Anxiety can have a distinct impact on weight. Anxiety affects everyone differently, and the way that you handle anxiety and stress can determine whether it causes you to gain or lose weight.
If you're embarking on a weight loss journey, it's important to understand how your mental health can impact the time it takes for you to hit your goals. Here, we'll explore how anxiety can affect your weight loss, and what you can do to manage your anxiety in a way that supports your journey toward health.
Understanding the link between anxiety and weight loss
Physical and mental health are intertwined in myriad ways. For some people, anxiety and other mental health issues can manifest physically in the form of digestive issues, autoimmune conditions, changes in appetite, and more. For others, anxiety can cause a temporary decrease in appetite, only for the appetite to resurge as soon as the stressor is removed.
Regardless of whether anxiety causes your appetite to increase or decrease, many people living with anxiety find that it's tough to maintain a healthy weight. Anxiety can cause changes in the body's endocrine (hormone) system, which can make it even harder to change long-standing patterns that are stopping you from being your healthiest self.
Common anxiety-related barriers to weight loss
While combating anxiety can be a key component of successful, sustainable weight loss, understanding the barriers that anxiety and stress create is key to developing a plan that works for you.
Some of the issues related to anxiety that can make it harder to lose weight include:
Emotional eating habits
If you've ever found yourself mindlessly working your way through a family-size bag of chips after a stressful event, or you've absent-mindedly hit up the fast food drive-thru after a tough day at work, you're not alone. Emotional eating refers to using food to soothe stress, anxiety, or other negative emotions. For many, overcoming emotional eating is the first step toward lasting weight loss.
Hormonal issues
Hormones facilitate most processes in our bodies, including those related to appetite and metabolism. For women, life changes like perimenopause and menopause, bring hormonal changes that can affect body weight and body fat. For many people (men and women alike), hormonal issues are correlated with anxiety. Problems with gut health and anxiety are also commonly correlated, as the gut is responsible for the production of many different hormones.
Sleep problems
Getting enough sleep is vital for regulating the hormones that control hunger and appetite. Failing to get enough sleep can slow your metabolism, making it tougher to lose weight.
Skipping meals
We get it—it may feel tempting to skip a meal if you're not super-hungry, feel like you ate more than you needed earlier in the day, or if you're simply feeling a high level of anxiety. It's counterintuitive, but skipping meals can actually make it harder for you to lose weight.
When you don't get the calories and nutrients that you need to support your body, it's likely that you'll develop cravings for high-calorie, hyper-palatable foods. Eating balanced, nutrient-dense foods throughout the day is the best way to combat the binge-restrict cycle often experienced by people with anxiety who are trying to lose weight.
Strategies to manage anxiety while pursuing weight loss
Thankfully, there are plenty of techniques you can use to reduce anxiety while you're working toward your weight loss goals, including:
- Exercise: Exercise isn't just great for your body—it's also hugely beneficial to your mind. Aerobic exercises (such as walking at a brisk pace or taking a dance class) have proven to be especially beneficial for anxiety management.
- Meditation: Practicing meditation can help you get and stay in tune with your body. A 2017 research review showed that people who engaged in weight loss programs that included mindfulness practices like meditation were more easily able to lose weight and keep it off than those who used diet and exercise alone.
- Journaling: Take a few minutes to journal your thoughts when you feel the urge to engage in emotional eating. Doing so may provide you with the anxiety relief you need without sabotaging your weight loss efforts.
- Therapy: Seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness. If your anxiety is interfering with your goals to get healthy and strong, talking to a professional can provide you with the personalized strategies you need to move forward.
The importance of mental health in weight loss
When it comes to losing weight, managing stress and anxiety is key. When mental health issues and anxiety are not addressed, emotional eating, sleep problems, and other factors can make it harder to move toward your goal. Working with a mental health professional can provide you with ongoing support to ensure that you're able to continue engaging in behaviors that contribute to you becoming your healthiest self.
How to build a supportive environment for anxiety management
It's important to create an environment that helps you keep the potential for anxiety low as you lose weight.
Some tips for creating a supportive environment for anxiety management include:
- Keep your home clutter-free. Taking a few minutes each day to clear clutter can help you feel more relaxed at the end of each day.
- Get social support. Joining a walking or jogging club, taking a workout class with friends, or even meeting up with others for a book club can all help reduce anxiety through strengthening social connections.
- Be open about your goals. For some reason, it can be tough to tell others when we're working to lose weight. Being open and honest (instead of saying you already ate, you're not hungry, or you don't feel well) when offered foods that trigger your anxiety or don't align with your goals can help those around you offer the support you need.
Using technology to support a balanced, healthy approach to weight loss
Stress is a fact of life, and using technology can help you to manage your stress and anxiety levels when it comes to weight loss. Apps that track your activity levels, nutrition, and mood can all play a valuable role in helping you understand what's working for you in your weight loss journey (and where you can make adjustments to support your progress). When you use a variety of apps to support weight loss, you're better able to see the big picture, including changes in your mood, anxiety levels, and energy, than if you only relied on the number on the scale to determine whether you're moving toward your goals.
At Evidation, we're here to help you manage anxiety through the weight loss process by supporting a holistic approach to health and wellness. When you use apps to track your health data (such as physical activity, nutrition, sleep, hydration, etc.), and share that data with Evidation, we provide you with insights and articles that give you the information you need to stay motivated. Download the app today and get started—we can't wait to see what you accomplish!
