Article Directory :: Health & Fitness Articles Why cortisol destroys your healthy weight loss diet By Jayson Hunter Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 30Jan2010 Word count: 476 Viewed: 938 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site There is 1 hormone that can ruin your healthy weight loss diet and have you not only frustrated, but more importantly not losing any weight. Your body is a very complicated machine and hormones dictate much of what your body does or doesn't do. They are very powerful and can influence your weight loss in a very dramatic way. This one hormone that can cause so many problems is called Cortisol. Cortisol is very influential because excess cortisol stimulates your appetite and causes your body to store more calories as fat. These are 2 things you don't want when trying to follow a healthy weight loss diet. Cortisol also increases protein breakdown within the muscle, which means a slower metabolism and less calories burned. A key to successful weight loss is keeping your metabolism running at a fast rate so that you are always burning calories. It decreases glucose utilization and increased insulin resistance, which means the glucose or sugars in your body are not used for energy as much as they should be. Instead they float around and eventually get stored as fat. This is strike two against your healthy weight loss diet and healthy eating plans. One thing that directly increases cortisol is stress. Stress causes increased cortisol levels, increased insulin resistance and increased leptin resistance. Stress can come from work issues, family issues, medical problems and even unhealthy foods. When stress increases leptin and insulin resistance this causes higher cortisol levels. Well, when you have higher cortisol levels your leptin and insulin resistance get worse. It is a vicious cycle that keeps feeding on itself until you are overweight or obese. Despite all your healthy eating plans and healthy diet plans if stress is dominating your life then your healthy weight loss diet may be for nothing. Those with extra fat in your belly, a round face, high blood sugars or high blood pressure most likely have elevated cortisol levels. Here are a few things you can do to lower your cortisol levels. Eat every few hours. When you wait longer than five hours between meals your body may start to release extra cortisol, which then increases your appetite. By eating every few hours not only are you going to keep your cortisol levels low you are going to stimulate other hormones that help you feel full for a longer period of time and reduce that urge to keep eating. Also, eat lean protein at every feeding opportunity to trigger certain hormones that will help you to eat less food and burn more calories. Of course you need to make sure that you also control your stress as I have discussed how important this is to controlling your cortisol levels. Get plenty of sleep, exercise frequently and focus on reducing other stressors in your life so that your healthy weight loss diet is more effective. Jayson Hunter is a Registered Dietitian with more than 10 years of experience helping people breakthrough and discover a healthier life. Learn more powerful nutrition tips at healthy eating guidelines. EasyPublish™ this article - publishers click here More articles by Jayson Hunter

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