?

How stress becomes physical

For millions of years, humans were forced to protect themselves from environmental factors. From the earliest days of dinosaurs and cavemen, nature has proven its ability to put fear in human beings. Life and death circumstances have evolved around the ability to understand danger, and seek protection and survival. If you were being chased by a predator, your adrenal glands initiated a “fight or flight” response, releasing adrenaline and cortisol into the body. These hormones provided extra physical energy and strength from stored carbohydrates and fats.

While most of our stressors are not the same a our earliest ancestors, the body’s natural course of evolution has maintained this original fight-or-flight stress response. But whether we are being physically threatened or not, with any increased stress our body looks to its stored fuel, and then replenishes it when used. Also, with increased levels of cortisol, our body also does not respond as well to leptin, the hormone that makes us feel full, so we eat more.

Modern-day stress may be more psychological than physiological, but it is also moreconstant. Many of us face chronic stress as a way of life, which means we have consistently elevated levels of cortisol. Now the body thinks it continually needs extra fuel, and typically stores that as fat around the abdomen, or as it’s commonly referred to, the old “spare tire.”

Belly fat: a common sign of adrenal fatigue

Adrenal imbalance causes a number of issues, including an expanded waistline. Thescience behind it is quite interesting. Normally when we feel begin to feel hungry, our blood sugar drops and the brain sends a message to the adrenal glands to release cortisol. Cortisol activates glucose, fats, and amino acids to keep our body fueled with energy until we eat. Cortisol maintains blood sugar levels, and insulin helps our cells absorb glucose. When we have longterm stress, both insulin and cortisol remain elevated in the blood, and the extra glucose is stored as fat–mostly in the abdomen.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Scientists have discovered that fat cells actually have special receptors for the stress hormone cortisol, and there are more of these receptors in our abdominal fat cells than anywhere else in our bodies! In addition, scientists have shown that belly fat is actually an active tissue, acting as an endocrine organ that responds to the stress response by actually welcoming more fat to be deposited! This is an ongoing cycle until we take steps to correct this adrenal imbalance. How do we do that?

Eat well for healthy adrenal glands

What you eat matters. Although it sounds ironic, if you want your body to believe that it is not in danger of starving to death, you need to eat healthy food at regular intervals. Since cortisol helps regulate blood sugar, keeping glucose levels balanced will take some of the stress off the adrenal glands. Three nutritious meals and two healthy snacks spread out across the day will keep our adrenal glands steady.

When you eat matters. Our natural circadian rhythms can help us know when our bodies need nourishment and fuel. Cortisol’s cycle complements our body’s own rhythms,although is highest in the morning and declines gradually throughout the day. When we eat we elevate our cortisol, so it’s ideal to consume larger meals earlier in the day, which also helps our body prepare itself for restful sleep at night.

Have healthy foods on hand. It may be easy to reach for sweets and caffeine for quick energy, but these actually backfire on us, dropping our blood sugar levels rapidly. Reaching for micronutrient-rich foods, such as lean protein, avocado, fresh fruits and vegetable, garlic, and ginger will more adequately support adrenal functioning.

Supplement your daily diet. Adrenal expert, Shawn Talbott, PhD, says, “When it comes to dietary supplementation for stress adaptation and cortisol control, the first line of defenseappears in the form of a comprehensive multivitamin/mineral supplement.” The benefits of a daily multivitamin enhance many of the functions in our body. Click here to consider Women to Women’s high-quality multivitamin mineral formula.

For more information on healthy eating and adrenal glands, see my article “Eating to Support Your Adrenal Glands” about how to eat for your adrenal health.

Pace yourself to heal

Our fast-paced world is never unplugged. We rarely have time to disconnect fromtechnology, our cell phones, the Internet, email, and even television. And our adrenal glands notice! Instead of being tired, wired, and overeating, consider slowing down and restoring balance to your adrenal glands, and your life. You may think that by moving fast you willlose weight, but in fact, when stress levels are high and our adrenals are working overtime, we will stay in a perpetuating cycle of adding pounds. Here’s how we can learn to pace ourselves.

Sleep. Many of my patients complain of being tired all day then having trouble sleeping at night. They are in an upside down circadian rhythm, which affects cortisol levels, causing irregular sleep patterns. You can correct these by eating less food late in the day, turning off all technology including television, by 8 p.m., and by trying to be in bed and asleep by 10 p.m. The goal is to have at least eight hours of sleep, so our bodies can rest and regulate our hormonal cycles.

Exercise. Our adrenals respond to stress, even if we think it is positive. Exercise is positive, and can help us reduce stress, but only if it does not make us feel tired. When we are exhausted, our adrenals are already working hard, and exercise can put added strain on them. The goal is to keep your heart rate under 90 beats per minute when working out. If you don’t regularly exercise, walking 15 minutes once or twice a day after meals, outside in fresh air, makes our adrenal glands, and our mind and body, very happy.

Have fun. Don’t forget that having fun, laughing, and enjoying your time is a very important way to relax! We all need to make having fun a priority, the benefits are amazing!

Don’t forget to breathe. Deep breaths in and out of your nose can not only slow yourheart rate down, but will calm your entire body. Sometimes when we are under stress our breathing becomes shallow, and fast. It only takes three or four deep breaths to feel better. Try to remember that slowing down our breath, as well as our life, even for a few minutes, can make a big difference in reducing our stress level.

Just let it all go

It isn’t always easy to let things go. We put pressure on ourselves to meet the demands in our lives, to take care of others, to do well in our endeavors, and to make everyone around us happy. But when we forget about ourselves in that equation, the stress will appear as extra pounds, or other things that impede our health and our functioning. When we live with continually elevated levels of stress, our body adjusts to the “crisis mode” and sometimes needs help 

learning

 how to live in a calmer state. The first step is to heal your adrenals. By following some of the tips in this article, giving yourself time, and being patient, you will begin to replenish your energy, lose extra weight, and most importantly, feel better.