Stress is a complex process involving individual resources and vulnerabilities as well as our environment.

We can create our own stress, we can have genetic reasons for stress, illnesses which cause us stress, or we may be living in a stressful environment. Some of these stressors can affect us more than others.

Psychological, behavioral, and physiological adaptations to survival requirements are necessary for an individual’s capacity to adapt. In other words, not all stress is bad, but too much for too long can wreck our physiology. Chronic stress is referred to as Allostatic Load (AL). It results in the “wear and tear” of the adaptive regulatory systems resulting in biological alterations that weaken stress adaptive processes and increase the risk of disease susceptibility. Have you ever worried yourself sick over something, like actually getting a cold or caused yourself GI issues? This is one example of how stress can change our physiology. Chronic dietary imbalances, for example, consuming the typical American diet that is high in “bad” trans fats, fried fast food, and refined sugars that leads to excessive weight gain will affect physiological performance due to it promoting chronic low-inflammation that is detrimental for both your physical and mental status. The consequence of that diet is increased pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-6, which leads to increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA-) axis activity and promotes chronic stress. How high is your Allostatic Load?

Here is a shortlist of eating stressors:

Eating too much or too little
Eating late at night
Not eating
Eating the wrong foods
Eating while multitasking (driving, in meetings, moving around, etc.)
Eating on the go
Not chewing food enough
Eating foods that stress your body (gluten, dairy, sugar, peanuts, nightshades, etc.)

So, what can you do?

Actually stopping and eating. Allow yourself time in your busy schedule to stop, breathe for 5 minutes, and then eat. We have trained ourselves that taking time to eat is wasting time and that we should be doing something while we eat or we are not productive. Mindlessly eating creates stress in the body and can lead to inflammation and weight gain. It is okay to take time to eat during the day and to be present with your food. That healthy salad or chicken and broccoli that is in front of you can cause weight gain because you are eating in a stressed-out state of being.

Metabolic Flexibility

Metabolic Flexibility varies from person to person. We can observe this when we see that one person may be able to skip meals and lose weight wherewith another person it can actually cause weight gain. I see this most often in women. We are taught by certain diets out there only to eat 500-700 calories to lose weight. Wrong! That might work temporarily in some people, but it does not work long term for anyone. Starving yourself is not the answer and will cause stress in the body. We have also been taught to grab a bar of some sort like a protein bar or granola bar. These are not satisfying, and people usually eat two or three to feel “full.” By eating more than one bar, a person could have had an entire NUTRITIOUS meal that gave the body a balance of vitamins and minerals and kept you full until the next meal instead of experiencing a carbohydrate high like the bar gave you.