Stress: Its effect on weight loss and how to ease the tension

Stress: Its effect on weight loss and how to ease the tension

Today’s topic is on stress, how it affects weight loss, and some strategies on how to deal with stress through diet and exercise. Many of us consider it a norm to be stressed out and carry stress with us day in and day out without strategies in place to help bring our minds and bodies back down to a neutral, relaxed state.

All of us deal with stress in our daily lives and it has many physical and emotional impacts on our bodies. To introduce that issue I have posted a link to a video that introduces the physiological effects of stress on our bodies

Watch me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQzHZEcI4NA

When we experience stress there are many impacts, both physical and emotional, to our bodies. I want each of you to think of a stessor in your lives currently or stress that you’ve recently experienced. Think of all the kinds of symptoms (sadness, emotional eating, mood swings, fatigue, etc.) you are experiencing or have experienced due to stress and the people that it affects.

Over time these symptoms can accumulate and lead to things like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity so it’s very important for all of us to have coping strategies in place in order to deal with stress in the present so that it doesn’t grow into a bigger issue. There is a reason that stress is considered the ‘silent killer’. It has a much bigger impact on us that we give it credit for.

Stress can be either acute or chronic. Acute stress occurs when there is one issue that is being dealt with short term – this is also called our fight or flight response which cause our bodies to release adrenaline and go into alarm mode. It causes our blood pressure to increase, our bodies require more calories, and appetite is usually suppressed. When multiple stressful events are occurring at once or when acute stress isn’t resolved, our stress becomes chronic and lasts over an extended period of time. At this point our bodies start burning less calories, our appetite increases, our bodies begin to store more fat, and we may turn to things like emotional eating of high fat, high sugar foods to try and relieve our stress. Although reaching for comfort foods may initially make you feel better, they do not correct our underlying stress.

So what I’ve put together are 5 ways to ease stress through diet and exercise.

Number 1 is to eat meals regularly. Choosing to skip meals slows our metabolism, especially for those of you who do not eat breakfast regularly. When your body goes 12 hours without food metabolism can decrease by 40%, increase stress hormone within the body, which causes it to hold on to our fat stores. There’s a reason breakfast is called the most important meal of the day!

#2 is to keep a food journal and track what you eat throughout the day. Research has shown that people who keep track of what they eat are more successful in losing weight and keeping it off. Keeping a food journal may seem silly but it makes us more aware of what we really eat, reminds us of our weight goals, and reduces the chance that you will reach for those comfort foods during periods of stress.

#3 is to eat nutrient dense foods. Nutrient dense means that our food contains a high amount of beneficial vitamins and minerals without excessive calories. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole foods, etc.

Here I have a list of stress-fighting nutrients.

• Potassium is lost in higher amounts during periods of stress and replenishing that potassium by eating bananas and avocados helps keep your heart healthy and can help lower blood pressure.
• Vitamin C helps return blood pressure and stress hormones back to normal levels so be sure to incorporate citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruit.
• Complex carbs such as oatmeal and whole grains cause your body to release serotonin which is a hormone that causes happiness.
• Calcium helps ensure our muscles are working correctly so drinking milk or eating yogurt can help ease tension in our muscles caused by stress
• Omega 3’s are healthy fats found in fish like salmon. They can help prevent surges in stress hormones and help protect again heart disease
• Magnesium is found in green leafy foods like spinach helps combat stress by fighting anxiety and producing calming effects disrupted by stressful events
• B vitamins found in nuts and legumes help boost your ability to bounce back from stress.

#4 is eating mindfully. Mindful eating incorporates focus and awakening the senses when you eat. How many of us eat on the run or cloud our minds with the day’s tasks while we eat instead of focusing on what we’re eating, how it tastes how it feels? Mindful eating brings focus back to our food, so that we can enjoy it more instead of focusing on the stresses around us.

The fifth and final step is exercise, specifically aerobic exercise. By getting our heart rate up and blood flowing our bodies release endorphins, which are the hormones that make us feel good and ease pain. Exercise also helps recycle all of the imbalances caused by stress within our bodies and help us to return to our normal state of well-being. Find an activity that you enjoy that you can fit into your daily routine, and stick to it.

Now before the weekend comes to an end and we begin our vicious cycle of work and stress, take a minute to write a goal for yourself for the week, something for you to focus on when you start to feel like you might lose it. When writing goals it’s important to keep in mind that they should be s.m.a.r.t., meaning that they should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. So for example, this week I will take twenty minutes every morning to make myself a nutrient-dense breakfast, sit down, and actually enjoy my food before starting to run through the to-do list of responsibilities for the day. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but making a small promise to yourself (it’s the little things that count) can help you to achieve your goals and fight off stress. What will you do for yourself this week?