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So you started a business. You had dreams of crushing it, designing your dream life, and feeling like a million bucks. (Okay, and maybe making a million bucks.)
So why, after all that heart and hustle and intention, did your body not get the memo that you are a bad-ass?
Why, at the end of a long day, do you find that the only thing you’ve crushed is that big bag of chips?
Maybe you’re even still trying to fit in some workouts and make healthy-ish food choices, but it seems like since you started a business your body just refuses to lose weight.
It’s not all in your head.
Okay, technically it is in your head. (In your hypothalamus, to be exact, where your metabolism resides.)
You see, there’s a distinct relationship between stress and weight gain, which could be sabotaging your dreams of a lean waist and toned muscles.
Let’s take a closer look at why stress and weight gain seem to be BFF’s, as well as some strategies to break them up (and give you your body back).
Stress is a often the driver of a whole cascade of negative effects that lead to weight gain, including things like appetite, metabolism, and mood.
If we can can combat the stress in our lives as entrepreneurs, then we’re better able to get ahead of that chain of command that ends up resulting in things like sleep loss, metabolic syndrome, and other not-so-cool biological outcomes.
Here’s how stress impacts processes that lead to weight gain:
Appetite & Cravings
Being in a chronic state of even low-grade stress disrupts hormones that signal to your brain when to start and stop eating.
Heightened levels of cortisol (which is your body’s primary stress hormone) increase your body’s production of ghrelin (your hunger-producing hormone) and suppresses levels of leptin (the satiety hormone).
So you’ll feel hungrier more often when you’re in a state of stress, and thus will be more likely to overeat.
As if the threat of overeating wasn’t enough, the type of food your body craves also goes through an alteration when stressed.
When was the last time you stress-ate broccoli? Probably never.
When the body goes into fight-or-flight mode, your body craves foods that will give it quick energy (like sugar, simple carbohydrates found in processed foods, and high-fat foods).
(For more on this topic, check out Why You Are Wired for Stress Eating.)
Finally, stress wreaks havoc on your eating habits by cueing you to make emotionally-based eating decisions (what feels good) instead of rationally-based eating decisions (what you know is actually good for you), thanks to the reallocation of brain activity away from the hippocampus to the amygdala.
Metabolism
Oh, metabolism. We all want a “better” one, but your stress level is Enemy #1 when it comes to having a fast-burning metabolism.
The body still operates on a very primitive level–the world we came from where we wrestled our food to the ground instead of swiping a few times on Uber Eats.
So whenever the body perceives stress, it assumes that you must be going into starvation. (Really, body?? I assure you I’m not.)
But your body is stubborn, and thinks it knows best when it comes to these things, causing cortisol to communicate to fat cells to accumulate around the middle and slowing down our body’s ability to metabolize the calories we take in.
You read that right.
Stress instantly signals your body to store fat–particularly around the belly. (Grrrrr.)
Regulatory Processes
Cortisol really is an attention hog. This stress hormone demands that all the body’s resources get shuttled to the automatic responses that occur by way of the sympathetic nervous system.
Your heart rate rises. Your breathing becomes quicker and shallower. Your body prepares for “fight or flight.”
This is exactly what your body is supposed to do in case of emergency, such as jumping out of harm’s way when you see a fast-approaching car as you’re crossing the street.
But when the sympathetic nervous system is constantly turned on, the parasympathetic nervous system (your body’s “rest and digest” mode) never gets a chance to shine.
This means that regulatory processes like digesting your food never get done properly, leaving the body out of balance and bloated.
Sleep
Stress and sleep are a vicious cycle. Too much stress in your life will leave you wide awake at 2am, thinking about all the things you didn’t get to on your to-do list.
But sleep deprivation is also considered a stressor, itself leading to all the metabolic downsides of being in a stressed state.
In fact, going even 4 nights of sleep with less than 5 hours of sleep will make you as insulin resistant as a diabetic (Source: CNN)
Inadequate sleep will also cause your workouts to be less effective, if you make it to the gym at all.
Black Cloud Effect
When you’re stressed, you may often face feelings of powerlessness. Stress messes with your confidence game, and feeling like crap may cause you to give up on those healthy habits that are in your control–like getting a quick workout or preparing a healthy meal instead of choosing the drive-through.
Throw guilt about not being healthy on top of it, and that creates even MORE stress–thus exacerbating the entire cycle.
Stress Solutions
Ready to break the cycle?
Start by vowing to ditch the guilt the next time you stress-eat or miss a workout because you got caught up in your work.
Those coping mechanisms are a normal biological response, so you don’t need to bring blame into the mix.
Then, become intent about taking the edge off of stressful situations before they get out of hand.
Check out my top Stress Management Resources for a deeper dive into strategies to calm the crazy, then take the 7-Day Mindset Mantra Challenge for a daily text message mantra specifically crafted for the overworked entrepreneur.
TAKE THE MINDSET MANTRA CHALLENGE
