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

if you're a stress eater, you're going to eat, therefore you're going to gain. If you're not, you won't.

Stress increases cortisol levels IIRC.

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...

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.

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.

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

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

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.

well. DUH!., thats a no brainer....

Cortisol is impacted by both mental and physical stress.

I am firm believer that stress inhibits weight loss. Trying to identify when you are stressed and then not acting on those impulses is the hard part.

Read this article.

http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/weightgain.htm

And what do we do when we're stressed? Yep, we hit the bar!

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:

When I first started, waaaay back when, I ate like 1300 calories a day and cardio'd for 2 hours a day. Lost a ton of weight. Then, my lease was expiring and I was trying to buy a house. I was also dealing with my kid's behavioral issues as a single parent, working a full-time job, going through a divorce, and going to school. Needless to say, my stress levels were elevated. In spite of that, I continued my normal diet and exercise habits. I stopped losing weight. Cortisol does impact weight loss.

Inevitably, I learned that along with my external stressors, my 1300-calorie diet was also not allowing me enough unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats help to inhibit pesky weight-loss-interfering hormones like cortisol (there are others you should read about, i.e. grehlin, leptin, and others). I began to eat more ensuring I got those fats in. Weight loss began to move again, but it was still slow. It wasn't until the divorce was final and the house sale was closed that my weight loss really began to pick up momentum again.

If you are going through stuff and having a hard time losing, the best thing to do is say a few "Woo-sa's" and try your best to be persistent. Deal with your problems and stick it out.

During periods of extreme stress, I lose weight. I know other people who gain weight when they are stressed. I think that it has more to do with what you eat than anything else. When I'm stressed it kills my appetite.

This study shows that people who have a higher cortisol reaction to stress eat more when stressed than people who don't
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453000000354

This study found that primates with chronically elevated levels of cortisol but without actual stress did not gain any statistically significant weight
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/19/6/2356.short

These studies seem to suggest that cortisol can cause you to want to eat more (stress eating) but will not actually make you gain weight. It is purely the act of consuming too many calories that causes weight gain.