Mindful Eating is one of the best tools you can use to deal with stress related weight loss or weight gain. Stress today is one of the most overlooked causes of weight gain/ weight loss. Long term stress leads to high levels of cortisol, less sleep, and a change is overall eating habits, all of which can be responsible for weight gain. Mindfulness is one of the ways you can deal with stress just like Mindful Eating can help with stress related eating habits.
Stress is defined as "a feeling of emotional or physical tension. It can come from any event or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous. Stress is your body's reaction to a challenge or demand. In short bursts, stress can be positive, such as when it helps you avoid danger or meet a deadline. But when stress lasts for a long time, it may harm your health." (Source)
When we neglect to deal with the stress that we have in our life we slowly begin to develop negative health side effects.
Web M.D. has a list of the symptoms of stress, here are only a few:
These symptoms can sometimes take a long time to show as stress builds up which is why the effect that stress has on us is so overlooked.
When we talk about body weight stress is something that is usually not brought up as a cause for weight loss or weight gain.
Long term stress can be one of the biggest influences of your weight without you even knowing.
If you have tried losing or gaining weight for an extended period of time with no results, it might be because you have not dealt with the underlying stress that is causing your weight problem.
What happens to your body when you are stressed
When you are stressed your body releases a chemical called Cortisol into your blood stream. Scientists have long found a relationship between cortisol and weight gain.
First Cortisol is a huge appetite stimulant. That means when you are stressed you want to reach for food as a way to deal with the stress, creating a habit where you are used to food solving your stress related problems.
Second, Cortisol also slows down your metabolism, making it harder to lose weight.
Lastly, when you eat with high levels of cortisol, you are more likely to store fat around your belly.
When you deal with stress by eating sugary food that leads to a vicious cycle that leads to more stress when you blood sugar levels crash as shown by the graphic below: (Source)
What are the Side Effects of stress in terms of weight gain/loss
When you are stressed your body produces Cortisol but not everyone will react to stress the same exact way.
For example, stress can cause weight gain but it can also cause weight loss. Each individual is going to handle stress differently.
Stress can drive you to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as:
Why Stress Causes Change in Weight
As previously mentioned, stress increases the amount of cortisol in the blood which leads to increased appetite and slower metabolism which will result in weight gain.
But that is not the only way that stress can affect your body weight.
When you are stressed you will sleep less and even if you do have time to sleep it will be lower quality of sleep.
Sleep deprivation will cause a noticeable decrease in performance if it is not managed.
Sleep is another overlooked factor in the overall weight loss equation. When you have less stress you sleep better which compounds and has a greater effect on your overall health.
Stress also affects what you eat. Some people when stress eat a lot less than they would normally. Some people also will find themselves more hungry and end up eating more than they need to maintain their weight. Changes in how you eat can lead to either weight gain or weight loss.
So now that you know about the relationship between stress and weight gain and weight loss how do you deal with it? If you want to reduce effects that stress has on your weight, mindful eating is a great solution.
Meditation has long been proven to be a remedy for stress.
Mindful Eating is similar to Mindfulness. Mindfulness involves becoming aware of the thoughts that you have. Mindful Eating is specifically about the thoughts and actions that you have around food.
Mindfulness and mindful eating has been one of the long time recommended solutions to stress. (Source)When you become aware of the thoughts that you have around food you start to ask yourself why do you need to eat this and how will this make me feel after I eat this. These are the most important questions that you can ask when you practice mindful eating.
Finding the underlying reason why you are eating in the first place is one of the most important things you can do to deal with stress related eating or emotional eating. Once you become aware instead of eating you can find an alternative way to deal with your stress.
You learn the right and wrong reasons to eat when you start to practice mindful eating. Eating for the wrong reason means eating because of stress, emotions, random cravings, or boredom. Eating for the right reason means eating only because you are hungry and might be hungry very soon.
Mindfulness not only reduces stress but also reduces any stress related eating problems you might develop, making mindful eating the ideal way to deal with stress related weight issues.
Research has linked Mindful Eating with weight loss in numerous studies but mindful eating does not generally cause weight loss. I believe this is partly due to the benefits that mindful has on emotional eating and stress eating.
Once someone becomes aware that they are eating something because they are stressed out, they might choose to deal with their stress in healthier ways such as meditation or deep breathing.
Ability to lose weight on Mindful Eating directly comes from benefits that you gain in stress reduction/ improved sleep quality
If you want to learn more about Mindful Eating, check out our mindful eating beginners guide