How does Stress affect Weight Loss?

Hi, Nick here from Best Body Health Coach. So in this video, I want to talk to you about how does stress affect weight loss. It actually affects it almost more than overeating. So let's have a look. The symptoms of high cortisol, because that's what stress does, it Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands, which get overworked when you're under a lot of stress. So one of the symptoms is belly fat. You get a flabby belly, not a hard belly, a flabby belly. So it like hangs over your belt. We call it a pendulous belly, like a pendulum. You lose protein in your thighs and in your butt muscle. So that's what it goes for. It starts chewing away at your butt muscles and your thighs, and you start to get like no butt and thin legs. High blood pressure, so that's another symptom of high cortisol levels. Acne, anxiety and nervousness, low tolerance to stress. So you're the guy that doesn't like the slow drivers or the slow internet or the noisy kids. Or an incompetent employee. That's definitely a symptom of high cortisol levels. Blood sugar problems, your blood sugar is always going up and down and no one knows why. They don't know, they think there's something else wrong with you. Cravings for carbs and breads, that's another one. Digestive problems, you're not digesting your food right, and The reason for that is your stomach acid is very alkaline and it causes heartburn and it doesn't digest your food, doesn't break down your food properly. Here's one that's a big telltale sign, is you wake up at 2 AM or 3 AM in the morning and you get very nervous and worried about things that don't seem that important when the sun starts coming up. Quite interesting. So you start, then you'll wake up at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning and you'll fall asleep again at 6, 7, 8 AM again. Suppressed or shut down immune system, so you pick up anything. I mean, it's common knowledge that stress is bad for your health and this is getting into why. So it shuts down your immune system, that's why you pick up anything that's going around. Less fertile and low libido. So if you're trying to have a child and you're finding it hard to fall pregnant, That's usually to do with the hormones, quite obviously, but one of the reasons is high cortisol levels. So you need to chill out if you're trying to have a baby, and things will probably work out a lot easier. Let's get into the mechanics of it. So high cortisol shifts back the metabolism to glucose production. So let's say you're in ketosis and you're under a lot of stress, Your metabolism kicks you out of ketosis, and it changes the metabolism to glucose production. So it starts producing glucose, and the glucose is actually produced from the protein that the metabolism is attacking for energy. Okay, so it takes your thighs, your butt, and it turns it into sugar. So yes, don't be surprised if you don't lose weight if you're under stress. Stress increases glucogenesis, production of new sugar in the liver. That's what we don't want, okay? We're trying to not do that on our program. So it pumps out sugar not coming from your diet, it's coming from protein. So you're not eating any sugar, but you're putting on weight. Like, what is this about? That's what's happening, is it's actually making sugar out of the protein in your body, and it's kicking you out of ketosis, and it's pushing up your insulin levels, and it's a spiraling spiral. You get this like a vicious cycle, and it just gets worse and worse and worse. All right, so you have— so even fat and ketones Are turned into glucose. So you're doing all this hard work on this program, and you're eating your fat, and you're eating your veggies, and your moderate protein, and the body starts going for its own protein, and it turns it into sugar, and it turns your ketones that you've worked so hard to get into sugar. So it's like, the stress is such a horrible little thing. Alright, significantly raises your blood sugar. So they've taken like diabetic type 1s who are constantly checking their blood sugar to see how it's going, and when they're under stress, they cannot understand why their blood sugars go up, then insulin levels go up, and then it pulls your blood sugars down, and then the guy's like getting dizzy and passing out and doesn't understand what's happening. So that's what's basically happening is Is that it's pushing sugar into your system from your protein, that it's made from your protein, which is increasing insulin levels to get the sugar out of your system, which takes all the sugar out of your system, and then you crash because you're on a low-carb diet and high-fat diet. Okay, cortisol drives the storage of fat to your midsection or your viscera around the organs. So inside, it's either around here, you get this spare tyre, this pendulous belly, or it's the fat inside your body, like the visceral fat inside your body around your organs, that's put there to protect your organs. Because now when you're under stress, the body feels like it's threatened, so it tries to protect the organs and it packs fat up around those organs. And the liver, and equals midsection weight and skinny legs. So you see these guys walking around who have, or girls even, and they have this midsection that's quite big, and they have no butt and skinny little legs. You can absolutely be sure this person has had some kind of traumatic event in their life which they never really recovered from. Or they are currently experiencing stressful, a stressful situation or prolonged stressful situation in their life. Okay, so then what we need is the remedy. Find out what or who is causing the stress and handle it. So sometimes it's not necessarily the, um, It's not an easy thing to just disconnect from a person like your mom or your husband or your wife or something, and they are causing the stress in your life. You can't just like say, well, I'm out of here, you know. So you have to handle it, and there's various ways of handling it. So you can go for long walks in nature, and don't go for long walks like this, looking down at the floor. You go for long walks and you get your attention out of your head and you look at objects Notice things, notice people. Even if you do notice people, notice what you like about people, not what you don't like about people. So you walk around and you start getting out of your head. Okay, so physical work, exercise, yeah, to get rid of the energy and to get the mind off whatever it is that's stressing you out. So do some gardening or some work. Woodwork or some painting or something like that, some art, whatever it might be, it'll get you out of your head. Vitamin B1 is essential, vitamin D, potassium, magnesium, it relaxes you, it helps the immune system, sorry, the nervous system relax. So you need to be able to take a lot of that, of those vitamins and those minerals to, you know, actually do the physical handling the nervous system. In the meantime, the other things up there will be handling like the emotional, or you want to call it spiritual side, or whatever side you like to call that. Alright, and apple cider vinegar, that's to acidify the body so it can absorb the minerals and the nutrients. So you put apple cider vinegar in you, it pushes up your stomach acid, and it makes you absorb your food better because you're not absorbing your food because of the stress. Remember that. So when you're looking around to find who it is who's stressing you out, because it's always someone, it's never a situation, either a group or an individual that's causing the stress in your life. Someone that you are, that you have your attention on. It might be right in front of you, or it might be someone who's really clever and covert about everything that they do. They're these kinds of people who never validate you or say, what a job well done, but they're constantly watching what you're doing. They're constantly trying to see if you're doing something wrong, or they're the kind of person who You know, if you're trying to learn to play the piano, they'll come over and put their hand on your shoulder and go, you know, not everybody can be a great piano player, but keep trying. So, you know, you've got to have a look around you for those kinds of, uh, for those kinds of people. If you want to know more about that, um, we have quite a lot of information on how to identify people that are stressing you out, but that's for a whole other video. So I, I hope this explains Explains why if you are doing everything on the program, but you're still battling to lose weight, these are the reasons. There's another thing that's not written here, which is a good handling. You know, you've got to laugh a lot. You really got to get flipping. You got to force yourself to smile. You got to force yourself to laugh. Find a good comedy show. Find a good stand-up comic that you like and watch their shows. Have a good laugh before you go to bed at night. You know, you've got to do that kind of thing. If something goes wrong, you've got to laugh about it. Like, I just lost my house, you know, and it sounds ridiculous, but it actually works. It doesn't help going, oh, I just lost my house, I'm never gonna make it in life. That's not gonna help. So it's best to be flippant and light about things and force yourself to do do that. I'm a living example of how to do that. So I think I take everything very lightly and everything very flippantly, and people think I'm crazy sometimes, but it works. I am a reasonably stress-free individual. We're all living life, and life does come at you, and it does certain things to you that you, you know, that that you don't like, but it is life and we are living on planet Earth with all these things around us. So anyway, here's the deal. That's why if you're stressed out or have a stressful situation, you won't lose weight. I hope that helped.