Yes and no. The only way you increase your body fat is by consuming more food or calories than you burn. However, high stress does create a number of issues which in turn will affect choices we make. Harvard Health published an article talking about stress, overeating, and moving less.
According to American Psychological Association survey, about 1/4 of American's rate there stress as 8 or more on a 10-point scale. I think of 5 being stressed half the time, so it seems a number of people are pretty high stress. If we are constantly stressed, then our bodies create more cortisol which can increase your appetite. There is also evidence that total movement will drop. So now we are motivated to eat more and move less, a great recipe for fat gain.
What's more is when stress kicks in we lose the prefrontal cortex of the brain and revert back to more fight, flight, and freeze responses. For me, when this happens, I am not thinking about "what is the best decision I can make for food today", or "How will I put together a solid workout or movement plan". No, I'm just trying to get through the day. Any extra things I need to do like eat will be quick and painless.
Harvard Health also mentions eating high fat or sugar filled foods drops cortisol levels down and helps bring you back to homeostasis. So, eating unhealthy foods actually works, it's a solution. Now if you know me you know I used drugs and alcohol as a solution for a number of years. I don't recommend that either. Both solutions come with quite a lot of consequences.
So, stress is bad, food isn't a solution, and drugs & alcohol aren't either. What the heck do we do then? There are various breathing (meditation) exercises we practice, gratitude practices, and questions or affirmation practices. If our clients are up for it, then we practice this with them as well. According to our partners at the Institute of heart math It only takes about 2-3 minutes to shift to a calm place and turn your prefrontal cortex back on. So, the great news is, it doesn't take long to create a real shift, and with practice it gets easier to implement.
We recommend setting an alarm on your phone, perhaps around noon each day. Take out 2-3 minutes and write 2-3 things you are grateful for or take 3-5-second-deep slow breaths for 2-3 minutes. These are two examples of quick practices we can implement to begin dropping cortisol levels and start real change in your day-to-day experience.