How does stress affect weight gain?

First of all, what is stress? Stress is your body’s way of responding to any kind of demand. There are many types of stress from physical to emotional.

Survival Stress – also known as your “fight or flight” response. This is when you are afraid that something might physically hurt you. Your body’s naturally responds with a burst of energy so that you will better survive the situation.

Internal Stress - can be categorized as self inflicted stress. This is when people worry about thing that they can not control, things that may or may not happen.

Environmental Stress - is caused by noise, crowding and pressure from work or family.

Fatigue and Overwork – this kind of stress builds up over long period of time. It can be caused by working too much or too hard at your job, school, or home. It can also be caused by not knowing how to manage your time or to take time out for yourself.

Part 2 and even more important – how does stress affect your weight? Well there are several ways. One has to do with cortisol, also called the stress hormone. Chronic stress and cortisol can contribute to your weight gain:

• Metabolism: Too much cortisol can slow down your metabolism, causing more weight gain than you would normally experience. This also makes dieting more difficult.
  
  
• Cravings: People experiencing chronic stress tend to crave more salty, high fat and sugary foods.
  
  
• Blood Sugar: Prolonged stress can alter your blood sugar levels, causing mood swings, fatigue, and conditions like hyperglycemia.
  
  
• Fat Storage: Excessive stress even affects where we tend to store fat. Higher level of stress is linked to greater levels of abdominal fat.
  
  Stress and weight gain are also connected in other ways:

• Emotional Eating: Increased level of cortisol can not only makes you crave unhealthy food, but excess nervous energy can often cause you to eat more than you normally would.
  
  
• Fast Food: Experts believe that a big reason for the obesity in this country is that people are too stressed out and busy to cook healthy dinners at home so they opt for fast food.
  
  
• Too busy to exercise: With all the demands on your schedule, exercise may be the last thing on your list. However, it is one of the top stress relivers.

So what are some of the things we can do to reduce stress? Here are a few relieve your stress quick lists.

Relax Now List - Visualize yourself in a tranquil place, Gain control of your breathing, Repeat a helped quote or worked, Get away from the noise, Use your imagination, Use good scents, Laugh, Cry.

A list of relaxing Thoughts - See problems as opportunities, There is not right answer, It’s not a perfect world, Let go and let god, This too shall pass, Refute negative thoughts, Stop over generalizing, Control yourself, not others, Be yourself.

De-stress List - Exercise, Meditate, Use guided imagery tape, Take an aromatherapy bath, Take a nap, Get a massage, Practice Yoga or Tai chi, Listen to soothing music, Take time out for a short walk or vacation, Stop being the receptacle for the world’s problems.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!! Here we are January 3, 2010 and I'm happy to report I am still down 15 lbs and 23 inches from last January 1 2009! What an accomplishment! How did I do it? Consistency - Consistently working out each week and consistently eating 90% clean each week - remember if you are eating 5 meals a day, that is 35 meals a week, which means 3.5 of your meals or snack can be "cheats". Of course I was down a full 20 lbs and almost 26 inches before the holidays, but no body's perfect - right?

So I'm off again - just finished my kitchen cleanse, just finished restocking my fridge and cabinets with clean food, and lastly have a plan in place to get my 5 to 6 workouts in a week! 3 - 40 min cardio sessions and 3 - weight training sessions - of course both with include my valslide!!! Have you thought about what your health intentions are for this year?

Intentions are basically goals - goals you set for yourself. Setting intentions get you focused and clear on what you want. Becoming aware of your intentions brings them to the front of your mind and once they come to the front of your mind, they will happen. If you haven't seen the movie the Secret yet, I highly recommend it. It talks about the law of attraction and how by setting your intention in the positive way, you will attract / make the results you want happen. For example - you wouldn't say I don’t want to be fat because your mind will hear I want to be fat. You would say I intend to be 145 by Feb. 28th.

Here are some sample intentions:

• I intend to weigh 145 by Feb 28th.
• I intend to fit easily into a size 10--and my old favorite jeans!--by Feb 28th.
• I intend to reduce my body fat to 31% (according to my body fat scale) by Feb 28th.
• I intend to attend my running class 2x per week and do my individual running workout each week.
• I intend to do 3 full body strength workouts in the morning each week.
• I intend to track my workouts and my food in my journal.
• I intend to pre-plan my meals and bring my snacks to work.
• I intend to limit sugars, refined starches, alcohol, and eating dinner out
• I intend to read my intentions daily and transform my mindset to a positive, can-do attitude over these 8 weeks.

To stay focused it is also very important to have some kind of motivation / deadline - Why do you want to get fit? Class reunion; be healthy for your kids, fit into your skinny jeans, a wedding, a vacation etc. As I've mentioned before there has to be a reason attached.

Start by taking before pictures, take your measurements, and weight and write them in a journal. Journal your food and exercise daily to hold yourself accountable – at the end of the 8 weeks allow someone to take your after pictures. If you are consistent you WILL see results.