Stress Causes Weight Gain
Are you worried and stressed and trying to lose weight?
Have you ever tried to motivate yourself to lose weight with stress or worry?
Do you make yourself desperate to lose weight quickly, setting unrealistic expectations?
Do you threaten yourself, saying things like “If I don’t lose ten pounds before the reunion, I won’t go” or “I’ll never get anywhere until I lose weight.”
Do you worry about your weight all the time and constantly ask, “Why can’t I lose weight?”
Do you beat yourself up feeling fat and miserable as you hop from one deprivation based diet plan to another?
I have an important question for you. Has all this stress and worry helped you lose weight? It never did me.
Did you ever stop to think that all the stress and worry was actually contributing to your inability to lose weight?
Stress and worry and their associated hormones such as cortisol cause weight gain, not weight loss. So, if you are trying to lose weight but are stressed out about it, you are working against yourself!
So, one easy way to lose weight is to stop fretting about it. Stop worrying and obsessing about how you look, how much you weigh, or everything you eat. Worrying about fat increases fat. Anxiety over weight can result in weight gain. You probably know this is true from your own experience. I certainly know it’s true from mine.
Several times in my past I have gotten crazed about taking off excess weight. All I could think about was how fat I felt in my clothes, how big my thighs were, how terrible I looked. My weight became all consuming and impossible to lose, regardless of how restrictive with my diet and excessive with my exercise I became. I went weeks following the Weight Watchers plan to the letter without losing an ounce. This defies the logic and science of weight loss that says all you need to do to lose weight is eat less and exercise more. The more focused on the extra weight I became the more resistant it became.
Have you heard the saying, “What you resist persists.” I have found this to be very true when it comes to weight!
The moment I changed my focus, relaxed, and said, “I am not going to live like this. I am going to calm down and eat what my body wants and focus on taking care of myself” and began treating myself better, the weight came off in a way that seemed easy and effortless. How does this happen?
When you accept what is, relax about it and focus on what you want in a positive way, without all the drama, worry, stress, punishment, and deprivation, your body relaxes and you have created an environment where weight loss can occur. It is the magical power of lowered stress hormones and the relaxation response.
I hope you are willing to give this easy way to lose weight a try. If you are stressed, worried, and nothing you are doing is working anyway, why not try something else? And think about it. Even if you relaxed and didn’t lose weight, which is unlikely – think about all the other wonderful things you would lose – guilt, fear, misery, deprivation, anxiety, worry and self-loathing. How bad would that be?
