Tis the hap-hap-happiest time of the year, right?! Check out the tips below:

Yes - and the holiday season is also one of the most stressful times of the year. Between holiday parties and entertainment, shopping, gift wrapping, greeting cards mailing, not enough sleep, and perhaps throwing in some family drama, it’s enough to make your head spin – and put on belly fat.

Here are five primary reasons why holiday stress can be so detrimental to your health and waistline.

Hormones 

When your brain detects stress it signals your body to prepare you for action and the ability to withstand injury. Your brain triggers the release of a cascade of chemicals, including adrenaline, CRH, and cortisol. In the short term, adrenaline helps you feel less hungry as your blood flows to your large muscles to prepare for “fight or flight.” 

But once the adrenaline wears off, cortisol, known as the “stress hormone,” is predominant and starts signaling the body to replenish your food supply often causing stressful eating (and too much turns into fat)

This was useful for our ancestors to fight off wild animals, but not so much for today’s humans, worrying about how to pay those credit card bills or working an extra job to pay for it all.

Belly Fat.  

Back again to our ancestors:  their bodies evolved to store fat supplies for times without food. Most of us today are blessed with a reliable food source and don’t need that extra layer of “visceral fat” deep in our bellies, however, our evolution has not caught up. Our bellies have an ample supply of blood vessels and cortisol receptors to make fat storage easy. Excess cortisol not only slows down your metabolism but that unnecessary fat releases chemicals triggering inflammation, which increases our risk for heart disease or diabetes.   

Stress Eating

When we have a surge of adrenaline as part of our fight/flight response, we get activated. Adrenaline is the reason for the “wired up” feeling we get when we’re stressed. While we may burn off some extra calories fidgeting or running around because we can’t sit still, anxiety can also trigger “emotional eating.” Overeating or eating unhealthy foods in response to stress or as a way to calm down is a very common response. 

In a recent American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America:” survey, a whopping 40% of respondents reported dealing with stress in this way, while 42% reported watching television for more than 2 hours a day to deal with stress. Being a couch potato also increases the temptation to overeat and is inactive, which means that those extra calories aren’t getting burned off. 

Anxiety can also make you eat more “mindlessly” as you churn around worries in your head, not focusing on the taste of the food, how much you’ve eaten, or when you are feeling full. When you eat mindlessly, you will likely eat more, yet feel less satisfied.

Cravings and Fast Food

When we are chronically stressed, we crave “comfort foods,” such as potato chips or a tub of ice cream. These foods tend to be easy to eat, highly processed, and high in fat, sugar, or salt. 

We crave these foods for both biological and psychological reasons. Stress may mess up our brain’s reward system or cortisol may cause us to crave more fat and sugar. We also may have memories from childhood, such as the smell of freshly baked cookies,, that lead us to associate sweet foods with comfort. 

When we are stressed, we also may be more likely to drive through the Fast Food place, rather than taking the time and mental energy to plan and cook a meal. Americans are less likely to cook and eat dinner at home than people from many other countries, and they also work more hours. Working in urban areas may mean long, jammed commutes, which both increase stress and interfere with willpower because we are hungrier when we get home later. 

Less Sleep 

Sleep is a powerful factor influencing weight gain or loss. Lack of sleep disrupts chemicals that control appetite. We also crave carbs when we are tired or grumpy from lack of sleep. Finally, not getting our precious zzz’s erodes our willpower and ability to resist temptation.

Stress causes decreased blood sugar, which leads to fatigue. If you drink coffee or caffeinated soft drinks to stay awake, or alcohol to de-stress, your sleep cycle will be even more disrupted. 

In one study, overweight/obese dieters were asked to follow a fixed calorie diet and assigned to get either 5 and a half or eight and a half hours of sleep a night (in a sleep lab). Those with sleep deprivation lost substantially less weight.

At BonVie our personalized coaching support will help you get through the holidays less stressed, with fewer cravings, more balance, and more rested.

Reach out today to find out more - and Happy Holidays!