Stress and weight!

     I know I have blogged about stress before, but I just ran across another interesting article that I decided I would share with you.
     One interesting thing is that even though my life has been HECTIC with cheer tryouts, baseball games, and other school stuff, I don’t really feel stressed. I feel busy.
     I think part of this is that I first the first time in my life (other than when I was a toddler, maybe – trust me, as a teenager I had way more responsibilities than an average kid), I am actually taking time for myself and not allowing anything to take that away!
     I have not missed a weigh-in. Although sometimes life is too hectic to stay for the meeting (that’s happened twice), but I still make it to weigh in NO MATTER WHAT!
     I have also started tanning. I KNOW, I know, that if I am on a health kick, why I am tanning. It really is my quiet time, my 20 minutes during the day where I am all alone, and just mellow. I don’t tan year-long, and I haven’t used a tanning booth in years.
     Anyhow, back to the article I read. The question posed: Can stress cause weight gain? Basically what the writer focused on in the article is that with the results of a British study, they can correlate that overweight people often do gain more weight because of stress. It’s even believed that overweight people turn to sweets and high fat foods during their emotional eating. As well, the study found that skinny people often don’t eat when they are stressed.
     I also liked the brain functions information in the article. They talked about how “the brain has evolved to protect us in times of scarcity. Sadly, the brain does a poorer job of protecting us against abundance!” Which, you know, that makes sense. How many times have you heard someone say that if you don’t eat enough, your body will think it’s out in the wilderness starving, and therefore store EVERYTHING you do put in your mouth to survive.
     Totally check out the article, and it has some good links to other interesting articles related to weight loss and being healthy! http://health.msn.com/weight-loss/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100200701>1=31036
     This article did not talk about cortisol and its effects on weight loss, but, of course, that reflects directly to stress, too. Cortisol levels are high when a person is stressed (and, also during those times of fight or flight), and it affects a person’s metabolism, energy level, immune system, and blood sugar and pressure levels. Definitely chronic high cortisol levels (someone who is always stressed out) assist in gathering fat in the stomach area.
     Bottom line? Work on losing the stress! Be healthy in mind, body and soul!