CAN STRESS MAKE IT HARD TO LOSE WEIGHT?

You may be wondering, “Can stress make it hard to lose weight?”

No doubt, this question’s being asked because you’ve got a busy life with a lot of pressures at work and home, and you’ve been struggling to lose weight for a long time.

The truth is that YES, stress can interfere with both your weight loss and healthy body function. It can impair your life and make it much harder to get healthy.

Below, we’re going to answer the question “Can stress make it hard to lose weight?” We’ll take a deeper dive into how exactly stress impairs weight loss and what you can do about it. By the end of this page, you’ll be ready to manage your stress and start seeing real results!

Can Stress Make it Hard to Lose Weight?

When you are stressed, your body focuses on whatever is stressing you out, often to the exclusion of everything else.

You see, stress triggers your sympathetic nervous system. Think about it like your “fight or flight” button is being switched “on” by a stressful situation, but being kept on by the chronic stress you deal with day after day.

When it’s stuck in this state of constantly being “on”, your body is unable to concentrate on anything else. All it can focus on is the high levels of stress and its many effects on your brain, metabolism, nervous system, organ function, and even your digestive system. A great deal of your energy goes into keeping up with this heightened state of alarm triggered by the chronic stress.

As a result of this “on” state, your body can’t free up extra energy to encourage weight loss. On the contrary, it actually tries its best to store even more energy than usual to accommodate this period of stress.

But that’s not all!

When you’re stressed, your energy levels often suffer as a result of high cortisol levels. You end up with less motivation to work out, and even when you do work out, your exercise just isn’t as good as it could be. You don’t push yourself as hard and you fatigue more quickly because of the high levels of stress affecting your metabolism.

Your sleep suffers, too. You end up with more sleepless or restless nights because you’re awake worrying over whatever is causing the stress in your life. When it comes time to hit the gym the next day, you’re just too tired to get in a proper workout. Stress-induced sleep loss can also cause daytime drowsiness and excess fatigue, which makes it harder to do all of your work. Of course, when you’re tired at work, you get less done, which makes you feel even more stressed. It’s a vicious cycle that just gets worse and worse the longer it persists.

Your metabolism is already slowed down by the high levels of stress, but your diet is also going to suffer. Stress makes it harder to stick with your healthy diet choices, and you find yourself more at the mercy of your cravings, which feel much stronger thanks to the high levels of cortisol in your system. You end up hungry for comfort foods—which, as we all know, are typically junk foods high in sugar and fats.

Stress can actually erode your self-control. Our abilities to control impulses take a hit when we’re under a lot of pressure. Every little additional stressor makes it harder to maintain proper self-control, until eventually we crack and give in to the stress. Typically, we end up eating a lot of food—unhealthy food—as a result of this excess pressure.

As you can see, stress makes everything harder, but especially weight loss!

If you’re under a lot of pressure at work or at home, you’re going to have a much harder time losing weight. Your exercise will suffer, you’ll be at the mercy of cravings, you’ll sleep less and feel more tired, and you’ll find it more difficult than ever to stay faithful to your strict diet.

That’s why it’s so important that you take steps to combat the stress in your life. If you are actively working to manage your stress, take time for yourself, and balance your work and home lives, you’ll find it’s much easier to stay faithful to your diet, sleep habits, and exercise routine. You’ll still feel the pressure, but it’s not going to interfere with your efforts to get and stay healthy. 

Can Stress Make it Hard to Lose Weight? Combat Stress and Accelerate Fat Loss with Get Yoga Lean

There are a lot of ways you can deal with stress:

• Regular relaxation

• Mindfulness and meditation

• Therapy/talking to a counselor

• Change careers

• and the list goes on!

One of the best weapons at your disposal, however, is Yoga.

Yoga relaxes your mind while giving you an amazing workout. It combines mindfulness and meditation techniques with the stress-combating effects of exercise, helping you to work up a good sweat and balance out your hormones so cortisol will have less of an effect on your body.

Yoga Lean is a program created specifically for the overly stressed people struggling to lose weight. It’s a mind-and-body solution that will help you take back control of your life and give you the training you need to push your physical fitness to the next level. Through every workout, you’ll work on breath control and meditative techniques that help to calm your stressed mind. You’ll develop greater self-control in every aspect of your life. Best of all, it’s a program specifically tailored for weight loss, helping you to push through your plateaus and shed pounds.

You’ll never have to wonder “Can stress make it hard to lose weight?” because Yoga Lean will both manage your stress and deliver serious weight loss results!