Stress and Weight Loss

[apensity]

'm 40 years old, a Father of 2 children, one with Down syndrome and Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis. My wife had Stage 3C breast cancer a little less than 2 years ago. Medical bills from visiting UC Davis hospital, UCSF hospital, Stanford and our local hospital killed our financial security. Due to all of this happening at the same time, I ended up severally depressed, overweight, my memory started getting extremely bad (enough that I lost my job with a major bank as a Commercial Banker - and no, I'm not a bad banker rolling in money, I actually had a conscience), and we ended up losing the house and claiming BK (we never eat out, go on trips, or buy anything not absolutely needed, we tried to fight to keep afloat, but we just couldn't).
So after all of this, I started exercising more. I used to be an Endurance Mt Bike racer doing 24 hour events. I also competed in many centuries road riding. However, I stopped biking the past several years and started gaining weight. We also recently (within the last year) changed our diet to almost all organic foods, fresh fruits and veggies, limited red meat (and only non-hormone meats), use all non-rBst milk products, non-BPA plastic containers, juice with a pro-grade juicer, and limit TV and computer time. Here is a typical day of eating for me at 230lbs, 6'2", 40 years old...
Breakfast: 1 egg, 1 piece of wheat toast, 1 non-fat Greek yogurt with all natural ingredients
Lunch: Fresh veggie juice and piece of string cheese
mid afternoon snack: A few wheat pretzel sticks
Dinner: Typically a piece of chicken, some brown rice and some fresh veggies with a glass of low-fat milk
Desert: Either a yogurt or handful of dark choc chips from freezer

From doing this for almost a year, I have put on 25 lbs. I exercise 30 minutes to 60 minutes a day 2-4 times a week. So this got me thinking.

What I can figure out so far is that stress can increase or decrease cortisol levels. Cortisol is used to increase blood sugar through gluconeogenesis; suppress the immune system; and aid in fat, protein and carbohydrate metabolism. Also, long-term exposure to cortisol damages cells in the hippocampus; this damage results in impaired learning. Furthermore, it has been shown that cortisol inhibits memory retrieval of already stored information. These issues along with gastric issues and other symptoms, suggested that my cortisol levels are way out of whack due to chronic stress. I read an article on cortisol affecting weight loss and seem to remember it saying that even if you work out and burn more calories than you take in, the cortisol stores the fat in your body so you don't lose any weight, just muscle, and fat stores increase to make up for the muscle weight loss as well.

So I wanted to see if anyone has heard of this, had any experience, or suggestions besides what I am doing to try and lose some of this weight. I'm thinking I just need to turn into a workout King to get anywhere, but time and money keep that dream in the pipe for a while...

Thanks in advance for any input.

BTW, my wife is now cancer free (after 5 surgeries, 3 rounds of chemo and radiation, and reconstruction). My daughter is also doing better with some medications and exercise/diet changes. I also was just hired on after 6 months to a large bank with a bump in salary and benefits, so things are looking up! :^)

[Deviation]

Well first off, congrats on realizing you have a problem. You're part way there. I looked over you diet and you seem to get quite a bit of carbs, but not much protein. Have you tried tracking your diet (everything!)? I think you'd find that you have a surplus of carbs (hence the added weight) and a deficit of protein. It doesn't matter if its "all-natural" or "organic". Carbs are carbs no matter how you slice it.

Forget the cortisol mumbo jumbo for now. Look at your diet really hard. I (and quite a few others here) use MyFitnessPal to track our foods. It's a great, free app.

For your exercise, you're going to have to be more specific. Can't really comment on that.


BTW, my wife is now cancer free (after 5 surgeries, 3 rounds of chemo and radiation, and reconstruction). My daughter is also doing better with some medications and exercise/diet changes. I also was just hired on after 6 months to a large bank with a bump in salary and benefits, so things are looking up! :^)
That's awesome news! My wife's grandmother had breast cancer (twice) and her dad had Hodgkins Lymphoma. Some of the best new you can ever receive is "you're cancer free".

Things are already looking up for you. Keep the momentum going!

[OptikaNET]

I'm glad the family health issues are starting to improve and I am sorry to hear of the problems you've had the last few years.

You are correct that Cortisol is probably doing all kinds of bad stuff to your metabolism, but strange-to-relate you are actually not helping yourself with that diet. On the surface it seems healthy but it really isn't. Try to see a dietician if you possibly can, and hopefully they will put you right as I'm really not qualified to.

Breakfast: 1 egg, 1 piece of wheat toast, 1 non-fat Greek yogurt with all natural ingredients

This is not a bad start. The egg and the yoghurt are good protein sources. How is the egg cooked? Please don't say fried! Boiled, poached or grilled omelette would be best. As a whole egg there is quite a bit of fat and cholesterol in the yolk - mostly these are good fats, but I would keep my eye on the total quantities if you are not losing weight. Consider having cereal some days - you want some low-glycemic index sugars to give you a sustained carbohydrate release during the morning as this will help kick-start your metabolism and burn some of those calories!

Consider having some grapefruit or some fresh pineapple. Both contain co-enzymes that the body is able to absorb whole which assist in fat breakdown and stimulate the metabolism. Pineapple also aids digestion. Consider putting it in the yoghurt!

Lunch: Fresh veggie juice and piece of string cheese


Forget the string cheese. Cheese is high in fat, has some protein and not much of anything else and string-cheese sounds like highly processed cheese to me. The juice is fine, but to be honest you want a more substantial lunch here. This is probably your most active time of the day and your body is expecting to be fed. If you don't indulge it you push it into "starvation" mode and it starts winding down the metabolism and conserving those calories as fat. Have a baked potato (Better; a baked sweet potato) with fat free cottage-cheese, or perhaps a small portion of grilled fish with some wholemeal bread and steamed vegetables.

mid afternoon snack: A few wheat pretzel sticks


This is just "empty" carbohydrates - mostly starch. Cut some raw carrots into batons, maybe a few other vegetables as well. Dip into a portion of fat free cottage-cheese or something like Extra-light Philadelphia soft cheese (light philadelphia is surprisingly high in fat, but extra-light is okay. Most diet soft-cheeses replace the fat content with carbohydrates, but philadelphia actually replace the missing fat with protein, making it a good choice!).

Have some fruit. Or maybe make yourself a fruit salad.

Dinner: Typically a piece of chicken, some brown rice and some fresh veggies with a glass of low-fat milk
Desert: Either a yogurt or handful of dark choc chips from freezer

This is fine. The dark chocolate should be an occasional treat, not a staple.

Consider also having a healthy supper - high in protein and low in carbs and fats, but don't eat too close to bedtime. It may sound counter-intuitive but I don't think you are feeding the body enough so it's preparing for famine and that means storing fat. Let it know it's okay to burn calories.

Take a look at your exercise regime; you don't say what it is you do so it's hard to do anything but generalise, but mix things up a little. I suspect that your metabolism is "stuck in a rut" so alternate low intensity but vigorous exercise (fat burning) with high intensity cardio work. Mix strength training with endurance training. Have exercise days where you do a lot (an hour or more but not necessarily in one go) alternating with days you only do 30 minutes. Try to vary the time of day you do the exercise as well.

You need to shock your body out of its complacency. Make your metabolism think that activity can be demanded of it any moment (so it stays high and burns calories) while at the same time making sure it knows it's going to be fed regularly and with the right things.

Beyond that I can't really advise you. I'm not an expert in these things. You should really see a dietician.

Kind Regards
Dave

[jackalan996]

stress is the part of life. it going to ups and down every day. person stress when he take the little thing mush bigger or doing over burden of work.
to reduce the stress take the green tea after 3 hours. it refresh the brain, reduce the tiredness of the body.

weight can be loss by dieting or doing some exercise activities in the morning just for 30 mints.
eating less fat food and vegetables.
drink water mostly about 6 to 8 glass.

[OptikaNET]

Jackalan996 - unless you respond to this message and prove that you are a person, I am going to delete you as a spambot.

Kind Regards
Dave

[wavesurfer]

Stress and weight lose--
Both can be controlled by YOGA exercises. These are simple but effect is impressive as depends on total law of Inhale and Exhale of Oxygen.

[Robertrogo]

Stress and weight lose--
Both can be controlled by YOGA exercises. These are simple but effect is impressive as depends on total law of Inhale and Exhale of Oxygen.


I used to do YOGA and at times just sit/clear my mind which would help with stress. For some reason I am too restless to do any sort of YOGA/Mediation anymore and my mind is always racing.

Now I try and just run or do cardio and listen to music and clear my mind. Too many things around that cause either stress or frustration haha