Adrenal Stress & Weight Gain – Are They Related?

Hi, I'm Marcel Pick, best selling author, women's health expert, and owner of a clinic called Women to Women in Yarmouth, Maine. So today I want to talk with you about a subject that always comes up at the beginning of the year, and that is weight gain, especially when people have a lot of stress. Now, there's a number of reasons that people can gain weight, and I talked about it in one of the other Facebook lives. But today, what I want to concentrate on is what, why, when we have a lot of stress and we have adrenal issues, do we start to gain weight? So the reality is, and we've known this now in the last, probably 15 to 20 years, more than we've ever known it before, that as we have a lot of stress. And I've actually talked about it in one of my books, what happens is in our culture, we're told over and over again, if you exercise more and if you change your diet and cut back on calories, you'll lose weight. Well, I'm here to tell you personally that that wasn't true at all. For me, when I have a lot of stress, I tend to gain weight. And I have to be very mindful of what do I need to do to change that. And here's why. We know more than we've ever known before that when you have a lot of stress, the body produces more cortisol. Well, cortisol has a very important function, and what it does is it increases and changes the way our thyroid functions. Can you imagine that? It changes our hormones and causes our hormones to have huge amount of dysregulation. It changes our immune system. It makes us much more prone to being sick. Do you remember for those of you that went to college, you came home over the holidays, I always got sick. And I was thinking, God, every single holiday for Christmas, I was sick because I worked so hard and had so much stress. The rest of the time, it increases autoimmune disorders, it causes more disruption in the digestive system, it changes blood sugar regulation, it causes problems with fluid retention. That's everything that has then to do with weight gain. So it's very important to understand that if you have a lot of stress, there are indeed biochemical changes that go on for you. So please understand that not only do we have to understand we have to help the body stabilize from those stressful situations, but we also have to start to understand what is it that you need to do to change your reaction to the stress. I can't change the stress. And perhaps you might not be able to either. But what's so important is you need to find avenues to be able to change your reaction to the stress. For some people, it's exercise. For some people, it's meditation. For some people, it's having quiet time twice a day. For some people, it's yoga. For me, it's dance. I'm a ballroom dance room. For those of you that follow me, you see that I do a lot of ballroom dancing. That's my form of meditation. But it's also great exercise. But the key piece for you is what is your thing that's gonna help your body get into that quiet state, that parasympathetic state in which you're able to offset that sympathetic, anxious, nervous state. Now, we also know more than we've ever known before, that women are having more problems with anxiety than they've ever had before. And a lot of that has to do with the that their stress hormones are elevated and the body then starts to gain additional body fat, especially around the abdomen and around the thighs. And I'm here to tell you that as you get older, that does not have to be true for you. Even though we see it all the time when we're looking and we're out in public. I was at the airport coming back from a conference the other day, and I was noticing so many people have big bellies, and I'm sure some of it's related to the stress they have in their lives. The stress oftentimes comes from all the things that we're surrounded with. For those of us that are mothers, we have jobs, we have relationships, we have friends, we have family, we're multitasking, trying to get everything done. We seldom have time for ourselves. So all of these things make a difference. So for you, what's the one thing that you can do on a daily basis for self care that will make a difference? Because it really will help with that weight of yours. It'll make a big, big difference. Once you start to understand that you do need to make some changes in your eating patterns. So what might that be? For example, you might want to have three meals a day. If you're somebody whose blood sugar is dysregulated, you may need to have two snacks. But I'm tending now to go away from the idea of snacks during breakfast, lunch and dinner, having protein at each of those meals, making sure that you're doing something every day so that you're out of your stress, understanding that worrying about things doesn't change anything. And in fact, worrying makes Things worse because it increases cortisol levels that then increase all the things I talked about. Changing the way your blood sugar is regulated, increasing fluid retention, increasing digestive issues, changing the way your thyroid functions, changing your hormones. So there are physiological reasons that the body starts to gain weight. Now what can you do? Is it possible to change these things? It is. I have many of my patients do. Worry time. Well, what does that mean? It means that you don't worry all day long. You actually make a time for yourself to worry for half an hour every day. And if you're thinking about things that are so troublesome to you, write them down and only worry about them for that half hour. What happens then is your biochemistry starts to change and cortisol's not produced all day long. When we worry, we have cortisol going through our systems all the time that cause those adrenals to have to overwork and causes all the things that I just mentioned to you. So being sure that you have some time during the day in which you have that quiet, imagining being on a beach, if you like beaches, imagining being in the mountains, imagining holding your child or baby in your arms, whatever makes you happy, feel that feeling for a moment, get to that quiet place, because that will change your biochemistry of cortisol. And we know now more than we've ever had before that as you think so changes your biochemistry. We're learning more than ever that aging, the two most important factors in aging, well, believe it or not, have to do with social interactions and connection with loved ones. So doing those things throughout the day can also help your health in a major way as well. And making sure, if you like to journal, that you're journaling instead of worrying, but doing something to decrease the amount of stress that you experience on a daily basis. Those are the things along with cutting back on carbohydrates, getting rid of processed foods, having organic foods as much as possible, because food is the most powerful drug we have and we have to eat, we can't stop eating. So. So changing what you're eating, and even if you start in small bite sized pieces and change something perhaps every week or change one thing every month, maybe this month you're going to stop sugar, maybe this month you're going to drink more water and start moving more. Perhaps those of you that are sitting, you actually invest in getting a standing desk instead of sitting all the time because sitting is so bad for us.

So we know that it's also about balance. It's about making sure that you have time with your loved ones, it's making sure that you have time with your friends. It's making sure that you have time for yourself. Because we women tend to multitask so much and we need to make sure that we have a time in our lives that it makes a difference. So if you're one of those women like I was for so long that had this problem of not being able to lose weight, let's start looking for you, is stress a part of the puzzle? How can you have more sleep in your life? Sleep is crucial for weight loss. How can you have more connection? How can you have more movement in your day? And how can you have more time with loved ones? And I'm also here to tell you that please, please understand you do not have to stay in that model of being told that as you get older, you're going to gain five pounds every year. It is absolutely not true. And I promise you, as I see in my practice and I see for myself, you can fantastic weight no matter how old you are. Once we start to understand perhaps for you what your stress issues are and that you begin to make changes. So yes, indeed, by making changes in your life, you can get rid of that weight and you can stabilize and get your adrenals to work well. For more information about any of these things, watch my Facebook lives. I'm going to be doing it every week on Mondays at 6, 7 Eastern Standard Time. You can go to marcelpick.com for more information. And if you like this video and you like this Facebook Live, like it on Facebook and also share it with others.