The Word on Weightloss

As soon as the alarm clock goes off, do you pick up your phone to see how many emails came through overnight? Do you immediately start thinking of all the things you must accomplish that day, by noon, within the next hour? How do you settle your overwhelming feelings of anxiety and stress in order to get yourself out of bed?

Recently I’ve been thinking: What if you used your weight loss plan as a stress reducer?  Fitness, exercise, and eating right has long since been they keys to a healthy body, from the inside out, so what if we take the fundamentals, which we all know, and applied them to stress reduction? Use the cues that you already have to face your stressful day, head on and take it all in stride.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten busier and with any busy life there’s stressors. Recently, I’ve been feeling them more intensely and more often than ever before. The problem here is that stress doesn’t only mess with your head; it can also mess with your waistline. Anytime we’re faced with an incredibly nerve racking situation, our bodies increase production of a hormone called cortisol (the fight or flight response). If we’re stressed out often enough, our cortisol levels remain high, sometimes elevated for days on end. Increased production of cortisol appears to encourage the body to store additional abdominal fat because of the increased cravings for sugary foods (foods that aren’t on your weight loss plan, I’m certain).

So what’s this got to do with your weight loss plan again? Well, big element of any weight loss plan is exercise. Interestingly enough, research by scientists at Princeton University shows us that revving up your body with a good workout may be the most effective path to busting through your high stress lifestyle. They tested a group of animals on a six-week exercise program and compared their brains to a group that remained relatively inactive. The scientists found that animals on the exercise program morphed into a biochemically calm state that remained steady even when the animals were in stressful situations.

Many similar studies exist and most of them point to the benefits that increased exercise, specifically the benefits that cardio workouts can have on your ability to manage stress and relax. If you’re curious to find out more, check out Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain written by John Ratey, M.D.

If you read my recent article about the best way to jumpstart your day you might have already begun to use your morning workout as a stress reducer. Even if you workout after work, you’ll feel the calming benefits. Sometimes when I’ve had an extra stressful or exceptionally anxiety filled day I don’t feel like working out, and I’m guessing that maybe you’ve had the same feelings. All I want to do is go home, have a glass of wine and throw the covers over my head. It’s hard to motivate yourself when you’ve got so much on your mind, but trust me when I say it’s worth it to work out.

To me, the biggest perk of keeping with my weight loss plan’s workout regimen is the consistency of how great I feel about myself afterwards. It’s my workout high than I can’t live without. Try it for yourself – I bet you’ll begin to see your workouts in a whole new light.