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
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.
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.
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
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?
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