How Prolonged Stress Can Cause Weight Gain

Available for Interviews: Dr. Alice Fong

Alice Fong, ND, is an integrative naturopathic doctor specializing in stress, integrative medicine, diet & weight loss, and is a business growth consultant for holistic healthcare providers.

What Dr. Alice Fong can say in an interview
on Stress & Weight Gain:

• • Prolonged chronic stress can cause or significantly contribute to weight gain. Many people already know and recognize that they make poor dietary choices when under high amounts of stress which will ultimately cause weight increases—the self-proclaimed “stress eaters.” 

• • However, some people might be eating fairly clean but are still gaining weight and/or have a hard time losing weight. Hormonal imbalances from prolonged stress might be the culprit! 
  • You see, weight loss isn’t quite a mathematical formula, eating less and exercising more doesn’t work for all people. Weight loss is a biological process and we need to treat it as such. Like how we have setpoint temperatures for our bodies, we have setpoint weights. And what influences our set points weight are determined by various factors such as food, stress, hormones, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, and lifestyle interventions. 
  • Prolonged stress causes the stress hormone ‘cortisol’ to become elevated. Your body enters the ‘fight or flight’ state in anticipation of danger and tells itself it needs the energy to be able to run away, therefore your blood sugar (glucose) and fat levels increase to supply the body with extra energy. However, since most people are not typically running when they are stressed, that fat sticks around.
  • Therefore we need to address stress too if we’re looking to lose weight. Making sure we’re taking time to rest and recover is essential for our health and wellbeing. Getting a good night’s sleep, developing a mindfulness practice, setting time aside for self-care, and getting support by seeing a therapist or other trained professional in helping you cope with stress in a healthier way is crucial.