Why Does Stress Cause Belly Fat

Why Does Stress Cause Belly Fat, Particularly speaking, stress and belly fat are co-related and you can see how stress affects belly fat for the following reasons? The metabolism of the body starts slowing down as you grow older and thus, fat starts to build up around the belly.

Stress, alongside diabetes, is known to be a silent killer as it causes a decline in health and also affects every part of the body. These days, individuals are more stressed-out than their ancestors. Due to this fast pace world, people don't want to lag behind the race and thus, health is most affected and stress is the primary reason for it.

A sedentary lifestyle, bad eating habits, and stress along with this natural aging process lead to belly fat. This fat, also known as visceral fat is the most hazardous fat in the body. This fat has the fastest access to the heart and other vital organs of the body since it's situated behind the wall of the abdomen.

The abdominal fat doesn't only rest in the stomach and if you want to remove belly fat, then you need to take some vital steps. This belly fat, in fact, is extremely active and releases substances into your organs that are enormously injurious to the body. The body releases free fatty acids into the systems that damage the functioning of the body. Belly fat is not good for anyone, but it's particularly bad for men. This abdominal fat also carries a potential risk of heart disease.

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Stress and Cortisol

Stress and Cortisol, Your body could store belly fat because of stress, and this fat is stored for future use if needed in stressful situations. However, stress has changed in the last few decades, but your body isn't aware of it. Fats stored for use in stressful conditions meant fighting a battle, animal and food shortage. Today, the definition of stress has changed and it's mainly related to your work and other household activities. Today, the majority of the stress is long-lived and not the stress which used to go after some time in the olden days.

Today, the main offender of gaining belly fat is a hormone, named cortisol, that's produced by the adrenal glands and is synchronized by the pituitary gland. You can feel fatigued or even have chronic fatigue syndrome if you don't have adequate cortisol.

You can also gain belly fat and your immune system can also be weakened if you get this cortisol in excess. Cortisol functions to maintain proper levels of glucose (blood sugar) and also regulates the metabolism of fats, protein, and carbohydrates.

Your adrenal glands release cortisol, a hormone that works to support several functions in the body such as blood pressure regulation, functioning of the immune system, inflammatory response, and release of insulin. This hormone is also known as stress hormone as it's released in higher quantities when the body reacts to stress.

Cortisol also has numerous positive influences on the body such as quick bursts of energy, sharp memory, and maintaining immunity as well as homeostasis. However, if there is excess stress in your life, then it might lead to negative aspects of cortisol such as lower immunity, blood sugar levels, and lower bone density. Also, a large amount of cortisol bought by stress is hugely responsible for the belly fat that leads to numerous health concerns.

You might wonder as to what causes stress which in turn leads to serious health problems including belly fat. There are several causes of stress that include threat, fear, and uncertainty. Stress could be from different sources, i.e. it could be personal as well as professional. Sometimes, stress is also self-induced i.e. some people would overreact to a situation many times while others wouldn't.

Stress is self-induced in the body by drinking too much coffee and if that's not enough then you drink caffeinated drinks. Thus, self-induced stress is produced which further produces cortisol, thus it's important that you protect yourself from the self-induced stress. However, more than finding the causes of stress, it's important that you know how to get out of it.

Beating the Stress

Beating the Stress, You must never overreact and try to stay calm in minor stressful situations. Take it as a challenge and a learning experience. You can perform some stress-removing workouts such as yoga and meditation. Try restricting your intake of coffee, caffeine, or energy drinks. The other way of beating stress is performing different exercises. Jogging, walking, running, treadmills and exercise bikes are great ways to work out and at the same time, they are extremely useful to lose belly fat.

Individuals who experience regular stress such as demands from family, work deadlines, less sleep, extremely strict diet, etc. are more prone to an increased waistline. Stress also increases as your work opportunities increase. The stress hormone kicks in your body when you often begin to ignore your emotional needs as you're busier into your work which often contributes to weight gain in the abdominal area. These are the several ways on how stress affects belly fat.

As mentioned above, you can control stress by practicing yoga and meditation along with maintaining good dietary habits, performing regular exercise, and adopting a holistic approach to life. The biggest stress buster is having a calm and positive attitude towards life and if you combine this with sensible eating and exercise, then there is no reason that you cannot achieve a flat stomach.

Stress And Abdominal Weight Gain

Stress And Abdominal Weight Gain, Stress could affect almost any part of the body and produce mental, physical, and emotional symptoms that include dizziness, headache, allergies, heart palpitations, ecological sensitivity, impaired coordination, impaired immunity, and weight gain.

Carbohydrates are converted to glucose in a healthy body and a blood glucose level of 70-130 mg/dl is maintained. In glucose-intolerant people, carbohydrates are readily converted to glucose and an excessive amount of hormone, insulin is secreted by the pancreas as a response to this shift in blood sugar. The task of insulin involves removing the glucose from the bloodstream and helping it to enter the body cells.

If done properly, regardless of the number of carbohydrates consumed the blood glucose level returns to the normal range. The blood glucose rises quickly followed by an overproduction of insulin if the system isn't working properly. The body cells are unable to remove the glucose from the bloodstream as they don't recognize the excess insulin. This results in an increase in blood insulin levels that have a craving stimulating effect.

Abdominal weight gain is frequently related to emotional eating and a hectic lifestyle of people under recurrent stress. However, according to the researchers, elevated cortisol levels that occur due to the changes in the body can cause insulin resistance and weight gain.

Individuals, when they consume more calories than they burn, tend to put on abdominal weight. When the calorie intake exceeds calorie expenditure, the body by default stores the fat in it. The chances of health disease increase if there is excess fat around the abdomen. Thus, it's vital to take corrective measures to get rid of excess fat from the abdomen.

Stress and weight gain, i.e. abdominal pain, in particular, go hand in hand. Contrary to popular belief, your abdominal weight is not only increased due to lack of exercise but also due to stress that plays an unnecessary role in stomach weight gain. In fact, nowadays, stress has become one of the most vital causes of abdominal weight gain. As per a medical study, a large amount of cortisol is produced by the body due to stress. Producing cortisol is a body's way of reacting to stress. However, the damage worsens when cortisol stays in the bloodstream as an increase in its level promotes the accumulation of fat. Thus, bear in mind that you don't stress over and everything that comes in your way. Learn to handle the stress, so that you can keep away the abdominal fat.

The body excretes corticotrophin which releases adrenalin and hormone when under stress. This reaction forces the adrenal cortex to release cortisol. In turn, cortisol, a glucocorticoid forces the release of glucose into the bloodstream. This glucose creates a surplus release of insulin during periods of chronic stress. Insulin which is a part of the endocrine system is a fat-storage hormone that gives the stress signal from the adrenalin to burn fat. Due to this surplus release of insulin, the body gets the signal to store fat in the abdomen.

Abnormal levels of cortisol are surely not only due to stress. Abnormal levels of cortisol can be due to a number of diseases and conditions. There are various medical problems that result in extremely high levels of cortisol and Cushing's syndrome, a medical term used by doctors, is one of them. This further leads to changes in the appearance of the body and its function.

There is a number of factors on which weight gain or loss depends and those include food intake, resting metabolic rate, the types and the time of food consumed, and the amount of exercise performed. Genetic factors also influence your metabolism and might be the reason for some people to gain abdominal weight rapidly than others.

The level of cortisol and weight gain cannot be predictable as the stress level of every individual is different. The amount of cortisol produced due to stress could vary among people, with some individuals being naturally reactive to stress. Studies on women also reveal that women when are under stress and whose cortisol levels are high, tend to eat more than women with low cortisol levels.

Another study revealed that women who stored surplus fat in the abdominal area had higher levels of cortisol and were also reported to have more lifestyle-related stress than women who stored fat mainly in the hips. The diet industry has also attempted to find from these studies the cause for higher cortisol and has made dietary supplements aiming to lower cortisol levels and enhance weight loss. However, the genuineness of these dietary supplements has never been proved. In fact, the best method to lower cortisol levels is to perform the exercise as it also has the added benefit of burning calories to stimulate weight loss.

Thus, from the above points, it's evident that stress weight gain is a result of several health-related conditions, both mentally and physically and you need to take some corrective measures to get rid of unnecessary stress and weight gain.