How to Lower Stress & Increase Weight Loss

How to Lower Stress & Increase Weight Loss

 

Are you struggling to lose weight? Many people are, despite being well informed about eating healthily and leading an active lifestyle. While there are many reasons why people don't put this knowledge into practice, perhaps one of the most common is the stressful lifestyles that so many of us lead. Let's take a look at how reducing stress can help your weight loss efforts.

A stressful lifestyle can contribute to weight gain and make it more difficult to lose weight, because so many people have a tendency to overeat in response to stress. This isn't true of everyone who's overweight of course, but it's still a significant problem for many. It therefore stands to reason that if you're one of these people, reducing your overall stress levels (or at very least finding healthier methods of dealing with it), will help you to lose weight.

Ever notice how your strongest cravings for junk food almost always hit at your weakest moments... when you're stressed, angry, grappling with a tough problem or simply bored or anxious?

 

five tips to lower stress by eating healthfully.

Experts know that the refined sugars and carbs in our favorite snacks might make us happier for a few minutes, but then the inevitable crash comes and we feel a whole lot worse. The urge that sent us to the kitchen cabinets still exists, and now we've devoured something unhealthy and bad for us to boot.

The good news is that if you're prone to eating like this, there are things you can do to make a change and achieve your weight loss goals.

Emotional eaters will tell you that when they feel tense, the desire to eat is automatic, without thought or even real hunger behind it. This is especially true, say researchers, if your body has a strong reaction to hormones naturally released during stressful times.

A study in 2010 found that when the level of stress hormone (cortisol) was increased in non-stressed, healthy adults, they consumed more junk foods.

Not only will stress have you craving more high calorie, sweet and fatty goodies, but it might also have you skipping regular meals and eating fewer of the good foods, fruits and veggies your body needs.

This sets up a vicious, unhealthy cycle that's hard to break. It's no surprise that people who eat while stressed gain more weight than those who don't eat for that reason.

What you need to do is come up with other ways of handling stress and your urge to eat. You might try...

1. Eating regularly throughout the day, at least every four to five hours, so that you keep your hunger from getting out of hand. This gives you a better foundation for handling the inevitable stress when it arrives.

2. Choose complex carbs such as oatmeal, raisin bran or another whole grain cereal, or whole grain pasta, brown rice, veggies, fruits and non or low fat milk as these foods encourage your brain to manufacture serotonin, a chemical that helps you manage stress and improve mood.

3. Be aware of what's happening so that when stress comes and tries to set off the urge to snack you're able to stop and think. Are you actually hungry? Often negative emotions might make you feel something like hunger, but it really isn't appetite at all. You'll be able to tell by the answers to basic questions... how long since you've last eaten? Try mindfulness too... using your senses to select foods that are pleasing and nourishing, and watch for the physical cues that you've had enough.

4. Have a backup plan (or two) that includes keeping healthy snacks on hand for when stress hits. Try packets of trail mix or nuts, apples or other easily transportable fruits or cut up crunchy foods like carrots, pepper and celery for the crunch you crave.

5. Substitute another activity for stress eating such as walking outside, listening to a favorite piece of soothing music, giving a friend a call, caring for a pet or sitting quietly and controlling your breathing.

 

By using one (or more) of these strategies next time you're looking for ways to lower stress, you'll be less likely to reach for the junk foods first. Even if you slip a few times, just by working to change your behavior you're making progress... and with enough dedicated effort to eating healthfully you're sure to succeed.

 

Meditation

One of the most effective stress reduction methods is meditation. Meditation is becoming increasingly popular, and has been widely studied as well. People who meditate regularly have lower stress levels than those who don't, so if meditation isn't already a part of your healthy lifestyle regime, it's worth starting.

There are lots of different ways to meditate, and the choice of different methods and techniques can seem overwhelming at first. Unfortunately a lot of people give up meditation, because they find that quieting their mind and focusing their thoughts is surprisingly difficult. It's true that meditation can be very challenging for beginners, but using a meditation recording can help make the process easier and more effective. In the case of weight loss, it's best to choose a recording that is specifically created for those who want to lose weight.

By listening to such a recording, it's easier to keep your mind focused, as it has something specific to pay attention to. The best weight loss meditation recordings also include brainwave entrainment technologies such as binaural beats or isochronic tones. These are rapidly repeating sounds of specific frequencies which have been found to have a powerful effect on your mental state. Simply put, if you choose a recording which features this technology, your brain is given a kind of 'helping hand', and it becomes much easier to achieve a deeply focused and relaxed state of mind. And once you can enter and maintain such a state, you'll naturally release stress and feel better.

Regular use of a meditation recording will nearly always have a positive effect on your everyday life. You'll feel happier and more balanced, and since your stress levels are now under control, you'll be less prone to over eating in an attempt to feel better. And since you no longer have to resist constant much temptation to pick or binge on food that you don't need, it becomes much easier to achieve your weight loss goals.

References

Kirsten Whittaker

Loren Mann