Adrenalin is your acute stress hormone and drives the ‘flight or fight’ response and communicates to every cell in your body that you need fuel, and the glucose as fast fuel instead of slow burning fuel.
This leads to insulin resistance, as it leads to the constant release of glucose from the liver and muscles. Should this glucose not be utilised through exercise, the insulin it made during this stress period, takes it back to storage and more of it will be stored as fat.
Adrenalin and your stress hormones divert blood away from your digestive system, to your arms and legs, to power you away from danger, therefore digestion is compromised and therefore fat is stored.
Stress and adrenalin levels increase the interference with the body to make progesterone, a sex hormone involved with fertility and a hormone that acts as an anti-anxiety agent and anti-depressant.
If adrenalin stops this production of progesterone, a woman becomes oestrogen-dominant, which leads to additional fat storage.
Increased adrenalin levels from stress leads to increased blood pressure and this continued cycle promotes inflammation and is the basis of many various degenerative diseases.
Exercise reduces stress, adrenalin, insulin and cortisol levels, which in turn prevents fat deposits degeneration and disease.
If the continued output of the biochemical changes from stress is happening, so that the body continues to make cortisol, to help combat this, you will slow your metabolic rate, break your muscles down and lay fat around your stomach and back of your arms.
High levels of Cortisol due to stress, urge your body to break down muscle to provide glucose for your brain.
The less muscle you have the slower your metabolic rate, which helps you to burn and utilise fat more readily and not to store fat.
Find every way possible to lower stress levels.