sofie

4 years

My mood has been very down for this past few months

My mood has been very down for this past few months after my break up with my boyfriend. Could that be a reason why I have lost weight, Dr?

Dr Ramzdhan,

4 years

Hello there and cheers for your kind question above. First of all, I’m sorry for the sad news, hopefully you are doing alright. Yes, being stressed, anxious or any emotional changes can reduce your weight. This can be explained under a several reasons. Behaving abnormally activates the body’s stress mechanism.

The stress mechanism causes the body to release stress hormones like cortisol into the bloodstream where it travel to targeted area in the body to bring about specific psychological, physiological, and emotional changes that promote the body’s ability to deal with a problems by either fight with or flight from it.

This response is usually referred to as the emergency response and fight or flight response. Stress hormones are like a stimulant, which increases our body’s metabolism and energy consumption. An increase in metabolism can use the body’s energy resources higher than normal causing it to burn the energy faster.

The faster the body burns energy, the more it needs. If the body does not receive sufficient energy from the foods that we eat, it will get the necessary energy from the body’s fat stores. This is why it can can cause weight loss if our eating habits is not increased sufficiently to top up the increase in energy needed.

That might be one of the reasons why are you losing weight when you are currently having an emotional stress, because it can reduces your appetite level. So, my suggestion to you is to keep having a regular meals as you did before, despite of having under a difficult situation.

Please click on this link (DoctorOnCall) to talk to us privately online and discuss further about your inquiries. Thank you.

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