Who in here believes with all thier heart.....

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farmers_daughter
farmers_daughter Posts: 1,632 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
that stress makes you gain weight
makes you hold onto fat
keeps you from reaching your weight loss goals?

What facts or research do you have to back it up?
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Replies

  • ajhugz
    ajhugz Posts: 452 Member
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    I'm curious what people will say. I know how I feel about it, but I'm not going to search for the studies I've read over the years. Is this one of those I'm tired of people saying this and not showing proof posts?
  • IpuffyheartHeelsinthegym
    IpuffyheartHeelsinthegym Posts: 5,573 Member
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    if you're a stress eater, you're going to eat, therefore you're going to gain. If you're not, you won't.
  • justlittlem
    justlittlem Posts: 18
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    Stress makes you gain weight?
    Well, personally I think stress could make you gain weight if stress makes you over or under eat but I don't know about holding onto fat..
    It'll be interesting to see responses.
  • darrensurrey
    darrensurrey Posts: 3,942 Member
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    Stress increases cortisol levels IIRC.
  • hedgiie
    hedgiie Posts: 1,245 Member
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    Stress increases cortisol levels IIRC.
    this
  • joyjay4fun
    joyjay4fun Posts: 160
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    I believe it, never done the research to back it up but I know when I am stressed it seems like it's harder to lose weight. I don't know if its just the stress itself or the way it makes me feel that affects me in other ways. I have heard it though from a lot of the doctors where I used to work. There may be something to it...
  • syntaxxor
    syntaxxor Posts: 86
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    Stress increases cortisol levels IIRC.
    This is the only way IMO stress factors into your fat/weight.

    Otherwise it's stress and being weak willed that allows you to stuff yourself because of your emotions.
  • Trilby16
    Trilby16 Posts: 707 Member
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    that stress makes you gain weight
    makes you hold onto fat
    keeps you from reaching your weight loss goals?

    What facts or research do you have to back it up?

    I think I've read that stress ups your cortisol levels and cortisol contributes to weight gain, but I think the larger issue will always be too much food going into the mouth.
  • teddabod
    teddabod Posts: 222 Member
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    cortisol, sure.

    stress can make you lose your focus...

    When you're stressed and you don't get in some activity or your daily workout, then you can add the "didn't workout" guilt on top of your stress.

    When I'm stressed, I really find forcing myself to get into the gym really helps.
  • mdepko
    mdepko Posts: 283 Member
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    Stress doesn't "make" us eat, we "make" ourselves eat. Stress doesn't make us hold onto fat, our actions or inactions make us hold onto fat. I know stress can be a problem, or an excuse for us to over eat, but that's exactly what it is, an excuse. Finding other ways to deal with stress helps eliminate the eating because of stress. To me, it's being responsible for our actions. We can blame anything we want to blame, but it's ourselves that reaches for the piece of cake or quart of ice cream, not stress. This is just my opinion, and I'm not a Doctor but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express once.
  • melw2910
    melw2910 Posts: 73 Member
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    Stress increases cortisol levels IIRC.

    This. Higher levels of corsitol apparently contribute to where you gain fat also, have read somewhere that it can contribute to holding more weight around the middle.

    Personally I suffered severe work stress a few years ago requiring 2 months off work, during that time I lost 35lb as it killed my appetite, so for me stress caused huge weight loss which brought its own problems.
  • Denjo060
    Denjo060 Posts: 1,008
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    I believe that too I have tumors on my adrenial glads and am having a hard time losing weight because of the high level of cortizol I release when stressed It also caused my high blood pressure
  • RosscoBoscko
    RosscoBoscko Posts: 632 Member
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    I think its more the reaction to the stress that causes these things. if your not careful you fall into a trap of eating or veging out to deal with the stress, or thats what I used to do. Now focus it into training, the more stressed I am, the more I go training, longer I stay at the gym etc.

    Like others have said have heard it affects cortisol levels but main effect is the indirect psychological factors in my opinion that cause a lot of peoples weight gain for the stress.
  • NaCL_H20
    NaCL_H20 Posts: 24
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    Stress increases cortisol which is affiliated with our fight or flight syndrome. When you are stressed your body goes into protection mode. Cortisol tries to minimize our pain sensory as if we were having and adrenaline or a sugar rush. This also will cause the body to store energy keeping you in the fight it flight syndrome so when you start binging on your favorite Ben and Jerry's cherry Garcia your body will choose to hold it rather than expell it
  • NiSan12
    NiSan12 Posts: 374 Member
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    I believe it is more so when you are stressed you are not watchful of what you eat which will cause you to gain weight. Eating to suppress the stress...
  • MaraDiaz
    MaraDiaz Posts: 4,604 Member
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    Depends on how much stress. I get too stressed I lose weight because I stop eating and sleeping. And then of course I go quite insane.

    I get slightly stressed (mostly from boredom or allergies making me feel like total crap) all I want to do is stuff my face.

    I don't know or need to know the chemical components, the behavioral ones are sufficient.
  • yo_andi
    yo_andi Posts: 2,178 Member
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    Stress raises cortisol levels. Cortisol is a steroidal hormone. Significantly raised levels of cortisol over long periods of time could have adverse effects on the body, including insulin resistance, weight gain, reduced bone density and a greater incidence of developing osteoporosis, weakened immune response and collagen loss is greatly expedited.

    So yeah, I could see how stress could have adverse effects on health, including weight gain.
  • KANGOOJUMPS
    KANGOOJUMPS Posts: 6,473 Member
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    well. DUH!., thats a no brainer....
  • domgirl85
    domgirl85 Posts: 295 Member
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    I've done research to find this out, the most detailed source I found was Jillian Michaels' book "Master your metabolism". She talks a lot about hormones (your endocrine system). She broke it down in simply (the others were too scientific). Certain hormones are released when you stress out (I forget all of them right now). It has to do wit the "Fight or Flight" response. Your body gears up to either fight to the death OR take off running to avoid danger. In order to give you the energy to do so, different hormones do different things. One shuts down digestion (who cares about digestion at a time like this!), another releases energy giving nutrients (i think some of it is where cortisol comes in), and some other stuff happens (i'm not looking at the book right now).

    The problem is that in our society, the likelihood of us actually fighting or running away is lower. You're probably just going to sit there upset. So all these things have been released and shut down systems for you to just sit there. And it takes a longtime for your body to be like, "Oh, we're fine? Oh okay."

    And aside from the medical reasons, I do notice it's easier to lose when you're happy or not stressed out all the time.
  • farmers_daughter
    farmers_daughter Posts: 1,632 Member
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    Ok I'm going to have to look up cortisol because like many of you I've heard of it but don't really know what it is.

    I like to think when people say "Oh you're stressed honey...thats why you haven't lost any weight....blah blah blah"

    My personal opinion is that it's a cop out. But I'm also in a piss *kitten* mood and being incredibly hard on myself, which is funny...it's not working either. Just making me in a piss *kitten* mood.... :grumble:

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