Stress and Your Waistline

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Stress and Your Waistline

By Joanne King

Many individuals say that when they feel stressed, they are more tempted to eat even though they are not hungry. This stress induce eating can boost caloric intake far over what is needed for the day, resulting in unwanted weight gain. This is made worse by the fact that people usually seek sweets as comfort food, which includes that many more calories, to expand your waistline even father. For some, this will again bring on the guilt and stress of gaining pounds, and then a vicious cycle begins which perpetuates itself, and increases the waistline even further.

What we eat when we are stressed is usually called our ‘comfort food’. Most of what is considered comfort foods are chocked full of carbohydrates. Some researchers believe we turn to comfort foods because it has an effect in the brain similar to opiates. This effect would explain why we tend to feel a little better by turning to our favorite foods while stressed. A comfort food can be anything, even a drink. It solely depends on the individual, but comfort food can be anything from apple pie to waffles, and anything in between

It’s important to know when you are actually eating to deal with stress, and not eating because you are hungry. Eating is something that we usually don’t stop and ask ourselves permission to do, but in the case of stress related binging, it is important to ask ourselves if we are eating to nourish our body, or to deal with our stress. Finding other ways to feel comforted is the key to keeping stress related weight from getting out of control.

One thing you can do is to target the source of the stress you are under. If possible, find ways to eliminate or at least lessen the amount of things in your life which causes you stress. If need be, call on others to handle certain situations which are a repeated source of stress for you. Another way to reduce stress is to delegate some of the workload to others when at work, and to have the family help out around the house so home life is less hectic for you.

When you feel the need to eat, try and give yourself some time before reaching for something to eat. If you can do something to occupy your time (other than eat) for about twenty minutes, the craving may very well pass on its own.

Make it a habit to eat on a regular schedule, and keep healthy snacks such as fruits and raw veggies for in between meal breaks. It’s the sugary snacks in between meals that will add up quickly in unwanted pounds. Eating on a regular schedule will also insure that you don’t get too hungry. When we feel as if we are starving, we tend to grab and eat anything near us and regular meals will help prevent this from happening.

By adding exercise to your daily routine, you can work off the stress of the day and lose any extra weight. Find a set of exercises that fit your fitness level and your time schedule so it will be something which you’ll actually look forward to doing. The most important thing is that you do something to keep the stresses of everyday life from turning into health threatening excess weight.

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