How Stress Keeps the Weight On and What You Can Do About It
A lot of times my health coaching clients also have work/life balance goals. I believe this is because when we are too busy and stressed out, our health naturally falls to the wayside. Maybe it’s because we are no longer consistent with healthy habits, or maybe it’s because we are stressed out. Either way, it is not a fun place to be.
When our animal bodies feel safe, we lose weight.
This is because when we are stressed our body is in a sympathetic state, meaning our body is holding onto fat because it is stressed out and it thinks we are trying to escape a predator (even if that predator is our boss, kids, partner, or stress of the to-do list).
When we are relaxed, we are in a parasympathetic nervous system state, which cues our animal body to rest and digest its food. This is the state we want to be in more often, so that our body feels safe to let go of the fat it has been holding onto.
If we are stressed out running around all the time, our body does not know when it will eat next, so it holds onto fat and does not digest all the food in our bodies. Sometimes people who are overweight can go a while without eating or claim they are just “not hungry.” This is why.
And when we do not eat, we feed into the false belief to our body that we will not be eating for a while and it keeps the body in fight or flight even longer which feeds the cycle of maintaining the same weight or even gaining more weight. This is also why experts say sleep is crucial to weight loss. If we do not have a healthy balance of rest, we will not lose weight or get into shape.
So here are some tips to get the stress down which will allow your body to feel more safe to let the weight off:
Feel-good padding. I call this feel-good padding because it involves doing things that feel really good throughout the day. Even if it’s for 10 minutes. Taking a walk, meditating, curling up with a great book on a lunch break, doing a quick 10-minute yoga stretch by Yoga with Kassandra off of YouTube; it can be anything. Just start balancing your busy life with things that feel really freaking good.
Slow down. In any and all ways that you can think of, as often as possible. Oftentimes my work/life balance and health coaching clients start to utilize the power of their mornings to really set themselves up for an amazing day. They do things like meditation, a walk outside, journaling, reading, or making a delicious morning drink, it can be anything that feels good. Starting our days slower helps us show up as our best selves throughout the day and helps infuse the rest of our day with more peace and calm.
Get happier. What makes you happy? Do more of that. Carve out time to paint, write, garden, or go out with the girls. Carve out time for a spontaneous weekend roadtrip, for a lake day with a binge-worthy book, for an afternoon tea party with friends or your daughter. Just put things in the calendar that make you excited.
Get in some mindful movement. I say “mindful movement” and not just any “movement” because mindful movement helps you relax. We want to get the relaxation levels up and the stress levels down to help your body feel safe again. Practices like fast walking, yoga, or pilates are great ways to ease back into movement. If we go straight to running when we haven’t in a while or when we are stressed out already, this is putting us back in fight or flight mode again. We want to signal to our body that we are not in danger. Stress is just a perceived sense of rush and urgency, that’s all it is, it is not life or death typically. Our mind knows this, we just have to train our body.
Use your body’s sensations as messengers. This one is very powerful. Tap into the physical sensations you feel in your body daily. Sometimes we are aware enough mentally to catch ourselves stressed out, but other days we arent’ aware enough to do this. That is when we let the body be a messenger for us. Think of when you are stressed, where is the physical feeling in your body? Typical areas are the throat, forehead, chest, and stomach. There will be a tightness in one of those areas and when you feel it is tight, move that part of your body. Massage that part of your body. Relax and loosen that part of your body. This will signal to your body that you are safe and it will help you be more relaxed mentally as well. Our mind cannot regulate and calm down until our body does. So allow both your mind and your body to let you know when you are stressed out, then do whatever you need to calm down. This is emotional regulation at its finest!
Journal on this prompt. What are the biggest stressors in my life? What can I do about them? Get your bills down, and say no to doing more stuff if you are already overwhelmed. Practice setting boundaries in your relationships. Outsource, de-clutter, and organize everything that you can. Ask for help. Think of all the ways you can get your stress levels down and relaxation levels up!
Meditate - in any way you want to. Meditation does not have to be sitting in silence for 30 or more minutes, that is the most advanced form of meditation. But you can start with yoga/mindful stretching, or you can even start with a walking meditation where you walk for a certain amount of time with no music or people to distract you. Just get quiet for 15 minutes or longer in order to help your brain slow down and to feel more at peace. A solitary bath can be meditation too. It’s anything you do alone with no distractions that helps you deeply let go and relax.
There is so much more I could share with you on this topic but this is a great start for now. You can eat healthy and work out, but remember - you want to feel more safe, at peace, and calm to help your body lose weight and stay healthy. Your body does so much for you. Remember to give it what it wants, not just what you want.
