In a normal situation, cortisol production only lasts for a short period of time and afterwards, all metabolic functions go back to normal. But this is where things can go wrong, because in many cases these stresses that cause your body to secrete cortisol occur way too often and stay “on” for way too long.
When you’re body experiences constant stress, it continuously secretes cortisol and that’s when cortisol becomes counterproductive to your body. And depending on how long and how much cortisol you have circulating in your body, it can seriously compromise your health and alter your metabolic process causing you to gain stubborn unrelenting belly fat! Researchers at Yale University found slender women who had high cortisol also had more abdominal fat.
So, if you tend to gain belly fat easily and have a difficult time getting rid of it, there’s a strong likelihood that you’re producing too much cortisol.