Cortisol and Belly Fat
What is the relation between cortisol and belly fat? As you may know already, cortisol is not inherently bad, and is actually required for life.
In fact, individuals who don't produce enough of this vital hormone run into numerous health problems, and are unable to mobilize their bodies during energetic demands.
However, like other hormones, cortisol is a double edged sword, and can have either extremely beneficial or extremely negative effects.
Normally, after a stressful event your body will try to recover by restoring its lost energy. This hormone becomes lipogenic, so in this case cortisol and belly fat are related. When this happens, insulin levels are also elevated.
It's important to note that cortisol has a bigger impact on visceral fat deposition. This pattern occurs because abdominal fat seems to have more receptors that respond to this hormone by activating specific fat-storing enzymes.
It should be mentioned that visceral fat is found around your internal organs. So using the term “abdominal fat” is not entirely accurate because this fat is found underneath your abdominal muscles.
In time, sustained stress can lead to a considerable depot of visceral fat, which is a good predictor for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.
Among other reasons, this happens because abdominal fat can reach more readily the liver, where is converted into glucose, which results in elevated blood sugar and insulin resistance.
Additionally, excessive cortisol also induces leptin resistance, and this will increase your appetite even more.
Eventually, a vicious circle develop. Many people are overwhelmed by their stressful lives, which leads to chronically elevated cortisol, which in turn leads to an ever increasing motivation to eat.
As a result, they eat lots of comfort foods, stocking most of the calories right into their bellies.
It's interesting to note that consuming starchy comfort foods, and piling up on abdominal fat, seems to reduce stress.
In other words, it appears that indulging yourself would regulate an overactive stress response by decreasing cortisol levels and sympathetic nervous system activity.
So those chocolate waffles not only have a yummy taste but they also make you feel more relaxed. The problem, of course, is that you will stop eating only when you can barely move.
Unless you want to compete to a sumo contest, gorging on comfort foods is not a good strategy to cope with stress. So how can you control cortisol and belly fat then?
Telling you to stay away from stressful aspects of life is a great advice but not practical.
The good news is that although is easy to bulk up visceral fat, it's also easy to get rid of it. This particular fat has a better blood flow compared to other fatty tissues, which means that it can be easily mobilized and burned.
However, just reducing calories is not a productive method to achieve that because of the hormonal response involved.
It seems that visceral fat is very responsive to catecholamines (adrenaline and noradrenaline), and dieting may actually reduce their levels.
For this reason, high intensity exercise is the most effective way to deal with belly fat (assuming that you are in a calorie deficit, of course).
Also, exercise is a good strategy to cope with stress because it increases the serotonin levels in the brain, and this will definitely improve your mood.
Furthermore, your muscles will get depleted of glycogen, so the extra carbs will go right in your muscles instead of your potbelly.
Return from Cortisol and Belly Fat to Home
