How To Break The Stress And Weight Gain Cycle

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. If you are going through menopause and you're dealing with hormonal fluctuations, you are dealing with experiencing different emotions.

00:33You are on the roller coaster of emotions. And when you do experience these and you're experiencing all the changes that are happening in your body, these changes can exasperate the effects of your cortisol on your body and making it way easier to gain weight and harder to lose it. What's going on, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikki Stott, co-founder of Warrior Babe. And on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

01:11I am your host, Nikki Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode 186. And today, I want to explore a topic with you guys that affects many of us. And I've kind of hinted this topic in previous podcasts. And we experience this, I think, all throughout life, whether we're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, or whatever. And that is the connection between stress and weight gain and how you can manage it effectively.

01:48Before I dive into this topic today, first and foremost, guys, I just want to say a huge thank you. I think like two or three Mondays ago, I dropped an episode where at the end I was asking you guys to leave me some reviews in the review section. And you guys did. And I appreciate you guys so much. I don't know if you guys know, but I do go in and I look at the reviews that you're leaving, the words that you're sharing, how this podcast is positively impacting you in many areas of your life.

02:20And I just love reading that from you. It gives me the energy to come here and to do these episodes for you guys. So those of you guys that fulfilled on my request, man, thank you so freaking much. And I'm just asking you guys if you haven't yet left a review yet. By the way, that helped us get back into like the top 10 of the charts. We are dipping down into like the top 20s. So if you haven't left a review yet, not only does it help with the numbers in the charts, but it also helps with like when we're sitting in those higher numbers, we're able to more likely be on the radar of other people and other women that, you know, could value from this podcast, gain value from this podcast too as well.

03:05So if you haven't yet left a review, please do. I appreciate you guys so much. Okay, let's talk about this topic today because I feel like it's going to resonate with you guys big time. And as always, like I'm going to talk about the connection between straight, like the connection between the topics. And I'm going to talk about the most common stressors that we kind of experience. And I'm going to dive into some tactical things that you guys can take away. Like that's what I love about sharing and recording these podcasts is like, sure, I'm here to like give you guys insights and knowledge.

03:35Um, education, but that means nothing if you guys don't go and apply it. So you guys can listen to me until you're blue in the air, but unless you go apply what I'm saying, will you actually get like the transformation you're looking for? So first let's just talk about the connection between stress and weight gain. I don't think it's any secret that stress affects our bodies in various ways. I mean, I, and I think that it totally affects individuals in different ways. It's, it's so fascinating how literally every single human that we see has a drastically different makeup, uh, internally.

04:14And we're all so different. So like the human that you see walking down the street is completely different than you. Their makeup is completely different. The way that things affect their body is completely different. And then to the next person that you see in the next person that you see in the next person that you see, it's pretty crazy. Even your husband and your kids, like we are all so different and stress specifically affects, affects all of us differently in the various ways. Um, but it can be a significant factor in weight gain. And particularly it can be a, um, a significant factor in the weight gain around our midsection, especially as we age.

04:50Um, you know, when women are 35, 40, 45, and then going through the world of menopause, you know, premenopause, menopause, postmenopause, a lot of things are changing internally and things that we cannot see. So it's really hard to like understand why these things are happening because it's things that we aren't able to like, you know, touch. Our senses can't decipher what is happening. And like, we don't know what's happening unless we have the education and knowledge behind what is happening.

05:24Um, so when you're, when you do age, you, you, you, you guys are starting to see that weight gain start to particularly build up in your, in your midsection. And the reason why is when you're stressed out, your body releases a hormone called cortisol. I'm sure so many of you guys have heard this. It's starting to become a very popular topic in the fitness space. Um, cortisol is a part of like our fight or flight response. And it helps to prepare you to deal with like, like basically like survival mode, like proceed threats, like, you know, the instinct to respond to things.

05:58Um, it's, it's, it's just helping you to feel safe. Uh, and, and that's how I want you guys to think about it. Um, in the short term, it's a good thing because it gives you the energy that you need to like respond to challenges and to like survive. But however, when it becomes more chronic cortisol levels remain elevated for long periods of time. And this can lead to so many issues leading to like, including the weight gain that I want to talk to you guys about specifically.

06:29Um, I want to break it down to science at like an, a level that would, you guys will understand, but elevated cortisol levels will also increase your appetite. So for those of you guys that may feel like overly stressed, um, I'm going to dive into some of the common stressors that a lot of people experience in a few minutes. But like that being work related to stress, that being family and relationship, uh, stress, that be hormone changes, that be financial stress. Like we all experience stress in a different way and affects our bodies in different ways, as I said. Uh, but as those cortisol levels continue to increase, they also increase your appetite.

07:04And this makes people want to go for more high calorie, dense, sugary, fatty foods, which are often referred to as the comfort foods. And this is because your cortisol can increase your body's cravings for quick energy sources. So when you have the increase and you have the increase in your appetite and you're stressed and you're overly stressed for long periods of time. Um, and you're just in this constant elevated, um, like it's becoming chronic.

07:35Can you guys imagine, like, think about it. If you personally, one of these people that's going through this, like you are maybe somebody that when you are in this constant state of stress or you feel stressed, you want to go for comfort foods. And that's because your body's like, I just need some quick energy source to be able to deal, um, and to respond to the challenges that I'm facing. Uh, and like almost like it's like survival mode at that point. And when this happens, it leads to fat storage and it leads to fat storage, particularly in the abdomen area and where it's the most challenging weight to lose.

08:12And I see this over and over and over and over again inside of our community. Women are like, I can't seem to get this stubborn body fat off of my midsection. Look, I'm going to tell you guys this straightforward, blunt, honest, because I love you guys. That if that is you, that's, it didn't come on overnight. Okay. You probably been chronically stressed for a long period of time and you've been maybe eating like this for a long period of time. So you need to give yourself grace and compassion and the fact that that's going to take a little bit and maybe the longest to come off of your body.

08:48So like you may see in all other areas, you may see it in your face. You may see it kind of start down from the top down. You may start seeing it in your thighs, your thighs getting smaller, but you still got this area on your midsection. That may take you the longest to get rid of. And like, I just want to, it's not sexy to say that. People don't want to hear that, but I'm brutally honest with you guys because I want you guys to win. I want you guys to succeed. And I want you guys to be patient with your journey and be patient with yourself and give yourself grace and compassion.

09:21So if you can accept that and you can like find wins in other areas of like, oh, wow, I see my face thinning out. People are recognizing it. My arms are thinning out. I'm getting more toned. My legs are thinning out. But this midsection, give yourself grace and recognize all the other areas of your life that you're winning at in terms of the results that you're seeing in your body. And know that like with more time, more effort, you guys just consistently sticking to the plan, that midsection will go away. Okay, ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause?

09:57It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results and results that last. Look, don't wait anymore.

10:29Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. So common stressors that I feel like many people go through. It comes from various sources and that being balancing work, that being managing family responsibilities, navigating hormonal changes,

11:00or even like you dealing with any type of financial situation that you may be dealing with. This all is a different type of variable that leads to stresses. You can be experiencing all four of those. You could be experiencing only two out of the four. You could be experiencing one of them. It doesn't matter. No matter where you're experiencing stress, this is how it may be affecting you. One being work-related stress. Whether you're dealing with like the demands of your career, if you're successful, if you're traveling everywhere, you're transitioning into retirement.

11:32These types of stresses can be a significant factor in your weight gain. So if you're consistently operating from a high level of stress, this leads to poor eating habits. This leads to lack of sleep. This leads to less time for physical activity. So that is all a very stressful environment that you are putting your body into. Another one being family and relationship stress or managing family responsibilities. You could be caring for an aging parent. You could be supporting your children. You could be dealing with relationship issues.

12:02This can all create emotional stress that triggers you to have the unhealthy eating patterns that cause weight gain. Another one being hormonal changes. I mean, as you guys approach menopause, if you're 40, 45, 50, you know, it could be early menopause. You'd be going into menopause at 50 or you'd be late menopause. No matter what, wherever you're approaching menopause at, hormonal fluctuations make it so challenging to manage your stress.

12:33Immediately what just came to my mind. And this probably isn't going to relate in terms of menopause, but it could relate in terms of the emotions that you are feeling during menopause. I just watched Inside Out 2. And if you guys can relate to kids that watch this, like this is a very cartoon movie and it's clearly age group of like, you know, she was. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause?

13:09It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results and results that last. Look, don't wait anymore.

13:40Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. In her teenage years in high school, going into high school, so it doesn't relate to the metaphysics, but I think it relates to the emotional aspect. They welcomed new emotions in Inside Out 2 and they welcomed anxiety.

14:13They welcomed embarrassment and they welcomed boredom. Oh, and Envy was another one. And I just, I freaking love that movie. I think it's absolutely adorable. But in terms of emotions, if you are going through menopause and you're dealing with hormonal fluctuations, you are dealing with experiencing different emotions. You are on the roller coaster of emotions. And I think that that movie could relate in that sense of the emotional fluctuations that you may be experiencing. And when you do experience these and you're experiencing all the changes that are happening in your body,

14:47these changes can exasperate the effects of your cortisol on your body and making it way easier to gain weight and harder to lose it. And way more easier to gain in your abdomen area and way harder to lose it in your abdomen area. And so that's why I refer back to what I just said about being patient, giving yourself grace and compassion. When you are navigating this phase of your life, knowing that, okay, if you've spent X amount of years or time in an unhealthy environment with food because you've been stressed out or you know that you cope with food, then to give yourself a little bit of grace as you're looking to gain results with your body because that's going to be an area that takes the longest to come off.

15:23So we explore the connection between stress and weight gain. And we talked about some of the common things that are triggered, that trigger stress and that can elevate cortisol levels. So I want to give you guys some practical strategies as I've been doing in the last couple of the podcasts for you to walk away from this podcast and be like, okay, where are me, where am I maybe struggling and maybe one or two of these buckets that I could at least take some type of accountability in and then action towards making this one bucket better.

16:02And then once this one bucket is better, maybe I can move on to the next bucket and I could start making that better. Because managing your stress is something that isn't going to happen overnight. It's going to take time. But I would say it's the most liberating thing that you could do for yourself because you know that if you do know, if you have awareness to this, I think this is the most important thing to recognize first is you are aware that stress is controlling your life and it's not making you feel good.

16:34And so you want to be able to course correct and take action to develop different types of strategies and behaviors that will help you to not be as stressed. So one being, and this may be the top bucket for everyone. I don't know. Everyone could be different, but I think it could be a top bucket for everyone personally. That's my own opinion. Just prioritizing your sleep. And I'm just going to leave a little bit of a pause there because I am aware that there are so many people who struggle with this aspect.

17:04People are getting four or five hours of sleep and think that they're, you know, on a nightly basis and try and operate life through stressful periods and it's just making it even worse. Sleep is your body's natural way of recovering from stress. So lack of sleep when you have it increases your cortisol levels and it can disrupt your hunger hormones, which leads you to overeating. So think about like a night that you only got four or five hours of sleep or maybe that's you on a regular basis and you realize that on a day-to-day basis, you are stuck in this constant cycle of overeating or going to comfort foods because you, your hormones are absolutely disrupted from not being able to recover from the previous stress that you experienced the day before.

17:52That is you. I would encourage you to aim for seven to nine hours and that'd be me asking a lot. So if you're only getting five, try for six. If you're getting six, try for seven. Add on a couple, like a, like you, like it's not a big drastic thing. Something that's going to take you time to shift and I want you to recognize that. Maybe it's that you are going to bed 15 minutes earlier and you're waking up 15 minutes later. So you have an extra half an hour right there. Or if you can, you know, you're going to bed a half an hour earlier and you're still waking up at the same time in the morning.

18:27So you're getting, it doesn't matter to figure out where you can gain more time back and establish that bedtime routine. Making sure that you're relaxing before bed. You're not really looking at the TV or your phone or scrolling. Like these are things I would encourage you to stop because it is not helping you to have effective sleep. The, a few other things that I would say in terms of this is another one being mindful eating.

19:03So if you find that you are somebody who is emotionally eating because stress has control over you, then I would recommend that you turn to, um, practicing mindful eating when, and bringing, so bringing attention to your hunger cues. Let's say that you are someone who turns to food for comfort rather than, are you actually hungry and like recognizing that you're actually hungry. And then you could, um, be satiated from a hunger cue rather than just eating to eat.

19:38So I would say bring awareness to the, like pay attention to what a hunger cue even feels like, which isn't going to happen overnight. I would allow yourself to like eat small meals throughout the day because that's the best indicator for you to recognize some hunger cues. And I would encourage you to eat slowly because when you are emotionally eating, you're kind of just like unconsciously aware that you're just shoving food in your mouth and eating. And so I would bring awareness to the hunger cue and then bring awareness to you being present while you are eating.

20:14And something that I would encourage you to do too as well is because I think this is where a lot of people find themselves going to comfort food or, um, trying to de-stress in the stress of their day. So they watch TV or they go on their phone during meals or while they're eating. So I would, I would recommend that you would avoid that type of distraction. Um, I would again, do your best to try and stay present in every meal that you're doing. And I, this may seem like a lot to take on, especially if you're somebody who experiences this.

20:45So the first thing that I would just try to do is, um, when you are in the moment of wanting, if you can bring awareness, awareness is the most important thing that you can do in a situation. Bring awareness to like, huh, I'm finding myself wanting to go to the kitchen to get a bag of Doritos. Uh, what am I actually feeling right now? Am I actually hungry or am I actually bored or am I stressed? And like trying to tap into understanding that happening within your body. And then from there, um, being able to kind of course correct, like, are you actually hungry?

21:20Okay. If you're actually hungry, then have a meal, but make it a good meal and a healthy meal. Um, if you are recognizing that you're bored and you're stressed, then I would encourage you to go, like if you can outside for a walk and like start practicing, um, some stress management techniques at that point, which would be another thing that I would kind of loop in here in terms of, uh, strategies for you to be able to deploy on would be once reducing stress, um, or stress reducing activities into putting that into your daily routine.

21:56So if you recognize in this moment that you're bringing awareness and you're actually stressed and you're, or you're bored, then I would encourage you to either, if you can go outside for a walk, I would encourage you to maybe take some deep breaths. And I find that it's really helpful to take like a four second inhale or a four second hold and a four second exhale and a four second hold after that. And doing that a couple of times, when you do that, you're signaling to your central nervous system that like,

22:27Hey, I'm kind of feeling some discomfort, but like, I want you to know that like, I'm here, I'm safe and I'm going to be okay. Okay. So I think those are some really strong, um, techniques that, and there's other things like you could do yoga, you could do meditation on a daily basis, any which ways that you can find your help yourself to relax. Then the last strategy that I would recommend is, and I think everyone can agree with this is physical activity, some sort of it. I think it's one of the most effective ways to reduce stress.

22:57Um, I know a lot of you guys would agree in terms of like, I go to exercise because it's my me time. And it's the time of the day that like, nobody's bothering me. I'm not in meetings. I'm not being told that I need to do a project. And my kids are, you know, outside playing or they're at soccer practice. I'm getting it done. And it's just your bodies, your, your, it lowers stress, especially over time, which I talked about that in how strength training helps with the mental like aspects of your journey. Uh, so over time it lowers cortisol levels, it releases endorphins, and then it just naturally gives your bodies like mood boosters.

23:31Um, so those are some strategies I would recommend. Prioritize your sleep, mindful eating, regular exercise, stress management techniques. And again, like, I'm not saying you need to fix all four of those all at once and do it tomorrow. I'm saying recognize maybe what, which bucket that you're struggling in and then, uh, from there, be able to hone in on that bucket and do things that will help you to get better in that one area. Then you can move to the next. And again, this is a very gradual thing that takes time.

24:03And so give yourself grace and compassion for the time that takes and patience most importantly. So on are you guys, I think, uh, you guys could definitely agree. That stress is an absolutely inevitable part of our life, but it doesn't have to control you. It doesn't have to control your health. It doesn't have to control your weight. Like you are the one that is in control of it, but you have to be the one that will deploy on the actionable. Like what I just said, like some of the strategies that will help you to manage your stress. And I hope by you understanding like the connection between stress and weight management and implementing the strategies, um, that you can manage both.

24:39That you can take control of your wellbeing. You can take control of your health and you can take control of your weight and achieve the results that you're looking for. So I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast guys. I love coming here and talking to y'all about some things that I hope maybe it resonates with you and where you're at in the season of life. Or maybe three months from now, six months from now, you'll be like, Hey, I remember listening to that podcast. And Nikki talked about stress. I'm feeling pretty stressed in my life right now. I'm going to go back to listen to it and, you know, and try and put in to play some of the things that were shared here.

25:13So no matter where along your journey, I hope it resonates with you, um, at some point. All right, guys. Appreciate y'all. Love y'all. And I'll see you in the next podcast. Hey guys, real quick. If you're interested in taking your body to the next level, lose body fat, build more muscle, feel more confident. Do it alongside one of our 30 plus professional coaches. Work one-on-one with her to eliminate all of the guesswork that you may have. And all you need to do is just do the work that she tells you to do to get to those goals of yours.

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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.