Losing It With Jillian Michaels
Jillian Michaels: Stress Got Your Metabolism Down?
By Jillian Michaels
I'm sure you've heard of the "fight-or-flight" response, and
you probably know that it's the way your body reacts to danger or
stress. But do you know what's behind the fight-or-flight response? It's
actually hormones.
When you're faced with danger, your adrenal glands
release three hormones: norepinephrine, epinephrine (also known as
adrenaline), and cortisol. Norepinephrine and epinephrine cause several
changes to help you survive the danger, including a pause in insulin
release so you have lots of blood sugar available for energy, an
increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and a suspension of your
appetite. After the danger has passed, cortisol tells the body to stop
producing norepinephrine and epinephrine and stimulates your appetite
again.
This response evolved to help people deal with short-term
survival situations, like an attack by a predator. The trouble is, it
occurs in response to all stressors, including the deadlines
pummeling you at work and the traffic that drives you crazy. All that
stress results in excess cortisol being built up in the blood. That
cortisol just hangs around, causing lots of trouble: It turns young fat
cells into mature fat cells that stick with you forever, and increases
your cravings for high-fat, high-carb foods.
When you give in to those cravings, your body releases a cascade
of rewarding brain chemicals that can set up an addictive relationship
with food — you stress, you eat. If you don't consciously control the
pattern, you can become physically and psychologically dependent on that
release to manage stress. In fact, people who self-medicate with food
tend to have hair-trigger epinephrine reactions and chronically high
levels of cortisol.
You can help yourself keep cortisol in check by limiting caffeine
intake to 200 mg a day; avoiding simple carbs, processed foods, and
refined grains; and getting plenty of high-quality protein. It's also
crucial that you find stress-relief techniques that work for you. If you
can tame your stress response and lower cortisol levels, you'll have a
much easier time losing weight.
