Stress and how its making you fat

Stress and how its making you fat

Hi guys a couple of stories ago i was banging on about smoking and how cigarettes cause you to hold and develop fat around your stomach by stressing your system out. I thought that needed more explanation so here it is.  

Everyone's heard of flight or fight response where we face a dangerous situation and have to react by either fighting or running. Everyone's experienced it before and if you havent lucky you something to look forward to. lol. This response is usually a short 5 to 10 minute event when the body is on a heightened state of awareness until the danger is averted. This means the heart beats faster, the stress hormone cortisol and adrenaline are secreted into the system, pupils dilate, sweating increases etc. The body prioritisers what is important to the situation and what is not. So what do we need to get out of this situation - muscles need blood and oxygen encase we have to run or fight, brain needs the same so we can react and think quickly. The body also slows down or turns off other less important functions like the immune system, the production of blood cells and many other important functions are put on hold til the crises is averted. 

But what if this event last an hour or in the case of caffeine or nicotine up to eight hours. If a person repeats this drug 3 times a day then that means it last 24 hours 8 times 3.  That means that the smoker, coffee drinker or pill popper will be in a constant state of heightened awareness or acute stress awareness all day. Meaning that vital functions of the body wont be performed properly. Most notably the immune system. Thats why smokers are always sick.  Now its not just caffeine and nicotine it also applies to artificial sweeteners so any soft drink that claims to be low in calories will have artificial sweetener. To a lesser extent any plastic food ie lean cuisine. Basically if the food you eat is made in a science lab not on a farm then humans are supposed to eat it and it will be causing your system stress.

This stress causes other problems like the storage of fat around your belly. Whilst under stress the body secrets the hormone cortisol and whilst this hormone revs up the system to allow for flight or fight responses it also stores and holds fat around the stomach. Now if your acute stress response is short then a spike in your cortisol, adrenaline and an increased heart rate are good things but over hours or days are terrible for the body. You will end up with fat around your tummy, get sick all the time and die young from a degenerative disease.
 So how do stop stress the same old story-  eat real food - veggies, fruit and fish and lean meat and dont take drugs. By drugs i mean all drugs not just illegal ones. So that includes caffeine and nicotine. Most of all try and relax. Til next time.