Stress Reduction Plan

If you're like a lot of us, when you stress out, you reach for the ice cream. Or donuts. Maybe both. While our behavioral response to stress is often thought to be a primary reason for weight gain, stress can literally strip us of the energy to exercise and eat properly and physically cause us to put on extra weight - and keep it there.

There are well documented physiological reasons for the link found between stress and weight gain. Whenever we are under stress, our bodies release the primary stress hormone called cortisol.  In our bodies, cortisol is a signal to do two things - increase appetite and store fat. This means that whenever we're under stress, the increased cortisol in our body tells our brain that we're hungry, while at the same time telling our fat cells to store and hold onto as much fat as they can.
Chronic stress leads to chronically high levels of cortisol in your body. This creates a need for higher levels of other hormones (e.g. thyroid, insulin, estrogen and testosterone) in order to do the same job. A chronically high concentration of cortisol is toxic to brain cells and can cause short-term memory loss.