S T R E S S the Silent Killer that is Making you FAT

Such a small word that causes so much havoc even when you just say the word S T R E S S
Stress sets off a chain reaction in the body. A squirt of adrenaline here, a released hormone there, all are toxic to your body as she starts to find ways to protect you from these chemicals. They are there to help you in dangerous situations, but we never run or physically fight when we feel stressed, so where do these killer chemicals go? Our bodies best way is to store them in and make more and more fat cells.
Do you know what causes you to get Stressed?

Stress negatively alters your blood sugar levels which can lead to mood swings, fatigue, hyperglycemia, and metabolic syndrome
Your fat cells inflame and become diseased fat cells,
And stress often causes us to eat too much, or for some not enough, which pushes our blood sugar levels even further over the edge and into the danger zone.
It causes you to go on an emotional roller coaster
It destroys your immune system
Your heart blood pressure rises and falls repeatedly, damaging the linings of the hearts and TAKES YEARS OFF YOUR LIFE.
It Damages your digestion
It Puts any sizzle in your love life – on ice
It Makes you forgetful
It Hurts your head
Stress will also use up all your reserves of nutrients leaving you feeling like your starving and need more fuel. She will send you messages to get you to eat more. And that is just the tip of the iceberg…..

SO….How you cope with stress really matters. If you have not found a way to release these stress chemicals or find a way to let them out of your body, they will be stored forever more and create more FAT and in particular that wobbly Belly Fat.

It’s a modern day epidemic this stress and most people wear it like a badge of honor – saying when asked how they are:
“Oh you know Busy, Busy”. Like it’s a good thing.

I am so excited to be doing this blog about all this stress, and what you’ve been needlessly hanging onto for way to long. All that Bull-Shit you’ve taken over the years and that has indirectly caused you to gain weight.

I wish I had known before that a huge portion of the weight I was holding onto, lay in things other than the food I was eating. I became obsessed with the food and fasting aspect and now know that although it works temporarily, like a blip in time, it is just 20{6a14cc849908c46212f3d2c8a81eada984febec31535ea1cc7f55de4f8a4ba8e} of the whole picture.
However 80{6a14cc849908c46212f3d2c8a81eada984febec31535ea1cc7f55de4f8a4ba8e} of the reason we gain and hold onto weight lies in the chemical responses our bodies have to stress.

Its taken me over a year to discover some of my more serious blocks to losing and transforming weight, so please don’t take as long as I did. It’s just too painful to be in a body you hate.

Emotional eating and eating under stress is when we choose to eat for any reason other than to nourish the body. It’s when emotions or memories fuel our hunger, rather than a real or true biological need for nutrients. All too often, a stressful situation is a trigger that has us grabbing bread, starchy, and fatty comfort foods.

Stress seriously decreases the number of good bacteria living in the gut who we need to digest our food and release the fat.

The sugars in starchy foods like pasta, rice, bread and potatoes encourage the release of serotonin in the brain.

Serotonin is a brain chemical that makes us feel good. For example, many antidepressants block the uptake of serotonin so that more of it stays in the brain, making us feel happier.

Even though comfort foods and sugar may dampen strong emotions, in the long run these habits create more stress on the body and a greater potential for fatigue, serious weight gain and depression.

Do You Eat While Stressed?

In short, stress shuts down your digestive power—making it harder to break down food and easier to overwhelm your digestion.

Emotional stress fuelled eating can leave you feeling worse than when you started. So how do I know that I am stressed?

During a stress response:

Your mouth gets dry; this is problematic since saliva contains important digestive enzymes.
Digestion stops. You can feel the tightening and a hardening knot in the digestive area.
Stress hormone levels rise. You can feel quite jittery as adrenalin races around your body
Inflammation increases. You can feel bloated
Immune function drops. Likely you will not know this until you feel weak.
Your neck and shoulders or other areas tense up, and you can get headaches, aches and pains after long periods of stress not released in the body.

Stress hormones activate the fight-or-flight response, telling the body to send resources to where they are needed—not to your digestive tract.

The muscles, cardiovascular system and respiratory system are literally flooded with support when your body is on high alert, your other systems however receive little or no help. This is one reason why ongoing stress can lead to problems like heartburn, constipation, lack of appetite or an increase of appetite.

Stress also works against the immune system. When we are feeling stress, we produce stress hormones that tell certain bacteria’s and yeast to grow. Stress decreases the number of good and effective digestive bacteria living in the gut. When we have a lower amount of our good bacteria, the body is more susceptible to infection, inflammation, and Candida overgrowth.

Emotional eating is often considered to be normal until you are aware of it, especially if you’re frequently under stress and have grown accustomed to it. In a stressful situation, you most likely first reach for starchy, fatty foods as a source of comfort. Starchy foods contain sugars that encourage the release of the feel-good chemical serotonin in the brain. Over the long-term, stress eating can place a burden on the body and increase the risk of fatigue and depression.

5 Tips to Combat Stress Eating

When you’re under stress, use these five tips to preserve your digestive health and stop emotional eating: Here are some tips that can help to calm cravings in times of stress.

Choose to stop eating and find a relaxing memory and get back into your own body. Sit back and relax your stomach, breath deeply, disengage from any current stress. Get to know at any time your own stress levels, from 0 relaxed to 10 stressed and develop an easy and quick way to reduce that stress.
Keep some probiotic foods near you, like fermented sauerkraut that is rich in good bacteria and offers a high percentage of essential probiotic and pre-digested nutrition that is easy on and will restore the depleted gut.
Re balance your system after a stress full situation. Learn how to ground yourself and change the scenery. Get outside into nature where there are no stimulants, electronics, people or situations to raise your stress levels. Learn to meditate or do some energetic movement to shake off the stress. Have at least 10 things that you know you can do to change your frame of mind every time.
Be mindful of your thoughts and emotions, listen to what you are telling yourself, notice the triggers that are firing off in your head. These will often have you reaching later for fatty, heavy carbohydrate foods unless you have re balanced your stress levels. Discover what exactly triggered you into stress, know your own boundaries and what you absolutely will not tolerate, what you find totally frightening and confrontational.
Get in touch with your body and out of your head and ask what she needs most right now, what nutrient and nourishment will quell her stress. Drop your awareness down to your body and find your breathing and ask: What missing nutrient am I starving for? Find a way to give that to yourself.

You can learn how to nurture your body and transform emotions without ignoring them or covering them up with unhealthy eating habits.

This isn’t always easy. But when it comes to maintaining health and vitality, managing stress and how we eat during stressful times is essential. As you learn to manage stress in ways that don’t involve unhealthy food, pay special attention to how your digestive system feels either tight or relaxed. They will be good indicators of how your body is handling your emotions.

My door is always open, any of my friends who need to chat are welcome. It’s no good suffering in silence.

There are so, so many benefits to an open and honest chat about how you feel in your body. My only job is to enter into your life for how ever long you allow me to, and let you feel what it feels like to love your body unconditionally. How to release the blocks and the stress that is harming you and stopping from release the weight.

Say “Yes” and lets chat soon

fiona@fionarobertson.co

Get your all natural Probiotic recipes here to boost your gut bacteria and keep you calm under stress.

http://fionarobertson.co/fionas-shop/cultured-club-raw-fermented-food-probiotics-gut-balance/