You’ve probably heard about the “fight-or-flight” response, and you also probably know that it is the way your system behaves to dangers or in other words, stress. But did you know what’s guiding the fight-or-flight response? It’s actually hormones.
When you’re confronted with danger, your adrenal glands generate three hormones: norepinephrine, epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), and cortisol. Norepinephrine and epinephrine cause a number of changes to help you survive the danger, including a pause in insulin release so you have lots of blood sugar available for energy, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, along with a suspension of your appetite. As soon as the danger has passed, cortisol tells the body to stop producing norepinephrine and epinephrine and stimulates your appetite again.
This response evolved to help people cope with short-term survival situations, like an attack by a predator. Unfortunately, it happens in response to all stressors, including the deadlines pummeling you at work and the traffic that drives you nuts. All that stress leads to excess cortisol being built up in the blood. That cortisol just sticks around, leading to lots of issues: It turns young fat cells into mature fat cells that stay with you forever, and will increase your desires for high-fat, high-carb foods.
Whenever you resign yourself to those desires, your body releases a cascade of rewarding brain chemicals that could set up an addictive relationship with food – you stress, you eat. If you don’t consciously control the routine, you can become physically and psychologically dependent upon that release to handle stress. The truth is, individuals who self-medicate with food are apt to have hair-trigger epinephrine reactions and chronically high amounts of cortisol.
You can keep cortisol in check by restricting caffeine intake to 200 mg per day; steering clear of simple carbs, processed food, and refined grains; and getting a good amount of high-quality protein. It’s also imperative that you find stress-relief techniques that work well for you. If leaving the house is impossible or challenging try in the home workout routines like p90x review, p90x, les mills pump or Insanity. Whatever works for you! If you’re able to control your stress level response and lower cortisol levels, you’ll have a much easier time losing weight.