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HOW STRESS CAN MAKE YOU FAT – AND HOW TO CURE IT
NOTE: This article is intended to help people who are stressed out and are finding it is impacting on their health, weight and wellbeing. It is a self-help guide that is not intended for those suffering more serious stress or mental health issues.
ARE YOU STRESSED OUT?
Stress comes from all sorts of sources, negative thought and emotions, hurt, anger fear, resentment, envy, insecurity, anxiety, shame and worry.
How we deal with stress is important for our health, weight and wellbeing.
It’s important to figure out what is causing you stress in the first place it may be an issue at work, or a recent illness, or disagreements with a friend or family stress that is getting you down. In that case it can be easy to change.
More serious stress like trauma and depression can require professional help if you are not coping because it can impact your mind first and then your body in a negative way by making you fat and sick.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE BODY WHEN WE ARE UNDER STRESS?
Emotions trigger a physical response in your body we know as “fright flight” this is our reptilian brain warning us of imminent danger.
The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol are released into the body at this point to enable you to respond immediately.
Cortisol is life sustaining.
An adrenal hormone essential to homeostasis. Known as the stress hormone cortisol influences, regulates or modulates a number of changes that occur in the body.
Giving you energy by telling your liver to convert glycogen to glucose and dump it into your blood stream to feed your cells and muscles fuel to stand and fight or to run away as fast as you can.
It pumps you up and your muscles are charged for immediate action.
Adrenaline is a hormone released from the adrenal glands and its major action, together with noradrenaline, is to prepare the body for “fright flight”.
These hormones also turn off other functions in the body that are not necessary for fright flight and imminent danger.
They switch off the digestive system, reproductive system, brain, immune system, your memory and anything that is not vital in an emergency.
That’s why you can feel dizzy, can’t think straight and can’t remember in a traumatic event.
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF STRESS.
1/ Acute stress – deals with a traumatic event, a stressful situation that has a beginning and an end.
2/ Chronic stress – is the response to emotional pressure suffered for a prolonged period of time in which the person perceives they have no or little control over.
The day in day out worries, fears, negative thoughts, anxieties and unresolved stresses in your life that just hover in the background keeping us in a state of stress and not at peace or at ease.
Unaddressed chronic stress can cause cortisol to circulate in your blood continuously effecting digestion causing digestive issues such as IBS, chrohn’s disease, acid reflux and poor all round digestive function.
If you don’t get enough sleep you can elevate stress even further.
It also suppresses the immune system making you vulnerable to disease.
If not dealt with the elevated levels of cortisol in the blood will lead to weight gain, which leads to insulin resistance, which then leads to obesity, which is among the top health risks in western society today.
NO MATTER HOW MUCH EXERCISE AND DIETING YOU DO YOU WILL NOT LOSE WEIGHT IF YOU ARE UNDER STRESS
Cortisol is important when you are exercising, providing energy to your muscles to get you moving.
However too much cortisol can have a negative effect as well, like moving stubborn fat that won’t budge.
Too much cortisol slows down metabolism, causes you to crave carbohydrates and stimulates your appetite.
To strive for total body wellness stress issues must be resolved. CLICK TO TWEET
HOW TO RESOLVE THE STRESS IN YOUR LIFE.
Negativity and negative information can get you down. Identify what bothers you and acknowledge it.
It may be an unresolved disagreement with someone. Be the bigger person and apologize, even if you were in the right, apologize, face that person and say, you were right.
Then say it under your breath a dozen more times.
Even when you know you are right saying they were right several times has a positive effect on you and it diminishes the problem.
I have heard people say “they hurt me so much I will never speak to them again”. Who’s suffering here?
TV and the news can get us down too.
Don’t watch it.
And if you do watch something, make sure it is going to uplift you and make you happy.
Watch sport, a funny movie, anything that makes you laugh.
Avoid the wingers, negative people and complainers.
And if you catch yourself being that person. STOP. It is doing you no good at all.
To boost your immune system and to get your digestion working well try happiness instead.
Surround yourself with happy, joyful, positive people.
Recognize and eliminate all negative thoughts.
Acknowledge them.
Deal with them.
And forget them for your own health and well-being.
If you are in a bad relationship.
Sort it. Talk to that person. Tell them how you feel and if you have to, get out.
Almost all stress in your life is caused through just three things:
People Problems Projects
Take positive action. Make a list of what is bothering you and write beside each one how you are going to resolve it.
FOOD IS MEDICATION
Comfort food which is usually junk food has three main ingredients that fuel – temporary “feel good” emotions in your brain – they are sugar, salt and fat (always bad fat).
This temporary satisfaction is short lived and in the long term harmful, especially to your body causing elevated insulin levels and creating inflammation and pain in the body leading to disease. More at the end in this video.
LEARN TO TAKE EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE.
Bitterness, anger, un-forgiveness and insecurity all make you feel bad.
Try to be thankful and grateful instead.
Or better still be conscious of every negative thought you have and replace that thought with a positive one, make it compulsory, remind yourself that now you have to generate a grateful and thankful thought every day.
Negative thoughts are a waste of time and energy that are doing your health no good what so ever.
Say to yourself “My life is going to be the best and healthiest from now on, so no more room for negativity”.
Always choose to think the best of people, recognize and resolve problems in your life, and make that project delightful, effortless and joyful.
If you have a sick heart you are going to have a sick body.
Heal your heart with forgiveness, cast your burdens aside, they are weighing you down.
Uplift your mind and become a grateful thankful person and watch your well-being sore. And the weight finally come off. To help you get into the right mood for eating try this very simple trick.
Deep meaningful breathing.
Deep breathes, breathe in and count to 6, hold your breathe count to 6 exhale count to 6. Do this six times before you eat. The magic happens with the deep controlled breathes your body transforms from fright flight and high cortizol levels to rest and digest. Now you can eat and know you body will get all the nutrients it needs from your food.
The following video will give you an insight into how hormones have an effect on the body. ENJOY!
