Many people will talk about how stress can lead to anxiety as well as depression. However stress can also cause your body to react negatively with your diet and exercise as well.

Let’s start with what happens when you become stressed, to beginner there is a stress hormone that is called “Cortisol” that gets released into your body. This special little hormone helps cause your bodies insulin levels to go up in which lowers your over all blood sugar and can help cause you to crave more sugar filled foods that will help you gain body fat over time. While having this hormone present your body actually is more likely to put on unwanted body fat, but with mixing in the sugar cravings this can cause serious issues when it comes to weight gain.

Other issues you might find is that you are following a great diet and exercise plan however just not seeing the changes you are looking for. So here is where our best friend “cortisol” comes in again, when you are eating healthy what you are actually looking to do is raise insulin levels in order to metabolize your foods more efficiently. When cortisol is already present that means your insulin levels have already been raised for a long period of time, in which your body is not processing your foods as efficiently, instead your body looks at it as you have an abundance of fuel which means some needs to get stored as body fat. Main issue with this is that now your muscles are not getting the proper nutrients in order to stay in a more anabolic “growing” state and your body then turns around and begins breaking down muscle tissues to create the fuel it needs for you to keep moving.

As you can see Stress not only plays a role in your mood but it also can cause weight gain even when you are keeping healthy. So how do we combat the stress? This varies for many different people when it comes to just clearing your head and lowering your cortisol levels. One thing is the same though, you need to find something that is stimulating your serotonin hormone.

A few ideas for you would be getting out and riding your bike with a great view, getting a different style of exercise that your body is not used to, sex, some even enjoy simply reading a book and allowing their bodies to rest and recover. You will have your own way of destressing but just understand it is extremely important when it comes to your mental and physical health.