When you experience stress, your body produces a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid hormone that controls a wide range of processes in the body, such as the inflammatory response, metabolism, and immune response. It also plays important role in the body’s response to stress. It is often referred to as the stress hormone because it is released when you are experiencing stress.

Though cortisol plays many important roles in the body, it can become harmful when it is in excessive amounts. It could lead to slowing down bodily functions including your metabolism.

The question about whether excess amounts of cortisol can lead to weight gain remains an issue to be clarified from research evidence. However, there are pointers to how weight gain may result when your body produces a high amount of cortisol due to stress.

How weight gain results from the body’s response to stress

When your body experiences persistent stress, leading to excess cortisol, ghrelin, the hormone that enhances appetite can be stimulated. Also, excess cortisol can reduce the body’s sensitivity to leptin, the hormone that regulates hunger. These actions in your body can increase appetite leading to unnecessary cravings for foods especially high in sugars, fat, and salt.

Reduced metabolism makes you gain weight

When you experience a surge in cortisol level because of stress, your basal metabolism could reduce. This will in turn reduce your body’s ability to utilise energy effectively, thereby resulting in excess calories which your body will store up as fat. More information here. If this situation continues over time, and your food intake does not change neither your activity level, you will inevitably experience weight gain.

Why prevent weight gain from stressful situations

The weight you gain due to a spike in cortisol level often occurs around the abdomen. The fat that accumulates around the waist area can lead to the development of cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. Beyond weight gain, other health issues including fatigue, depression, high blood pressure, and depressed immune system could result. For these reasons, you need to control your responses to stresses.

Positive responses to stress for preventing weight gain

You can control your response to stressful situations by wilful determination based on what you now know. The following tips will be of immense benefit to you.

1. Eat healthily. Ensure you eat varied foods and in moderate proportions that would provide your body the right amount of nutrients. When you crave food, eat the right kind of foods such as low-calorie vegetables like cucumber, carrots, etc. Check here for more information
2. Exercise regularly: Ensure you have not less than 30 minutes of physical activity every day. This may be simply walking to the nearest shops, treadmill, brisk walk, or walking the stairs.
3. Relaxation: Ensure you give yourself a good time to relax. People have different ways of relaxing such as meditation, warm foam bath, spa treatment, window shopping, listening to soothing music, breathing relaxation, and many more.
4. Engage in activities that helps you in dissipating negative energy. The use of anti-stress ball is a good example.

Undesirable weight loss due to stress

A stressful situation can also lead to undesirable weight loss through several changes in the body and how the gut digests food. These changes may result in unhealthy situations such as bloating, swallowing difficulty, heartburn, abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, constipation, and more. Decreased appetite would naturally follow these situations and consequently loss in body mass to a dangerously low level. Excessive weight loss below the minimum healthy weight (18.5Kg/m²) increases a person’s risk of diseases.

Conclusion

Cortisol is associated with stress; it plays a role in metabolism and links with the hunger hormones. Therefore, it is important to follow a healthy lifestyle to regulate your cortisol level. By improving your diet, engaging in regular exercise as well as finding time for relaxation, you can control your cortisol level to delivering maximum benefits for your body and not the harmful effects.

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My background

I am 55 years of age, a wife, mother, and a career woman. I have quite a busy daily work schedule mostly sedentary with home chores. Nevertheless, I need a concerted effort to achieve and maintain a consistent and adequate physical activity lifestyle of between 5000 and 10000 steps of moderate-intensity every day. Typically I am 1.57 meter tall, 59kg by weight and BMI approximately 24kg/m².

Previously

As a result of the strenuous advanced studies I undertook between 2012 and 2016, I lost a significant amount of weight. My weight came down to 52.5kg. I needed to regain my weight, but it has to be a healthy weight. In the process, I discovered that you equally need deliberate effort to gain healthy weight as you do to lose unwanted weight. What did I do?

• I increased my food intake. This time academic exercises had greatly reduced. I still do a lot but without the stress of timelines, examinations, presentations and the rest.
• I had more resting periods and more sleeping hours.
• I embarked on a daily routine of physical activity; jogging in place.

Results after 3 years

After 3 years; beginning of 2019, I have increased my weight from 52.5 to 56.6. Good news isn’t it. Yes, it is, however, let’s have a look at the statistics.

Results in February 2019

Necessary improvement to gaining a healthy weight

Since I am yet to reach my goal of 59kg weight, I needed to put more effort towards the desired weight by achieving a reduced fat mass level while increasing the skeletal muscle mass. I embarked on the following:

• I increased the intake of foods rich in proteins such as milk, beans, chicken and fish. Lean meat is also a good option in this case, but it is not my favourite.
• I added the weekly Parkrun jog and walk with my daily jogging in place.

Let me recount my first experience on my first Park run in July 2019. It was at the Botanical Garden Parkrun centre in Pretoria and it was winter. The 5km Parkrun has two hills making the exercise a heavy work through.  I started with my jacket; however, about 8 minutes into the exercise, I had removed my jacket because of sweat. As I finished climbing the second hill on that first day, I felt like fainting. I thought perhaps this exercise wasn’t for me. However, the consequent visits became bearable and I climbed the hills with fewer difficulties. This was an indication of improved muscle strength in addition to increased muscle mass as I found out from my body composition results shown below.

Results in September 2019

Insights from the literature on how to gain a healthy weight

My experience is substantiated by the views of the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. It is recommended that adults should have adequate protein intake also with daily physical activity such as resistance training or aerobic exercise for as long as possible to sustain muscle strength and physical functioning into older age.

The ageing process is connected with a gradual loss of muscle mass associated with lowered strength and physical endurance. This condition is known as sarcopenia and it is commonly observed with ageing in sedentary adults. Regular aerobic and resistance exercise greatly contribute to reducing the effect of sarcopenia. Additionally, good nutrition, particularly adequate protein and energy intake, can help in minimising age-related declines in muscle mass, muscle strength, and functional abilities. Protein nutrition of not less than 1.0–1.2 g protein/kg body weight per day in combination with exercise is considered ideal for maintaining muscle function.

As you can see from the difference in my body composition results between February and September 2019; there were desirable improvements.  Muscle mass increased, the fat mass reduced, the visceral fat reduced and the basal metabolic rate improved. The improvements were as a result of the adjustment I made by adding the weekly aerobic exercise to my daily jogging on the spot as well as increased intake of foods rich in protein.  As I continue with my lifelong regime, the statistic will continue to get better and better. My regime is not cumbersome to me, as a matter of fact, it is enjoyable. This is why I counselled in my previous post that for your weight management endeavour to be sustainable; you must enjoy it and be ready to practice it as a lifelong commitment.

Conclusion

I believe you already have some vital insights on how to gain a healthy weight from my story which could assist you in achieving and maintaining the desired weight whether you are aiming at gaining weight or otherwise. Ensure you track the changes that are occurring in your body by checking your body composition every other month.  Following the results obtained from your body composition, make the necessary adjustment. Be consistent at your efforts in the right direction and see your desired body composition gradually fall in shape. I look forward to reading your story, please feel free to contact me through the email at the end of this article. I will be happy to communicate with you and assist you further not only on how to gain a healthy weight but other related issues you may have.

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