Is Stress causing your Weight Gain?

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November 16, 2022 - Episode #105 - Is Stress causing your Weight Gain?

If I started this podcast by saying we are going to talk about stress, half of you would roll your eyes and turn it off.  But as soon as I say the words stress causes you to gain weight.  You are thinking... "oh crap, I need to listen to this!"

We have started the stress season, oh excuse me, I mean the holiday season, the joyous holiday season! Which happens to be the season where most of us get sick, gain weight and are so stressed out we can’t see straight! All while trying to keep up appearances that all is well; just holly and jolly and jingle bells.  Just me? Okay, carry on then. 

There are some facts that you need to understand when it comes to the disastrous effects that stress has on your health. This is the hot topic we are tackling today on the Healthy Harmony podcast.  Is stress causing you to gain weight?!?  Listen as I unpack what stress does to the body and how this is the #1 obstacle that is causing weight gain in my clients.

Get ready for some straight talk as I introduce you to a little stress hormone called Cortisol and attempt to snap you out of denial.

Yes, stress is dramatically affecting your weight and your health and let me tell you friend...you need to hear this!

We have got to do something different.  And it starts here.  It starts now by simply being mindful and aware.  I wouldn't be a good friend and advocate for you if I didn't tell it to you straight.  I can't wait to hear your thoughts after this podcast.  Be sure and join the discussion over on our FB page Functional Medicine for Weight Loss  - Body, Mind, Soul Wellness for Women.  Click here https://bit.ly/FMwomenswellness

Before you go, don't forget I have a special gift for you!
It’s the Holiday Survival Guide.  I put this together just for you so you are equipped to beat stress, combat cravings and stay joyful this holiday season. And here’s the deal, it’s not just a holiday survival guide, I’ve included a list of my favorite things!!  Yay!!! This list includes those health-related items that I absolutely ADORE that you can purchase as a gift for yourself or give a big ole hint to your spouse or you can purchase for someone else.  Click here to grab that Holiday Survival Guide and Fav Things list! --->>> https://bit.ly/2022healthyholiday

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November 16, 2022 - Episode #105 - Is Stress causing your Weight Gain?

If I started this podcast by saying we're gonna talk about stress, well half of you would roll your eyes and turn it off, but as soon as I say the words stress causes you to gain weight, well you're thinking, Oh crap, I need to listen to this! We’ve started the stress season, Oh, I'm sorry, excuse me. I mean the holiday season, the joyous holiday season, which happens to be the season where most of us gets sick, gain weight and are so stressed out, we can't see straight all while trying to keep up appearances. That all as well. Just Holly and jolly and jingle bells. Oh, I'm sorry, just me. Okay, carry on, Carry on. We have got to do something different. There are some facts that you need to understand when it comes to the disastrous effects that stress has on your health. And that is the hot topic we're tackling today on the Healthy Harmony podcast.

Hey friend, welcome to the Healthy Harmony podcast. Simple holistic wellness for women. I'm your host, Jennifer Pickett, Dietitian turned functional medicine health coach. When it comes to your wellbeing, do you know what to do but have a hard time actually doing it? Have you sacrificed your own health for the sake of taking care of everyone else? Are you tired and overwhelmed? But also are you looking for answers ready to take a small step? Holistic wellness doesn't have to be time consuming or overly complicated. In this podcast, you will discover simple tips to help you take control of your overall wellness. I want to help you make a shift from knowing what to do to actually doing it. If you are ready to feel better, make healthier decisions, address the obstacles, standing in your way and live a life of freedom and harmony, my friend, you are in the right place.

Before we go any further, I need to tell you about something I have for you. It's the holiday survival Guide. I put this together just for you so you are equipped to beat stress, combat cravings, and stay joyful this holiday season. And here's the deal. It's not just a holiday survival guide. I've included a list of my favorite things. Yes, I can hear the song from sound of music in my head, I can't help it. Um, these are those health related items that I use frequently. I absolutely love the question and I get a lot of questions about what I use. And so I thought, hey, I'll just compile it in a list. That way you've got it. And so you can purchase this as a gift for yourself or you can give it as as a big old hint to your spouse or you can purchase for somebody else.
So, um, along with that holiday survival guide, you've got my favorite things list, complete with links. So I think you will absolutely love this. You can access that by going to bit.ly/2022healthyholiday. Again, that's bit.ly/2022healthyholiday. So that is where you can access this. I know you're gonna love it. You know, when it comes to stress, most of you are simply in denial. You have no clue. And I mean none how stress is wrecking your health. You think this is just how life is, this is what I have to do. So you ignore it, shove it down, deny it, or think you have it under control. I'm here to tell you, you don't excuse my bluntness, but this is something that you need to hear. As women, our tendency is just to take care of everything and everybody and keep going.

I've noticed this with my clients. I spend every day talking to women just like you. And when I bring up stress management, there's typically like an offense. Like they kinda get offended. I mean, it's like they're thinking, no, I'm handling everything. Okay. And so they'll share all the stressors in their life, but, and they'll then they'll say, But I think I'm doing okay, like I'm handling this. Just because you're not having a complete and total meltdown doesn't mean that you are managing stress. So there's so much denial there, and that's why I'm talking about this. I'm your advocate, I'm your eye opener. And so I bring to you those things that I struggle with and those things that I hear from women and men too every single day. Let me put it to you bluntly. We are not supposed to be handling all that we are handling.

It's a lot and it's having a huge effect on our health. Secondly, here's the thing I want you to understand. It is so crucial that you understand that our bodies as women, we respond differently to stress. So did you know that it's that stress impacts a woman's body in greater ways than a man? Yeah, that's right. So the stress hormones affects a woman's body completely differently than a man. And then you have the limbic system. The limbic system is deeper in women than in men. We feel things to a greater degree than a man and it simply affects us differently. So, um, stress has plays such a huge role in, um, and, and wrecking a woman's health. And we've gotta talk about it. So how do you know? How do you know if you're managing stress well or if you're in complete and total denial?
Well, I'm gonna give you a list. Here are some ways that stress can show up in the body. Number one, headaches, migraines an increased or a decreased appetite, a weakened immune system. Gi distressed bathroom issues, frequent urination, a high heart rate and increased blood pressure, aches and pains, soreness in your muscles, tension in your jaw, grinding your teeth, insomnia, uh, numbness or tingling in your face or your limbs, rashes, hives, skin irritation, thinning hair, weak and brittle nails inability to lose weight or inability to gain weight. All of those things are physical manifestations. What you might notice, those things that might be obvious to you. Now, this is not including the disaster that is happening inside your body when you're constantly in a state of stress. And that's the problem. We are operating in that stress mode. So it's, it's interesting cuz it's like we have this one sided view of stress.

So I really wanna open your eyes to how this works. So I want you to think of stress. There are like three stress buckets if you will. You've got physical stress, chemical stress, emotional stress. And I think we've totally underestimated this. So when it comes to the physical stress bucket, that is when your body has an illness, an injury, a disease, um, there's like chronic inflammation. So your body, there are some physical stressors there. Um, chemical stress, these are the chemicals, the toxins that we are exposed to in our environment. The toxins that we um, consume through, um, through our foods. Uh, all the processed foods that we eat and then the toxins we put on our skin, the toxins we clean with the list goes on and on When it comes to chemical toxins and chemical, uh, what's in that chemical stress bucket. And then you have the emotional bucket.

Um, that is what we think, what we feel, those difficult conversations, the strained relationships, the stress we feel with work, our spouse raising kids, the world we live in, we're bombarded with it. And here's the thing, we tend to underestimate the role of emotional stress. Here's what I want you to know. The body doesn't differentiate between different types of stress. It doesn't differentiate between physical, chemical, emotional, it lumps it all together because to the body, stress is stress. The body doesn't say, Oh, well that's just a tough conversation with the teenager, or that's a rough email from your boss. No big deal. Nope. It just lumps all the stress together. So when you have a stressor, your body responds with the sympathetic nervous system and you're in what's called fight or flight mode. You've heard of fight or flight mode. And that is a response of the sympathetic nervous system.

And honestly, this can be a good thing, okay? God designed it, it is there for a reason. But like I, like, I love to tell my clients it's for emergency purposes only. It is just for emergencies. It's not for all the time. The problem is you're getting stuck in fight or flight mode and it has a horrible cascade, a downward spiral in the body. So I like to describe it like this, what the body thinks in fight or flight mode. The body doesn't say, Oh, she's just stuck in traffic and she's running late. No big deal. Nope. Basically what the body is saying is, there is a tiger. I've either got to run away from the tiger or I've got to fight the tiger. Okay? That is what the body is saying. That is the body's natural response, okay? Cause like I said, it's for emergency purposes only.

And so there's a lot of things that happen in the body. So first of all, your adrenal glands are pumping out cortisol and adrenaline. Your blood sugar is dysregulated because your body thinks, Hey, I'm gonna need that blood sugar in the muscle so I can run fast or I can fight. The blood flow is also diverted to the muscles and away from your digestive organs. Um, by the way, digestion decreases the flow of saliva, decreases your heart rate, increases your blood, um, your blood vessels are actually constricted. The blood gets ready to clot in case you cut yourself when you're running or you're fighting, like it's crazy. All the things that happen, the body releases cytokines. These are very pro-inflammatory. The body is responding to the perceived threat. And the problem is that you're staying stuck in that mode. And that is why I desperately want you to understand that stress is a major driver of inflammation.

Bottom line, inflammation is at the heart, the root cause of every single disease state that you and I can name, depression, anxiety, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease, autoimmune disease, the list goes on and on and on. But here's the thing you're most concerned about weight gain. That's right. Weight gain. You desperately want to lose weight and you will do just about anything to achieve that weight loss. How do I know? Lots of experience. I'm talking to you every single day and I hear, I hear the complaints, I hear the stress in your voice when you're telling me how desperate you are to lose weight. And here's what I want you to understand. Inflammation and weight gain are best friends. They hang out together. So when your inflammation levels are increased, you will gain weight. And then when you gain weight, it pushes your levels of inflammation even higher, making you more susceptible to all of these diseases.

Do you see that relationship? Those two hang out. You think weight loss is all about calories in versus calories out because that has been shoved down your throat. You have bought into the pack of lies that you need to eat less and move more. But here's the reality, you're tired, you're frustrated, and it's not working. Here are a few reasons why unmanaged stress is the reason you cannot lose weight. Cortisol is increased, cortisol is a booger, cortisol is your stress hormone and it is released by the adrenal glands. Now I'm gonna give you like an overall view in future, uh, podcasts. We're gonna go be going much more in depth to cortisol and the adrenal glands, et cetera. But here's what you need to know. Elevated cortisol means your heart rate is increased. This is gonna greatly affect your overall nervous system. It affects your sleep, um, et cetera.

When, when your cortisol is elevated, your body goes into fat storage mode, especially your belly fat. That elevated cortisol, you're gonna hang onto that belly fat. Also, the blood sugar rises when your blood sugar is very erratic. When it's dysregulated, this ultimately causes insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone and really messes with your metabolism. Also elevated cortisol means you're not gonna sleep good. And when you don't sleep good, it is impossible to make good healthy decisions. You have no energy to exercise. You're hungrier, you're craving sweets, you're in a downward spiral sister and it's not working. Lack of good quality sleep means your body is not detoxing as it should. Remember, there's a lot to sleep that it's like your body is going through a deep cleanse, a thorough house cleaning. And I've told you before, a toxic body cannot lose weight. So you're stressed out, you don't get good sleep.

Then you've got a toxic body that is holding onto things and you're not gonna be able to and you're holding onto the weight. Okay? You're holding onto the to the fat. Also, when cortisol is elevated, your immune system is weakened. So you're gonna be susceptible to anything that comes along and nothing is working. And here's what happens. The body is so focused on dealing with the chaos inside and trying to fight off illness and and, and disease and it's not at peace. And so of course you're not gonna lose weight in this state. The body only releases weight when it's happy, when it's at peace, when it's working efficiently. That is good, healthy, sustainable weight loss. So you cannot move forward with healthy, sustainable keyword, sustainable weight loss until you learn to manage stress. I know my eyes have been tremendously opened. I just did not suspect that it was poor stress management that was truly at the core of all of my health problems until about four, five years ago.

Um, I was like, I'm fine. Like it is what it is I'm managing. I didn't wanna like, I felt like I was confessing to somebody or I wasn't good enough or I couldn't handle things. If I said, yeah, this is a lot of stress. Cause in my mind it just meant I wasn't good enough. I wasn't handling it well. Y'all were not supposed to be handling. All were handling and I wasn't handling things. When you ignore stress, when you shove it down and act like it doesn't exist, when you just ignore your body and you keep going, bad things happen.

My heart hurts so bad for my clients that are just absolutely and wholeheartedly obsessed with weight loss and I mean obsessed, like so fixated on weight loss. And yes, I have several right now that we're, we are working through this because they've been this way for some time. Part of this is because we live in a culture that is obsessed with how we look. Another part of it is that we have poor education about the body and how everything works together in the body. We also have a very broken healthcare system that is disease focused and we're always using pill for an ill. It's amazing how quickly a doctor will prescribe you pill to help you with weight loss. And by the way, so many of those have black box warnings about suicidal thoughts and actions. It is so scary. Yet those things are prescribed every single day and they are so dangerous.

Then you have this huge diet and weight loss industry. They're just pro focused on profit. That's it. It's not about your health. It's always profit over people. And then here's a soapbox, then you've got a bunch of idiots, so-called wellness experts, health coaches, um, weight loss experts that are making people obsess over every single dead gum calorie and take a picture of the dane scale every single morning. That's not helping. And so if that's you, I know I've got some other, um, wellness experts and health coaches that listen to this. If that is you and that is your approach, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. Shame on you cuz you're perpetuating the problem. We have got to get out of this. So here's the thing, when you are stressing out about weight loss, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Did you hear me?

When you're stressing out about weight loss, you're shooting yourself in the foot. It's not gonna happen. My job with my clients is to point out potential obstacles. And let me tell you this, this is a huge obstacle. You can be doing all the right things, but if you don't address stress, you're not gonna get very far. This is such a humongous topic and I mean humongous topic and I simply wanted to introduce it today. I want you to become more aware of the effects of cortisol and in the future, we're gonna be taking a deep dive into the adrenal glands and cortisol and HPA access, dysfunction and adrenal fatigue and how all of that is keeping you stuck right where you are in your health journey. So here's the advice I'm gonna offer you as we wrap up. I'm not gonna give you some extensive plan and tell you you need to do better. I'm not gonna shame you. I'm just going, I'm just gonna ask you to do this. Just become more self aware. That's it. Listen to your body, mama. You've done a great job of listening to everybody else. You've been a wonderful caregiver to everybody else in your life.

I want you to care for yourself and I want you to do that simply by listening to your body, being very self-aware. I want you to start to recognize when your body is in that fight or flight mode. Are you tensing your shoulders? Are you clenching your jaw? Are you getting a little bit short of breath? Is your heart racing? Is your face flushing? Um, are you uh, uh, so like, recognize what all your body is doing in that moment, okay? Simply be self-aware. Here's what happens with my clients and it makes me so proud and like my clients know, I get, I get pumped up because when I see them making progress and we're just working through some of these barriers and obstacles that have held them back for so long, y'all, I get pumped up. Okay? So what happens is once you become self-aware, you start to become very mindful and you start to listen to your body.

Then you start to make this shift and it's a gradual shift, but you start to make this shift towards being more intentional. Like, Oh wow, my body's kind of stuck in this fight or flight mode. I need to do something to help my body dial it back. Hmm, I think I'm gonna do some deep breathing right now. It's as simple as that. But that's how that mindful intentional connection works. So right now, I am just asking you to be self-aware. I am just asking you to listen to your body. What is your body trying to tell you? Don't let, don't let it go This season. Don't slip into old habits. I struggle this time of year. It is not even funny. I struggle this time of year. Um, and I typically go into January a stressed out wreck. Um, because I did not hold true to my healthy habits.

I let stress get to me. I did not set boundaries. So there's a whole list of things I've done wrong. So I speak from experience here. So it takes some just intentional habits, but it also takes cutting myself a break and just listening to my body, being self-aware and taking it one day at a time. Now, you know, I am here for you and I've got your back. Thank you for letting me speak truth in love. I always want you to feel encouraged. I want you to feel empowered. And I am very excited about this Holiday survival guide and the favorite things list. I think you're gonna love it. So go check that out at bit.ly/2022healthyholiday. And uh, and I think you will just love that. I can't wait to hear back from you and I'm even more excited. Next podcast. Dr. Koz is coming back. So he was on the podcast last year. He spoke about gut health. He is one of my absolute favorite experts because he breaks things down so simple and easy to understand. So he is coming back to talk about toxins and hormones and how to get unfunked. So, um, I'm really excited about that. So stay tuned for that in two weeks. Y'all have a very healthy and happy holiday season. And take a breath, mama. You've got this.