Did you know that the amount of stress you feel, and how you deal with it, can totally determine whether you lose or gain weight?
My clients are busy women – they work hard, run their own businesses, take care of their family, travel, cook, clean, go to school, volunteer, write, create, take on huge amounts of responsibility and rarely have quiet time for themselves. They are stressed to the max!
The frustrating thing is that many women still find time to exercise on a regular basis and even revamp their diets so that they’re eating better than ever before – and they STILL can’t lose weight.
Here’s the thing: it’s not the amount of exercise (or maybe it IS), or the diet that’s the main problem.
It’s the amount of stress women feel on a daily basis that keeps the weight on.
The amount of constant, low-level stress humans experience on a daily basis is unnatural and new. By “new” I mean recent in human history. Never before have we been bombarded with stimuli like texts, voice mail, cell phones, emails, streaming video, 24-hour news channels, reality television, radio, schedules, alarm clocks, deadlines, and advertising. Up until a few generations ago, we didn’t even have electric lights! We got up with the sun and went to bed with the sun. Ponder that for a moment.
When I work with busy, stressed-out women who constantly focus on how they can’t lose weight, I often put them on a media diet:
- turn off the tv after 6pm
- no tv in the bedroom EVER
- go computer free on the weekends
Besides lowering the amount of tiny stressors like texts and email alerts, learning how to incorporate daily, even hourly, stress relievers will help the body and mind calm down and stop producing the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. These two lovelies set the body up to hold on to fat in anticipation of fight or flight – which was useful when we were living in mud huts and gathering our food in the wild.
My favorite ways to relax during the day are:
- look up a relaxtion meditation video on Youtube
- drink a glass of water every hour
- walk around outside for 5 minutes every 2-3 hours
- stretch in the sunlight or while looking out a window every 2-3 hours
- ride my bike while doing my errands (yes, my 3 year old comes too: I have a bike trailer that can fit one kid and 3-4 bags of groceries)
Bi-weekly or monthly stress reduction techniques include:
- massage
- food rub and pedicure
- sitting in the steam room at my YMCA
Take time out for relaxation on a regular basis for easier weight management. In coming newsletters and blog posts, I’ll be writing more about adrenal fatigue, stress and ways to relax into weight loss.
Are you ready for total body transformation and weight loss?
Join me for my upcoming 4 Week Detox Tele-Course starting April 26th!
Here’s to your health!
Alexandra
[...] My clients are busy women – they work hard, run their own businesses, take care of their family, travel, cook, clean, go to school, volunteer, write, create, take on huge amounts of responsibility and rarely have quiet time for themselves. They are stressed to the max! Click here to continue reading! [...]
I never think about stress being caused by all the tekkie things in my life. I always think it’s because I take on too much. But you are right. Turning off our phones and computers definitely leaves a sense of peace in the atmosphere!
Thanks for this post!
This is exactly what I needed to see/read! I have not been exercising like I should and I will take responsibility for that. But in the last 6-9 months I have had both of my parents in the hospital and my father in law hospitalized the week before christmas. We almost lost one of our dogs. I was auction chair of a very large charity auction (raised over $300,000 in this economy) which took a huge amount of time. AND trying to maintain my own wellness education business while being threatened with a lawsuit over my business name! Stress? No, I don’t have any stress! Thanks Alex for the reminder to decrease the stimulation.