Is stress affecting my weight loss goals?

We live in an environment where we’re constantly flooded and surrounded by stressors. For most of us – we think we know what stress is and how it feels. It’s lying in bed with your mind racing but not being able to fall asleep, its needing to use the washroom five times before we have to speak to a crowd or deliver a presentation, it’s our heart racing in anticipation of having to interact with our boss, colleague, or family member when our boundaries are tested. These are all obvious signs of stress. But what about the kind of stress that lurks beneath the surface, what if I told you there is so much happening INSIDE our bodies that we may not even be aware of. This can include mental emotional stressors that we don’t register on a day-to-day basis like past traumas, but it can also be things like imbalanced gut health, dysregulated blood sugar + insulin, inflammation, hormones, nutrient deficiencies, and poor-quality sleep. The body is incredibly intelligent, and its number one goal is to help keep us alive. On the flip side of that, when it’s consistently juggling so many things our bucket overflows. This is when we see physical symptoms manifest, our bodies go into protection mode, which typically adds to our stress because we no longer feel in control of our own bodies.

What are my stress hormones and what does it have to do with weight loss?

You may have heard about one of our main stress hormones “cortisol”. In a very simplistic explanation, we have something called our hypothalamic- pituitary- adrenal axis. Essentially, these are parts of our brain that communicate to our adrenal glands, which sit on top of our kidney and produce our stress hormones. When our hypothalamus, a part of our brain, interprets stress, it secretes a hormone called corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH). CRH then tells our pituitary gland, another part of the brain, to release adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH). ACTH then signals to the adrenal glands to make our stress hormones – norepinephrine/ epinephrine and cortisol. Cortisol has many important functions throughout the body and has a sweet spot for how much and when it is secreted; ideally high in the morning for the “get up and go”, and low in the evening to prepare for sleep.

It’s much more sophisticated than calories in versus calories out.

In the face of a perceived stressor, or if blood sugar drops too low, cortisol can liberate glucose and increase blood sugar levels. This is meant as a protective mechanism to give us energy to run from the bear. In reality, we’re most likely not running from a bear so our muscles won’t be using that blood sugar, and insulin, our storage hormone, shuttles it into our fat cells. This is a delicate dance in insulin resistance and the stress response. Cortisol also has a very important relationship with another hormone called leptin. Leptin is a hormone produced by our fat cells which provides our body information on how much storage (fat) we have, and helps to control hunger and promote satiety. In the face of elevated cortisol, it can lower leptin, as well as influence “leptin resistance” which means the brain is not responding to that fullness signal appropriately. This can increase hunger, promote cravings for certain foods, and affect metabolism.

The stress response can also dampen digestion, which can further impact weight regulation.

We have two parts of our autonomic nervous system – fight of flight which is our sympathetic nervous system, or rest and digest which is our parasympathetic nervous system. In order to properly digest our foods from the juices, enzymes, and hormones needed to break it down and regulate absorption, to moving food appropriately through our digestive tract; we need to be in a parasympathetic state. Now how many of us eat on our way out the door, in the car quickly between errands, or pre-occupied and doing 5 other things as we scarf down our food. All these practices can impair our ability to properly absorb, break down, and eliminate our food. This can lead to inflammation, overgrowth of bacteria, altered insulin signaling and insulin resistance, as well as intestinal permeability which ultimately all contributes to both stress in the body and weight regulation.

Connecting these dots can be incredibly empowering for individuals and understanding that for many of us it’s a combination of these factors that impacts our weight regulation goals. We can feel like we are doing “all the things right”, yet not getting the results we want because it’s so much more than counting calories and working out. The good news is that we can assess for these factors on lab work and in our consult together to tailor an individualized treatment plan for you!

References:
PMID: 15250815
PMID: 24879886
PMID: 16076984