When you are under stress, your focus is primarily on getting through the stressful event. What tends to fall to the wayside are healthy living strategies like exercising and eating well and you may notice an increase in weight during the most stressful times of your life. For people experiencing chronic stress, this weight gain can become long term and put them at risk for becoming obese. Here are the numerous ways that stress causes you to gain weight:

Increased fat storage. When stressed, our bodies produce excess cortisol, a stress hormone, that alters our body’s ability to store fat. Specifically, our body begins to store fat in our abdominal area which not only makes our clothes fit tighter but is linked with significant health risks than fat stored elsewhere in our bodies.

Cravings. Ice cream, pizza and french fries might sound like the perfect meal in the height of a stressful situation. This is because when our bodies are stressed, our body goes into survival mode and uses up a lot of energy to keep up with the stress. For this reason, we tend to crave fatty, salty and sugary foods. However, when presented with chronic stress, these unhealthy foods begin to add up and start showing up on your waistline.

Emotional Eating. Some people overeat when stressed because it fills a void or an emotional need (also known as emotional eating) while for others poor quality food is easier to attain and requires less effort. Stress hormones like cortisol not only make you crave unhealthy food but make you want to eat more often than you normally do.

Metabolism. Being stressed for a day or two once in a while is something our bodies are equipped for handling. However, when too much cortisol in the blood for an extended period of time due to chronic stress, our metabolism slows down. Even if your food intake has not changed, you may still see weight gain because of this, which is tied back to stress as the main cause.

Blood sugar. Chronic stress has been linked numerous times to the development of diabetes. Stress alters our body chemistry so that blood sugar levels change causing mood swings, fatigue and in its worst form, metabolic syndrome which includes cardiac events and diabetes.

Less Exercise. With the extra demands placed on our mind and body during a time of stress, it may seems that there is no time to work out. Choosing sitting on the couch over going for a walk after dinner can become a habit and in conjunction with poorer eating habits and the body changes that stress causes, gaining weight is inevitable.

Lower Mood. Chronic and mismanaged stress is the foundation for experiencing low mood, anxiety and and depression. This can exacerbate the problems already caused by stress, such as having a more difficult time maintaining a healthy eating or exercise habit. In addition, it further adds to the risk of developing chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

With the terrifyingly high number of young South Asians having heart attacks these days, addressing emotional risk factors for weight gain seems to be as urgent for the community as addressing the physical risk factors. If you are on the path to lose weight and seem to be getting stuck, take a look at your emotional state and do what you can to lessen your stress. Even if you are eating well, chronic stress will cause your body to hold on to extra fat that no amount of exercise will be able to take off.

How does stress affect your mind and body? Please leave your comments below.