Weight gain: Avoid stress to stop gaining excess belly fat

Weight loss and preventing from regaining the pounds that you have shed off have always been focused on eating a healthy diet and doing regular exercises.

However, taking care of your physical body is not the only factor that would keep those excess belly fats away as mental health also plays a big role in it.

Not having many physical activities because of the lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is not the only reason why you are gaining excess belly fats.

One other reason and a big one at that is stress, because who would not be stressed with a pandemic that has put pretty much the whole world on lockdown.

Stress is a big factor in gaining belly fat. Even those who are not overweight but are vulnerable to the effects of stress are likely to gain excess abdominal fat.

Stress-related weight gain is often a result of overeating and unhealthy food choices as your body's response to increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

And, cortisol is a significant appetite stimulant. Thus, if you noticed, while in lockdown due to COVID-19, most of you opt to reach for unhealthy comfort food.

Libby Limon, a nutritionist, told the Daily Express that your body can work against you when you are stressed.

The nutritionist pointed out that this is the reason why belly fat is hard to lose because when you are under stress, the cortisol will signal your brain to conserve energy and it does that by storing it as fat.

So, as much as possible, you have to learn to calm yourself down to prevent your cortisol from spiking.

You can try yoga, or do a 30-minute exercise daily, talk it out with someone, practice mindful meditation, listen to music, or anything that can help you keep calm.

Or, you can also get rid of all the unhealthy food in your pantry so every time you get the urge to eat, you will only be able to get healthy food.