De-Stress Your Weight Loss Program To Lose Belly Fat
If you’ve been struggling with belly fat - that flabby “pooch” around the waistline, there’s a good chance that your weight loss program may be to blame.
To understand why belly fat is such a common problem and why the harder you try to eliminate it, the worse it gets, it is necessary to have a little background in physiology. From a hormonal perspective, the belly fat problem is an issue of overworked adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are small organs that sit on top of each kidney that produce a variety of hormones. With regards to weight control, the two adrenal hormones that are of most importance are adrenaline and cortisol. The levels of these two hormones are reactive to the body’s exposure to stress, both mental and physical.
Cortisol stimulates fat storage, particularly around the lower abdomen, while adenaline stimulates fat burning. In short-duration stress, the fat storage effects of cortisol are balanced by the fat burning porduced by adrenaline. But as stress becomes more chronic, the production of adrenaline begins to decrease while the cortisol levels remain high for much longer. The longer one remains under stress, the more likely it becomes that the fat storage effects of cortisol will overwhelm the fat burning effects of adrenaline.
So, to sum things up, chronic stress leads to excess cortisol, and cortisol causes your body to store fat in the lower abdomen. If you have belly fat accumulation as your primary pattern of weight gain, chances are it is at least largely related to your body’s reaction to stress. As I mentioned earlier, stress can be both mental and physical. You may be well-aware of the mental stress you are under, such as you work, family responsibilities, traffice, crime, etc.. Those are things you may or may not be able to do anything about, but have you considered the self-imposed physical stress your weight loss program may be causing?
Weight loss programs typically involve diet and exercise. A healthy diet and a moderate exercise program are not overly stressful and will not significantly increase cortisol levels, but if you get too restrictive on your diet and/or get too intense with your exercise program, the resulting stress on the body can not only prevent you from losing belly fat, it could actually cause you to gain more!
If we consider diet first, when you cut back your calorie intake too severely, the body senses that as starvation. The body considers starvation to be a highly stressful state and it reacts strongly to it. So, how do you know if you’ve restricted your calories too much? The simplest way to tell is if you feel hungry all the time or develop hypoglycemic symptoms (dizziness, feeling faint, headaches, moodiness, etc). Now hunger is different from cravings for specific types of food. What I’m talking about actual hunger pangs and/or low blood sugar reactions. If you are getting hungry all the time, it is a signal from your body that you need to eat more and/or more frequently - such as having snacks. This may seem counter-intuitive but as long as you stick to healthy foods, eating enough to prevent feelings of hunger will make it easier to lose weight than depriving yourself of adequate food will.
When it comes to exercise, the big problem with belly fat is exercising too much and/or too intensely. In people with belly fat, high intensity workouts will only lead to feeling tired and getting frustrated with your lack of weight loss. For people with belly fat accumulation (as the main location of their weight gain), low intensity, and relatively long duration exercise is best. Activities like walking, bicycling, and other aerobic activities are best. Exercise for about 30 to 60 minutes continuously at a pace at which you have enough breath to carry on a conversation without gasping. This should be done 3 to 4 days per week for best results. Those who have excess weight in areas other than the abdomen may benefit from a more intense regimen, but those with just belly fat need to take it a bit easier to keep from activating more cortisol release.
With reducing the stressfulness of your weight loss regimen, you will actually find it easier to get rid of that annoying belly fat and you’ll likely have more energy while doing it. Some people are scared they’ll gain even more weight on this “less is more” approach. I say at least give it a try for a few weeks and see what the results are. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how much easier your weight loss is and how much better you feel.