Esperanza Hope To Cope: Is STRESS Causing Your Weight Gain?

by Carol L. Rickard

I just got home form doing a training and realized it would be good to share
with you the conversation we had.

The conversation had nothing to do with what the training was about –
which was actually verbal de-escalation skills!

Instead, we got talking about WEIGHT LOSS!

All three of the nurses who were with me work the over night shift and
shared how difficult it had been for them to lose the weight they’d gained.

They were already knowledgeable about the importance of sleep and
suspected  their sleep habits played a role in their difficulty losing weight.

However, they seemed surprised when I suggested another factor to consider:

STRESS

You see, when we are stressed, our bodies go in to self protect mode!

It is in this self protect mode that different chemicals are produced and
these chemicals are the very reason why we are alive today –

If our ancestors had not been able to fight or get out of the way of wild
animals that wanted to eat them, we wouldn’t be here!

So, there is a great upside to these chemicals and this self protect mode!

However, there is also a downside for those who tend to deal with
ongoing stress…..

Our body is reacting in the same way to the chronic stress in our lives.

It’s responding as if we should have just spent all this incredible energy
to get away from the wild animal trying to eat us.

The difference is key: our bodies aren’t really USING all the good parts
of survival mode!

So when we go to refuel with food, we still have all this “fuel” left in our tanks
we DON’T use up, even though our body thinks we did.

This can lead to either us gaining weight or just not being able to
lose what we have already gained!

The SOLUTION:

Use the LifeTOOLS you learn here to manage
the stress that is present in your life!

Hope this has been helpful. Let me know by leaving a comment below if it has!

~ To Living Well TODAY! ~

 

via Esperanza – Hope To Cope
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