How Stress Sabotages A Healthy Diet

Stress has been scientifically shown to have many effects on the body. Ruining an otherwise healthy diet is just one of the main consequences of being too stressed. Embarking on a new diet, or simply improving an existing one can be challenging and stressful for anyone at the best of times.

When we are stressed, our diet is one of the first aspects to be affected, whether that is hardly eating at all, or for some people, eating an increased amount of food. This extra food is more likely to be comfort food because it makes us feel good, even if only for a short while. Therefore, stress can be a huge barrier to eating healthily, and can actually sabotage a healthy diet completely in several different ways.

Comfort Food

Various studies have shown that stress affects the brain and our neural pathways in particular. When we are stressed, we want to feel better quickly, and eating comfort food provides that instant hit of feel-good. In that situation, we may realize eating a pack of doughnuts is not a sensible idea and we should go for the banana instead.

However, the brain is receiving signals that say ‘if you eat the doughnuts you will feel much better instantly’. It is easy to see how the doughnuts usually end up winning. However, this does not lead to a healthy diet, particularly if we have a stressful diet and regularly find ourselves reaching for the sugary, unhealthy option.

When we are experiencing stressful situations, whether at home and/or work, our brain capacity is taken up by dealing with that situation. Unless you have been following a healthy diet for a substantial period of time, it requires effort and motivation to maintain a sensible diet. This can be incredibly difficult to maintain when stressed, for many reasons. It may be that after a long day and working late, a takeaway seems far more appealing than cooking a healthy meal for dinner.

Lack Of Sleep

Another way that stress can disrupt a healthy diet is through the lack of sleep that it can bring. If we are stressed and distracted, we frequently may find it hard to sleep. This inevitably has many knock-on effects that can ruin the next day and make us much less productive than we would normally be.

These effects can include relying on caffeine to stay awake during the day; several coffees, especially lattes and suchlike can easily outweigh any progress previously made. Similarly, if we are sleep deprived, we are incredibly unlikely to fancy going to the gym after a day at work. This lack of exercise, combined with less healthy eating, can all cause the pounds to increase rather quickly.

Hormonal Changes As A Result Of Stress

The scientific explanation behind this is due to levels of specific hormones in the body. We have hormones that tell us when we are hungry, when it is time to eat and when we are full up.

The hormone Ghrelin tells us when it is dinnertime and we should eat. If we are sleep deprived, we produce more Ghrelin. At the same time, the hormone leptin tells us when we have had enough to eat and should stop, as we are full. A lack of sleep often results in less of this hormone. So, lack of sleep means we think it is time to eat more often, and think we need to eat more than we do.

Even the most motivated of dieters and healthy eater will struggle to fight against these hormonal changes. All this combined, means being stressed will have a good go at ruining the healthy diet that otherwise is being sufficiently maintained.