2. Modern Day Stress
A disruption in cortisol secretion is important in weight loss and management because people that have elevated cortisol levels also have a tendency to gain weight, in particular, around the middle or abdomen. People under normal situations have cortisol levels that decrease during the day, to reach its lowest point around bedtime and then it gradually starts to increase again, until it reaches its peak at about the time you need to wake up.
People that are very stressed out or people that are working rotating shifts may not have these peaks and valleys in their cortisol levels. Rather, cortisol tends to be elevated all of the time, not enough in the morning to help wake you up and sometimes still too high at night, making sleep difficult. Chronic stress will make you burn fewer calories and consume more food, especially carbohydrates, as cortisol drives up the appetite. It is important to remember that even the act of a strict diet can act as a stressor and increase cortisol levels.
According to Yale University study (2000) there is a connection between stress and obesity and it is most likely due to an excessive secretion of cortisol and the adverse metabolic effects of the hormone in people with elevated levels. Cortisol tells the cells to become less responsive to the effect of insulin which causes fat cells to dump fat into the blood, the liver makes more glucose to dump into the blood and muscle breaks itself down to supply amino acids to the liver.
This will ultimately put you in a situation where you are suffering from muscle loss which results in a lowered metabolism and therefore it is easier to gain fat when eating even less calories. And where does the fat get stored? You guessed it - in the good old spare tire around your waist.
The problem with abdominal fat is that it begins to become an organ unto itself. Abdominal fat is worse than fat stored in other areas, because it is able to increase the hormones cortisol and insulin on its own, making you even hungrier, more fatigued and what is worse, fatter.
© Nicole Webb, Nutritionist /Stand Six, 2008